Integrative Healing - Lisa Meuser

The Bear S2. I am in love with how s**t was going down, down down, and instead of doubling down, when humans often do when we're up against the wall, Richie got out of his own way and let life have him and he level shifts so hard. I mean, he was invited to show up and participate in his own life, with authentic and integrity, and HE DOES. He eats humble pie and just takes off, finding an empowered sense of self that was just waiting for him.
Damn. "I wear suits now." He's so in.

Don't spoil it for me, those who have watched past where I am (S2, E6). 🤣

i’m slowly making my way through The Bear. (Anyone who’s worked heavy duty in the industry might consider taking their time with this one)
Every episode has gems a plenty. Sometimes lines just come barreling through.
S2E4  “I think at a certain stage it becomes less about skill and it’s more about being open … to the world, to yourself, to other people… “
(He goes on to name the power of inspiration). “It always helps to have good people around you too.”

i love it when my worlds collide, when what I’m contemplating generatively reveals itself in many places. Love is kind like that.

Toward the end of a session with a client, we named that there were inner parts that had not yet known love- that were in “love becoming” (a phrase my teachers use). They reminded me that I’d written about love becoming, and that it’s been so useful for them. They went on, referencing a blog post I’d written a couple years ago, during a time when I was writing a series on Trusting Life, which, for most of us is one of the hardest things possible.

It always makes me happy to hear how what I’ve written or put onto Insight Timer has helped folks. And even more than that, when they offer my own sharings back to me-because I almost always need to be reminded. I needed to be reminded of this blog post, because, well… underneath my own deconstruction that is occuring is also the important remembering that yes, I can trust life. Amidst forgetting and remembering. Amidst dissolution and reconfiguring. Amidst struggle and challenge and bountiful expansion, I can trust life. Which is also to say: I can trust this moment which is in co-creation, that I am very much a part of.

One thing led to another, and we wound up re-membering the first three of the 12 steps, which can basically get broken down to (1) I can’t, (2) god can, (3) will I let god? Because colonization has mucked up so many words, including god, I like to mess around with it. Today’s messing around led to this co-creation with my client:

Step 1- my small traumatized self (who is in love becoming) can’t manage/control/figure it all out.
Step 2- The present moment – this very moment (life/god)- can.
Step 3- Will I let the present moment (life/god) have me? ( Will I re-orient again and again back to this very moment to receive the support that is Here?)

I find these 3 steps, broken down like this, so helpful. Not easy, but practically helpful- like a roadmap is helpful once you know how to maneuver a car.

Oh yikkkes embodiment is brave work, and, bravery is generative, allowing us to be generative humans co-creating this life together. My clients are such amazing creatures. Yes, sometimes I am a tired therapist (tired therapist™ ), but most of the time they enliven me, give me hope, and remind me that we are creatures created with the ability to evolutionize in amazing ways. Halleluiah

To read more about love becoming and trusting life, check out my blog post titled “Trusting Life: a Series of Posts Chronicalling Internal Wounds Wanting Love”, link in comments!

Who's going to this? There's a 2 for 1 special going until August 22nd. Who wants in with me?

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Hope, forgiveness, perseverance, words

These were the 4 check out words yesterday from our small jail writing circle. Sweet, heart felt sharing filled that hour, and led me to process some of my own writing through my fast write:

Via a quote from Barbara Guest, she shared that art can appear to have no beginning and no end, that it can have no limits. So that it can delimit.

My heart feels warm and hopeful reading this- a reminder that my own writing can be both obscure and clear, and open. A needed reminder. A breath of fresh air.

Eightish years ago I wrote poetry almost every day. I could not not write it. It wrote itself- I just had to stop what I was doing long enough to get the words down. It was my “I’m Reclaiming my Heart” series. And, was it ever.

I was being birthed through death- an abusive past cracking me open through an abusive relationship that played hide and seek with me so exquisitely. Where the torment was woven with expansion. Those poems kept my heart opening and my sanity intact.

