PODCAST INTRO: Hey, beautiful soul, and welcome to Dear Body, I'm Listening. The podcast for women navigating chronic symptoms, invisible illness, and that daily dance between hope and exhaustion. If you've ever been told that it's all in your head, well, this podcast is for you because your body is not lying and neither are you.
Hi, I'm Donna Piper, movement therapist, Pilates instructor and chronic illness navigator. After years of being dismissed, misdiagnosed and doing everything, quote unquote right, but still getting sicker, I created this space to tell our truth. Here, we talk about swelling, brain fog, nervous system crashes, and the kind of symptoms that don't always show up on lab results. We're going to explore lymph breath, movement, self trust, latest research books, relationships, basically everything all from a place of compassion and honesty. This isn't about fixing your body. It's about finally being heard and getting some answers.
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Donna Piper: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Dear body, I'm Listening. Today, we're going to be talking about kind of a heavy one, SHAME, and it's not going to be about the surface level stuff that gets dressed up at Instagram quotes. We're talking about the kind that hides deep in the bones, especially when you're living with chronic illness. We're going to explore why it shows up in your tissues, how it messes with your healing journey, and end with a little feel good flow to help move that shame out of here. So let's dive into the truth of shame, because shame thrives in silence, and we're not going to do that anymore. So real talk recap, let's dive in.
So shame lives in the body, but you know what? So does compassion. And here's a deeper truth, shame just isn't a feeling, it's a somatic experience. It gets stored in your body, in your thighs, in your belly, and in your nervous system. And over time, it becomes a lens you see yourself through. So many of us try to shame ourselves into healing. Try another protocol, do another cleanse, another silent. Deal with your body. If I fix you, will you love me back? How can you force what is external that really isn't aligned with what your body needs? But you're hoping that this time, if you just do it better or right, or figure out why the one thing why it's not working for you, then it'll be better. But when that happens, and I know from my personal experience that those many little failures, or that putting a round thing into a square hole, or whatever that saying is, I'm horrible with colloquialisms. It kind of pushes that shame in further. It's not just that you've done something wrong, which is guilt. But there's something wrong with you, which is shame. And shame, having shame never leads to healing because acceptance and compassion, and we'll talk about them a little later. That's how we get into healing, but shame is very prevalent. It's very silent. It hides in the shadows, and it's kind of lurking over there, over everything that we want to do. How we see who we are based on our success, failure comparisons, all of those things.
So self compassion and psychological flexibility, big term, are two of the most powerful tools disrupting this shame spiral. And these clinical studies have shown that these two things together buffer against psychological distress of chronic illness. So self compassion means speaking to yourself in a way that you would to a dear friend, and it sounds like this part of me is hurting. This part of me deserves care. So when you start to look at yourself other than, okay, this isn't working, or why isn't working? Or it's working for all these 50 million other people, but it doesn't work for me. That is where the shame starts to bubble, and we start to create some little shame pockets. And that is where we want to go, and really listen to that part of why it's hurting us? Why do we feel like an outsider as humans? It's very natural. We want to feel part of a group. That's just how we're made. We want to have community and connection, and be understood. And when we're not, when we don't fit in, then we start to look at, well, then there must be something wrong. Even if we know nothing's wrong with us, really. This is stuff that just gets buried in over time, and that's what we're talking about.
Not the view of how you feel about yourself, but maybe there's instances through your life that have happened and made the shame kind of stick back in there, and it just kind of stays in the shadows. And again, until it's seen, or heard, or a light is shined on, it's kind of like a wound. If you have a wound that's covered up, sometimes the wound doesn't heal. A lot of times, wounds like air and sun. So I'm not a wound care specialist, not a medical doctor. I was a therapist, but this is not therapy. This is just kind of how it goes with shame. You just need to see it yourself. You don't necessarily need to share your shame and your deepest thoughts with anyone, because that's not always the safest thing to do. But you just need to recognize that it's there. And when you it's there, imagine if you were talking to someone that you really love. Think of anything. It could be an animal, it could be a person. And when you talk to that person. And if they were hurting, what would you say to them? And that's the kind of language you want to start to say to yourself when you are working with the parts of yourself that feel shame.
