Room to breathe
One writer on what it feels like to hold yourself in, and let yourself go (finally).
Words Laura Roscioli
I used to work in one of those moody, 1920s-style speakeasy cocktail bars. It was all dark leather booths, strong martinis, and bartenders who looked like they’d stepped out of The Great Gatsby. I was 21 and it was one of my favourite jobs: I got to dress up, drink champagne, and talk to strangers for a living.
But one night, a woman and her husband came in. As I showed them to their table, she gave me a once-over, and then said with startling confidence: “You must find it hard working around so much alcohol as a pregnant woman.”
I’m not easily rattled, but I felt my cheeks burn with shame. “I’m not pregnant,” I squeaked, expecting her to backtrack, to apologise. Instead, she doubled down. “Oh. Well, you’d be a lot less bloated and a lot more beautiful if you didn’t drink.”
I was mortified.
I fled to the bathroom, tears pricking at my eyes. In the mirror, I saw myself in one of my favourite dresses — a tight, dark red slinky number that always made me feel feminine and confident in my hourglass figure. But when I turned to the side I saw what she’d seen: my bloated lower stomach. I had my period. A normal experience, worsened by endometriosis, that often leaves me extra inflamed. But she saw “pregnant,” and suddenly, so did I.
I finished the shift in a distracted fog, acutely aware of my body in a way I’d never been before. And when I got home that night, I stripped off my beloved red dress with vigor and threw it away, determined never to be misread like that again.
Ever since then, I’ve had this background awareness of my bloating. It’s not something I obsess over every day, but it’s always kind of humming away, sometimes prickly, but always present.
I noticed it the other day when I was about to get my period, when I was feeling swollen, and wearing a tight skirt. I caught my reflection in a shop window. I felt an immediate sense of shame and disappointment — I didn’t look how I wanted to look in that skirt. I had the urge to go home and change, but there was no time.
And then, when I got home that night, I realised I had cramps. At first I thought it was just pre-period pain but then I recognised the feeling, it happens every time I wear something tight. I must be sucking my stomach in without even realising I’m doing it, I thought.
It was the first time I’d consciously noticed that I’d been holding my stomach in for probably hours, and that can’t be good for your body, right?
My mind reeled with all the times in my life since that fateful night at the cocktail bar, that I’d felt self conscious. There were too many to count. Had I held it in at all those moments? The answer was probably yes, I knew that.
It was the first time I’d consciously noticed that I’d been holding my stomach in for probably hours, and that can’t be good for your body, right?
As someone that has spent a lot of time coming to terms with their body, the way it fluctuates in weight, the way it draws attention I sometimes don’t know what to do with, the way it looks different to how I feel on the inside…. I was surprised to learn that I still physically try to alter its appearance.
It turns out, I’m not the only one. It’s a habit that is so commonly experienced, it actually has a name: stomach gripping. It’s when you subconsciously hold your abdominal muscles in, often for hours at a time. A lot of women do it without realising — usually because of body image pressures, stress, or simply being taught that a ‘flat stomach’ looks better. Over time, it just becomes automatic.
The problem is, stomach gripping can cause real issues — not just muscle tension or shallow breathing, but also back pain, digestive problems, even pelvic floor dysfunction. Basically, your body is stuck in a constant state of bracing instead of relaxing, which takes a toll over time.
But how do you unlearn something you’ve carried as a truth of womanhood since you were a girl? The magazines advertised flat stomachs, my ballet teacher told me to suck in for good posture, my friends poked fun at my bloat and so did older women in cocktail bars. So how do I tell that little girl inside me that it’s okay to exhale? To live in my body exactly as it is?
But how do you unlearn something you’ve carried as a truth of womanhood since you were a girl? The magazines advertised flat stomachs, my ballet teacher told me to suck in for good posture, my friends poked fun at my bloat and so did older women in cocktail bars. So how do I tell that little girl inside me that it’s okay to exhale? To live in my body exactly as it is?
Most women I know have wished, at some point, to exist in a body outside their own. We’re forever trying to squeeze ourselves into something that “should fit,” instead of something that simply meets us as we are. Clothes become a metaphor for the labels society hands us — and we squirm, shrink, and suck in to meet them.
Recently, I had an epiphany: how close you are to beauty standards has nothing to do with how healthy you are.
We walk around with information that feels like knowledge and it tells us that if we’re thin, not bloated, without cellulite on our thighs and pimples on our cheeks then we’re the epitome of health. But what about how we actually feel?
Right now is the healthiest I’ve felt in a long time. I’m energised. My endometriosis is manageable. I’m not faint, foggy, or heavy. I feel alive, young, and vivacious. Even on the days I’m bloated, it’s just my body communicating inflammation, a perfectly normal part of female cycles. It doesn’t mean I’m sick, unhealthy, or pregnant.
So I’ve started paying more attention to my stomach. Not to criticise, but to notice: is it comfortable? Am I holding it in, or letting it be? Little check-ins throughout the day remind me that relaxed stomach muscles don’t just feel better — they make for a healthier, happier body.
I’m learning to let my stomach rise and fall the way it’s meant to. To exhale without apology. To remember that being alive means moving, expanding, softening. My body isn’t a problem to solve. It’s proof that I’m here.
