Ray The Healer

Transforming Pain into Power Overcoming Trauma

Ray Miller Season 1 Episode 6

Ever felt that unexplainable tightness in your gut or that nagging neck tension that seems to come out of nowhere? It might not just be 'one of those days'—your body could be bracing in response to stress or trauma. On today's episode, we unravel the mystery of bracing and its astonishing connection to chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, and even migraines. Through a tapestry of personal stories and expert insights, I guide you on a journey of recognition and gentle release of this deep-seated tension, offering practical steps to ease the burden on your nervous system and unlock a more comfortable, healthier you.

But what if your pain isn't just physical? For so many, unresolved trauma manifests as PTSD, anxiety, chronic fatigue, or digestive troubles. Here, I extend a compassionate hand to anyone carrying the silent scars of a traumatic past, providing thoughtful advice on how to confront and heal these hidden wounds. If you're ready to reclaim your power and joy, and curious about transforming your health from the inside out, this episode is your personal invitation to begin. Join me as we explore the transformative power of addressing the root causes of your discomfort and stepping into a space of healing and empowerment.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Ray the Healer, the only podcast created to help you get back to the best version of yourself. For over 27 years, ray Miller has been helping people stay healthy, active and pain-free. If you're suffering from acute or chronic pain, anxiety, ptsd, trauma or chronic illness, ray the Healer can help you regain your health, vitality and an amazing inner sense of power and joy. And now, please welcome Ray the Healer.

Speaker 2:

Hi, everybody, welcome, and I hope you're having a wonderful day today. Today we're going to talk about something that is not talked about often and I don't know if talked about really at all, and even if you Google it, you're really not going to find much information on it. But it is really a precursor to a lot of uncomfortable symptoms like chronic pain, autoimmune issues, gut health issues, migraines, etc. So on and so forth, right? So what is this mystery thing? Right? Well, it's called bracing, deep inner bracing in our bodies, right? So what is bracing?

Speaker 2:

Some people will ask me that when they come in and I'll tell them so, this picture is kind of unpleasant and it's something that has happened to me a couple of times actually, in my life. I've actually, if you're sitting in your car this actually happened to me and you're at a stoplight, say, looking in your rearview mirror, and you see a car coming behind you, and they're coming and they're not slowing down, not slowing down, not slowing down, and what happens to our bodies? We brace, right? We brace for impact, we brace for something bad to happen, and that could happen in a lot of different instances, but that's a real good example, right? So where does bracing come from? Well, it comes from trauma most of the time. So it really does come from trauma. It could be childhood trauma, it could be a one-off trauma, prolonged trauma, a lot of different things, but usually the more trauma we've had, the more bracing there is. Why aren't I just talking about trauma? Well, because a lot of people come in don't even connect that with trauma. They just don't connect their pain to trauma, right. But they can connect bracing sometimes, and sometimes it's a really good way to start doing deeper work is just identifying the bracing in their body, right. So somebody will come in and say I've tried 50 different things, I've tried all these different things, how come I don't feel better? So after I do an assessment and we go deeper into it, I'll say, well, I'll explain the bracing. I'll say so, do you think that's what you're doing? And I would say a good percentage of the time, people that are say that's exactly what I'm doing. How come nobody explained that to me like that, right, and it is really kind of shifting. It shifts their, their kind of consciousness about it and their kind of awareness about it in their minds and in their bodies.

Speaker 2:

Superficially, on bracing, there's a lot of different things we do, and one of the main things we do is touch work. Sometimes, but not always. But touch work could really help a person suffering from a lot of these syndromes really kind of get settled and be aware and start to connect to their body and see what's going on in there. But bracing is a good part and that's actually what is happening Bracing in the body. Why is this such an important thing? Well, it's A. It's creating symptoms. And just think about this. Just think about when you make, say, if you flex your bicep muscle right and you hold it there and you keep holding it there, what's going to happen? It's going to get sore, it's going to get painful, it's going to get fatigued. Right, and just picture bracing all of the time, because that's what we're really talking about. We're not talking about one time when you had a brace for something. We're talking about a deep inner bracing. That is how somebody is living. Insidious thing about this is it's subtle and we don't even know we're doing it until we have someone help us become aware and aware of that we're doing it and aware of the consequences of doing that.

Speaker 2:

You know, I really in a workshop on syndromes with Peter Labine, which is really amazing. He's the founder of Somatic Experiencing. It was really amazing. It was really enlightening for me. It was also something I put into practice right away with all my clients who have syndromes and migraines, chronic pain, stuff like that. So it's really subtle, it is and it's not talked about.

Speaker 2:

How do you know if you're bracing? Okay, here's an easy well, not an easy way, but here's a way you do it. Just make sure you're not driving listening to this, but you just want to. Just something I'm taking from Peter Levine, who actually says this to some clients and is something he was teaching. So if you say this to yourself, I give myself the gift of relieving deep inner bracing in my body and see what happens Now. If you had no response, that's okay. If you had an aha response, that's okay. If you had an aha response, that's good. Or if you saw some tension, relieve, that's fine. And also, if your symptoms increased, then see, I give myself the gift of releasing 5% of deep inner bracing and see what happens there.

Speaker 2:

Some people have a lot of bracing and just releasing it. It's a protective mechanism that we have from trauma. We don't want to just release all of it. It's protecting us. Remember, our nervous system really cares about survival and safety. But see what comes up for you on that and if nothing comes up, that's okay too.

Speaker 2:

But notice, just notice and be aware of your body, just little by little, on what's you know how bracing, how you might be bracing a lot, and just kind of bring your awareness to your body just a little bit and see if bracing is creating some of these symptoms. And a lot of times people really resonate with it and say, oh my gosh, I'm bracing all the time on my laptop, when I'm driving, when I'm walking. You know, there's not a relaxation in my body. There is relaxation to a certain level, but it's not a deep relaxation.

Speaker 2:

Why this is so important is because now we're bracing all the time. Right, it affects our gut health, our lymphatic system, our muscular system and it's not going to make us feel good. If you need help with this because this is kind of something that's not talked about a lot if you need help with this, you feel free to contact me through raymillerhealing at gmailcom and I could guide you, either if you're not in my area or if we could do a Zoom call. Even if this is a quick consultation, there's no pressure, but I could really help you navigate through this. If this resonates with you, I hope this was helpful. Today. There's a lot more information on this. This is just a nice way of letting people know about something that's not talked about a lot. I hope to see you soon on the next episode and have a great day. Bye-bye.

Speaker 1:

You've been listening to Ray the Healer, the only podcast created to help you get back to the best version of yourself. Ray Miller is the owner and founder of Ray Miller Healing and has been helping people stay healthy, active and pain-free for over 27 years. Ray helps clients with traumatic pasts reclaim their health and their lives by helping them heal from PTSD, anxiety and chronic conditions such as migraines, chronic fatigue and gut health issues, by getting to the root cause of the symptoms. If you're ready to regain your health, vitality and an inner sense of power and joy, connect with Ray at RayThehealercom. That's raythehealercom.