Rewriting the Illness Story

What if the way we think about illness, our emotional experiences, and the stories we tell ourselves could influence how we experience our bodies and our lives? In this episode of Rewriting the Illness Story, host Paula Hescock sits down with Penny Chaisson, a board-certified hypnotist, bestselling author, and founder of Elite HypnoPro. After spending 25 years in healthcare, including 15 years as a nurse anesthetist, Penny discovered the potential of hypnosis to support pain management, emoti...

What’s Really Beneath an Eating Disorder? In this powerful conversation, Paula Hescock talks with Tania Cervoni about her journey through eating disorder recovery, anxiety, self-criticism, body image, and the deep emotional patterns beneath disordered eating. Tania shares the insights that helped her move beyond bingeing, purging, control, and shame—and discover that the eating disorder was never really about food. She explains how learning to feel difficult emotions instead of avoiding...

Healing Trauma with Internal Family Systems (IFS) | Manu KhullarIn this powerful episode of Rewriting the Illness Story, Paula sits down with Manu Khullar, an IFS Level 3 trauma-informed healing practitioner whose life was transformed by personal crisis, profound healing work, a life-threatening open-heart surgery and near death experiences (NDE). After spending more than 30 years in the corporate technology world, Manu experienced a devastating breakdown that led him on a quest to understand...

Can unresolved trauma contribute to chronic illness? In this episode, Paula sits down with Dr. Anna Hodshire — atmospheric chemist, STEM mentor, professor, and host of the STEMdentity podcast — to discuss the powerful connection between IBS, stress, trauma, perfectionism, burnout, and nervous system healing. After the traumatic loss of her father as a teenager, Anna began developing chronic digestive issues, anxiety, and symptoms later labeled as IBS. Like many people struggling with ch...

How to Break the Chronic Pain Cycle and Start Living Again What if the way we think about chronic pain could influence how we experience it? In this episode of Rewriting the Illness Story, Paula Hescock talks with Sandy Magder about her decades-long journey with chronic illness, chronic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, and the mind-body connection. Sandy was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis at just 18. Over the years, she experienced severe joint pain, immune-suppressing medications, a hip repl...