Heal with Grace

Grace Secker
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Heal With Grace is a podcast that invites listeners into the world of holistic healing. Hosted by Grace Secker, a trained holistic psychotherapist, yoga therapist, and nervous system coach, each episode delves into the interconnected realms of mental, physical, and spiritual health. The podcast offers a unique blend of personal stories, professional insights, and practical tools for healing.

  1. 11 Aug

    137. What I’m Doing to Prep My Nervous System for Travel

    You know that feeling when a trip is coming up and your brain starts running a whole side operation at 3am? That's what this episode is about: how to calm your nervous system before a trip, instead of white-knuckling your way through the two weeks beforehand. Grace is leaving for a three week trip and instead of packing her schedule and trying to get everything done before she goes, she's doing the opposite. She calls it her grounding period. No hard workouts. No last-minute house projects. No pretending the anxiety isn't there. Just noticing it, writing it down, and letting it be there without making it mean something's wrong. She also tells the story of the time she went straight from an ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica to a flight to Europe, no integration time, no rest, and how that taught her more about nervous system regulation than almost anything else has. Plus the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual prep she does now, what she actually does when a flare hits mid-trip, and the realization she just had about jet lag that's going to blow your mind a little. Resources mentioned: John Sarno / mind-body pain literature How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  2. 4 Aug

    136. Your Chronic Pain Is 100% Real and Here's Why Your Nervous System Is Still Behind It

    If you've ever had someone tell you your pain is real and then in the same breath tell you there's nothing wrong; this episode is for you. Here's the thing the medical model never made room for: both can be true at the same time. Your chronic pain and illness are real. Completely, 100% real. And your nervous system is still driving it. That is not a contradiction. That is how pain actually works. Symptoms are not a damage meter. They’re a danger signal. Your brain's best guess about how much threat your body is under. Which means two people can have the identical MRI findings and one of them is in agony and one of them is fine. And a person with completely clean scans can be in the worst pain of their life. The finding does not predict the feeling. That's not a flaw in the system; that's the system doing exactly what it was built to do. Grace breaks this down in this episode with two groups: people whose testing comes back clean (negative testing is not the end of the road — for a lot of you, it's the beginning of the real answer), and people who do have real positive findings. Both have nervous system involvement. The nervous system is the volume dial on pain, and it decides how loud the signal gets turned up — regardless of what the scan shows. There's also a sharp test in here worth knowing: pain that moves around from your shoulders to your hip to your jaw is not structural. Tissue damage doesn't travel. A dysregulated nervous system does. And pain that eases on vacation — if a beach touches it, it's nervous system. Save this one for when you’re flaring and need to hear it again. Resources mentioned: - Dr. Schechter — mind-body physician [GEL: link to his previous HWG episode] - PRT practitioner listserv  - Practitioner masterclass  - Mind-Body Healing Method program for nervous system healing  How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  3. 28 Jul

    135. What to Do When Healing Feels Stuck with Karden Rabin

    If you've been doing the breathwork, the journaling, the somatic work and you're still stuck — this episode is the one that explains why. Karden Rabin didn't arrive at this work as a patient who got lucky. He arrived as the practitioner who thought he had the answer. Twelve years as a bodyworker — craniosacral, structural integration, myofascial release, the whole thing. Then a seven-month horror show of back pain landed him on John Sarno's book. And he couldn't unknow it. He's now the founder of Somia International and the HEAL Program and the author of The Secret Language of the Body. What he brings to this conversation is the frame most people in this space are missing. Every technique you've been using; breathwork, brain retraining, journaling, somatic exercises is doing the same thing. It's interrupting and updating a protective pattern your nervous system built when it believed you were in danger. Most of those patterns aren't dangerous anymore. They're just on loop. The game isn't collecting more tools. It's recognizing the pattern and updating it toward safety. He also reframes something a lot of people in this work need to hear: calm isn't the goal. Calm is a dependent state; it's what happens when two things are true. You feel safe from danger (yin). And you know you can handle danger if it shows up (yang). Most people who've done a ton of inner work have a lot of yin. They're missing the yang. Not more softness - the felt sense that if life gets hard, you've got yourself. We also go into the "I can't" — the deep freeze that lives underneath most type A behavior, right before the double espresso and the push-through. And why dissolving it is completely different from powering past it. Resources mentioned: - The Secret Language of the Body by Karden Rabin and Jennifer Mann - Somia International / HEAL Program - John Sarno — Healing Back Pain How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  4. 21 Jul

