Testimonials
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“The healing I achieved with Marisa in two hours far exceeded anything I experienced over years of traditional therapy. She truly has a gift to create a safe space and guide you to explore the depths of your soul that are crying out for help. Since my session, I’m not only “unstuck”, but I feel as if I have more clarity in the present which allows me to move forward and consciously create a future that lights up my heart.” - Marissa F. from Forks Township, PA
“With Marisa serving as a channel and a guide, I’ve overcome obstacles that took me a decade of therapy to even discover. She’s given me the ability to take my healing and my happiness into my own hands. I’m forever grateful to her.”-Natalie P. from Warren, NJ
“So many people have childhood dreams and passions that get smothered when they become adults and in the business of life and family. But this isn't just about reigniting old dreams, this is about finding your authentic self. Your authentic self, no matter what your age.” -Brenda from Easton, PA
“I really thought this was going to be a corny, woo woo experience. I’m glad my wife forced me to go. This has changed my perspective on so many things. The energy healing part was incredible. I went somewhere when I was on the table and I know its a place I’ve been before. I can’t wait to go back!” -James M. from Stroudsburg, PA
“Marisa is such a compassionate healer. She’s very humble and I think she makes everyone feel safe. I recommend everyone I to go see her. No matter what is going on in their lives, I tell everyone "‘go see Marisa!’” -Amanda from Wind Gap, PA
How I perform the Work
By Marisa McFadden
I try not to be prescriptive in the work that I do. Meaning, I cannot and will not tell someone to “do this” or “avoid that.” My job, as I’ve come to know it, is also not to find a problem in a person and offer them 5 ways to resolve it. We all resolve problems in our own ways and in our own time.
Instead, my job is to pick up on what I’ve only been able to describe as “energy.”
Put simply, I connect with the imprint of energy that stem from moments in a person’s life and spirit. This is often trauma but, also beauty. While connecting to this client’s energy, I lead them on a type of archeological dig to uncover a moment from their deep consciousness and handle it like it an object that we can hold in our hands and study together.
For one client, I might see a moment of isolation in a place that should feel welcoming and safe yet, the person stands in this image searching for someone to hear him. People in his life pass by through this space that I see in my mind’s eye and I begin to feel how that man was feeling during the moment that I’m picking up on. As I describe what I see to my client, I also describe the feelings that I have physically and emotionally. These are not my feelings, they are the clients, but I’m meant to present all of this so that the client can begin to connect and see.
I usually have my eyes closed or I’m looking away, sort of staring unfocused on a point to remain connected to the stream of information coming in. I rarely look at the person I’m working on when I’m pulling in the images and messages. Whether what I’m saying resonates with someone or not is unclear to me. In this way, I am able to keep my rational mind, my ego, in its imposed slumber. The judgment and self-doubt about what’s coming through and even what I’m doing or what a lunatic I might be looking like is set aside for the time that I’m working. This allows the flow of information, impressions, ideas, and images to keep coming.
I can’t always control the rate of the flow and there are times when stuff flies in so quickly that I feel like a person standing in a windtunnel trying to catch as many dollar bills as possible as they fly chaotically around me. As fast as it comes in is often as fast as I’m getting it out in words to the client. I rattle off names and places and faces and smells and colors and objects and situations and I can’t always slow down. When the information flows this quickly, it seems as though that person is either ready to move through phases of healing quickly or they must need a very detailed picture presented to them in order to feel that the messages are authentic and truly just for them.
I get that. We all have to feel like what was delivered is truly for us and us alone.
I’ve been to good psychics and shyster card readers. I’ve been in the presence of profound healers, one in particular was a catalyst for me into this world, and I’ve been in the presence of people who do this for the wrong reasons, seeking the wrong types of rewards. Strangely, I appreciate a skeptic because I understand them. Having had this ability creep up on me over the years and seemingly fully take over my life (in the best possible ways), I’ve learned to stand in front of people and simply do what I’m there to do: let the messages come. Don’t stop to question them, don’t stop to censor them, don’t stop to put a rational mind’s logic to them. Just help them get out and into the client’s hands.
When I work with new clients, I’m often asked what the point of it all is. Why drag the lake for evidence of pain and torment when the waters are still and calm? Won’t this just cause more pain?
Actually, no, it won’t.
When these moments are presented like objects to study, there is also information that flows knowledge of how these moments affect the present. When a seed of pain is planted, it grows into a tree with a million branches. If we can walk the path of the tallest branch all the way into the ground to the seed-- the source-- we can begin to liberate ourselves from attachments and behaviors that currently keep us stagnant and imprisoned.
To put it differently, I go skimming the deep end of a pool with a client. We pull up some debris and garbage from the bottom of that pool and toss it on the ground next to the water. We look at what we pulled up and how the different things in that pile have contributed to the cloudy water and unpleasant swimming conditions. The whole “energy moving” bit comes when we toss that stuff out into the woods to be reabsorbed by the earth and transmuted instead of leaving it to sink back down to the bottom of the pool.
We will remember the stuff we pulled up. We can think about it whenever we wish. We don’t have to keep it floating on the surface of our pool though or, worse yet, covering the bottom way down at the deep end. The gift of the skimmer is awareness.
Once you see something, you can’t unsee it.
Once you see the root of undesirable behaviors, feelings, or patterns in your life, you can’t unsee it. You’ll always know it’s there. You’ve been made aware.
Am I turning mice into footmen and a pumpkin into a carriage? Nope. And am I transforming my clients from rags to riches or helping them go from “My 600 Pound Life” to Jillian Michaels with the ideal amount of thigh gap? No, I can’t do that either.
Is this a fast and easy fix to all of the problems in your love life or career? No. But, it’s a way to make you whole so that you are ready for the best that life has to offer.
