Conversations with the Inspiring Susan Lipshutz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Lipshutz, LCSW.

Susan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I look back at the beginning of my professional career with tremendous gratitude for key people who took a chance on me in a way that opened doors for positions and opportunities that created accelerated growth, advancement and often feeling in over my head. Just several years out of graduate school, I was given a position within a Family Practice Residency Training Program as Behavioral Sciences Director creating and teaching a curriculum as well as seeing patients, This activated a strong interest in mind/body integrated family systems approach to care. I was also serving as liaison to one of the first Women’s Health Resources center in the country. As I already held a feminist orientation to work and life, this allowed me a special opportunity to work with their staff psychiatrist who when she decided to move to CA referred all of her private practice clients to me. While I was thinking about starting a private practice, it was a “be careful what you wish for”  moment as accepting such a gift required a radical change in my professional life. I continued to teach at another residency training program and build my practice until a year after I had my first child and did not return to working directly with any instructional system since that time.

Those early years served me well on so many levels. My work continued to have a strong emphasis on women’s wellness, recovery from trauma and stress-related disorders.

I always had a strong interest in unconventional approaches to healing such as creative visualization, hypnotherapy, and meditation but my entire inner world transformed over a three year period of time when I had my two daughters and my mother passed away. In spite of all of my professional training, it was the purest and basic life cycle experiences that served as rites of passages lifting the veils of the of everyday life to expose and explore the  magic, mystery and uncertainty we face in our lives as collaborators rather then in a state of perpetual reaction. This awakened a much more expansive perspective on not only my life but also the women I worked with – our stories, our journeys and our potential.

The biggest game changer was the power of love that awakened in my being and the understanding of how lacking in self love, as well as positive regard we as women felt in our lives, I began to cultivate opportunities to heal, learn and grow this spiritual/heart awakening via deep intensive personal work with several cross cultural training  programs which lead to some very treasured relationships  with global teachers and healers.

As these rich understandings permeated all facets of my life,  I sought to weave this into my work transforming my individual work to offer a more integrative approach.

My first several earth wisdom teachers were men, and while they as psychologists and medical anthropologists from South America who offered a blend of western and shamanic training, I was craving a chance to work with women elders and wisdom keepers. I remain so grateful for the paths that lead me to work with a very gifted medicine woman who initiated the next level of my personal and professional transformation. I found that so much of the individual issues we seek to heal as women originate from inherited and cultural loss of our elders, their wisdom and sacred rites of passage. By remembering we are part of nature with a deep connection to the greater universal pulse, our lives shift from pages on a calendar to engagement with possibility and destiny. I began create women’s medicine circles inviting women to reconnect with their own ancestral roots and practices that could awaken a sense of inner knowing for greater recovery of self respect, inner healing and more collaborative leadership.

I founded Everyday Medicine Women as a way to create meaningful intentional communities for women to come together to heal, grow, empower and remember together. I also started an annual goddess gathering that is coming into its 19th year. Ever the student, my work is always evolving and in the past decade, I have devoted more time to integrated astrology and other tools that assist us in becoming more collaborators in the evolution of our lives. Understanding our lunar nature as women allow a way to see our monthly cycles and body rhythms from a completely different and empowered perspective. For the past year, I have been hosting a monthly new moon podcast via a colleague’s platform that has connected me with women all over the world. I especially enjoy working with younger women who are also appreciating an intergenerational experience.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of my favorite analogies (and I am the queen of using them) is that our lives are truly like a long road. Some of the time, it’s smooth and paved and other times it’s rocky, uneven with obstacles, dead ends and lots of confusion. This road can take us into dark scary caves, small passages as well as extremely beautiful abundant discoveries. Taking that back into my own journey, there have been so many times I had to take a chance, to risk how others would view my personal life decisions and ways I worked with clients. When I started my practice I left a staff position with Benefits, paid vacations and retirement accounts. I have had my own business for over 35 years and feel fortunate and lucky every day I go to work. Several times, I was invited to merge my practice into bigger medical entities. Each time I had to trust my inner voice. Regarding my personal growth track, there is a saying that the best way to compliment a teacher is to outgrow them. I had to part ways with several people I admired very much because of ethical issues and misuse of power. I learned to separate and honor the teachings from the teachers, allowing much more intuitive discretion when working with others in my healing process and encouraging those I work with to use their judgement with me as well.

