MARLISE WITSCHI M.Psych.

 

HOLISTIC PSYCHOTHERAPIST, HEALER and TEACHER

Over two decades, I have been helping people free themselves from emotional pain and trauma which were running their lives.  Recently, I have also become certified in Advanced Hypnotherapy, where we use trance to break the trance of childhood trauma and also of Who we think we are.
I have a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology and a PH.D. in the same, – without dissertation. And these titles in itself mean nothing about how one can help others.
My greatest teacher is Life itself: I have been suffering very much and intensely for many years (with an eating disorder), and gone to therapy for over a decade….and nothing helped. It was traditional talk therapy, where all the beliefs in victim-hood and  in being worthless got  reinforced by constantly focusing on ‘the problem’ and those who seemingly created it. Later I saw that life and the psyche do not work like this at all.
I then got led to more powerful healing tools, combining Psychology and Energy Healing. I learned how the mind works and realized why talk therapy did not help me at all – focusing on what we don’t want never helps, for one, and also, emotions and how the body is holding them need to be fully included in the healing work.

The suffering also pushed me onto a spiritual path, where I gradually healed from the eating disorder and developed the efficient style of psychotherapy work which I call Internal Freedom.

When I was in my thirties, I had a Near Death Experience, where I saw clearly that I am no-thing, spaciousness without limits, free, still, love. In fact I felt so much love that I realized I had never felt love before,  in my entire life. I felt literary like ‘Ah…this is IT. This is Home.  This is Who I AM’. To this day, this is the most powerful direct experience of the Truth I ever had.

After this stunning event which is the pinnacle of my life, I ‘fell back’ into suffering. I could not integrate this Opening to Truth into my life in those days. It took several decades and several more clear realizations of Who I AM, before I am now willing and able to embrace the Truth, and to share it with whoever is interested in discovering it  for themselves.

I am so grateful you are here, and I can be one pointing the way to you, just as one has pointed the way for me. We are in this all together.
I have come full circle from believing I need to be perfect to be loved, to realizing that I Am perfect, I am love, I am peace, I am everything I was working so hard to ‘get’. It’s all here now – You are That.

AND, I’d like to underline that awakening will not heal trauma and addiction automatically. They still need to be addressed and healed. However, with the power of Awareness, the healing seems to be quickening for some.

Are you interested in having a conversation? Click here.

 

In this interview I describe the above in more details.

Interview
with Marlise Witschi, M. Psych,
Founder of Internal Freedom

How long have you been doing what you do, and how long have you been a coach/healer of Internal Freedom?

To answer this question I would like to share with you a crucial moment in my life, which has been transforming my way of working with people almost completely.

25 years ago, on a Tuesday evening in my meditation Centre, I was sitting on the floor among my fellow meditators, listening to the speaker talking before we would surrender into silence. All of a sudden I heard this phrase he quoted from the Upanishads (a holy book from India), which said: What you thinketh so you become.

This phrase hit me like lightning, light bulbs seemed to flash in my mind, and I saw myself sitting in psychotherapy, talking about the same issues over and over and over again. What my parents did to me, what they did not do to me…. I realized this constant focusing on the problem was the reason why I never felt better, why, to the contrary, I felt more and more angry at my parents, feeling like  a victim, a complete loser, unable to live a happy or successful life.

This was the turning point for me: the realization that the CAUSE of suffering comes from our thinking/perception, not from other people, events or circumstances. And the CORE mis-perception is the belief that we are separate from others and the world. 

 

 

I decided to quit therapy, even though I was still suffering from a debilitating Eating Disorder. I finished my degree in Psychology the same year. Besides following my spiritual path, I got guided into alternative healing methods, based on energy and intention. The combination of my expertise of the unconscious mind (which I had studied for my degree), together with spiritual tools and guidance, have been woven into this unique healing approach which I have come to call Internal Freedom (until recently I called it Your Healing Way).