I can help you see the reason for your pain. I can help you see the reason for your insecurities and impulses. I can help you see where it comes from and how to be gentle with yourself as you heal this over time.
With awareness comes power. It is awareness that helps you craft new intentions for living; intentions that lead you down a road of true fulfillment and self empowerment. Awareness is like unlocking the door to the jail cell you’ve been living in. But, awareness cannot push you out of that cell! It’s on you to take steps towards the now open cell door. It’s up to you to trust that what’s beyond this cage is something that’s been there waiting for you your whole life. It’s up to you to move.
Try taking a moment today to understand a quirk in your personality. What is it that you do that you wish you didn’t do but have trouble simply stopping?
Biting your fingernails? Cursing incessantly (uh, me!)?
Spend some time examining this quirk and question its origin. Let the impressions come through and don’t try to rationalize or intellectualize what you receive. Just go with it.
Then, spend time today simply being aware of how A caused B. Of how a mean teacher kicked off the habit of biting those nails or a punishing parent caused you to live in fear of making mistakes so you swear as what feels like an instinct to avoid mistakes.
Become aware.
Be intentional.
Hold the intention to give love to that part of you that still exists in there-- that kid who feels like garbage in the presence of a mean teacher or that kid who is afraid of the consequences of doing anything wrong. Give that part of you love and understanding. Be compassionate.
It’s not magic.
Awareness and intention are tools we have been given by a power greater than ourselves to guide us towards being our best possible selves. Because healing ourselves is an act so great, it can heal the whole world.
The New Healers: Respect and Acceptance for Alternative Medicine Grows in the Lehigh Valley.
By Dawn Ouellette Nixon dnixon@bridgetowermedia.com
Marisa McFadden helps heal the hurting. An alternative medicine practitioner, she employs a combination of psychic intuition, energy-work and shaman-like exercises at Creative Spirit, her Easton-based therapy practice, to bring forth each client’s fullest human potential.
“Essentially, my work is a process of “reading” a person’s energy and working to transform it,” she said.
Not too long ago, many of us would have shaken our heads with skepticism at a practice like McFadden’s, but times have changed. The global alternative medicine market was valued at $82.3 billion in 2020, according to a 2021 report by Grand View Research, a California-based market research firm. And that number is expected to grow by 22% over the next 10 years.
Jen Sinclair, program director at the Cancer Support Community of the Lehigh Valley, an Allentown-based nonprofit, has seen this growth firsthand. Respect for complementary therapies has risen in both patients and traditional physicians in recent years, she said.
“Doctors are referring their patients to alternative therapies now,” Sinclair said, “and patients are more inclined than ever to discuss these options with their doctor.”
Both Lehigh Valley Health Network and St. Luke’s University Health Network often refer cancer patients for alternative therapies at the CSCLV, Sinclair said. The organization offers workshops in meditation, art therapy, nutrition, and gentle movement that can complement traditional oncology treatment. “It’s integrative more than alternative,” Sinclair said.
“It’s not either/or. Patients are employing both in their healing journey.” In fact, she has seen patients with stage 4 cancer recover with the help of alternative therapy.
“Their physicians have said, ‘I’m not sure what you are doing right, but keep doing it,” she said.
Creative Spirit’s McFadden doesn’t try to manage those who doubt the scientific validity of her practice.
“I don’t and I can’t,” she said.
“Ultimately, the only proof I can offer is the testimony of my clients whose lives I’m proud to have helped in profound ways. “
One of her clients, a young man who struggled to connect with his family, found a new peace with himself and his parents and siblings after several sessions, she said.
“We were able to transform his family from a quiet one who lost the ability and will to interact, into one that spent time digging into their genealogy, traveling together and creating a future that is loving and harmonious.”
McFadden credits her clients with doing the work of collaborating with her on their own inner journey.
“I’m so honored to have been a conduit for the healing energy that transpires within them,” she said.
Stephani-lila Murdoch is an Easton-based alternative medicine practitioner who has been working as a certified Trager therapist for decades and is now training others in the practice. The Trager approach uses gentle, non-intrusive hands-on table work and self-care movements to relieve pain and increase mobility and inner peace, she said.
“I have seen great improvement with those who have had concussions,” she said, "as well as TMJ, migraines, hip and knee replacements, and those who may just want to go deeper into a relaxed feeling of fluidity within their bodies.”
That meditative experience is part of what draws patients to the alternative practice of Reiki , too, according to Michelle Zenie, an Allentown-based certified Reiki master. Reiki is a Japanese word meaning universal life energy. This ancient Japanese “energy work” involves a practitioner moving around the client’s body, Zenie said, and adjusting their hands’ positions as they go. Attention is given to the seven chakras or energy centers throughout the body.
“The patient may feel nothing but many report feeling warmth, tingling or pulsing,” she said. “Some see colors during the session or feel strong emotions. Most people feel a sense of relaxation and peacefulness.”
Patients with chronic headaches, joint pain, digestive and reproductive issues, and depression and anxiety have all reported some relief after her sessions, Zenie said.
“But you truly must be open to the idea that it can work for it to work,” she said. “If that is not the case, then it is simply not the right tool for you.”
For Zenie, Murdoch, and McFadden, mainstream western medicine’s surgery, medication, and acute care all have their place if needed. Complimentary modalities like reiki and Trager are additional tools that can be integrated into our wellness regime, they say.
Too often people look to alternative medicine when all else fails, McFadden said. When a cancer patient has run out of options or a mother is at a loss for how to help her child, they will find their way to an alternative medicine practitioner.
“What they very often find though is that healing is not just about restoring our bodies to their prime conditions and keeping illness at bay,” she said. “Instead, it is about helping the mind and the spirit thrive in the face of fear and uncertainty.”
“Healing,” she said, “is about the restoration of hope and possibility.”