When Your Body Grieves: The Bloat That Isn’t About Food

Grief doesn’t always arrive in tears.
Sometimes it shows up in your belly — in the bloat that won’t go down, in the ache under your ribs, in the way food suddenly feels like too much to take in.

When I first started training, we used to do a workout called Tailpipe. My CrossFit girlies will know this one, I’m sure. For those who don’t — one partner does a brutal cardio sprint while the other holds two kettlebells in a front-rack position. You can’t drop them. You can’t really breathe. You just stand there, lungs on fire, waiting for your turn.

Why is this in a blog about grief and emotional processing? Because when I feel grief — really feel it — it feels exactly like Tailpipe. Chest pressure. Core screaming. Lungs crushed, no air getting in. It feels like drowning while standing still.

That’s why we push it down. Because it’s easier to carry the quiet heaviness that lives under your skin — that constant pressure you learn to tolerate, like shopping bags you forgot to set down — than to sit in the full burn of it. But just like training, the only way to build capacity is to breathe through the discomfort, not avoid it.

For years I was an expert at not feeling grief. I trained through it, smiled through it, worked through it, yoga’d through it. But when I finally started naming the pressure instead of outrunning it, something shifted. I have been busy, as we all are and bloating has been an annoying constant that I have had to deal with. Yesterday, as my stomach ballooned again for no apparent reason, I stopped blaming the food and whispered, “This is grief.” A weight lifted — not the bloating itself, but the inner battle. My body stopped fighting me.

That’s the thing about grief: it wants to be met, not fixed. You know I love a reframe — so here’s mine. The word grief is real, important, and sacred, but it’s heavy. To make it easier for my nervous system to hold, I think of it as love with nowhere to go.
Somehow, that makes it softer — less like a weight, more like a tide.

🧠 The Science Bit — “Your Gut Has Feelings Too”

• The gut–brain axis – that internet connection between your mind and your guts, means your digestive system mirrors your emotional landscape. It’s why, when you are stressed, you either forget to eat or eat everything you can find (mostly sugar) It why when you are happy you can eat until you are full and leave what you don’t want.
• When grief (or any strong emotion) floods your nervous system, digestion slows, gut permeability increases, and your immune system can misfire.  Think of it like a wave crashing over a rock pool.
• The result? Your body deploys its internal ambulance crew, and like an unruly flash mob, they cause inflammation in their wake. It might show up as bloating, food sensitivities, fatigue, cold sores, skin flares, or that “out of nowhere” cold. (Spoiler: it wasn’t out of nowhere.)
• When you name the feeling, your vagus nerve receives a cue of safety. Your system begins to re-regulate. I like to think of it as when you feel scared watching a movie and you cover your eyes, but then you have to peek through your fingers and somehow, you are more scared than if you just watched. Take the fingers away and suddenly, you realise you are in your living room or the cinema and it’s all make believe.  

👉 In short: You can’t separate emotional digestion from physical digestion.

 

The Soul Bit — “The Belly as an Altar”

• In energetic medicine, your belly is your cauldron — where you transform what life gives you.
• Grief is like a thick heavy stew; it asks to be stirred slowly.
• When we fight the feeling, the cauldron clamps itself shut, the bot just boils and bubbles. When we name it, it’s like releasing a pressure cooker, it opens — the steam releases and you can feel the relief.

Somatic Practice — The Soft Belly Ritual

1. Find stillness. One hand on your heart, one on your belly (if you can, if not, wherever feels grounding, chair, your thigh, both hands on your heart).
2. Breathe. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth like a sigh.
3. Name it out loud. “This is grief.” (Or: “This is love with nowhere to go.”)
4. Visualise. Imagine your breath as warm light moving through your belly, softening knots and tightness.
5. Whisper gratitude. “Thank you, body, for holding this until I was ready.”

You don’t have to “release” anything. Just witness.

Write it out.

I know — journaling is for hippies and weirdos, right? The ones who want to manifest under the full moon in the woods?

Here’s my big bucket of cold “well, no” juice: writing by hand is like yoga for your brain.

The physical act of forming letters slows your amygdala — your fight-or-flight centre — and brings your prefrontal cortex, your inner MD/PT/Valkyrie Queen (choose your avatar), back online.

By slowing down and letting your creative side lead, you give yourself space to process thoughts and feelings from a place that’s more detached, less judgy.

So grab a pen and try answering these. Then notice how you feel afterward. xx

1. What emotion have I been trying to digest lately?
2. When do I notice it most in my body?
3. What does my body do when I finally name it?
4. What memory or moment might be asking to be honoured rather than avoided?
5. How can I offer myself nourishment — food, movement, rest, connection — that feels like love, not distraction?

Grief isn’t a problem to solve; it’s an experience to process. 
When your body speaks in bloating, heaviness, or ache, it’s not betraying you — it’s inviting you to listen.