Thus, my work with Internal Freedom, is based on this premise: What you believe – unconsciously! – is what creates your blockages, and I can help you find them and release them. This principle is always true, it can be applied to any field of struggle: financial, health, relationship, self-esteem, addictions…you name it. ‘Beliefs’ exist often as whole stories; stories of how we are deficient, not enough, how we have been wronged, etc., These stories are always accompanied by a physical/emotional counterpart: feelings, emotions, tensions, body postures,etc. So it’s these stories we believe in, that we need to look at and heal.

And by the way, I got completely healed from the Eating Disorder by applying this method to myself. I am very grateful for this, because anyone who ever experienced this knows what a hell that is. In the traditional world of psychology, they believe that often Eating Disorders are not truly healable. But in my world, they are, and so is everything else – in some way.

For over 25 years, I have been helping thousands of people transform their lives with this method, and I am deeply grateful for that.

How are you different from other therapists, coaches and healers?

I go straight to the root cause of the issue with people; there is no dabbling at the surface, no trial and error, and this helps my clients save lots of time and money. What I also think is different with my work is that my approach is psycho-spiritual. It combines the Wisdom of both fields, which makes it very powerful.  Also, I have over 20 years of experience with this work, which most other coaches don’t. Another one of my strengths is that you can tell me anything, and I will not judge you or stick a label on you, because I have this clear knowledge that all human beings are Love, or Spirit, and that when we act in hurtful ways, which we all do, it’s because in those moments we suffer and believe we are bad. That’s the only reason. So I am holding a loving and non-judgmental space where you can more easily re-connect with Who you truly are. This in itself is very healing. Clients tell me that they appreciate me holding the space without judgment.

What kind of individuals would not benefit from your work?

This would be individuals who believe I can do it for them; who believe I have some magical power to heal them without them needing to look at their limiting and painful beliefs. It would be individuals who basically do not take responsibility for their life and tend to blame others, including me, for what does not go their way. Also, individuals who are totally closed to the idea that we are more than a personality or a body may not appreciate this work as much.

What exactly is Internal Freedom? What do you do?

Internal Freedom is a collection of discoveries, processes and tools which I have discovered over the years, and which I am using according to the need of the client at any moment. The transformational journey, or healing journey of Internal Freedom is  not linear. There are however  several key ‘steps’ we take, integrating them as we go through the process. There are six of them, in no particular order. Except that Awareness is the ground for the whole work; without awareness, nothing exists – nothing can heal.  

         1. Awareness.

The reason why you come to see me may be because you’re struggling with your finances, with your marriage, your eating, or anything else. I will help you become aware of the deeper layers of what’s seemingly going on. We basically take stock of where you’re at and also of what you want – which is a very important step. Without knowing what we want, we can turn in circles endlessly.

    

     2. How to deal with your mind

We are being driven, guided, pushed, motivated, blocked – by the mind, by beliefs and stories we hold dear. The mind is a very powerful tool, and nobody ever shows us how to use it, how to deal with it. It can be also very dangerous, mostly when we believe everything it thinks!
The information on the ‘law of attraction’ is one attempt to help people how to use the mind. It is very limited however and lacking important key information. In Internal Freedom I teach you how the body-mind works, so that you can become more aware of your thoughts and realize how they affect the body. You also discover that you are not your thoughts.

      

    3. You are not who you think you are

While we start to explore your unconscious thinking, me guiding you by asking questions, you will start to experience that you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions…your are infinite, spacious…all words are simply pointers…., just like the blue sky. In this image, the  beliefs you are holding would be simply clouds in front of the sky. They don’t touch it ever, in any way. The highest goal of this work is in fact for you to live as the blue sky, where all experiences, people and circumstances are coming and going in this vast, open, free, peaceful space.  This realization is called Awakening.
And now, in October 2016, I am adding this ‘pointing beyond the mind part’ – as opposed to ‘working with the mind part’, as I feel called to help people wake up to the Truth of Who they Are.

