Lisa Mercier: Seeing The Dead.

Summary

Intentionally Disturbing: Lisa Mercer – Seeing The Dead

Host: iHeartPodcasts
Episode Title: Lisa Mercier: Seeing The Dead
Release Date: April 24, 2025

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Introduction to the Guest

Dr. Leslie, a forensic and clinical psychologist with a reputation for depth and darkness in conversations, welcomes Lisa Mercer to the show. Lisa identifies as both a medium and a psychologist, professing the unique ability to communicate with the deceased. Initially skeptical, Dr. Leslie shares how witnessing Lisa’s abilities firsthand transformed his disbelief into belief.

Dr. Leslie [03:02]: "I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit."

Lisa Mercer [03:20]: "I am a medium. I'm a psychic medium. I see and talk to and feel dead people for a living."

Lisa’s Abilities and Early Experiences

Lisa recounts her first memory of interacting with a spirit at the age of four. Raised in a deeply religious household, she initially suppressed her abilities to align with her family's Christian beliefs, fearing condemnation and misunderstanding.

Lisa Mercer [06:15]: "My first memory of seeing a dead person and knowing that I had an ability... I pretended. Acted like it wasn't inside of me."

Her family was known in their neighborhood as having a "haunted house," a testament to the constant presence of spirits in her upbringing. Moving multiple times did not diminish her encounters but rather highlighted that spirits are ubiquitous and not confined to one location.

Lisa Mercer [13:15]: "Our house growing up was known as the haunted house in the neighborhood. Most people that visited could feel the presence in the house."

Overcoming Skepticism and Embracing Her Gift

In her twenties, while working as a victim advocate and later as a civilian investigator for a police department, Lisa's abilities intensified, with dead spirits appearing frequently in her workspace. This overwhelming influx forced her to accept her gift, which she had long suppressed, and led her to seek formal training in mediumship.

Lisa Mercer [07:27]: "I just had to learn. This is why I had to get trained for this."

Despite early fears and the anxiety caused by suppressing her abilities, Lisa developed strong energetic boundaries to protect herself from negative entities. Her training involved rigorous classes and practical sessions under the guidance of a mentor, allowing her to professionalize her abilities.

Lisa Mercer [10:06]: "I have phenomenal discernment. So I can feel negative dark energy. And then I can also feel light energy."

Training and Professional Development

Lisa details her journey through formal training in mediumship, which provided her with the tools to manage her abilities effectively. She emphasizes the importance of not forcing sessions and allowing the spirit’s messages to flow naturally, ensuring that clients receive authentic and unmanipulated guidance.

Lisa Mercer [16:03]: "I did all these, you know, trainings and classes and practice. So she would host psychic fairs and put our skills to the test."

Her commitment to maintaining professionalism is evident in her approach to sessions, where she focuses on the messages from the spirit world rather than offering personal advice.

Handling Trauma and Providing Closure

Lisa works extensively with clients who have experienced significant trauma, including first responders like police officers and firefighters. She utilizes her mediumship to offer closure by communicating with deceased loved ones, helping clients process their grief in unique ways that traditional therapy might not address.

Lisa Mercer [27:02]: "They have nothing to say. I don't fake it. I don't try to force it on anybody."

In one poignant example, she describes assisting a client who endured horrific sexual abuse, facilitating a conversation that allowed the client to acknowledge both the pain and the positive aspects of their experiences, fostering healing and acceptance.

Lisa Mercer [32:11]: "She had endured horrific sexual abuse by her parents... She would be chained to things, locked in door cabinets or small spaces, locked in the basement."

Personal Life and Challenges

Balancing her professional life with personal relationships poses significant challenges for Lisa. She highlights the difficulty in dating due to the stigmatization of her abilities and the emotional weight she carries from her work. Lisa remains single, prioritizing authenticity and emotional safety over compromising her truth for the sake of relationships.

Lisa Mercer [44:06]: "It's hard to date because... it takes really a confident male to say, hey, this chick I'm seeing talks to dead people."

Despite these challenges, Lisa maintains a positive outlook, trusting that the universe will align her with the right partner when the time is right. Her commitment to authenticity extends to her interactions, as she strives to be transparent and genuine in all aspects of her life.

Ethical Boundaries and Self-Care

Understanding the heavy emotional toll of her work, Lisa has developed mechanisms to compartmentalize and manage the trauma she encounters. She emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and self-care, ensuring that she remains a stable and reliable source of support for her clients.

Lisa Mercer [42:34]: "It just stays in my energetic body. It stores so that when I meet someone else who has a loved one who died... I know what it is."