So the other part of this is psychological flexibility. It's a very fancy term, which just really means allowing uncomfortable emotions to exist without letting them control your choices. So it's noticing the shame without becoming ashamed, choosing your values over your fear, and letting your truth lead the way. This is a radical act of being kind to yourself, even when you feel like you don't deserve it. So that is what they've really found that helps women, men, anyone with chronic illness. It could be because you have an autoimmune disease, like I do. Or many of you listening could just be that you maybe have had a failed surgery, or anything that is chronic in the long term where it has changed your lifestyle, and this really feeds into your relationships with your family, your friends, work, all the things. And especially if you were functioning one way, and then you're not functioning that way anymore, and you can't quite figure it out, or you found yourself here in this podcast listening to people like me that have similar issues, that have similar stories, and you're finding your way. We want to deal with getting that shame loosening up in your body.
So when the next experiment may not work, when maybe you found something that you're like, okay, this is going to be the best thing for me. And it doesn't turn out like that. Like I said, 50 other people have had the same experience and it doesn't work out for you, then you know that it's not you. There's nothing wrong with you, and not to internalize and make the shame be, there is something wrong with you, why is it beyond even anything like you could fix? So having that stored in your system doesn't help you psychologically, and it's hard psychologically to be alone, or have to rest, or need to shut down, or your body crashes. So give yourself a lot of compassion and learn how to do your inner dialog, because there's no barrier. Things you say to yourself, you probably would not say to anyone else. And if you vocalize out loud what the thoughts in your head, you would be like, oh, my gosh, I'm so appalled. Why would anyone talk like that? But we don't have that barrier with ourselves so I don't want to say it does. It actually does reinforce your shame, or however you're feeling in those negative emotions.
But shame is like any other emotion. Once it's seen, once it's acknowledged, then it can move through you. So it's not a life sentence, any of this. It's just another level of awareness. So if you feel guilty about lying down and needing a nap, and then it becomes that there's something wrong with you and you feel bad, and you take it to another level. First, resting is self care. It's part of your journey, especially if you have chronic fatigue or any of these other things. EDS, hypermobility, lipedema, mast cell activation, POTS. Lying down is critical. Resting is critical. It's part of the healing which is against how we view society. So look at that as you don't need to feel guilty about anything, and you don't need to be ashamed because that's what your journey, and what you need.
So now, let's get lymphatic, let's zoom out a little, and let's go into some of the stigmas of shame and lipedema specifically. So let's start with some facts. In a 2025 study in BMC Women's Health found that women with lipedema experience intense body shame, stigma and emotional isolation, which check, check and check. And that was even way before I even knew I had lipedema. I just knew my body didn't look and respond like everyone else's, especially being in the health and wellness industry. I was like, I'm teaching pilates, and I'm doing all these exercises. I'm really strong, and I'm really feeling great, but my legs still have fat around the thighs. So what's wrong with me? So that's shame, tons of shame, feeling. Personally, I've had some just saying, you don't need to have shame about the size of your thighs. I'm just telling you that I have. It's true, and I still have it. And I'm working through a lot of that. And younger women tend to feel it the hardest. Oh, my god, my first couple episodes were about, if my 15 year old self knew about this sort of fat thing here, and even my arms today. This used to have a lot of muscle definition. And now with stage two, it has all of these fibroids, whatever doctors can tell you what it is. I just know what it feels like, and I know that it looks different than what it did. So when you're a young woman going through all these changes, and you're seeing how people, I know for me, just walk for 20 minutes and just do this one little tweak, and they lose all this weight. I'm like, well, I'm doing even better than that, and I'm not seeing those results. So I definitely agree with this study, because I totally felt it.
