Meet Lyssa Mandel

We were lucky to catch up with Lyssa Mandel recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lyssa, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

The way I feel about purpose is that it isn’t something to go out and find, but rather something true buried deep within, like a gem that we spend our life honing by chiseling away whatever isn’t authentic. And while I do think purpose is fluid and can shapeshift, if we pay attention to the themes that keep arising, we’ll spot the patterns of a resonant frequency.

I’ve landed upon a purpose based on process of elimination: what emerged from repeated heartbreak, disappointment, and running into walls became a Chironic wisdom–the “wounded healer,” who spends his life in the process of healing his wound, and in doing so, ends up healing others.

I was a lonely kid, with heart that was aching to connect in a deep way, but through shyness, rejection, and a sense of being a weirdo, I often found myself on the outside of social and romantic interactions, observing and longing, but not engaged in the kind of connection I craved.

Everything evolved from that: I became an actor for the adoration and camaraderie; then moved to comedy when I realized I needed a platform to speak and be heard as myself. That made way for my live talk show and podcast, The Bitch Seat, in which my inner kid got the chance to be witnessed in all her emotive glory, and it felt so healing that I opened the space for others to come and share their own younger selves. It felt exactly in the center of the center of Why I’m Here: to express authentically and vulnerably, and to create safe spaces for others to do the same. This aha moment was a vital breadcrumb on the path of my purpose, so I followed the frequency.

The natural extension of The Bitch Seat, which was billed as a comedy show but often characterized as something else–something deeper and kinder–was for me to move into the space of facilitator and eventually somatic therapist.

It became vital for me to provide the kind of support that I needed myself. Early in the pandemic, feeling crushed by isolation, I created The Writing Jacuzzi, a weekly space on Zoom for spontaneous writing and judgment-free sharing, to support community and creativity for its own sake. And in the winter of 2021, when I was suffering the most excruciating depression of my life, I threw every kind of therapy and healing modality at the wall in a desperate search for relief, and through that, came to somatic therapy as the support I so badly needed. It was the natural next step for me to become a therapist myself.

The way these pursuits are all related feels crystal clear to me: I’m voracious to learn about the human condition, beginning with my own. I’ve dug through many frameworks toward my own self-realization. And at the turning point of my late 30s, I felt the call to extend what I’d learned, what had helped and indeed SAVED me, to other people. I incorporate a variety of wisdom frameworks in my sessions, like tarot and astrology, because the emotional body and the right brain speak in symbols, archetypes, and metaphors. I’m not hear to tell clients what to do, but to create the container and the conditions for the client to find their way to their own deep knowing. We are all the experts of our own lived experience.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

(I think I actually answered most of this in the previous question, but will add some details here)

I host The Writing Jacuzzi every other Tuesday evening on Zoom. It’s a small group (max 8 participants), and is always welcoming new faces. We begin with a somatic drop-in to get folks present and in their bodies. I intuitively choose a prompt poem for each participant, and we free write for 20-25 minutes with our cameras off, any form, any genre, with the only rule being not to self-edit. Then we regroup in the Zoom room and each person reads their prompt and their own writing, followed by supportive feedback. It’s not a critique group; it’s a warm, unapologetic celebration of authentic creativity.

I’m continuing to build my private somatic therapy practice. The way I describe it is that I’m sort of like a couples therapist, but the couple is you and your body, and I’m helping you communicate with each other. Unprocessed emotions live within our visceral tissue and shape our nervous system’s response to life. Through supportive connection, these emotions get a chance to be heard, expressed, and released in a healthy way. Sessions include slowing the mind down to the pace of the body, as well as right-brain engagement through expressive arts.

In addition, I’ve been collaborating with my friend Cassie in “Virtual Hearth” workshops, pairing somatic practices and holotropic-style breathwork with astrology and tarot contemplations.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I sound like a broken record, but authenticity, vulnerability, and compassion are my top three. And all three are revolutionary.

Authenticity requires shifting your perspective from external to internal sources of guidance. Our world is heavily weighted in the left-brain–logic, reason, the material. But our deepest wisdom is more subtle and nuanced, and requires a concerted effort to perceive. To know who you really are, and what is really true to you, you’ve gotta begin to value what’s underneath: what’s unconscious, in the shadow, or what you’re afraid to learn about yourself. It’s a courageous and extremely vulnerable process, but giving yourself permission to dive into those depths ultimately leads to compassion for others, and connection in the shared, messy experience of being human.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

When I’m feeling overwhelmed (which is, by the way, normal, especially in our current climate), I get in touch with the physical, material experience of being in a body: feeling my feet connected to the ground. My sits bones connected to the chair. I tune my awareness to what I can smell, taste, touch, hear, feel. And when I feel my mind begin to race again, I meet it with patience, I don’t make it wrong, and I bring my awareness back to my body as it experiences. Best way to defuse a panic attack.

And, then, frequently, I take a nap. I still have an overtired toddler alive inside me most days. Most of us do.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lyssamandel.com
• Instagram: @aflockofsandwiches
• Facebook: Lyssa Mandel
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyssamandel/
• Other: Substack:
  lyssamandel.substack.com

  BlueSky:
  @aflockofsandwiches

Image Credits

For the headshot: Leah Huebner