27. Elizabeth Orrigo on Healing Chronic Pain, Avoiding Toxic Wellness Traps & Working with Your Body

Written By Brittany Broderick

Have you ever felt like you’ve done all the “right” things for your health… and your body still isn’t getting the message?

You clean up your diet. You research late into the night. You track symptoms. You see specialist after specialist.
And somewhere along the way, you start to feel like your body is working against you.

In this week’s episode, I sit down with Elizabeth Endres Orrigo, host of The Wellness Process Podcast, to talk about healing chronic pain through nervous system work and changing your relationship with your body.

Elizabeth shares her deeply personal story of navigating years of chronic pelvic pain, Lyme, mold exposure, anxiety, and symptom spirals that left her searching for answers across states and protocols. As a sensitive, high-achieving Type A personality in the wellness space, she knows firsthand how easy it is to slip into obsession, perfectionism, and the pressure to “solve” yourself.

Together, we explore:

• How chronic pain can be linked to nervous system dysregulation
• Why fear and hypervigilance often perpetuate symptom cycles
• The emotional roots that sometimes sit beneath physical symptoms
• The journaling practice that helped Elizabeth process suppressed emotion
• The hidden pressure inside modern wellness culture
• How healing your relationship with yourself shifts your romantic relationships
• Why flexibility — not perfection — is a sign of regulation

Elizabeth speaks candidly about what it felt like to be at rock bottom during COVID, terrified her pain would never end, and the turning point when she realized her body wasn’t broken — it was protective.

This conversation is not about dismissing medical care or oversimplifying chronic illness. It’s about expanding the lens. It’s about understanding how the nervous system responds to stress, fear, and unprocessed emotion — and how safety, self-trust, and consistency can gradually change that response.

If you’ve felt exhausted from fighting your body or ashamed that you haven’t “figured it out” yet, I hope this episode feels steady and reassuring.

Your body is not your enemy.
It is adaptive.
And it can learn new patterns when it feels safe enough to do so.

If this resonates, I gently invite you to listen. You are capable of healing and growth — at the pace your nervous system can integrate.

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Brittany Broderick
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26. Healing Self-Abandonment in Relationships & Learning to Trust Yourself Again