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...
info_outline"Your body is not the enemy—the world's impossible standards are. And every time you name that truth out loud, you don't just free yourself, you also free someone else.” —Donna Piper
Some lies are so loud they start to sound like truth—like the idea that confidence waits on the other side of weight loss. And the hardest part? The shame of not being skinny can at times feel heavier than our own weight, turning every step forward into a fight against an invisible anchor.
Donna spent years believing her size erased her gifts. It wasn’t until she uncovered her diagnosis of lipedema and connected her lived experience with research on weight stigma that she began reframing her story—not as a failure to fix her body, but as proof that shame, not size, was her real burden.
In this conversation, Donna unpacks the shame-weight connection, how stigma literally rewires the nervous system, myths about size and illness, hidden biases in the wellness culture, why unlearning shame is as vital as any treatment, and simple daily practices to reclaim confidence without waiting on the scale.
Connect with Donna:
Website: https://www.donnapiper.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnapiper
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lipedema_donna
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedonnapiper
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedonnapiper
Episode Highlights:
01:36 The Shame of Not Being Skinny
04:04 Weighed Down by Weight
08:19 Studies on Weight Stigma
14:27 Myths About Being Skinny
15:47 Clummping the Anchor
19:37 Start from “Me” First
21:31 The Real Enemy
Resources:
🤔Got a question for me? Every month, I do a listener coaching episode—and I’d love to hear from you!
Send your questions, stories, or flare-up confessions to donna@donnapiper.com, and you just might hear your answer on the show.
- Weight stigma and cortisol (stress response)
Tomiyama AJ et al., Psychoneuroendocrinology (2014) When people experience weight stigma, their cortisol levels spike—the same hormone that rises when your body senses danger. This study shows how shame literally stresses the body on a biochemical level.
- The stress of stigma — cortisol reactivity
Major B et al., Body Image (2014) In a lab setting, women exposed to weight-related stigma had higher stress-hormone responses than those who weren’t. It’s proof that judgment—even subtle—activates the body’s fight-or-flight system.
- Chronic stress model of weight stigma
Tomiyama AJ, Appetite (2014) This review describes the “cyclic obesity/weight-based stigma” model: stigma triggers stress, stress alters metabolism, and the cycle keeps repeating.
- Lipedema, stigma, and depression
Clarke M et al., International Journal of Obesity (2024) A study of 1,000+ women with lipedema found that internalized shame—not body size—was one of the strongest predictors of depression. It’s not the fat; it’s the stigma about the fat.
- Internalized weight bias and mental health
Durso LE & Latner JD, Obesity (2008) Researchers created the Weight Bias Internalization Scale and found that self-directed stigma predicts worse emotional health, disordered eating, and avoidance of care.
- Review of internalized weight stigma
Papadopoulos S & Brennan L, Obesity Reviews (2021) A systematic review showing that internalized stigma often acts as the missing link between outside judgment and the physical and emotional fallout that follows.
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Confidence isn’t about losing pounds—it’s about losing shame. This week, Donna gets real about chronic illness, fat bias + showing up as you are. #DearBodyImListeningPodcast #BodyConfidence #ChronicIllness #SelfCompassion #BodyPositivity #SelfLove #WeightStigma
Quotes:
01:59 “Shame is sneaky. It doesn't just whisper in the dressing room. It leaks into your career, into your relationships, and sense of purpose.” —Donna Piper
04:41 “It's incongruent— what you want to believe and what you truly believe. You can't trick yourself, so you really have to do a lot of different work around this.” —Donna Piper
06:55 “It's a medical condition. It is not a lack of willpower. It's not laziness, it's not discipline failure. It's lipedema.” —Donna Piper
10:06 “It just wasn't the fat, it was the shame about the fat.” —Donna Piper
14:40 “Confidence doesn't come from subtracting pounds. It comes from subtracting shame.” —Donna Piper
14:53 “Illness is not a size issue. It's a systemic issue.” —Donna Piper
14:57 “Respect doesn't come from a body type. It comes from the humanity inside the body.” —Donna Piper
16:03 “Living with and changing this internal system is tough, especially when you believe it, because here's the thing: affirmations only work if you really believe them.” —Donna Piper
17:29 “Shame does interfere with your healing. It does affect your cortisol, it does affect your inflammation.” —Donna Piper
20:37 “Looking at yourself in the mirror without judging yourself and saying positive things is a very powerful. Your system will slowly begin to shift because you're not just saying the words, you're teaching your body that it's safe to believe them.” —Donna Piper
21:27 “Your body is not the enemy—the world's impossible standards are. And every time you name that truth out loud, you don't just free yourself, you also free someone else.” —Donna Piper
21:41 “You're calling, your leadership, your gifts— they don't shrink because of your size. They expand the moment you show up as you are.” —Donna Piper
21:55 “If you're breathing, you are worthy.” —Donna Piper
Meet Your Host:
Donna Piper is a Relationship Coach, Trauma Expert, and Akashic Records Healer dedicated to empowering successful single women to transform their love lives and attract fulfilling partnerships without sacrificing their professional ambitions.
With a holistic approach blending therapeutic coaching, trauma-informed techniques, and Akashic Records wisdom, she guides clients to release limiting beliefs, heal emotional blocks, and cultivate unshakable self-trust. Her work focuses on aligning mind, body, and spirit to create lasting change—helping clients refine communication, deepen self-worth, and build the foundation for healthy, loving relationships.
Donna’s sessions are a safe haven for those ready to break cycles, embrace vulnerability, and design a love life that harmonizes with their thriving careers. For women committed to both personal and professional fulfillment, she offers tailored strategies to unlock their full potential and step into the relationship of their dreams.