My fundamental advice to women is to understand their value, to respect themselves, their time and their self-care. To trust their intuition more then they do and have trusted friends who have their back. Thankfully, I have some very good friends that always set me straight and my two daughters that keep me humble and honest with myself and my priorities. Younger therapists and women in the healing arts do come to work with me as I offer a mentoring, teaching facet to my work. I generally tell them to take their time and fall in love with the work and not over-focus on the branding or marketing element. There is so much pressure to develop the social media following and persona that we can lose sight of the heart of the experience and the dedication it takes to really be in service. I feel we do a disservice to ourselves and more importantly our clients when we all get too caught up in our image more than our substance. Moreover, our bodies fluctuate and need a different kind of attention and care over the course of the month. There is a divine timing to our lives and when we trust it more, we can surrender into the joy and depth of the moment we are in. I think we have less regrets that way.

What should we know about Everyday Medicine Woman? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I do not personally reference myself as an expert as it can add to an imbalance of power in relationships yet it is important to know what kind of training and focus clinicians bring to their work. There are so many areas of specialization in the field of wellness, psychotherapy and counseling that it can be overwhelming to know who to see and their true abilities. I would say that people seek me out for my individual therapy and consulting work who want to go deeper in self-understanding at a soul level and live more from their heart. Whatever issue brings them in, my approach is we use that as a pathway to understanding what is longing to change in their lives at a deeper level. As those answers are ones not easily known from our mind, we tap into our more creative mystical parts of self via mindfulness techniques, dreams, symbolic storytelling, writing and intuitively guided inquires. I also utilize tools such as working with people’s astrology charts and soul oriented intuitive methods to open up memory field of inner knowledge. Basically, we collaborate on a journey together. Many people come to me after they have been in traditional therapeutic situations and are longing for a space to explore their spiritual or intuitive nature; basically to grow more. I encourage people when possible, to seek out additional practitioners to assist in addressing impeded trauma patterns held in the body and functional nutritional support as the food is often the best medicine in the recovery of health. However, it is essential to remember the costs of these recommendations and that one of the greatest causes of stress in people’s lives is financial.

I encourage my clients to start a simple meditation or breath practice as part of their self care regime. have been facilitating meditation, mindfulness and guided journeys as my part of my collective work over the years. I offer a monthly meditation class for cancer thrivers and their caregivers along with other workshop offerings at Chill Meditation + Massage Studio and other wellness and empowerment oriented businesses.

My greatest joy comes from the collective work I do with women creating safe and supportive environments to explore themselves, to heal together in a community and create a sisterhood kind of mutuality that repairs a great deal of pain women have felt via the inter-generational marginalization of the power and beauty of women. Every gathering and retreat has a theme with different sculpted processes that are experiential and interactive; including ceremonial elements that enhance depth, discovery and new understandings within and via each person who shows up.

I’m most proud of the way women always surprise me with their kindness, wisdom and the magic that happens when we come into circle together.

The last five years couples have asked me to officiate their weddings. I have found that to be much more gratifying then I would have imagined. I think my therapy skills provide an extra bonus when dealing with the textured dynamics that can happen in the course of planning a wedding yet love always wins!

Who do you look up to? How have they inspired you?
Honestly, just about every woman I spend time with inspires me on some level. Women’s strength, vulnerability and drive to keep the world going is overwhelming at times.

My paternal grandmother was very important to me as I spent a great deal of time with her growing up. She taught me how to cook and bake, to laugh and appreciate life on life’s terms. She came from Russia an orphan with nothing but her skills as a seamstress and created a beautiful family. She never talked about the horrors she witnessed but demonstrated the power of love, courage and dedication to family that stayed with me over time. My mother was a very different form of inspiration via her tremendous ability to unconditionally accept people and her gentle affection for nature and especially children and dogs.

My friends and soul sisters are always a source of inspiration in the ways we hold each other with love and mirror such empowering grace in the face of deep life challenges. Over the course of some twenty years, several women became terminally ill and we had the heart breaking lesson of putting spiritual teachings into action by way of escorting them with dignity and grace through the final stage of their lives. One woman in particular was a very close and treasured friend, confident and muse. She became ill very quickly but never let her diagnosis take over her identity. She requested I officiate her memorial service. It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do; as so many loved and admired her but it was a collective act of love for us all. She remains one of my guides to this day.

I find many powerful women in the creative arts including   Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’keefe, Patti Smith, Jhumpa Lahiri all sources of inspiration. Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem and Jane Fonda stand out as icons for me as well as  Tarana Burke,founder of the #metoo movement and the women water protectors who protested at Standing Rock.  One of my teacher’s and friend Grandmother Flordemayo is also a source of strength and admiration.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.everydaymedicinewoman.com
• Phone: 312-787-7077
• Email: susan@everydaymedicinewoman.com
• Instagram: @susanlipshutz
• Facebook: Everyday Medicine Woman
• Twitter: @susanlipshutz

Image Credit:
Abigail Zoe Martin, Carrie Branovan, James Gustin

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