Don't Waste Your Pain

JT Trepanier
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Mental Health
  • Weekly

Don't Waste Your Pain is a movement disguised as a podcast. Hosted by JT Trepanier, this show addresses life's darkest realities without flinching or sensationalizing. There are no five-step plans here. Instead, devastation and delight sit side by side, and the famous share the same stage as the incarcerated. Pain is treated as a portal to wisdom, rather than a problem to solve.

Episodes

  1. 2d ago

    What Grieving Parents Wish We Understood

    CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses the rape and murder of a young woman, the death of a child from cancer, and a parent’s suicide. Please take care while listening. Nobody gets a manual for the morning after their child dies. Dr. Buck Blodgett is nearing thirteen years without his daughter Jessie, taken by someone she knew and trusted. Carrie Snipe is nearing two without her son Carson, taken by a tumor that gave the family a year and a half of borrowed time first. Both children died in July. Their parents had never met before this conversation. Together they answer the questions people are too afraid to ask a grieving parent. What should you never say? Does the pain ever go away? Is watching a child die slowly harder than losing them in an instant? What happens to a marriage when the worst thing happens? And what does a child leave behind that keeps turning up, years later, in everyone who loved them? This episode is for you if: You are a curious soul.You have lost a child, or love someone who has.You have avoided a grieving friend because you did not know what to say.Someone has told you it was God’s plan, or that at least you still have your other kids.You have watched someone you love suffer and could not make it stop.Your marriage is carrying a loss bigger than either of you.You are wondering whether some grief is meant to be kept, not cured.To learn more about Buck’s work: Love Is Greater Than Hate  Buck’s book: A Message from Jessie

  2. Sep 15

    What to do with the Worst Thing that Happened to Us

    CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses r*pe, the murder of a young woman, and the s*xual assault of a child. Please take care while listening. A twelve-year-old girl is stopped on the street by a man asking directions to the train station. A father sits on his couch between detective interviews on the morning his daughter is murdered. Neither of them chose what happened next. Both of them chose what came after. Mai Vo pressed charges, testified at fifteen, and later became the first Vietnamese judge in Norway, in the same court where she once stood as a child. Buck Blodgett looked at the nineteen-year-old who raped and killed his daughter Jessie and told him that he loved him and forgave him. They had never met before this conversation. Sitting down together, they land in almost the same place, including the parts most people get wrong. That forgiveness releases nothing but your own poison. That accountability and compassion are not opposites. That nobody heals alone, and rarely in the relationship where the harm was done. What do we do with the worst thing that has ever happened to us? You are a curious soul open to learning new ideas You are carrying something you have never told anyone. You have been told that forgiving means letting someone off. You are angry, and tired of being asked not to be. You love someone who is hurting and you do not know what to say. You are raising children and wondering how much of your own story to tell. You have done harm, and you want to know what taking accountability actually looks like.

  3. Aug 18

    Former Outsider to Photographer of Global Icons and Cancer Surviors - Becky Yee, Photographer

    Her father came home from the hospital in a wheelchair, telling his twelve-year-old daughter he sometimes wished he had died. Growing up in an immigrant family and later becoming the only Asian kid in her school, Becky Yee learned early how to survive feeling different, adapt fast, and keep moving. She went on to become a fourth-degree black belt in her father’s favorite martial art, travel the world his body could no longer easily reach, and build a photography career capturing everyone from Beyoncé, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Steven Tyler, President Obama (the list goes on) to breast cancer survivors learning to see beauty in their changed bodies. But this conversation isn’t really about who she photographs. It’s about what she sees, and what pain taught her to see in herself. From betrayal and rage to grace and letting go, Becky asks: what if the things that break us open also reveal who we are? This episode is for you if: You’ve spent part of your life feeling like the odd one out and are beginning to wonder if that difference might actually be part of your gift. Life has changed without your permission and you’re learning how to move forward without knowing exactly where you’re going. Someone hurt you deeply and you’re realizing your anger may still be keeping you connected to them. You’re learning that you can love someone completely and still let them go. Your body has changed through illness, surgery, aging, or scars, and you’re struggling to see its beauty again. You need the reminder that what happened to you may not have been your choice, but what you do with it now is yours. To learn more about her work: beckyyee.com colorwheelstudios.com