Concluding Insights

Dr. Leslie and Lisa Mercer conclude the conversation by reflecting on the profound impact her abilities have on both her personal and professional lives. Lisa encourages listeners to embrace their own intuitions and seek healing in diverse ways, emphasizing that understanding and accepting one's gifts can lead to profound personal growth and fulfillment.

Lisa Mercer [54:31]: "And even if you have to go into the heavy, icky feeling the truth of the dysfunction of my family. Good. You're gonna face it, and then you never... As soon as you shine the smallest bit of light through something that's dark, you can no longer say that it's all dark."

Notable Quotes

• Dr. Leslie [03:57]: "That's fucking crazy."
• Lisa Mercer [04:46]: "Listen to afterlives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from."
• Lisa Mercer [39:19]: "You dig what I do. You have a need. Unfortunately, you have no sense of humor. That's why you can't ever enjoy this show, and that's why you're a loser."

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Conclusion

In this episode of Intentionally Disturbing, Dr. Leslie and Lisa Mercer delve deep into the realms of mediumship, trauma healing, and personal authenticity. Lisa's journey from a scared child to a professional medium offers listeners a compelling narrative of self-acceptance and the therapeutic potential of embracing unconventional gifts. Her candid discussions provide valuable insights into handling personal and client trauma, setting ethical boundaries, and maintaining personal well-being amidst the challenges of connecting with the dead.

Transcript

[Dr. Leslie]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Lisa Mercer]

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[Ted Kennedy]

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond and.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Left a woman behind to drown.

[Ted Kennedy]

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America. Royal Family.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Listen to United States of Kennedy on.

[Lisa Mercer]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

You get your podcast. Maybe you've heard that Stonewall was a riot where queer people fought back against police, or that it's the reason pride is celebrated this time of year.

[Lisa Mercer]

It was one of the most liberating things that I have ever done.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Legend says Marsha P. Johnson threw the very first brick he banging on the.

[Lisa Mercer]

Door of the Stonewall. Like one.

[Dr. Leslie]

Boom.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

This week on Afterlives, we'll separate the truth from the myth in the life of Marcia P. Johnson. Listen to afterlives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.

[Ted Kennedy]

Iheart Podcast. Before social media, before cable news, there was Alan Byrd.

[Lisa Mercer]

He was the first and the original Shock Chuck. That's Scott Scratchy, irreverent kind of way, talking to people and telling them that you're an idiot and I'm going to hang up on you.

[Ted Kennedy]

This is Livewire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg.

[Lisa Mercer]

And he pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, there are probably 2 million suspects.

[Ted Kennedy]

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lisa Mercer]

Oh, he.

[Dr. Leslie]

My name is Dr. Leslie and this is intentionally disturbing. Today my guest is Lisa Mercer. Lisa sees dead people. She identifies as a medium and as a psychologist. I've always been very skeptical and we hashed this out. But at the end of the day, I believe her. And I believe that while we were talking, dead people were in the room, and they were talking to me, and. And I think my grandfather was there. I hope you enjoy this episode and maybe not criticize or judge so quickly things you are not familiar with.

[Lisa Mercer]

Oh, hey.

[Dr. Leslie]

You'Re here. I'm Dr. Leslie, and this is intentionally disturbing. I would like you to meet my friend who sees dead people, Lisa Mercer. Now, this is not how she would define herself, so I'm going to bring her right in and let her define herself. Lisa, what do you do?

[Lisa Mercer]

Thank you. I talked to Deborah.

[Dr. Leslie]

Thank you for being here.

[Lisa Mercer]

Thank you for having me. And we go kind of not far back, but we go back enough. Yeah. I am a medium. I'm a psychic medium. I see and talk to and feel dead people for a living.

[Dr. Leslie]

Feel?

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes, feel.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh, like, emotionally.

[Lisa Mercer]

I can feel emotions from them. I can also feel physically an ailment, an ache or a pain that they dealt with in life. And oftentimes they will let me know through feeling how they died.

[Dr. Leslie]

That's fucking crazy.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes, it is.

[Dr. Leslie]

Okay, so as a psychologist. Right. It was hard for me to believe.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes.

[Dr. Leslie]

And now I, like, really fucking believe it.

[Lisa Mercer]

What changed your mind?

[Dr. Leslie]

Seeing you in action.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Well, so I'm not. I'm never in the business of convincing people that what I do is real. My kind of philosophy is, people find me. If you're curious. If you are in grief and you need kind of an extra different modality on how to help you heal, come find me. But I'm not. I don't care if people believe or don't believe. And so I just kind of do my thing. And I'm always. I get such a kick out of people like you who are like, nope, this is not a thing. This is a bit crazy. But I'm open enough to just see and then have the experience.

[Dr. Leslie]

So.

[Lisa Mercer]

I didn't know that you were, like, a complete nonbeliever, though. I'm glad I didn't know that ahead of time.

