Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Meis.
Stephanie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been on a lifelong journey for happiness and well-being. Suffering from depression and trauma since age 4, I studied whatever I could to understand and attain healing.
After 20 years as a professional violinist, I met an energy healer who in 45 minutes cured my badly injured neck. If she could do that to my physical pain and stiffness, I wondered, could I heal my depression and bi-polar diagnosis? I spent the next 7 years trying to learn whatever she knew. I eventually graduated from her healing school: The School for Personal and Spiritual Transformation.
Still depressed, I was playing in a professional string quartet and raising two kids. I realized that in order to serve the world, I needed to start using what I had learned to help others! There was also the question of my difficult and painful marriage. As the Universe often arranges blessings, the marriage counselor introduced me to Dick Schwartz, my next teacher.
Dick is an incredible healer and psychologist. He developed a way of understanding of the psyche called “Internal Family Systems.” Not only did it create enormous clarity and hope for people like me with overwhelming depression, but what he taught matched what I learned in my 7 years of healing school!
With each visit to Dr. Schwartz, I felt lighter and better. In order to get trained in his work, I had to earn an MA in psychotherapy. I felt that I had found my calling! During that process, a new friend came into my life.
She was the secretary at the music school where I taught violin. A generous and loving Reiki Master Teacher who insisted on attuning me to become a Reiki Master Teacher myself. 17 years into this beautiful work have allowed me to help hundreds of clients. They are doing so well! I now know that the symptoms they bring are a language from within, telling them that something inside needs attention or resolution. The only way to help with mental illness symptoms ( and I am not denying the presence of genetic tendencies to experience certain mental illness symptoms) is to create a loving relationship within the individual to her/himself.
There is an inner child in each of us, actually MANY inner children, teens, adults from the past who are stuck in trauma or intense negative emotion. Many of us walk around with echoes of the critical and harsh things that have been said to us or the unresolved injuries we have sustained. I have learned that our ability to visualize and practice feeling repair and restoration is a key to inner healing. In Jewish mysticism, it is said: The garments of the soul are thought, word, and deed. It is through these three that we conclude whether our own reality is safe and happy or not.
My work consists of talking with clients, removing or changing energies while they lie on a massage table, teaching about energy and self-care: especially that everything is energy and therefore changeable. The work is actually fun and energizing! To quote Dick Schwartz, I consider myself a “Hope Merchant!” I know that our life problems and symptoms are just arrows pointing the way toward health and happiness!
Has it been a smooth road?
It has definitely NOT been a smooth road!
Just keeping hope that there WAS a path for me was a struggle. I felt messed-up and dysfunctional for a long time. I doubted my intelligence and felt mentally ill. No one seemed to understand why someone who could play the violin well would change careers.
A huge but difficult milestone was getting divorced from my MD husband who got angry anytime I mentioned energy. I so wanted the family to stay together, but I began to see that I could not be free to be myself in this marriage. I had to start believing in myself and my work, staying on the high road! The tough challenge was in being confident about what I was doing before I had hundreds of clients with good or extarordinary results.
Once I graduated from Psych school it was difficult to find an institution that honored my way of approaching mental health issues. Since I needed 3,000 supervised hours I had to find places to get the hours I needed to obtain a license as a counselor so that I could provide services that might be paid for by my clients’ insurance. I knew that those with mental health issues could often not afford to pay for $100 sessions.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Stephanie Meis MA story. Tell us more about the business.
My business is small, simple and personal. I have a pleasant, quiet office where only I see clients. There is always a cup of tea or water offered to them. Our work varies according to the client’s needs of the day.
Unlike other therapists, I see each client for 1.5 hours. This allows for a generous progression of deepening work each time we meet. We do talk about what is going on in the client’s life for the first part of our meeting. Once the life patterns relating to this introductory talk are revealed, most clients opt to lie on a massage table where I encourage them to go into a meditative state while I assist them by clearing old stuck energy patterns and using Reiki energy to open their energy centers.
I combine many types of energy work with the psychotherapy I do. This can include sound healing, crystal healing, Akashic Records, clearing cords of attachment and other modalities.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I am hoping to write a book about my work.
Pricing:
- 80-minute session Psychotherapy and Reiki Energy healing $140
- House or Car clearing / Smudging $100
Contact Info:
- Address: 735 St. Johns Avenue Suite 400
Highland Park, IL - Website: www.stephaniemeis.com
- Phone: 847-609-0406
- Email: smeis@stephaniemeis.com
Image Credit:
Oriental Design
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