    134. Nervous System 101: How to Know If It's Behind Your Chronic Pain or Illness

    There's a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from understanding everything and still not changing. You've read the books. You've listened to the podcasts. You can explain neuroplastic symptoms. You might even be fully bought in. And you're still sitting in your body going — so why isn't this working? That's what this episode is about. Here's the thing most people in this space haven't heard yet: insight and regulation are two completely different skills. They happen in different parts of your brain. You can have a life-changing realization about why your body does what it does, and your nervous system can sit there completely unmoved by it. Because it doesn't speak the language of insight. It speaks the language of experience. If a symptom has been in your body for more than six months — the pain, the fatigue, the gut stuff, the dizziness — your nervous system is involved. That's true no matter what your labs say. No matter what specialists have or haven't found. No matter how many times someone has told you they're not sure what's wrong. Your nervous system and chronic pain or illness are connected in ways the old medical model just never had room for. Grace shares from her own journey in this one — including a stretch where she went deep into the physical route, got caught in protocol after protocol, and realized she wasn't working with what actually mattered: the emotional state, the belief patterns, the stuff her body had been holding. The shift that changed everything for her wasn't more understanding. It was structure. A repeatable, sequenced framework for actually practicing regulation — not just knowing about it. This episode is for you if you're somewhere between knowing and doing. If you've absorbed all the education and your body still hasn't caught up. If you're wondering whether the nervous system piece is really what's going on for you. The map doesn't move you. The road does. How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  5. 14 Jul

    133. How Childhood Trauma Shapes Who We Become and What Clinicians Want to Know

    If you've ever heard that childhood trauma and chronic illness are connected — and immediately thought "but was mine actually bad enough to count?" — this episode is for you. Dr. Monica Fitzgerald is a licensed clinical psychologist, trauma researcher, and director of the Center for Resilience and Well-being at the University of Colorado Boulder. And she breaks something open in this conversation that I think a lot of people need to hear: the big T and little T framework? It's outdated. What we now know is that the small, ongoing, repeated things — the criticism, the dismissal, the not-quite-feeling-safe — can wire your nervous system just as powerfully as a single event. Sometimes more. She walks me through the three E's of trauma: the Event, the Experience, and the Effects. That second E is the one that changes everything. Two siblings can grow up in the same house and have completely different nervous system responses. Because trauma isn't just what happened — it's the meaning your system made of it, in the body of the person you were at that age, with the resources you had. We also talk about the backpack most people are carrying. Full of moments that made them question themselves, doubt their own experience, feel like they needed to be more or better to deserve love or safety. That backpack doesn't stay in the past. It shows up in chronic pain, in not trusting your body, in handing your healing over to every provider and hoping they fix it. And it starts to get lighter when you stop going at it alone. Monica's closing thought is something I'll be sitting with: we're not built to do this alone. None of us. And if a therapist you've seen has seemed overwhelmed by your story — that wasn't a sign your story was too much. It was a sign that wasn't the right fit. RESOURCES MENTIONED: - Dr. Monica Fitzgerald: Resilient Families Therapy - Center for Resilience and Well-being, CU Boulder How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  6. 7 Jul

    132. How to Actually Start Regulating Your Nervous System

    You've probably done a lot. The podcasts, the books, the breathwork, the therapy. You might be able to explain how your nervous system works better than most people can. And you're still not where you want to be. That gap — between knowing and actually healing — is exactly what this episode is about. Understanding and healing are two completely different skills. Understanding lives in the mind. Healing lives in the body. Your nervous system doesn't respond to insight. It responds to experience. You can have the clearest, most accurate awareness of what's keeping you stuck — and your body can still be sitting there completely unmoved by it. Grace calls this the map versus the road. Insight is the map. Regulation is the road. And a map, no matter how accurate, no matter how detailed, never moved anyone a single inch. She also goes into something a lot of people skip: you don't have to trace every trauma back to its origin or have everything figured out before you start. The work doesn't require perfect understanding first. It requires actually doing it. And there is a structure to it — it's not vague. It's sequenced, repeatable, something you can actually follow. If you've been circling the information for a while and wondering when things are going to actually shift -> this one's for you. Resources mentioned:  Free mind-body masterclass training Practitioner training waitlist How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  7. 30 Jun

