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Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Reclaimed Her Health By Listening To Her Body with Eva Skarström
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When the experts say “there’s nothing more we can do,” where do you go next? Maria sits down with Eva Skarström, a vitality guide and best-selling author, to unpack a practical path from chronic pain and burnout to a grounded, energized life. Eva’s story begins with endometriosis, expands into fibromyalgia and fatigue, and arrives at a powerful framework that helped her get her life back: calm the nervous system, cleanse the body, and connect with the self.
We dig into the real mechanics of healing, not quick fixes. Eva shares how gentle yoga, breath, and heart-focused stillness shifted her out of fight-or-flight so her body could repair. She explains why gradual diet changes—reducing processed foods, phasing out dairy and gluten, and supporting kidney and lymph function—reduced inflammation without overwhelming her system. Maria adds her own journey through recurrent cervical cancer, the moment she overhauled food and movement, and the surprising role of Reiki and mindset in helping her body find its balance again.
Together, we explore how pain can be information rather than an enemy, and how stored emotions and trauma show up in the tissues until they’re witnessed and released. Eva describes craniosacral work and energy sensing in simple terms, highlighting how safe presence can unlock tension patterns and restore flow. This is a conversation about agency: taking small, consistent steps, learning to trust intuition, and defining vitality as freedom, calm, and strength you can feel every day.
If you’re navigating pain, fatigue, or a life that feels stuck, you’ll leave with doable first steps—five minutes of stillness, one nourishing swap on your plate, a nightly heart meditation—and the conviction that your body wants to heal. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review to tell us the one small step you’re taking today.
Connect with Eva:
LinkedIn: @evaskarstrom
Facebook: @evaskarstrom
Instagram: @evaskarstrom
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Welcome And Eva’s Story Begins
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host Maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
SPEAKER_02Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maria Aponte. I am so excited to have you guys back for another amazing episode today. I just want to quickly introduce our guest. So today's guest is someone who truly embodies what it means to rise against all odds. Eva is a vitality guide speaker and best-selling author who went from living with chronic pain and exhaustion, being told that there was nothing more doctors could do to completely reclaiming her health and her life, which is so powerful. By calming her nervous system, cleansing her body, and reconnecting with her body and soul, Eva discovered a powerful truth. The vitality is our natural state. And when we remove what blocks it, the body knows how to heal, which I completely agree with that. We could chat about that a little bit more. Now she guides other women to heal through her calm cleanse and connect approach. So welcome. I am so excited to have you with us today, Eva.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, Maria. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Every guest on the show gives their against all odds story. I would love to hear more about yours.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. I always
Endometriosis, Fibromyalgia, And Burnout
SPEAKER_00get, I don't know where to begin because there is so much to tell. I know I've been yeah, I've been having issues with my body since I was a teenager. And when I was in my late teenage, I had very painful menstrual cramps, and it turned out that I had endometriosis. So that was like the beginning of it. And yeah, I was in pain three weeks out of four, and it was, yeah, I was lying in a fetal position during my menstrual period, and then yeah, it was really painful. And it continued, and well, I was put into menopause and I got to feel a little bit better, but all the issues with my body continued to get worse, and it ended up with me having fibromyalgia. I had burnt out, and yeah, I was barely getting out of bed many times. I got up in the morning, I got my son ready to preschool, and then I got home and I slept until I needed to get him again. So it wasn't a really fun period in life, to be honest. I was in so much pain, and even to have clothes on was difficult.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I remember going through it really difficult periods growing up as well. Mine was an endometriosis. I had a lot of cyst in my ovaries, and it like any which way that I would sit, it was just horrible. And so I remember again back then the doctor's like, oh, it's chicken, it's caffeine, you need to get off of all of that. And so I was like in in middle school, probably like seventh grade, and I was not allowed to eat chicken. I think now looking back, it was probably because of the hormones that they put in chickens, at least in the US, they do, which is ridiculous. I think that's that was the part of the reason. And then the caffeine, so I couldn't have chocolate, I couldn't have any like caffeine products, so no Coca-Cola, no anything like that. And so I remember feeling like, why am I experiencing this miserable pain? Is this how it's gonna be? Because this is not cool if I have to go through this my entire life. But yeah, definitely not easy to start off at such a young age with something so painful and that you are like, you're like, why is my body betraying me?