Each poem would start with a ripping open, a rupture. But I had a child to raise, and a job to perform, and so I ended each poem as if everything was ok, because I needed everything to be ok. I needed everything to be ok, especially because it so wasn’t ok.

I can look back and see that world, and what poetry helped me with. It was a cornerstone. It kept me alive, in so many ways. In so many crazy ways.

I see how I am free to write differently now. There is a visceral spaciousness in me now that it is hard to describe, but it makes everything different. I don't need to know how this will end. I don't need to know how anything will end.

I started the day discovering that some tomatoes almost ready to pick! Then, writing in the jail with the guys.

My fast write in the jail, with the help of Derek Walcott’s poem, “Love After Love,” and the phrase “Feast on your life”…

Beginners mind, is on my mind. I wrote about the practice of establishing beginners mind with my students this morning. I reminded us that connecting to beginner’s mind has a prayer energy in it. As if to say, dear god, dear divinity, help me to see X with new eyes, to see X differently, to see X from a new perspective. From the place of a beginner. From the place of beginner's mind.

There is humility in this practice, as we are asking to let go of our old understanding of something, so that we may have access to new. An opening, a calling forth, so that we may see with our hearts more clearly. So that we may meet this moment in the present, not burdened by the past or the future. So that we may feast upon, feast with, this breath now entering our body. So that we may connect with X thing happening in our lives with new possibility.

What would I like to see differently, approach differently, have beginners mind with, so that I may be feasting with life in the most vibrant way possible? How can I summarize something as grand as the desire to have beginner’s mind with regards to who I've been in the past. Can I let myself state quite simply, “I want to have beginners mind with regards to who I've been.” I will try. I will try knowing that, ideally, this will translate into an allowance for everyone I come in contact- me, extending beginners mind, to you, too. But I will begin with me.

Dear highest divine, I want to have beginner’s mind to who I've been. I want to drop my stories of myself, my judgments, myself self-flagellation, my superiority, my righteousness. I want to drop my ideas of me and invite myself to begin again. To feast on this moment, unencumbered. This pencil in this hand, now. This breath in these lungs, now. These sounds through these ears, now. My body in this chair, in this moment.

Can I be here now and be available for the feast that is that is waiting for me to notice, for the feast that is already here? Can I allow myself to enjoy what is simply here now?

I was looking for something, which I didn’t find, but I did find my favorite sunglasses- which had been lost for about 5 months!!!
I love that feeling of surprise!

Today was the first day of MIE4 (Matrix Integration Exploration year 4), and I was pleasantly surprised to feel a new depth within myself show up as I was going over our MIE practices- practices that are exquisitely designed to help us to get beautifully intimate with ourself. As I was modeling the embodiment of these practices, a me showed up that was free-er than the me who has been teaching these practices for 4 years now!

This new depth excites me! Delights me! And humbles me, leaving me with deep gratitude for the generative nature of Heart’s desire to be free, and in communion with Love.

It was a pleasure to listen as people shared why they had signed up:
· I’m back for the community. Doing the practices on my own is not the same.
· What we do together is powerful.
· There is a soft landing for me here in this community.
· I don’t have to worry about fixing myself here.
· The practices help me to know myself better.
· This community gives me stability.
· I find support here with this nonlinear path (of life).
· It (simply) feels right to be here.
· I need reminders of what is good and useful for me on this journey (accountability).

We’ve all tried to hustle, bustle and muster our way through life as solitary practitioners, and now we’ve tasted community, we just simply do not want go back to that individualistic model.
I’m looking forward to the next 6 months with these humans!

I’m experiencing some eclipse hang over today. Maybe you too?

