Chronic Pain & Trauma: Gently Breaking The Invisible Link with Science
Release Date: 11/05/2025
MCAS vs Histamine Intolerance Why Your Body Reacts to Everything (And You’re Not Crazy)
Dear body, I’m listening
“A reaction is not a moral failure— it's information. Your body is just responding to something, and right now it's giving you signals that it doesn't want that or it needs some extra help.” —Donna Piper When every meal feels like a risk and symptoms seem to come out of nowhere, it can start to feel like the body has turned against us. Many in the chronic illness community are stuck between labels like “histamine intolerance” and “MCAS” while still getting no clear plan or validation. This conversation names what is happening in the body and why it is not “all in...
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Rest Without Guilt (When Your Worth Got Tied to Output)
Dear body, I’m listening
“Rest isn't a character flaw. It's what your body needs in order to heal from these invisible illnesses. And for some of us, it's also a grief process, because we're not just resting from task; we’re resting from the version of ourselves who thought we had to earn love through output.” —Donna Piper Ep 36 Shownotes: Podcast Platforms We talk about rest like it is simple, but for many bodies it brings guilt, fear, and shame. When worth gets tied to productivity, stopping can feel dangerous even when the body is breaking down. This conversation meets the tension...
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Is It POTS? When Standing Up Feels Like a Trap
Dear body, I’m listening
“You're not making it up. You're not weak, you're not failing. Your body is working hard to keep you upright, and you deserve support that matches the reality of that.” —Donna Piper Standing up should not require strategy, recovery time, or mental math. When heart rate spikes, dizziness hits, and showers wipe us out, the hardest part is not the symptom. It is being told nothing is wrong while our body says otherwise. Donna shares lived experience with POTS, dysautonomia, and multiple comorbidities, blending physiology with trauma-informed insight. Her work is shaped by years...
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Traveling with Chronic Illness: Germany Edition
Dear body, I’m listening
“If you're traveling with chronic illness, I want you to hear me. There is nothing wrong with you. You just have to prepare a little bit. You deserve to travel in a way that doesn't punish you, that helps you, that makes you feel good.” —Donna Piper Travel takes more out of the body than most people admit. For those living with chronic illness, the cost shows up before the suitcase is even packed. Energy drains through lines, noise, time pressure, swelling, and the fear of crashing far from home. Donna shares her real-time approach to spending a month in Germany while...
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Pack, Move, Fly, Heal: Why I’m Choosing Germany for Lipedema Surgery
Dear body, I’m listening
“Movement and less pain is why I'm doing this and why I've chosen to go to Germany.” —Donna Piper Big life changes rarely wait their turn. When health decisions collide with exhaustion, logistics, and uncertainty, clarity matters more than certainty. Donna shares the personal and medical reasoning behind traveling to Germany for lipedema surgery while managing multiple chronic conditions. This episode traces how lived experience, failed conservative treatments, and the need for long-term care shaped a choice rooted in mobility, pain reduction, and nervous system safety. Press play...
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Lipedema Surgery Vs. Non-Surgical Care… Do I Have To Choose?
Dear body, I’m listening
“Anything you choose is not weakness. It's the best for you… Instead of thinking surgery or no surgery, try this question: ‘What would make my next step safer?’... Safety is a step, not a switch.” —Donna Piper Pressure around medical choices can turn care into panic. When the body is complex and money, time, and fear are involved, certainty starts to feel like a deadline. This conversation slows that moment down and gives it room to breathe. In this episode, Donna shares her lived experience navigating lipedema and the long road of conservative care, research, and...
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Hot Flashes, Heavy Legs: Lipedema Meets Perimenopause & Menopause
Dear body, I’m listening
“Lipedema is not a willpower issue. Shame is not a treatment plan. Late diagnosis does not mean late reality. It means late recognition. Your best advocate is yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. You've just been navigating a body that hasn't been understood by the medical world yet. Be gentle with your capacity. Meet yourself where you are.” —Donna Piper Bodies can change in ways that do not follow the rules we were taught. Pain, swelling, and heaviness show up, and the explanations never quite fit. Many women carry this quietly for years, assuming it is just weight or age....
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How Trauma Rewrites Pain Part 4: Flare or Trauma Response? When the Body’s Signals Get Confusing
Dear body, I’m listening
“Flares and trauma responses often look the same because fascia remembers, the nervous system protects, and the immune system overreacts to help defend itself, and the body is trying to keep you alive, not confused. So your job isn't to decode perfectly. Your job is to offer safety consistently, because when the body feels safe, the symptoms soften, and when the symptoms soften, the story changes, and when the story changes, the healing becomes possible.” —Donna Piper The body can shift from steady to overwhelmed without warning, leaving confusion about what just took over. Pain,...
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Transformation Boundaries: Protect Energy And Design A Purposeful Life with Didi Selwa
Dear body, I’m listening
“Move forward, take action. It may happen, it may not, but it's just about putting one step in front of the other— doing that is so important. When you go forward, you realize, ‘oh, that's not for me’, but in the process, you discover what is.” —Didi Selwa Drop the guilt of being stuck and discover a movement that meets your body where it is. Press play to hear how embodiment, faith, and small practical steps shift shame, chronic illness limits, and stalled dreams into forward motion. Didi Selwa went from a 25-year banking career to a Certified Transformational Life...
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The Science of Feeling Safe: Gentle Practices to Regulate Chronic Stress with Ann Diment
Dear body, I’m listening
"We are the experts in our well-being and our own bodies, and it's important for us to advocate for ourselves. We're not defined by our past. Our past is gone. It's in the past, and the beliefs we formed about ourselves based on what we've been told by other people or experienced in the past aren't necessarily true." —Ann Diment Some seasons of life push us past our limits, and the body keeps score long before we understand why. Many of us try to outwork the chaos, yet the real shift begins when we finally question the version of resilience we were taught to admire. There is a quieter...