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I agree. I really felt that. I felt that my body was failing me and always wondering why is it this way? Why is my body? You go with your friends and they don't have any issues, and you go, why me? Why is it yeah? And to you try all of these different things and nothing works, and it's really frustrating. And I felt that my body was at war with me at the end because nothing I did worked, and even though they well, if you try to exercise more, you will feel better, but my body felt worse instead. So no matter what I did, it's just got worse and worse.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I remember. I remember like my mom would give me like this medication that oh, this is this will help. And or when you're cramping, put your legs up on the wall and like sit like with your legs up, and I'm like, I tried everything and nothing, nothing worked, but yeah, that I can only imagine because as I've heard, endometriosis is just so so painful. So if I experience that much pain with not that, I can only imagine the pain that you were experiencing. So, how did your life look leading up to turn the turning point? And
Hitting The Wall And Seeking Answers
SPEAKER_02what made you decide to take a new direction?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, my I was yeah, I was already ill when I got my son. I was 33 years old at the time, and I felt like such a failure being a mom to him because I didn't have the energy to play with him or to be with him, and I wanted so much more out of that. And for me, the turning point became I was 36 years old when the doctors told me that there was nothing to do, that I had to live this way. And for me to get that news and to come home and to see my son, and I just felt it's I can't do this. I can't be the mother I want to be living this way, and it felt like I was failing both me and him. And at the same time, I felt that I had so many dreams for my own life as well, things that I wanted to do and travel the world and a lot of those things too, and I weren't able to do any of those living in that pain and that way. So that became my pivot point that I realized that there must be something to do. The doctors couldn't tell me why I was ill, and when they couldn't tell me why, I felt that I couldn't accept what they told me either. Yeah, so I needed to find my why. Why is my body this way? So that was how my search began.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can only imagine it just feels kind of like well, you're the one that's supposed to be the expert. What is it? Why can't you figure something out that will help me? I'm the patient, help me. I can imagine the frustration behind that, especially when you're in so much pain. I have an aunt that has fibromyalgia and she's constantly in so much pain. So yeah, I can only imagine. So once you made the decision to find your own answers, how did or what did you discover along the way that kind of got
Calming The Nervous System With Yoga
SPEAKER_02you to where you are?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I started by reading things and listening to things and just trying to tune in to everything that had with healing to do, and I can see now afterwards that I got guided into things that actually suited me as well. So, first it was about calming your nervous system. I had this new uh yoga and meditation center opening up in town, so I was there and I felt that this is something for me. So I went to their Yoga for Stress Relief program, and week by week I could sense that my nervous system started to calm down, and I realized that instead of having my body as my worst enemy, I started to ask the question, what do my body need in order to feel better? So that was a huge shift, and to tune into I realized that I was very I wasn't feeling my emotions and I wasn't, yeah, I was very numb. With living with so much pain, you don't want to feel that. So I didn't feel my body. So to go to that yoga and be very gentle with my body and to learn how to breathe again and to yeah, to befriend my body in a way. So that was the first step. And then I read a lot about how toxins in your body and what you eat can affect as well, and when you have all of these things that it causes inflammation in your body and things like that as well. So I started to go into that more and to detox my body. And within it took me a couple of years to actually be able to take that decision to do it. But when I did, it took me six months to be pain-free from when I actually changed my diet and started to detox and got my kidneys and lymphatic system moving again. So it's remarkable how the body can work.
SPEAKER_02So I'm curious what kind of dietary changes did you make?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, I did it, was very important to go slowly because I had so much toxins in my body. So when you do quick changes, it starts to be you get all of these, what's it called in English, purging symptoms?