What a day… To be able to study bright sun, full on shadows, and the relationship between the two… well, it was exquisite. And it was a choice, as I knew I’d be out in this field of “in-between,” of shadow. There was a nakedness in that space… As such, a necessity to stay in heart, in purpose. I remember, at one point, having a hug with one of my loves, and it so comforting to my nervous system. And so much playfulness, to experience such a drastic shift on the material plane. We were all in various states of awe and curiosity and wonderment throughout the experience.

I had a restless sleep last night, and restless dreams. The resonance feeling very akin to the time right before, during, and after the totality of the eclipse.

There was so much in that period of time in addition to the wonderment: a very obvious dullness, coolness, and mutedness: shadow. That which is always here, but not always as obvious as what we can see in an eclipse. And lots of metaphors with regards to the sun/son, and shadows/fear, and the interplay of these seeming various manifestations / realities. I’m recalling how writers/directors have tried to portray this resonance - in the Harry Potter series with the dementors, and in the Lord of the Ring series when Bilbo puts on the ring. This space in-between becomes “seen” and known by the characters. The viewer/reader has access to a story arc where there is an overt lack of love/where love is not yet known, where there is much love in becoming/ on its way to embodiment. The shadow must be passed through / visited… to meet the sun/love, and it is a journey indeed.

I’ll never forget when, right after totality, as the moon and sun started to move apart. The light and heat that returned was so fast! So amazing. The aliveness so very accessible, to those of us with blue skies over head. We could feel that arrival of sun (love) back into our lives.

I am mostly in the mystery today in the aftermath of this event. Aware of the intersectionality of everything.
Just now I drew Innocence, from the Osho deck, which, is reminding me that after the release of the shadow, innocence is revived. Phew.

A fast write from this week’s writing circle in the jail. With the prompt, “in a place of hardness, what brings a cushion to your head,” I reflected upon my morning.

The texture of flannel on my fingers.
The weight of the blanket on top of me.
The pillow under my head.
I'm warm. I'm being supported by the mattress. I’m enclosed.

I stretch my back, I feel my muscles, I breathe.
I move slowly, gently.
I take in the way the light is coming through the window.
How the light is in the sky.

I look for the blue, I look for the sun.
When I can't find either, I look
for the swaying branches,
the squirrels hopping, the birds cheeping.

As I move from room to room I
see the light streaming in,
the cats weaving through my feet.

Eventually
that 1st cup of tea.
I sit. I breathe. I listen.

This morning, hearing of my friends troubles,
I said to him – God loves you.
My spine shook awake:
that truth waking me up,
reminding me
that God loves indiscriminately.
That we’re with love.

He tells me he felt it too, when he
heard my words,
and now we're both
being remembered by God
and there is less hardness
and I make another cup of tea.

❤️
i write with the guys in jail every week through a Women Writing for (a) Change-Bloomington outreach program. please consider donating to help it continue. link in comments !

I hear a lot from people that what’s going on with the genocide in Palestine and/or the anti trans legislation (transphobia) and/or is too much to feel/be with/ let in, etc.

Yesterday some of us gathered to feel into some of what’s going on in the world... well really, we gathered to feel into ourselves with regards to what’s going on in the world.

We did this very slowly and we learned how to stay in and with our bodies in ways that allow us to stay grounded (co-regulated) while we feel into big happenings in the world that correlate to big feelings inside ourselves.

We had a really cool conversation afterwards about how our culture has really gotten confused on what prayer is and isn’t, which, from where I sit as a trauma therapist, keeps us disempowered and afraid to turn towards oppressions out in the world that also co-exist inside of ourselves. I didn’t get that part in the recording, but I did record the facilitated rest mediation.

If you’re interested in the recording, please reach out privately and I’ll send it to you!

I wrote the below blurb this morning, and then… my first session of the day was with a student/client who wanted to explore their core desires. SO.MUCH.YUM.