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"The body's intelligent. We just have to show up. I equate it to a dance where the body leads and I follow." —Peter Stuart
You can run from nagging pain, but it keeps showing up in new ways—wrecking sleep, fouling up moods, and shutting down energy. The worst part? Real answers are rare, and the world keeps telling you to just “push through” or “try harder.” Maybe it’s not about willpower at all—it’s about listening to the actual story your body’s been trying to tell for years.
Peter Stuart spent decades fighting through his own injuries, dismissed symptoms, and invisible struggles before discovering gentle myofascial therapy. His hard-won insights as a chronic pain “insider” and now trauma-informed therapist reveal what really keeps people stuck and what finally helps them move forward with less pain and more hope.
Get the truth about pain, trauma, and what real healing looks like, plus smart self-care tools, the science behind gentle relief, why support systems matter, how medical dismissal damages recovery, and the most overlooked reason chronic pain lingers in this episode.
Connect with Donna:
Website: https://www.donnapiper.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnapiper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedonnapiper
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedonnapiper
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedonnapiper
Episode Highlights:
02:41 Pain and Identity: How Chronic Pain Changes Who You Are
10:30 Why Relief Doesn’t Last: Understanding Chronic Pain Cycles
18:09 The Mind-Body Link in Pain
27:33 How Trauma Gets Stuck: The Science Behind Chronic Pain
33:22 When Emotional Release Ends Pain
42:47 Overcoming Medical Dismissal
47:17 Chronic Fatigue, Brain Fog, and Healing Brain
55:00 Support Speeds Recovery
59:19 When Pain Affects Relationships
01:06:56 Fast Action Beats Waiting
01:12:36 Connection Heals: Why Real Relationships Matter
01:17:38 Don’t Wait: Heal Before It Gets Worse
Resources:
🎧Listen to Peter’s interview with Coach360
How Trauma Leaves a Mark and What It Means for Healing: https://www.coach360news.com/how-trauma-leaves-a-mark-and-what-it-means-for-healing/
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Life keeps piling on until your body keeps the score. It’s time to listen! Catch this week’s episode as Donna and trauma-informed therapist Peter Stuart drop truth bombs on trauma, chronic illness, pain relief, holistic healing, and smart self-care.
#DearBodyImListening #MCAS #Lymphedema #Lipedema #ChronicIllness #TraumaHealing #BodyWork #MyofascialRelease #InvisibleIllness
Quotes:
03:31 "It's a real identity shift. Not very talked about is when you lose who you think you are to pain, the amount of depression that sets in later on." —Peter Stuart
11:56 "My body is learning to survive but creating new pathways… Chronic pain is very insidious, and it changes you." —Donna Piper
14:59 "Aggressive styles tended to flare the nervous system, and the last thing you want to do is flare the nervous system with somebody who has chronic issues." —Peter Stuart
16:40 "A low-level pressure will create a change in the nervous system over time. It's patience… Incremental change over time creates permanency in the brain to make those changes happen and establish new neural pathways." —Peter Stuart
17:08 "The body's intelligent. We just have to show up. I equate it to a dance where the body leads and I follow." —Peter Stuart
18:56 "The pelvis is the foundation of the body. If you're off in your pelvis, everything above and everything below is going to be off." —Peter Stuart
25:12 "Sometimes people just want to tell their story— they just have pushed it down." —Donna Piper
30:22 "If you ignore people's scars, then you're doing them a great disservice." —Peter Stuart
34:18 "Most people will emote without making a connection to an event. It's just stuff that we've held on to—baggage—and just feeling like they have a safe place to allow that to happen." —Peter Stuart
35:41 "As much as your brain is trying to say, your thoughts are trying to control things all the time, your emotions and your feelings need to be expressed as well for health." —Peter Stuart
37:27 “No one goes through childhood unscathed. Everyone has stuff. Life brings stuff with us.” —Donna Piper
39:05 “Most people who get into my profession are very empathetic people and are on the sensitive scale pretty high— and that makes for a really good therapist to be able to understand that some people will have these traumas.” —Peter Stuart
42:06 "Most women usually underdo their pain… People can't see pain." —Donna Piper
56:51 "Having a provider that has that listening aspect is supportive, too…Just by not being dismissed, that's support." —Donna Piper
01:00:02 "Let's grieve what was so we can embrace this new path." —Donna Piper
01:06:59 "Once you recognize that you've changed, if there's a shift in pattern or your inability to do activities that you normally did, get on it. The sooner you get on your situation, the more likely you won't have to incur more, because trauma is cumulative." —Peter Stuart
01:10:36 “Being in relationship with what other actually is a healing aspect.” —Donna Piper
01:10:54 “It's the relationship between the therapist and the patient and the transference and countertransference—that is the magic. It's not really the technique always.” —Donna Piper
01:17:20 “If you want to get good at therapy, get therapy.” —Peter Stuart
Connect with Peter:
For more than 30 years, Peter has helped people overcome chronic pain and trauma through trauma-informed myofascial release — a gentle, body-led approach that integrates science, empathy, and nervous-system awareness. He teaches practitioners worldwide, emphasizing that true healing addresses the whole person, not just symptoms.
Peter’s grounded, compassionate style would complement Kristen’s audience beautifully, particularly around themes of emotional release, embodied healing, and reconnecting with self after trauma.
Website: https://stuartseminars.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-stuart-88a18447/