SPEAKER_02Like it, yeah, it's like a detox.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I needed to go very
Detox, Diet Shifts, And Going Slow
SPEAKER_00slowly. But I started with getting rid of meat and then gluten and then dairy products. That was really hard for me to let go of. But I actually was vegan and gluten-free, and that was something that my body felt good with, and I can see that it's different for many people, but how their body functions, but for me that was the way to go. So yeah, I was vegan and gluten-free. But I took small steps to reducing and then getting rid of it just so that it wouldn't be overwhelming for my body. But then it's important to open up your kidneys and your liver as well, because they are cleansing your body, and I feel that when you have so much toxins in your body, they are overloaded as well, so they don't get rid of the yeah, it's like a filter that it's clogged. Yeah. So you need to clear that filter as well to be able to get that, yeah, all of those things out of your body.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I can definitely understand that. A little over 10 years ago, it was like the summer of 2015, I was diagnosed with cancer for the third time, but it had been about I want to say like 12 years before that that I had cancer the last time. So for 12 years there was nothing, and I had cervical cancer, and I was in such a state of dis-ease in my body that it created this disease, right? And so I had a surgery to remove some of the cervix that was affected with the cancer, and I had to go back four months later. Well, about two and a half months after I'd had the surgery, I started to exercise, eat right, and let me explain. I am Puerto Rican, I have that Hispanic culture of what is vegetables? We didn't know. That was not something that was in our normal diet. I didn't really know how to eat vegetables. I thought vegetables were salads and that's it. And like it really truly was just a new concept for me. So I was 32 years old and learning how to eat properly with what your body actually needs. And I would eat my portions of organic protein because I had stuck in my head the hormones. I need something organic. So, but I started to just change my diet as well, and I would exercise and I started doing like personal development and really focusing on like the mindset of everything, and that's when things started shifting. So my surgery was in June. I started this at the end of August, and my follow-up
Maria’s Cancer Journey And Lifestyle Change
SPEAKER_02was in mid-October, and the cancer had come back, and I just started like a month and a half of this new lifestyle that I had started. And the doctor told me, This is the fourth time you get it. I think that this is the time that we need to talk about maybe doing a full hysterectomy, you have your kids already, like this is probably a good time. And so we ended up scheduling the hysterectomy for December of that year, a week before my birthday. And so I started full menopause at 32. And a week after I after I had the surgery that I went for my follow-up on my birthday, the doctor's like looking at the pathology report, and he's like, Maria, there was zero signs of cancer. And to me, I feel like the moment that I decided that not only am I going to fix how I eat what I'm putting in my body, and really work on moving my body because that's not something that I was doing, and really work on what was coming into my mind and really seeing how these things shifted my mindset overall. And then to see that I was cancer free after thinking that I was gonna leave my three kids without a mom, like it was really mind-blowing. So to your point, I feel like that moment that you decide to make those shifts, even if they're small little by little, the immense change that it can make in your life when you focus not only on what you're putting in your body, but how you treat it and how you view it. And like I'm so grateful for my body now. It's the vessel that's brought me this far. And I'm 10 years uh after my surgery, and I'm like, wow, like I'm still here. I could totally relate to making that that those simple shifts, which are not easy, but they are simple, I think.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I love how you said disease because that is how I see it, that our body is in such overload and chaos inside, and that makes the disease that we have, yeah. And also that you said about the food in today's world, it's important to think of what we eat, and not only eat there's so much processed food and things like that. And I do believe that our body feels best when it gets like this proper organic food, that's what we are used to having, and all of these new products have come so quickly lately. So yeah, I believe that our body isn't made to process all of that stuff, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And and honestly, it's because you're in Europe, so I know that even the difference between Europe and the US, you guys have better quality foods than what our standards are, yeah. Which is scary to think that it's yeah, it's just it blows my mind to even think that's the case. But yeah, so so how has your life changed since then? And what does living in vitality mean to you today?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thank you for asking. I would like to just go back to what you said about the mindset as well, because that's the third thing that was about the connection. And when you are living with pain for a long
Emotion, Trauma, And The Body’s Messages
SPEAKER_00time, you get very disconnected from your body. So to start to connect again and see what is there. What I see it as the pain is a message from the body, saying that there is something there that needs to be seen and that needs to be heard and released. So that was the third thing I started to do, and I realized that I was carrying so many emotions that was lingering in my body as well. And I had a lot of trauma when I was younger, and by starting to release those one by one, I felt such an ease in my body as well. And you are living a limited life, and to start realizing that okay, but what do I want in my life? How do I want to live instead as well? So that is a very big thing when you heal to instead of living, do this and you will get better. Okay, but what do I need? What does my body need? Yeah, and to start living from that instead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's crazy what speaking to your body can do because it will respond.