    131. How Andrea Reclaimed Health Anxiety and Bladder Symptoms

    If you've been told your interstitial cystitis is something you just learn to manage — this episode is for you. Andrea spent two years cycling through doctors, prescriptions, the IC diet, and specialists. Her symptoms started as IC, then added vulvodynia, then joint pain. Different labels, same pattern: her nervous system running on constant high alert. What finally shifted things wasn't a new protocol. It was the moment she fully, 100% believed her mind was driving her symptoms. Not a little bit. Not "maybe." All the way. She talks about what that actually looked like in practice — stopping the elimination diets (which were making her more hypervigilant, not better), cancelling a specialist appointment, quitting the IC Facebook groups, never going back to medical Reddit. Not from giving up. From finally understanding what was causing her symptoms. There's a moment in this conversation where Andrea describes going from counting the minutes between bathroom trips — giving herself gold stars for every three hours — to just... not. Not tracking it. Not thinking about it. That quiet shift in mental focus was the first real sign something was changing. She also talks about the tools that helped. Heart coherence meditations. Channeling the feeling of vacation. The Eras Tour. Music. Not because they're magic, but because they showed her nervous system what safety actually feels like — and it turns out, you can practice that. One of the things she said that stuck with me: "This was never just about the symptoms. I needed to change the way I approach life." That's what this episode is really about. Resources mentioned: Andrea's Instagram: @instinctualmothering and @socialboob  How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

  8. 23 Jun

    130. How to build Self Trust in Healing with Dr. Rita Gupta

    You've been to the specialists. You've done the tests. And you still feel like nobody really knows what's wrong — or how to fix it. That's not you failing. That's a gap in medicine that mind-body medicine chronic pain practitioners are finally starting to close. Dr. Rita Gupta spent almost 20 years as a primary care physician watching her patients get sicker despite everything she offered. The referrals, the labs, the medications. She had access to every record, sat with them through every specialist visit. And she was watching people not get better. That wore on her. Then she ruptured a disc in her neck and was told surgery was her only option. She didn't take it. She turned inward -> toward integrated medicine, mind-body work, pain reprocessing therapy, mindfulness. And she eventually left conventional medicine entirely to practice the kind of care she couldn't offer inside the system. In this episode, we get into something that doesn't get talked about enough: self-trust as medicine. Not as a mindset hack or a feel-good concept. As an actual biological process that shifts your nervous system, lowers your threat response, and creates real relief. Here's what changes when you stop trying to force your body into submission and learn to be with what's there instead: your threshold expands. The loop breaks. Your values become a compass instead of a source of grief. Dr. Rita says it plainly - every time you can sit with a sensation without collapsing, you're building something. Not ignoring it. Not giving up. Building. Resources mentioned in this episode: - Alan Gordon / Pain Reprocessing Therapy - Ellen Alden's Long COVID community  - Dr. Rita Gupta's website How to work with Grace: Practitioner Training-Mind Body Integtration Method Founding Cohort WaitlistMind-Body Healing Method Course - Regulate your nervous system nowFree Masterclass: How to Know If Your Nervous System Is Behind Your SymptomsWork with us in private mind-body coaching Subscribe to my Substack for the deeper how-to'sConnect with Grace Connect on InstagramCheck out my website

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About

Heal With Grace is a podcast that invites listeners into the world of holistic healing. Hosted by Grace Secker, a trained holistic psychotherapist, yoga therapist, and nervous system coach, each episode delves into the interconnected realms of mental, physical, and spiritual health. The podcast offers a unique blend of personal stories, professional insights, and practical tools for healing.

Information

  • Creator
    Grace Secker
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    136
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Heal with Grace
  • Show Website
    Heal with Grace