What if your body knows you’re grieving before you do?
In this Part 1 episode, John Onwuchekwa sits down with Dave, Rich Perez, and James Roberson for a deeply honest conversation about grief as body language: the exhaustion, tears, anxiety, tension, and physical reactions that can surface when loss has nowhere else to go.
Together, they unpack grief after death, friendship changes, leaving ministry, losing community, and other losses that don’t always come with funerals. They explore why we’re often taught to push through pain, what happens when grief refuses to stay buried, and how learning to listen to the body can give us language for what we’re carrying.
KEY POINTS
00:00 – Introduction
01:08 – Grief is a body language.
06:21 – Why your body remembers loss long after it happens.
13:00 – Grieving relationships that end without a funeral.
18:09 – When grief shows up as anxiety, exhaustion, and physical pain.
27:13 – Why grief has no expiration date.
35:10 – Learning to listen instead of pushing through.
41:24 – Giving yourself permission to cry, rest, and slow down.
56:02 – How creativity, movement, and reflection can help us process grief.
1:09:32 – Why there is no such thing as “small” grief.
1:24:38 – Healing by making space for what the body is saying.
QUOTES
“Grief is gonna come out, and it's either gonna come out in a beneficial way where your life is still intact, or it's gonna come out in a way where it ruins everything... grief is not biodegradable.” – John Onwuchekwa
“God sent two prophets. My wife was one, and my body was the second one.” – Rich Perez
“There is a pain you just got to sit with... we've not been taught that in church to sit with pain. You've been told to be delivered from it, but there is a pain you need to sit with because it's there to teach you something about God, about you.” – James Roberson
“We need to treat grief not based on how we feel about the thing... It is not the size of [the] thing. It is the proximity of where that thing lies next to your heart.” – John Onwuchekwa
RESOURCES:
John Onwuchekwa
Website | johno.co
IG | @jawn_o
Grief is a Language™ is produced by EPYC Media Network