And one of the things too is we're talking about being misunderstood, dismissed, and just kind of told always to try harder for something you didn't cause or you can't control. Because if you go to the doctors, or if you have a weight trainer, or if you do something like, okay, I'm working out three times a week. Maybe I should do five? I'm running three miles, maybe I should do six? I'm eating 1200 calories, maybe I should do 900? And all of that extreme stuff also adds to this, because you can't control this. This isn't about laziness. This isn't about willpower. It is a medical condition rooted in inflammation and hormones, and it deals with connective tissue issues. It can deal with the lymphatic system. There's all these other systems that they're not well studied or documented. Now, they're getting more to understand it. But there's a plethora of things going on. So it's not just do this one thing, or try a little harder, or be more committed. Or like you're working out, and then all of a sudden you get injured because maybe you have hypermobility. You didn't know, so you're pushing it too much. You need to rest, so it feels like you can never get into a routine. All of those things add to this feeling of shame. Because at some point, you're going to feel like you're different. It's no other answers until now that you are like, okay, because we have shame about millions of things, this is just one aspect that we could have shame about.
Hopefully, shame is just something for a moment. You put some light to it, and then you move on. But you can use these techniques about any other things about shame in your life. And this emotional toll is often heavier than the physical pain, really. You add in a medical system that isn't designed to care for you, and it's no wonder that the shame takes hold. So just take a pause and a moment for that, and just think of like, okay, how do I really see myself? And how do I want to see myself? And if there's a gap, and if there's any sort of shame lingering in the darkness, just allow it to come through. And just be compassionate with yourself, and be loving with yourself. Meaning that this is something that you didn't cause, but you're now responsible to manage your body. Try to make it so you can live in this body, and live with this world with the fullest of your capacity. So that's where it kind of gets tricky with this shame. So just take a moment and just be like, okay, I don't have to feel shame about this. The shame that I might be carrying unbeknownst to me. How can I call it forward and just sit and think about that? You don't have to do it right now, but just trying to bring it into your consciousness when new situations arise, this could possibly be a way to combat that so it doesn't get stuffed down into the tissues a little more.
So now, let's go into this myth buster moment. And this one is a big one. Willpower isn't the problem, it's a shame. So let's get into busting this myth. If you had more willpower, you would lose the weight now that I'm sure might ring true for a lot of us. I know I thought as much as I did, and as strict as I was, and as bright as everything looked on paper. When my body didn't match up, I thought maybe I just needed to do more. But we're going to take this away like it's not willpower. It has nothing to do if you have lipedema, if you have any of these other issues, muscle activation syndrome, if you have EDS, hypermobility, if you have POTS, and if you have chronic fatigue, it's not about willpower. It's not doing any more right because lipedema fat doesn't respond to diet and exercise, the way people think it should. You could be doing everything right, eating clean, moving your body, meditating, journaling, praying under the full moon, which I have and still see no change. That doesn't mean that you or I have failed. It means that the care system just wasn't, at the time, telling me what I needed. I didn't go to the doctor that I needed until a year and a half ago. So I needed this doctor to tell me this 20, 30 years ago.
It's just a mismatch about the care that's available and what our bodies are experiencing, because there is nothing wrong with you. And when you're navigating a world that just doesn't understand or where your body doesn't quite fit in where they how I think it is, and the tools that are given for all the other bodies doesn't fit yours. They weren't built for your healing, right? So now, you could just take a moment right here and now and just decide that, okay, I don't need any more willpower. That's not going to help me. What I do need is a little more love, compassion and education for how my body responds. So that means experimentation with different foods, how much energy you put out all your whole life, everything you do. There's not really a book that fits it. You'd have to take like 20 different books and take pieces of it. That's one of the reasons why I'm doing this podcast because I have five of those things. It's a lot. And when you have brain fog, and you have chronic fatigue, not supposed to do much for so many hours, but you want to get better, there's a lot of information out there. So this is really just a love letter to everyone else out there to listen to your body. And it's a process, and it will take some time. And though you're going to be discouraged and it's going to suck, and you're not going to want to do it, I know I haven't many days, but this is the body that you're in, so how can you get along with it more without trying to shame yourself into doing something that is not aligned with your true healing?