     

     4. Healing the past

That’s where we do a lot of trauma healing. Trauma is an event where you felt hurt/threatened/compromised…which caused you to remain partly stuck in that psychological ‘atmosphere’. Often, when painful emotions get activated in your body, you may automatically reach for food, or a drink, or do anything compulsively, in order to not feel the pain. Thus, trauma is the root cause of addiction, compulsion, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, anger issues, and often also relationship troubles.

I help you go back in time and get in touch with the child you were when you fwent through this painful situation. We now help it see the situation in a new way (change perceptions/beliefs) and offer it all the love and support it can muster, to help it grow up freely. If we do not heal trauma, we live with these painful, repressed emotions. They don’t go anywhere – they remain in your psyche waiting for you to free them.  They control you from the inside out, and can create tensions, and sometimes illness  in the body. These repressed ‘pain-points’ are like landmines in your psyche: each time you experience something which you unconsciously associate with that event in the past, you will experience an emotional reaction. You may have no idea why this is happening to you. These pain-points from the past influence your perceptions and your decisions, without you knowing it. I hope you can see how truly helpful trauma healing can be.

Summary: You may have trauma if you suffer from addiction, compulsions, fears, anxiety, phobias, physical illness, relationship issues which seem constantly repeating themselves  – and the list could go on…

       

     5. How to deal with your emotions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Emotion’ means ‘energy in motion’. When we allow feelings to be, they simply move through the body like water flows down a hill.Simple and natural. When we cling to feelings and push them away, they will continue trying to push up into awareness, so we will acknowledge them. This is key important work for healing and freedom to occur.

I will show you different ways how to deal with your feelings. Depending on your need, it may be appropriate to teach you different tools to  transform the energy of the emotion.
In other situations I may guide you and hold space for you to be fully present with an emotion, discovering deeper layers to it, divers body sensations, and eventually falling through them all into the stillness which holds all of it.

             6. Empty Mind

You will experience that beyond thinking is Peace – deep Stillness. This is your true nature, this is What you actually are: the ground of Being, Awareness, or Love, Peace, Spirit…As this Reality is beyond words, no words can ever accurately describe this ‘space’. It just IS. I will teach you tools  to go beyond thinking so you can finally just BE. I will also, most importantly, point you towards where to ‘look’ (not with your eyes), in order to ‘see’ the Truth of Who you Are.

This is putting words to a process which is happening beyond words, so forgive me if this is not accurate. There is so much more going on in our sessions, and it is beyond words. Beyond words is where there is no ego, (no ‘me’) only Reality, or Love, and this is what creates the transformation in us. It is not the words, not the tools, not me….it’s so much bigger than that!

Professional and other info

• Grew up in Switzerland, with an artist Dad. Felt lonely in the household ‘I got myself into’.
• Loved to paint and dance.
• Became a Body Awareness Teacher.
• Had to grow up and ‘make a better living’.
• studied Psychology because no professional was able to help me heal from an Eating Disorder I had.
• Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology
• Ph.D. (all but dissertation) in Clinical Psychology. I had a complete overdose of reading/studying and could not read any books for years.
• Got led to powerful energetic healing tools and spiritual teachings which completely transformed my work.
• Worked with trauma healing, addiction and all other human sufferings.
• Healed myself from a long standing Eating Disorder where no therapist was able to help me.
• Was guided onto a spiritual path in 1991, seven years after the Near Death Experience. I found out that what I had experienced was the Truth about who we are – it was not just my experience.
• Six stays in India with Spiritual Masters, spending up to six weeks in a row discovering and releasing traits and beliefs of who I thought I was, with the goal to awaken…the last visit to India was in March and April 2016, where I met a Master who helped me investigate directly the Truth of Who I Am. Since then, all seeking has been over.
• I Love to paint, dance, laugh, and help people free themselves from struggle.

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