Today we’d like to introduce you to Emilie Miller.
Emilie, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Though born on the West Coast, I grew up in Massachusetts. After attending college in NYC, I decided to stay and ended up living in the city for 15 years. Throughout high school and college I acted, mostly on stage, but some film and television. In my 20s I started a theater company with a friend. Our desire was to produce “socially conscious theatre.” With each of our shows, we partnered with local not-for-profits, many of which I ended up doing volunteer work for, due to my innate desire to be of service to others.
Also while in my 20s, in NYC, I was violently attacked at night, in the alley of a hospital, by more than one person. After this happened I was stunned. I was in shock. There was no part of me that knew what to do. I did not go the police, but went home to Massachusetts for a month and then went back to NYC for another decade. After being assaulted I did not seek therapy. I only went to one psychiatrist who put me on medication, never discussed the trauma with me, and so I put the assault behind me (so I thought).
As the years progressed, I started to struggle with memorizing my lines for plays and developed stage fright. I always had a bit of a tremor (and still do), but it worsened and was especially apparent when I was performing. I couldn’t hold anything lightweight on stage because the shaking was so distracting. I had to stop acting and left my theatre company. The cloud of shame I lived in was so intense that I did not seek the care of a neurologist. My psychiatrist just gave me Xanax to minimize the shaking and that was it.
Following this, for a brief time, I worked for an Australian design company, but was generally without direction when it came to my career. It was by chance that I discovered Pilates. I volunteered for a high-end sports club in midtown Manhattan and with that came a membership, but I lived in Brooklyn. When I would take the subway home after a workout, during crowded rush hours, the feeling of strangers pushed up against my body stirred up painful anxiety in me. One day I took a Pilates class at the gym, got one the train, and felt calm. Soon Pilates was my fitness mainstay: if my workout did not include Pilates, I was anxious taking the subway home.
I started Pilates to move my body, but continued with Pilates because of how it made me feel. So significant were the changes I physically and mentally experienced due to my regular Pilates practice that I decided to pursue Pilates professionally and became an instructor: one of the last to be trained and certified by Joseph Pilates’s protege, Romana Kryzanowska, before her passing. Sharing with others the whole-body strength and emotional relief I felt from Pilates was what motivated me to teach. Pilates cultivated physical and mental empowerment in me – I didn’t know why – but that soon changed.
It was not until after many years of practicing and teaching Pilates that I realized the method was benefiting me on a deeper level: the movement was down-regulating the persistent fight/flight/freeze/fawn state I was living in due to being violently sexually assaulted and neglecting post-trauma, to confront the process recovery. My body, I discovered, was in a holding pattern and storing the trauma from years past that my brain had tried to forget.
Years of repressed suffering emerged as I dove into deeply focusing on my body in my Pilates practice. Through the door opened by Pilates, I realized I had lost my true self in the aftermath of the assault, but by trusting this accidental reconnection with my body, I discovered that my original blueprint was still there, buried within me, yet still accessible.
As painful, violent memories and sensations rose to the surface, I began to see how the repression of present horrific memories of the past had been controlling much of my adult life. Many of the choices I made for myself post-assault were subconsciously directed by the false belief that I was unsafe in the world. Finally I knew well enough to seek professional help. Soon thereafter I was officially diagnosed with RR-PTSD (rape-related post-traumatic stress disorder). Unwittingly, because of the deliberate, focused movement Pilates requires, I found a way to safely reestablish sensation in my body, awareness of my breath; grounding, reliable physical strength; and I safely began to unwind the protective armor of immobile connective tissue (fascia) I had become bound more tightly within as each year passed and being assaulted, went unacknowledged. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk emphasizes that feeling safe in the body is crucial for trauma healing.
While teaching Pilates I began to recognize in my clients physical limitations similar to my own, and more specifically, they were limitations I had traced back to the trauma-related tightness. This was when I began to study fascia – the continuous web of connective tissue that both holds us together and up, but also allows for mobility in the body. I received experiential certifications in Jill Miller’s Roll Model and Yamuna Zake’s Yamuna Body Rolling. Then, I watched as incorporating these practices into sessions unlocked freedom of movement in my body and those of my clients. Recognizing the possibility of trauma in so many of my clients, I could not help but reflect on the “coincidence” of traumatized clients being drawn to a traumatized teacher, with neither party knowing the other’s history of trauma. What drew us together?
Having been trained by Romana, I learned to teach with attention to detail, humor, and intentional kindness. My teaching has also always been both nurturing and challenging. Romana pushed us without raising her voice. She never used force or “tough love” to advance our abilities. My later, proven hypothesis was that my style of teaching (passed down from Romana) subconsciously drew traumatized individuals to me, just as I was drawn to Romana. Yet we would still hit these obstacles in progression, that even the fascia work could not get us over. Guided by intuition I altered my teaching style minimally and then watched as these alterations created almost a lotus-blossoming-from-the-dirt effect on my clients. In providing this interview, I am unearthing linchpins in my personal and professional trajectories, and watching my clients blossom not because I changed an exercise (I didn’t), but instead changed how I taught an exercise, was a turning point.