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And I've seen it happen in front of my own eyes, how your body can respond to yes or no's. It's just the most simple things, but it's us literally having the openness to listen. Yeah, I think that's super important. I used to work in the travel industry, and my friend, she was one of my clients, she worked at a hotel and I brought a lot of business. And so she was like, I'm gonna gift you a treatment from our spa, and I just can't wait for you to try it. Because she knew my story, she knew that I had so I had been sexually assaulted when I was 16 years old, which turned into me not saying anything for many years that he gave me the HPV virus that caused the cancer. So at 18, I had cancer, at 19, it came back. So, like it was all trickled in through there. So she knew my story, she knew what I had gone through. And this was around that same time in 2015. And I remember she was like, it's called a healing energy massage, you'll love it. And I had no idea what any of it was, and so I went in and now looking back, I know that it was reiki and it was something that I had never experienced, but I just immediately was like, just don't touch my lower back because it hurts to the touch. So no pressure, don't even touch it because it hurts. And that had always been to me, that was the normal, right? Because I had lived so long with it, I just knew just don't touch that area. And that therapist, that Reiki master, kind of like felt around for that energy, and I was holding my sexual trauma in my hips, and specifically in my right hip. And the moment that she focused that energy into healing that like I cried the whole hour, and I think I cried for the first time to that degree. Like I had gone through therapy and all that, but to the degree of like really allowing my body just To feel that emotion. I'm getting choked up even thinking about it, but just to allow my body to just feel all of that emotion, it completely I stopped having lower back pain. And it was mind
Craniosacral Work And Energy Release
SPEAKER_02blowing. I was like, what did you just do to me? And as the years went by, I learned more and understood and it made sense in my brain. But at that time, I was like, this is like mind blowing. I cannot even believe that this just happened. But yeah, it's so beautiful to understand that your body is just holding on to all these things and until you are ready to just allow yourself to listen to it and talk to it and be there for yourself because we are so like in the everyday craziness, right? That we forget that we have to listen sometimes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And thank you for sharing that. And I actually have a similar experience as well. I was sexually assaulted when I was 11. And it was something I forgot about. But when we moved to Spain, it's five years ago now. We decided to move here because I was in so much pain, but I was already pain free when we moved here. But I needed to start with something new because I needed to leave my job. And at the same time, I found the education to become a craniosacral osteopath. And that is how amazing because that is how you learn to feel the body, how the movements are in the body, the fascia, and you feel you feel everything. It's truly amazing. And during that time, that time I started to have treatments myself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And by doing that, I've had a lot of pain in my abdomen and my pelvic area because of endometriosis as well. But when I started those sessions, all of these feelings came up, and I remembered that I was sexually assaulted. And by working with that, and I don't remember how many sessions it took, but I remember the last one where all of these emotions came out, and I was just crying and crying and crying, but it released. And I think it's so amazing how I felt so much better before, but all the tension and everything in that area, it just melted away by me being able to be guided to have the courage to go through that feeling to feel those emotions again. And that is so beautiful, and that is what I do as well as a cranial sacral osteopath. And I realized that I could sense energies as well. So that is what I help my clients with to hold that safe place for them to be able to feel their own emotions so that they can release that and get rid of pain and tension and all of those things in the body. So it really is beautiful what the body is able to do, how it can heal if we give it
Defining Vitality And Women’s Health Load
SPEAKER_00the right support.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Oh my gosh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it really truly blows my mind. And it's something that I feel like things always have a way of falling into place, and the people that come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime always have a purpose. It's just a matter of you finding that purpose. And places that we go always have a purpose, and it's just a matter of you finding that purpose. And so I love that you moved to a whole new country to then find that purpose into not only healing for yourself, but now you get to help others, and that's so beautiful. I love it so much.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I yeah, I am I'm so happy to be able to do that, and so that my journey can be to help for someone else as well, so that they can feel better too. So yeah, it's amazing to be able to help others. And I love that.
SPEAKER_02I love that. So, how has your life changed since then? And what does living in vitality mean to you today?
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, well, my life has changed completely. I at the moment I'm creating my dream life, something that I never thought I was able to do, and it is to be able to help others to feel better. And I want to be talking about the body and how miraculously it can heal itself. I'm very passionate about it. And I feel with every treatment that I have, I feel like, wow, this is amazing. So to share that with the world as well, so that people know that our body can heal, because we don't think of it, we take it for granted that if we get a cut, it heals, but we never think of it in a deeper way. So to share that to people and especially to women, because I feel that we have so much that we put on ourselves in the world. We with to be parents and we take care of our families and we have work. There is so much that we put on ourselves, so it's easy to get overloaded, so to know how to take care of yourself so that you don't get there, so that you don't come there. But yeah, for me, vitality is to be able to live, to not be limited, that you can live and do what you want to do, and that you can feel that strength and power in your body. That's it's even hard to put words on it. It's this beautiful feeling that I have. But yeah, as I feel it when I have the treatments as well, is that you have that healing flow throughout your body, that your body is able to take care of everything that happens and to constantly heal itself as well, so that you feel calm and relaxed and you can enjoy your life and to take the decisions that you want to take and do what you love to do.