There is so much fertile depth in exploring our core desires. And vulnerability! We don’t live in a culture that honors our core desires, we live in a capitalist culture that tries to force us into material or compensatory desires (which are fine, but ultimately are not satisfying over time). So, when we’re not tuned into or aware of our core desires, we can easily live in a hamster wheel kind of existence, exhausted and unfulfilled, not even knowing why.

If this is new language or territory for you, feel free to reach out. We’ll be deepening into this for sure in my course which starts at the end of April!

“Pay attention to what your core desires are- to what you most inherently desire that isn’t material based. If you don’t, how can you have a have what you desire?”

Someone I have recently met has checked me out on Facebook. (I am a big van of vetting so I’m alright with this!) They were impressed with how much I share of myself on Facebook. And, while this is true, after checking out my own wall, I realized that it’s been more true in the past. it’s not that this person‘s words, “you’re an open book”, are not true. And in our exchanges I have been an open book, because I am pretty open to anyone who’s in my immediacy that wants to know of me and is vulnerable enough to slow down to ask me interesting and curious questions.

But as I look back on my own Facebook wall, I notice I’ve been more quiet about my personal life. This isn’t a judgment. It’s just a reflection. And I can say that it’s likely the case because a lot of the journeying that I’m engaged with at the moment is hard to translate into words, but also because I am interested in a specific kind of mutuality these days that may or may not happen on FB.

Oddly enough, I share more personal stuff in my Instagram stories these days, because of the ease of the platform, and also because I find more mutually in that. But really, all this to say… there has been a beautiful depth co-occurring within me the last bit of time that I may not be as verbal about on FB. The depths are great and wide, the connections are beautiful. The journey extremely bountiful. Not always easy. Sometimes disorienting and painful.

Sharing, perhaps, is happening in more intimate settings/dynamics these days: with the folks that I work with in the jail (phew do they know a lot about me!), my students and clients, the people I play sports with and do social justice/change work with, my loves who are also on a heart/love/god first path… and many others i am honored to have in my sphere. We know each others joys and sorrows, despairs and hopes. We lean in, and we lean in. These are heavy times. We love each other. And we have fun and joy together.

i was with one such group last night and i was reminded of how things change. Appearances are illusive, by nature. My heart knows and values depth, and the availability of curiosity. My being is both a liberator, and on a journey of liberation. I am the kind of person who is all in, and goes all the way. That looks and feels different than I used to imagine. Phew. I am not for everyone, and that’s ok. If you’ve made it this far, you’re likely one of my people, and whether we know each other or not, we know each other. And I’m grateful for you.

When I’m judging myself, when I’m mean with myself, it’s because I don’t have all the information and I’m applying limiting ideas to my amazing and abundant self.

“Discomfort isn’t bad, and doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong, or that I am at fault in any way. I’m learning that I don’t have to judge myself when I’m feeling discomfort- I can just be in the moment.
Listening to the rest recordings on Insight Timer in conjunction with our 1:1 sessions is helping me learn how to be with discomfort without panicking.”

Discoveries from a new client. She’s doing brave things in her life and i’m excited to be on this journey with her.


http://integrativehealingnow.com/
link in bio!

“Discomfort isn’t bad, and doesn’t mean I’m doing anything wrong, or that I am at fault in any way. I’m learning that I don’t have to judge myself when I’m feeling discomfort- I can just be in the moment.
Listening to the rest recordings on Insight Timer in conjunction with our 1:1 sessions is helping me learn how to be with discomfort without panicking.”

Discoveries from a new client. She’s doing brave things in her life and i’m excited to be on this journey with her.

My trip back from Miami has taken some twists and turns, resulting in posting photos and writing a newsletter, which I just sent out. If you're on my mailing list, check your junk mail if you haven't gotten it.
If you'd like a neatly compiled source for my newest Insight Timer audio recordings, blog posts, courses, and YouTube, signing up to receive my newsletter is the easiest way to obtain them.

https://mailchi.mp/0c728fc952b9/have-you-realized-we-are-in-this-together-12763876

Always and forever, regardless of appearance, regardless of my interpretations of events, regardless of what it seems….
Life is always moving ever towards life, is always in co-creation, is always generative.
Even if some parts of me don’t yet embrace this, I feel relief when I remember this, when I’m remembered in this truth.
There is no real stagnation. There is no real permanence. There is no real rigidity. Just perceptions of.

