I’m talking about actual physical pain, not metaphorical pain.
In: 3
Probably not the answer you are looking for but there is such a thing as “broken heart syndrome”. It’s a VERY rare disease called Takotsubo cardiomypoathy. Something is weird about the heart muscle proteins such that during a time of severe, sudden emotional distress, all the hormones/epinephrine/etc that are released will physically stretch out apex of the heart. And within seconds to minutes you will either (1) feel shortness of breath, (2) feel intense pain, or (3) suddenly die due to fatal arrhythmia. Some will recover within a few months, others wont.
As far as chest pain due to normal grief, i’m sure it has something to do with how neurons are mapped in your brain such that emotional distress signals may overlap with physical pain sensation signals (probably because they are literally right next to each other in the brain). Or something like that.
The sensation of pain occurs in the brain. The neurons for emotional pain overlap with those for physical pain. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2020/02/14/emotional–physical-pain-are-almost-the-sameto-your-brain/amp/