SPEAKER_02I love it. Thank you for that. I love that's again, I feel like it just gives all of the things that you went through purpose, it's happened, and we can't really change that it happened, but you can flip it into the life happening for
First Steps: Stillness And Intuition
SPEAKER_02you rather than to you. And the moment that you start, I think, flipping that mindset, it's just so beautiful what comes from that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I love that. And I do believe that everything that we go through, as you say, it has a purpose in some way or another. Something is to help us to get further. But even though it feels like it's against us, I believe that it's something that we learn the lessons that will get us forward as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. So for those listening who are struggling with pain, fatigue, or simply feeling stuck, what's one thing they can do to start doing today to begin finding their way back to vitality?
SPEAKER_00I think the first thing is to sit with yourself, take five minutes and just be with yourself in stillness and see what comes through. What does your body say to you? And stop by that, because your body knows how to heal and it will guide you if you listen.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, it I think that those moments, because we are so connected to our phones and we're so connected to everything right now, right? That the moment that we can maybe put that down. And even when I first started, I remember it being so difficult for me to calm my brain long enough, but even starting just a little bit, I think is important, and allowing those thoughts to come in and out and not come down on yourself for not being able to for five minutes, but really just starting to talk, like you said, talk to your body and saying, All right, I'm feeling this. What can we do? What can I do to help ease this feeling or this pain or whatever? I I learned that doing that and then just listening to your that intuition because I feel like when we speak it out, it's out to God, to existence, to the universe, however, whatever you believe in. But when the moment that we start listening for the answer, it's our intuition that kind of guides us. And I believe that's us getting the answers, right? It's just listening to that intuition from from whatever you believe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yes, I agree fully. And if you don't, if you think it's hard to sit still, go for a walk and just listen to your body instead, do something that feels good for you. But we so often go and listen to pods and do things like that as well. So we are not in tune with our body, yeah. But if you want to actually work more, I for me it's nervous system to calm down your nervous system, is always the first thing because if your body is in survival
Roadblocks, Tiny Habits, Heart Meditation
SPEAKER_00mode and in fight and flight, it can't heal. So that is always the first step.
SPEAKER_02I love it, I love it. So, what are some of maybe the biggest roadblocks that you found that you had to overcome in order to get to where you are today?
SPEAKER_00That is a really good question. For me, it has been to trust my body and to trust my intuition. That has been the biggest. And then when you are living with illness as well, you never know if your body you want to go for a dinner, but you don't know if your body is capable of it or not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So to get into that and actually trust yourself and your body and your intuition, that has been the biggest, the biggest for me. That internal actually for me, it was easier to get to know the body than to listen to my intuition.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And it's who stays with us the whole entire time, like from birth to death. It's always there. It's just being able to, I think, quiet your mind enough to listen. That's probably the hardest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I do think during the journey is that when you're ill, everything feels like you need to do more in order to feel better. And to do it in steps that I was able to do, not to do too much at the time, but just to start with small, small, small steps. And even the smallest step is your body is so grateful for it. And big things can start to happen, even if you do the smallest thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, agreed. I love it. So, what is one daily habit that you say has helped you get to where you are, or what's something that you feel you do every day in order to just feel better?
SPEAKER_00I listen to a heart meditation every morning before I get out of bed. That is something that I feel helps me to get in tune with my body and to just okay, here I am, and I'm ready for today. So that is something I listen to every morning and every night.
SPEAKER_02I love it so much. I love it. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us today?
SPEAKER_00I would like to say to all the women who are in pain
Closing Reflections And Ways To Connect
SPEAKER_00that your body is able to heal and it wants to heal, and to have faith in that and to just start very small. And there are so many people who are here to help and support as well. Uh, but just to have that faith in your body that vitality is our natural state, it is our birthright, and to try to believe in that and find their way to feel better.
SPEAKER_02I love it, I love it so much. Thank you so much for sharing. I am so incredibly grateful to have had this conversation with you today. Thank you for joining. I know that you're in Spain, so this is probably late night for you. So I really appreciate you being on today with us. And I just listening to your story and your calming presence has been exactly what I needed today. So thank you. And I'm really super grateful. Thank you so much. And listeners, I hope that you got as much from today's conversation with Eva as I did. I'm gonna go ahead and put all of her information in the show notes to stay connected with her. So please go take a look at that. Thank you for listening. I appreciate all of you tuning in every week to the show just to hear these amazing stories and see these incredible people getting through these incredible odds and seeing how they start seeing life happening for them and not to them. So I again appreciate you jumping on. Thanks for watching. Peace out, love your life. Bye.