So now we're into the good stuff. This is heavy. There's lots of things to think about, so sit into it. Maybe pause this episode, then come back to this. But we're gonna go into our feel good flow, and let's dive into your body right now. Let's dive into my body right now, because you don't have to explain your shame to anyone, and I don't really suggest that. I'm not a trauma person that says, tell your trauma to everyone. Everyone needs to know. And that's not really liberating. A lot of times, what that does is it just reignites it and reinforces it, and has other layers of protection because the people around you may not be equipped to hear. They might have their own things. Just because we think sometimes this speaking would liberate us, if it doesn't land in the right place, then it creates more trauma. It doesn't have the healing effect that you think it is, especially with shame. Because if you feel ashamed about anything, right? So these are your deepest, darkest secrets that you feel ashamed of. If you're telling that to someone and then they are like, ew. Why would you do that? That reinforces your shame. It has nothing to do with them thinking that you're a bad person. But if your shame makes you think that there's something wrong with you, there's something bad with you, you want to be very discerning of who you share that with. I prefer to do more internal work with my shame. You just need a space to move, so let's just try this simple shame release practice.
So first, you're going to get grounded. You can sit or lie down somewhere where it's supported for you, and then place one hand on your heart, and one hand on your belly. Doesn't matter, right or left, and just breathe. Just find a flow in and out, and breathe. Find your breath rhythm. You don't need to change it. Just find it and then ask your body, where do you feel shame? So where in my body do I feel shame? And just remember, no judgment. Just notice and just stay with it, wherever it leads you. Go there and just breathe. Breathe into that place. Let whatever arises, tightness, tears, tension, just be okay. It could be, oh, I don't want to feel this. I don't want to think about this. Just say to yourself as a mantra behind, I am safe. I am safe. It is safe for me to feel. And then again, breathe into that space and just see what happens. Stories could come up, flashes color, scenes, anything you could start thinking about something totally different, and then just bring yourself back. Try to just breathe into your body. You could say it out loud if you're alone, or in your mind's eye, to yourself, I see you shame. It's okay to feel this. You don't have to hide anymore, and just continue to repeat that, I see you shame. It's okay to feel this. You don't have to hide anymore. And then when you feel the shame soften or change, keep both hands over your heart. Say to yourself, I hold myself with love even when the world doesn't. And again, you can either give yourself a hug or hands over the heart wherever you feel supportive.
And again, say, I hold myself with love even when the world doesn't. And just allow that to penetrate your soul, to fill up the areas of your body where you felt the shame. And then just allow this practice to be a part of your life. Whenever you're starting to feel tense or tight, you could go back to this and just let this land. And now, let's just remember that you're not the shame, and you're not your shame. That is not a filter. Sometimes we see ourselves, but we're not ashamed. There is nothing wrong with you. You're not behind in any way. You're just living in a body that is carried more than most people can really even comprehend. Sometimes when I try to explain my situation to people, there's so much. I get overwhelmed by even trying to name just a tiny bit of what's going on. Of course, people can't comprehend. I always can't comprehend it. So just allow that other people don't need to understand and comprehend, because there's no weakness. It's not about willpower. And you should be very proud of yourself for the resilience, because it's a lot to hold in one body. So landing on the side of, okay, what is positive about all these experiences is your resilience, your capacity. So start to honor yourself. Listen to the parts that have been carrying too much for too long.
If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who you think can help. And if you would like, you could subscribe and be back next Thursday when we talk about more tools, more truths, and some tenderness. Have a great week. And until then, be kind to yourself, to your thighs, to your lymph, because your body is not lying and neither are you.
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PODCAST OUTRO: If this episode made you feel even more seen, brought you clarity or reminded you that you're not alone? Please take a moment to rate, review and send it to someone who needs that same reminder. You can find more tools, blog posts and support over at donnapiper.com. And hey, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. 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@donna piper.com, and you just might hear your answer on the show. Until next time, Dear Body, I'm Listening. I am so glad that you are here.
