Healing from trauma: manta rays as therapy
Rae Madison Gerber is a licensed professional counselor who shares how repeated manta ray swims became touchstones during a period of career burnout, grief, and change. She reflects on how those experiences shaped her understanding of Body Trust, trauma held in the body, and what it means to keep moving forward when old paths no longer fit.
In this episode
What manta rays can teach us about self-acceptance and seeing bodies without judgment.
How Rae’s work with Body Trust shapes her approach to healing and care.
The role of listening inward and continuing forward to something better when the work you’re doing no longer fits.
How trauma lives in the body and why the ocean can help unlock what gets stuck.
How Rae imagines blending the power of the ocean with therapeutic work to create a different kind of healing space.
Watch the episode below, watch it on YouTube for clickable chapters/timestamps - or scroll down for a full summary and additional resources.
Episode Summary
When Rae’s dad suggested a nighttime manta ray snorkel in November 2022, her first reaction was “no, we aren’t.” She felt anxious about the snorkel and being seen in her swimsuit and had been trying to talk herself through it all day. But the moment she put her face in the ocean, the anxiety disappeared, replaced by pure joy.
At the time, Rae was beginning her own Body Trust journey and bringing that approach into her work as a therapist at an eating disorder treatment center. Watching people admire the mantas’ size without judgment gave her an emotional understanding she hadn’t fully accessed before, and helped her connect to her own body in a new way.
A year later, Rae returned to the mantas again, while navigating deep burnout and the toll of working in a system that clashed with her own ethics. That second swim was deeply reflective. She found herself sitting with grief about her past and her body, as well as the broader world around her, and paying close attention to what the ocean surfaced in her.
Over the months that followed, she took leave from work, moved back to San Diego, and focused on taking care of herself. Her relationship with the ocean deepened as she got scuba certified and started paying closer attention to what her body was telling her. That period ultimately led her into a new role working with BIPOC clients and racial trauma, work that finally felt aligned.
Her third swim, in November 2024, the day after the US presidential election, came at a moment of heavy personal and collective grief. Rae talks about how trauma lives in the body and how the ocean gave her space to process and release what she was holding. Martina shares a past guest’s insight that manta rays have a “superpower” of pushing trauma forward, something Rae felt in her own healing journey.
Now, Rae hopes to bring her two worlds together by creating a group therapy space rooted in Body Trust and ocean experience, helping people explore how reconnecting with the natural world can support deeper self-connection.
Today’s guest: Rae Madison Gerber
Rae Madison Gerber is a licensed professional counselor who divides her time between San Diego and Portland. With over a decade of experience across advocacy, research, and clinical work, she holds a BS in Psychology and an MA in Professional Mental Health Counseling with a specialization in addictions. Her practice centers on food and body sovereignty, shaped in part by her experience as a biracial person living with the impacts of intergenerational mental health and addiction.
As a certified Body Trust provider, Rae helps clients reconnect with a sense of autonomy and worth, including those healing from eating disorders. Her own recent healing has been shaped by time in the ocean and repeated encounters with manta rays, sparking a passion for exploring how these experiences can deepen body awareness and reshape our relationship with ourselves.
Resources from this episode
Center for Body Trust — Organization providing training, resources, and community around healing from weight stigma, where Rae completed her certification
Big Bertha (Kona manta ray) — One of the largest and longest-known female manta rays in Hawaii
PADI — Global scuba-diving training organization; a starting point for information on certification and courses