  4. Jul 21

    The Father Who Forgave His Daughter's Killer with Dr. Buck Blodgett

    Dr. Buck Blodgett’s 19-year-old daughter, Jessie, was raped and murdered by someone she knew and trusted. In the face of every parent’s worst nightmare, Buck made a choice that would shape the rest of his life: to forgive. Not to excuse, forget, or release accountability, but to refuse to let hatred own what was still his. In this powerful conversation, Buck shares the phone call every parent fears, the grief that never fully leaves, the people who showed up when words failed, and the peace that found him in the middle of devastation. Through Jessie’s legacy and Love Is Greater Than Hate, he now brings forgiveness work into prisons and reminds us that love, accountability, grief, and joy can all exist together. CONTENT WARNING: This episode discusses the rape and murder of a young woman. Please take care while listening. This episode may be for you if: You are a curious soul  You need to remember that what hurt you does not get to own the rest of your life. You are carrying grief that has not gone away with time. You are struggling with anger, resentment, or forgiveness. You need permission to grieve without being fixed. You want to know how to support someone in deep pain. To learn more please check out: Love is Greater than Hate Buck’s Book: A Message from Jessie

  5. Jul 8

    Not Belonging Became Her Medicine

    Kyla Mitsunaga is the kind of guest who can wear an emotional support headband, talk about death, dementia, money, shame, sensuality, and family systems, and somehow make the whole room feel lighter, and she did exactly that on DWYP. A Harvard-trained, award-winning former professor, Kyla is also a third culture kid born and raised in Hong Kong, and she knows what it feels like to not belong. She was bullied as a child, bullied as an adult, and raised with a mother whose criticism became a voice she had to learn how to stop carrying. But instead of letting shame define her, Kyla turned toward it, witnessed it, acknowledged it, and made not belonging her medicine. We dive into family constellations, belonging, dementia, death, money, pleasure, and what it means to stop carrying definitions that were never yours to begin with. Kyla shares how her mother’s early onset dementia led her into a deep depression, then into the healing work that became the Mitsunaga Method, a path back to the light no matter how dark it gets. This episode is for you if: You have ever felt like you did not belong.You have carried shame that was never yours.You have been the one holding too much for your family.You are watching someone you love change through illness, dementia, or decline.You want a new relationship with death, money, sensuality, or your own body.You are ready to stop living inside definitions handed to you by family, culture, or society.You believe healing can be deep, sacred, hilarious, and a little bit f*****g fun.Kyla is currently enrolling the next July cohort of BAM, Our Business And Money mastermind, beginning end of July 2026: https://www.kylamitsunaga.com/bam.html You can also find Kyla’s free and paid Family Constellations events on her Luma calendar: https://luma.com/familyconstellationswithkyla

  6. Jun 23

    He Saw the World’s Pain, Then Built Belonging for Its Children

    Some people grow up comfortable with death, darkness, and the parts of life most families keep locked in a back room. Derek Peterson grew up mowing cemeteries, lowering caskets, and sitting in mausoleums in winter. No secrets. No shame. Just life and death, held together. That ease with the hard stuff became the foundation for 30 years of international work with children carrying stories far too heavy for childhood. But the question this conversation keeps opening is not only what Derek built. It is what made it possible. What happens when a person learns early that the hard parts of life do not have to be hidden? This conversation is about what happens when pain finds a purpose instead of an exit, when community becomes the technology that makes flourishing possible, and when the world you create for others is built directly from the darkness you refused to run from. This episode is for you if: • You have ever felt abandoned. • You have survived a divorce and had to rebuild a life you did not expect. • You have felt the pull to leave the safety of a job to follow the truth of your heart. • The pain ever felt too heavy to carry. • You reached a place where you wondered whether you still wanted to be here. • You are learning that suffering becomes even heavier when it has no witness. • You are beginning to understand that support is not weakness, it is part of how we heal. Find out more about Derek at: icar-us.com and kaloseidosfoundation.org

  7. Jun 2

    She Walked Into Court as a Child. She Returned as the Judge.