It was at this time that I established PilatesEmbodied LLC. My LLC’s “slogan” is: with a liberated body, comes a liberated life. Under my LLC I began to teach independently in NYC and develop a teaching process that was mindful of what my clients’ body may have been through. After operating solo for a few years, I began to feel less comfortable with solely relying on my intuition when teaching such a complex population, of which I was a member. My purpose had changed and I needed to understand what I was experiencing and witnessing with traumatized clients.
In seeking therapy for sexual trauma I found that talk therapy was not effective. It did not serve me to discuss being assaulted for an hour every week, but I needed to find something that would serve me. To gain a deeper understanding of psychological trauma and its effects on the body and the body’s role in healing, I participated in retreats and trainings led by trauma experts, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk and Dr. Peter Levine. I completed Lisa Danylchuk’s Yoga for Trauma (Y4T) certification course. Ultimately, I moved back across the country to San Francisco and the California Institute of Integral Studies. There, I earned a Master of Arts in Integrative Health Studies, and focused my studies on the neurobiology of trauma and the application of somatic therapies for post-trauma management.
My studies inevitably led me back to fascia and our 10th cranial nerve: the vagus nerve. My continued years of training with Tom Myers, Gil Hedley, and most recently, Robert Schleip have shaped my understanding of how trauma and our nerves are both embedded in our body’s fascia. This includes the vagus nerve, the primary line of communication between the brain and the body. With trauma creating building tension in our fascia, that tension eventually interferes with nerve signaling. When the vagus nerve is misfiring, this presents often as physical pathologies of unknown origin. The rabbit hole that trauma has taken me down has not hit bottom, as we are learning more and more about how “mysterious,” “unexplained” physical symptoms are linked to how unprocessed trauma compromises communication and function within our nervous system.
Using my education and personal experience, I began to more formally adapt trauma-informed yoga to Pilates, as I had intuitively begun to do when I established PilatesEmbodied. I continue to research body-based techniques for nervous-system regulation, and techniques that acknowledge how trauma from long past can wreak havoc in your body present-day. It has been personally important for me to understand and differentiate the effects of sexual assault-related trauma from trauma of other origin. This includes anatomical, interpersonal, and socio-economic considerations of SA-related trauma.
To provide myself with a comprehensive perspective on the repercussions of rape on the physical body, I began studying the pelvic floor through the Herman & Wallace Pelvic Rehabilitation Institute. The pelvic floor ended up being another topic that required a deep dive on my part – one that continues. It brings me great joy to educate women (guys, too!) on their pelvic floor and offer autonomy when it comes to caring for one’s pelvic floor.
My heart lies in teaching clients one-on-one, but I am just one person, and the more I can educate my cohorts on trauma and teaching with knowledge of trauma’s effect on the body and nervous system, the further the reach of relief can be. As much as possible, I now provide research-supported, nervous system-informed continuing education and consulting to certified teachers. Though clients are unlikely to disclose past sexual trauma, with 1 in 5 women being sexual assault survivors, all movement teachers will, with certainty, work with this population. It is our responsibility to teach bodies that have been sexually victimized without triggering the client.
After years of EMDR and body-centered trauma therapies, I took a Pilates class taught by a “Master” Pilates instructor that caused a panic attack so severe that I became physically ill before I could get out of the studio. The music had been too loud, the teacher was yelling at us, and calling out perceived lack of ability in classmates. The sustained noise and critical voice while my body was vulnerable was more than my nervous system could handle.
In a private session with another “Master” Pilates instructor, she regarded my trembling/shaking with a face that did not hide shock and criticism, as I believe she thought my shaking was due to weakness and I was a Pilates instructor – I should not be weak! She continued, throughout the session, to advise me to try to stop shaking. Trembling during exercise or at any time, is a neurogenic response indicative of your body releasing stored stress and tension, which traumatized individuals carry around in excess. After I was raped, I trembled so consistently and severely that I could not be on stage anymore. I thought I had stage fright. Trembling is a normal self-regulating response and ideally, if noted by the teacher, should be normalized and encouraged by the teacher – not called out, questioned, or fought. When you teach physical movement, you are conversing directly with the nervous system. What I provide in my teaching, consulting, and continuing education training is how to speak the unspoken language of the nervous system. Balanced strength and flexibility that Joseph Pilates idealized is only an option when there is balance in the nervous system.
Since moving to North County in 2018, I completed the hours of training required to become a SART (Sexual Assault Response Team) volunteer. Much of the time, PTSD in rape victims develops because of how they are treated post-assault, by those who should be believing them and helping them. The presence of a safe, non-judgmental, compassionate person (even if a stranger) in the immediate aftermath of sexual assault, during the rape kit collection, can mitigate the possibility of future PTSD. Since putting myself out into the world as a sexual assault survivor who uses Pilates, fascia-awareness, and the Polyvagal Theory to augment practices provided by a licensed trauma therapist, I have been featured in various magazines, like Pilates Style Magazine, and guest-blogged on social media platforms. I have been involved in public speaking for survivors and the lawyers who represent them. I would LOVE to work with law enforcement on understanding and communicating effectively with peri-trauma survivors. I did not go to the police after I was raped because every anecdote I’d overheard from other survivors about their experience in reporting sexual assault was almost worse than the assault itself.
