As You Grieve, Your Brain Redraws Its Neural Map

In recent decades, neuroscience has revealed fascinating information about our relationships and what happens in our brains when we grieve for a loved one who is dead or gone. Particularly if this loss is devastating and “changes everything,” such as when a devoted spouse dies or a beloved partner unilaterally ends a relationship, our grieving brain has an enormous rewiring job to do. Our most important bonds are also permanently and deeply encoded in the brain, which develops the implicit knowledge that certain people are special to us and will always be with us. This encoding happens during intimate, intense, loving moments.
Of course, we consciously understand that death and unforeseen events can tear us apart, but as far as the non-conscious brain is concerned, whenever we are separated—for a minute, a few hours, a week, or more—it “knows” we will be reunited. Without this implicit knowledge, life would be unbearable, as we’d be thrown into panic, grief, and seeking every time we were apart. Instead, with this implicit knowledge that our loved one is “everlasting,” we rest assured.