Self compassion- kindness towards one self.

I don’t know about you, but for me- compassion for myself is one of the stickiest parts of being human. In one of our Matrix Integration Exploration classes someone requested that I lead a guided rest mediation on compassion.

In this 35-minute rest (note that in the beginning, it says it will be 10ish, but I wound up extending it) we co-regulate our brain/nervous system by slowly including the senses and connecting them with what is simply here now in the actual factual.

As we find ourselves somatically anchored and co-regulated at this moment, we slowly allow ourselves to notice and include other aspects of our experience that we may be struggling with, and we slowly bring compassion to ourselves about all the various parts of our humanity.

Please let me know how it was for you to listen to this recording. I always welcome feedback, as well as topics for future recordings.

Link is in bio under Insight Timer- search for “Having Compassion For Our Humanity: A Journey Of Regulation”
and also here

https://insighttimer.com/lisameuser/guided-meditations/having-compassion-for-our-humanity-a-journey-of-regulation

Insight timer is a free app.
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i love chats with Ana Maria ! We will be going live monday at 4pm ET!! 😻😻😻

It’s imperative that we have well crafted spaces where we can connect with the depth of humanity. We will not be destroyed when we do this, but find a depth of fire within us that can bring forth empowerment, liberation and evolvement. When we come together, and be with our realness, we can use our human depths to move beyond the dominant narrative and live as empowered participants in life.



More info in bio/here
https://integrativehealingnow.com/enroll/
or
http://integrativehealingnow.com/blog/be-who-you-are-living-as-an-empowered-participant-in-your-life-mie-2024/

Be Who You Are.

link in bio or here
https://integrativehealingnow.com/enroll/

If you’re needing any kind of of body support I can’t recommend this human enough! I love how much care they put into their work. Thank you .dpt 😻😻😻

I read Joy Harjo’s poem, Remember,
again, in Sundays MIE gathering.

Her words feed me, just like the co-creation of MIE feeds me, and community feeds me, and breath feeds me…

My body says, this is my favorite poem.
I don’t know if it is, but today it feels like an anthem I never want to forget.  
I want to remember the remembering of my wholeness,
my always and ultimate inclusion,
that I am part of a web of co-creation so wide and deep that I can
only feel a little bit about what that means and yet
my oh my how it is so big, so deep,
so everything.
I remember Loves lamp post and I am transported into
what I am already within.
The remembering is instantaneous bc
it is already true.
If only every cell of my being knew it.
Compassion remembers me to knowing I am
co-creation in process, not in finitude,
and that my discoveries of what is already true follow a path that I am not in control of, that I can not know ahead of time.
Remembering draws me into Love and we are Home.
We giggle and look around, and sometimes sob with the depth of a volcano.
The lava never cools,
growth never stops, and
abundance keeps flowing.

In yesterday’s MIE gathering I brought in the master poet ‘s words, and they feed me, just like the co-creation of MIE feeds me, and community feeds me, and breath feeds me…

https://integrativehealingnow.com/enroll

In yesterday’s MIE gathering I brought in the master poet Joy Harjo’s words, and they feed me, just like the co-creation of MIE feeds me, and community feeds me, and breath feeds me…

The more I explore the webs of oppression, the more I keep finding this word: denial. When, as a culture or as individuals, we can’t get real about our dysfunctional families of origins, spiritual communities and the cultural paradigm that supports it all, we are living in/hiding in/suffering in denial. That not only keeps us immensely fragile (without having a clue that we’re fragile, bc we’re in such denial), it also keeps us in dysfunctional adult relationships. And the cycle continues.