I have had multiple professional landing pads over the years in North County. I have amassed a studio’s worth of Gratz Pilates apparatus, but haven’t a space to unpack and use most of it. I have yet to create or find quite the right space for providing my services. As needed as they are, given the number of sexual assault survivors suffering in silence, my history, my knowledge and services continue to possess stigma, and even political undertones. I am not a licensed therapist and my “audience” is one that, for good reason, does not readily reveal itself.
The shame of being an SA survivor remains post-#metoo. Covert rape culture still cloaks society. I speak my truth not because it serves me – it makes me deeply uncomfortable – but because it serves other survivors. The more we talk about sexual assault, the more we bring it into the light. Perpetrators depend on darkness to carry out their crimes. When we speak up we force social acknowledgment and confrontation. Shining a light on sexual assault, even one’s own, is the best form of prevention.
Dating all the way back to when I had my theatre company, I have innately wanted to be of service to others and where I find I serve best is in my ability to read one’s body. One client called me, “a body whisperer.” I provide person-centered fitness, meaning I offer exercise stemming from Pilates, in combination with recovery that typically addresses the fascia. What I provide looks different with every client because it is completely centered around the person in front of me. One size does not fit all when it comes to the body and exercise. Very much the opposite. Eventually, everyone reaches an age where they realize this truth and typically the realization occurs while simultaneously discovering that the high-impact exercise they’ve been doing for years has actually worn their body down.
After working as the Assistant Fitness Director at Cal-a-Vie Health Spa in Vista, I recently left to support a business partner in launching Allison Beardsley’s (Club Pilates) newest endeavor, Red Light Method in Carlsbad. The Red Light Method franchise combines medical grade, FDA-cleared red light therapy with Pilates, and Power Plates. Our first studio (Carlsbad) will also provide PEMF mat therapy, Exercise with Oxygen Therapy, an Infrared Sauna, and a Styku 3D Body Composition Scanner. My winding path, much like the vagus nerve, has explored multiple disciplines and healing modalities. Before graduate school I started listening to Dave Asprey’s podcast and began to educate myself on how biotechnology is used to optimize functionality (biohacking).
When I was approached about bringing my standard of service and knowledge to Red Light Method, it was a most auspicious invitation. Red Light Method provides services that I have been studying for a minimum of 7 years, maximum, 18 years. I know, understand, and have luckily experienced how each modality we offer provides relief, results, empowerment, longevity, and autonomy. These services have had a positive outcome on health issues I possess because of the systemic effects of untreated trauma. In combination under one roof, the efficacy of these services will only be enhanced. Perhaps most importantly, Red Light Method offers these services at accessible price points. This brings non-invasive complementary and alternative wellness to a wider community. One of the sticking points I bring up in educating people about trauma is how expensive the effective therapies are. Health insurance is only now slowly beginning to pay for “outside the box” therapies that have been supported by peer-reviewed research for decades.
Being of service to others is my life’s purpose, especially when it comes to providing relief to those who, like me, have struggled in the shadows. The thing about trauma is that if you ignore it, it will haunt you, but if you confront it at any time post-trauma – even decades later – you have the tools to lift the imprint trauma has left on your brain, your body, and your life. You inherently have every tool you need to loosen the grip of trauma, you just have to learn what those tools are and learn how to access them. You might access them through Pilates, as I did, or through the balance work required on the Power Plate. Often, unlocking access to healing can require trying many things that ultimately do not work (one size does not fit all). If you keep going, take it slowly. The life that is on the other side of that pain is waiting within you and will always be there. When you do find your way in, there will be more pain before there is relief, but you are brave: Look how much you’ve already been through.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I educate those who provide body-based services on the considerations of working with someone living with past, unprocessed trauma. My focus is sexual trauma, as I am an SA survivor. This focus has led me to also specialize in pelvic floor health. I use my extensive education to help those suffering with trauma find relief and provide support to other practitioners who want to better serve their clients, who possibly have dysregulation in their autonomic nervous system. Most recently I partnered with another resident of North County to open Red Light Method in Carlsbad. The studio offers many nervous system regulating services that are typically inaccessible to trauma survivors as many struggle financially. The business model of this studio makes it possible for us to charge less for highly effective medical grade services that address health issues seen often among those with both treated and untreated trauma.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
Listen to your gut first and foremost and do not be afraid to ask someone to mentor you. If you don’t ask, the answer will always be “no.” If you ask, then “yes” is a possibility. Asking is what worked for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://pilatesembodied.com
- Instagram: @pilatesembodied
- LinkedIn: https://LinkedIn.com/in/emiliemiller
Image Credits
Franziska Schirmer
Vela Estrela
