Grief and the Wisdom of Chinese Medicine

This past Tuesday, I had the privilege of speaking at Death Matters, a monthly gathering at the Innerwork Center in Richmond, VA. The group is facilitated by the wonderful death doula and thanatologist Erin Bishop of Nightsong Doulas, and offers a thoughtful space for conversations about death, dying, and what it means to be human.

In a culture that often avoids these topics, Death Matters creates room for honest dialogue, reflection, and connection. I left deeply appreciative of the community Erin has cultivated and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the conversation.

The topic of the evening was grief, and I was invited to share how Chinese medicine and acupuncture understand and support people moving through the grieving process.

One of the things I appreciate most about Chinese medicine is that it doesn’t separate emotional experiences from physical experiences. It assumes that whatever affects the mind affects the body, and whatever affects the body affects the mind.

Another foundational idea in TCM is that health is not the absence of change, but our capacity to adapt to change.

Chinese medicine developed through observing nature. The seasons change. Day becomes night; growth becomes decline; birth becomes death. Nature is constantly moving through cycles of transformation.

Human beings are not separate from those cycles. Which means that loss, while painful, is not viewed as separate from life, but as a natural part of it.

From this perspective, grief is not a pathology or a problem, but a natural response to one of life’s most natural experiences.

Of course, that doesn’t make grief any easier. Grief affects us deeply. It can change how we breathe, how we sleep, how we digest food, how we think, how we feel. It can affect our ability to engage with the world around us. It affects the whole person.

One of the foundational concepts in Chinese medicine is Qi. There are many ways to translate that concept, but for this discussion it’s enough to think of Qi as movement, function, and vitality.

When Qi is moving well, we tend to feel resilient. We adapt to challenges, recover from illness, sleep reasonably well, digest our food, and engage with our lives.

When Qi becomes disrupted, we experience symptoms. From a TCM perspective, grief is one of the experiences that can profoundly affect the movement of Qi.

Because TCM treats the individual rather than the diagnosis, two people may experience a very similar loss but present very differently.

Stagnation may happen when something (in this case, grief) becomes stuck. A person may feel tightness in the chest. They may sigh frequently. They may feel emotionally frozen or unable to express what they are feeling. They may carry tension in the neck and shoulders. They may feel as though life has stopped moving. Grief is present, but it is not moving.

Another common pattern during acute grief is depletion. This is the person who is exhausted. Sleep may be disrupted. Energy is low. The appetite may change, or numb. They may become ill more easily. Even ordinary daily tasks can feel overwhelming. The grief has consumed some of the resources the body relies upon for resilience and recovery.

Of course, many people experience both patterns at the same time. They may feel stuck and also exhausted. Or unable to rest, yet lacking energy.

TCM has also long observed the close relationship between grief and breathing. Classical texts associate grief with the Lungs.

Greif changes the breath. People sigh more. They cry. They feel pressure or heaviness or tightness in the chest. They may feel unable to take a full breath.

Another framework we use is called the Five Elements. These are ways of describing recurring patterns and cycles in nature and in human life. One of those elements, or phases, is called Metal, and it is associated with autumn, the lungs, and grief or sadness.

Autumn is a season of release. Trees let go of their leaves. Energy begins to move inward. Nature conserves what is essential.

One of my favorite qualities associated with the Metal is discernment- the ability to recognize what is precious, what is essential and what is not. Perhaps part of grieving is discovering what remains after loss: the values we learned, the ways we were changed, the love that continues, and the meaning that endures.

Acupuncture cannot remove loss, nor can it erase grief. What it can do is support the person who is carrying it. It can help restore resources when someone is depleted. It can encourage movement when someone feels stuck. It can support sleep, regulate the nervous system, and strengthen the body’s natural capacity to adapt.

Over time, grief may not disappear, but it can soften. It can become something we carry differently— woven into our lives alongside memory, love, and meaning.

I’m grateful to the Death Matters community for inviting me into this conversation.

Death Matters meets monthly at the Innerwork Center in Richmond, VA and is facilitated by death doula and thanatologist Erin Bishop. Erin brings remarkable wisdom, compassion, and presence to conversations that many of us have been taught to avoid, creating a space where people can explore death, grief, caregiving, and meaning with honesty and care.

If you’d like to learn more about Erin’s work, I encourage you to visit the Nightsong Doulas website and listen to the podcast interview linked here. In this interview, Erin shares eloquently about death care, community, and the importance of engaging with mortality as a natural part of life.

If you are navigating grief, loss, or a significant life transition and would like support through acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I would be honored to help.