    Mai's story holds the kind of pain that teaches a child to go quiet, a stranger who turned her trust against her, the year of silence that almost broke her, the parents who loved her but could not give her what she needed, and the inheritance of a family that crossed an ocean to be safe. But this conversation is not only about what was done to her. It is about what we reach for when the people who love us cannot give us what we need, what silence does to a body holding a truth it is not allowed to say, and how a person keeps choosing to live, to trust, and to build something out of what was meant to break them. This episode is for anyone who has ever: Stayed silent because speaking felt impossibleLoved people who loved you but could not give you what you neededCarried shame that was never yours to carryHad to reach outside your family to find safety, truth, or supportLived between two culturesThis is a conversation about abuse, silence, generational trauma, belonging, justice, and motherhood, and the slow, brave, unfinished work of finding your own voice. Connect with Mai: https://www.instagram.com/p/C9-YRBbq7tg/

  8. May 26

    The Loss That Broke Her, Built Her

    Meenakshi’s story moves through the kind of pain most people never imagine surviving, the murder of her father and grandfather in a terrorist attack, the silence that can surround grief, the pressure to keep going when everything has fallen apart, and the ache of growing up in a culture that told her darker skin made her less worthy. But this conversation is not only about what happened to her. It is about what happens inside a person when the world tries to break them, shame them, silence them, or make them disappear, and somehow they keep choosing life. In this episode, we talk about: What survival really costs, and what it can quietly build The grief people carry when a culture teaches them not to cry The pain of being told your skin, body, or identity makes you less worthy What happens when shame gets passed down, and someone finally decides to stop it How loss, prejudice, and silence can shape a life, but do not have to own it Why the thing that broke you may also become the thing that builds you How resilience is not always loud, polished, or pretty, sometimes it is just getting up again This is a conversation about terrorism, colorism, grief, resilience, motherhood, identity, and the ordinary, brutal, beautiful work of becoming whole.

  9. May 19

    The Boy Who Stayed Awake to Die

    He was thirteen years old, dying of cancer, and he turned down the pain medication so he could stay awake with the people he loved. That is not a metaphor. That is what Carson Sipe actually did. His mother, Carrie, tells it straight — the knee removal, the infection, the hospice bed wheeled into the living room that Carson refused to sit in because, as he put it, why can't I just die on the couch. She describes the grief that starts the second a doctor says there is no cure, the siblings fractured and slowly knitting themselves back together, and the Imperial Death March playing as his casket rolled out of the church. Carson was funny, fierce, and constitutionally incapable of leaving a room without making sure everyone in it felt loved. This is the episode that named this podcast. Carrie Sipe is the woman who said, in our family we don't waste our pain — we use it. Carry that out with you. The reality of anticipatory mourning and how grief begins the exact minute a terminal diagnosis is deliveredWhy a thirteen-year-old boy consciously chose physical agony over medication, enduring a failing body just to remain awake for his final moments with his family.The disruption of expected grief through dark humor, including the decision to play the Imperial Death March as a child's casket leaves the churchWhy life and death are not separate, isolated states, but an absolute continuum that we all inhabitHow pain serves as the ultimate connective tissue between humans, creating a shared understanding that bypasses superficial interactions

  10. Episode 1

    Welcome to Don't Waste Your Pain

    Don't Waste Your Pain is a movement disguised as a podcast. The world lacks places to tell the truth about pain, so this show addresses realities like rape, murder, illness, and loss without flinching or sensationalizing. Hosted by JT Trepanier, the conversations anchor on four core pillars: death, illness, sensuality, and mothering. This is not a self-help podcast offering fixes or five-step plans. Here, devastation and delight sit side by side, allowing forgiveness, humor, eros, and joy to coexist with grief. The famous and the incarcerated sit in the same chair because wisdom comes from lived truth rather than titles. Pain is treated as a portal to wisdom rather than a problem to solve.

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    9 Episodes

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About

Don't Waste Your Pain is a movement disguised as a podcast. Hosted by JT Trepanier, this show addresses life's darkest realities without flinching or sensationalizing. There are no five-step plans here. Instead, devastation and delight sit side by side, and the famous share the same stage as the incarcerated. Pain is treated as a portal to wisdom, rather than a problem to solve.

Information

  • Creator
    JT Trepanier
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © JT Trepanier
  • Show Website
    Don't Waste Your Pain