This denial perpetuates fragility into everything thing around us, and so whether we “mean to” or not we actively participate in oppression, suppression, and violence. All because we have not been willing to get honest about our own lives and the structure of our culture.

Check your lineage- Your dysfunctional families of origins- Your pains and hurts. Please stop white washing or “looking on the bright side” of your family history unless you’re also doing the work. That violates yourself and keeps you unbelievably fragile.

I continue to wake up from my own denial and fragility (on all levels) using kind and compassionate explorations and tools and people who support deep honesty. It’s hard work. And sometimes really slow. Let’s do it together.

http://integrativehealingnow.com/blog/be-who-you-are-living-as-an-empowered-participant-in-your-life-mie-2024/

💜🙏🏻🌀

I love how squarely includes culture and how it influences our journeys. Our culture radically excludes, but this course radically - with compassion and consent- includes, so that we can unlearn the patterning that holds us back from being the empowered person we’re meant to be.

link in bio and here

http://integrativehealingnow.com/blog/be-who-you-are-living-as-an-empowered-participant-in-your-life-mie-2024/

I’ve noticed that level shifts are in the air for so many of us, and with that some rich opportunities to release what is old, and embody what truly serves as empowered participants.

It takes courage to be who we are, and live as empowered participants in our lives.

I am grateful for the community we’ve created in Matrix Integration Exploration (MIE). Together we have courage as we engage in practices which help our attention learn that it’s safe for our inner managers to slow down, and safe for our bodies to be included.

We learn what I call “Actual Factual”- which helps us discern what is true in a moment from what trauma has trained us to believe/perceive.

We discern how it’s safe to be in the present moment, in simple ways.

We learn that we innocently and accidentally sometimes distort reality, sometimes hearing what we want to hear, instead of being able to consider the actuality reality of the predicament we’re in.

We learn that when we do slow down to be with what’s here, we disrupt ancestral and epigenetic patterning, as we find ourselves able to choose new empowered lives.

We become familiar with the old patterning that is rooted in scarcity and fear, desperately wanting comfort at any cost. And instead we choose to not self betray, and listen to what’s most deeply true for ourselves in a moment.

I am grateful for the learning unfolding, and for the support I have. Learn more about the upcoming MIE starting in April! And be sure to reach out with any questions!
Link in bio/comments 😍

I woke up sobbing the other morning. The hard reality experienced yet again- my dad is dead.

I have these kinds of dreams from time to time, and so I know that they are not so much about my dad, but signs of a level shift— where, as I’m going deeper and wider, I am also connecting to the
aspects of me that have not yet met love fully.

My heart had been burning for days, and thank goodness my dreams like to help me process while I’m asleep.

At first I went to my head, as would be predictable for me- as if my thoughts could solve what was arising.
Eventually I remembered that I was safe to feel. And feel I did. And there it was: my fear of being alone in the world.

keep reading my latest blog post- Seeing Through Distortions and Choosing the Present Moment- link in comments 💃

I feel some conflicting about posting this meme, because a capitalist culture tries to manipulate us into working so damn hard to do all the things, until we’re just about dead tired in our bodies, spirits and minds.

And yet, I know that for me there is some truth here. I know that for me, participating in my own life has been really hard at times. I want to avoid, dissociate, isolate, disconnect. And while that is fine and understandable, it’s not sustainable, and it’s not how I want to spend this one precious life.

And so, good support is required. And good community is gold.
There are valid reasons why we don’t want to do that s**t, AND we need exquisite support navigating the layers to get to that other side.
Mentorship, Midwifery and Community makes it even more possible because we live through relationship.
In relationship to air and to ground, to form and the formless, we live, love and grow with ourselves, and other.
A co-created community is the perfect place to discover our forever created relationship with life, and to move through what has kept us back from being who we are, as empowered participants.

Read more here: http://integrativehealingnow.com/enroll/