[Dr. Leslie]

I was raised atheist.

[Lisa Mercer]

Oh, okay.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like evangelistic atheists.

[Lisa Mercer]

Wow.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like, we were kicked out of people's homes because my father would not shut the fuck up about religion.

[Lisa Mercer]

Wow.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

And I grew up Christian, going to Sunday school every week. Even went to a Christian college. That's so interesting.

[Dr. Leslie]

So opposite.

[Lisa Mercer]

So opposite. And now you. So what do you. Can I ask you a question? I'm, like, on your podcast asking questions. How does that change the experience with me? And by the way, I'm just the mouthpiece for spirit. Spirit, meaning anybody on the other side. It's not me creating the magic. I'm just their vocal cords. I'm just putting words behind their messages. So I don't mean to sound like. When you had your experience with me, it's not me. Did that change your perspective of God or a higher power or something like that?

[Dr. Leslie]

I wouldn't say a higher power God, but it changed my perspective of the presence of spirits in my daily life and it gave me more hope.

[Lisa Mercer]

Wow.

[Dr. Leslie]

It really was.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah, that's.

[Dr. Leslie]

And that's exactly why I wanted to have you on today.

[Lisa Mercer]

Thank you.

[Dr. Leslie]

Because I want the world to see that. Can you talk to me a little bit about how you train for this? Sure. Like how to maybe a non believer.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

So you were a kid when this started and then you kind of got into the training of becoming a medium. Can you take us down that?

[Lisa Mercer]

Sure. So I just like a little backstory. My first memory of seeing a dead person and knowing that I had an ability. I had a gift that not many people around me had. I was four. So this has been with me practically my whole life. But for the majority of my life, because I was. My family was very religious, I pretended. Acted like it wasn't inside of me, it wasn't a part of me. Because this is absolutely not in agreement with the values of the Christian church. We can pick that apart all we want. Because that's part of my kind of self acceptance, my journey. It wasn't until I was in my 20s, mid to late 20s, I forget I was either a victim advocate. So I was a victim advocate for a handful of years. Then I worked at a police department as a civilian investigator. And it was either right as I was winding down my victim advocate career starting at the police department, or I was already at the police department. I can't remember specific time period, but the dead people were just showing up for me all day, every day.

[Dr. Leslie]

Okay, you have to break that down for me.

[Lisa Mercer]

What that actually looks like.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like, what does it mean? So, like you're. You're.

[Lisa Mercer]

So I'm talking to people who.

[Dr. Leslie]

And is there like a. Yeah, all the time.

[Lisa Mercer]

It's just like, hi, we know you can see us. Hi, we know you can see us.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like, they're in the bathroom.

[Lisa Mercer]

They're everywhere. They're everywhere.

[Dr. Leslie]

Are they here now?

[Lisa Mercer]

They're here now. Of course, yeah. So it's just a matter I had to learn. This is why I had to get trained for this. Because I spent most of my life suppressing these gifts, which we know the more you suppress your innate talents and Your abilities, the more anxiety you have because you're not living your truth. And so I was existing in this super anxious ridden body for most of my life thinking that I had a true psychological disorder.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like schizophrenia.

[Lisa Mercer]

Exactly. And well, I didn't think that I knew everything was real. I didn't doubt that I could see things and feel things and not just with dead people. I'm really intuitive, so I can meet a living person and know within seconds if I want to be around them or not. Oh, so. And that started at 4 also. So I believed, I knew that I had these gifts, but I was terrified of them because of how I was raised, because of the religious doctrine. So what?

[Dr. Leslie]

For somebody who doesn't understand Christianity, like, why is it so bad?

[Lisa Mercer]

So it's. There are, there's a Bible verse that says, you know, do not consult psychics or mediums. There's a lot of scripture about. Because it's seen as you're going to a false prophet. You're going to. They, they don't believe that spirit can communicate. Dead loved ones can communicate with humans. They believe in the Holy Spirit, which is God, but they don't believe that souls can communicate with humans after they die, which to me is. I just. It's not true. But they also believe that the devil is the great deceiver. And so that the devil will make you think that you're actually talking to your grandma, but it's not. It's the devil. And so there's a lot of, you know, trickery and deceit. And you, you shouldn't do that. You're tapping into dark energy or tapping into the devil. So I was told twice as a little girl genuinely going to a middle school youth pastor and a high school youth pastor, like, hey, every time I walk into a room, all the lights flicker. Or every time I'm downstairs, like the cabinets in the kitchen start opening and closing like, I need some help cabinets. Oh, yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

Okay. So how do you know it's not the devil?

[Lisa Mercer]

Because I have. I'm gonna brag about myself. I have phenomenal discernment. So I can feel negative dark energy. And then I can also feel light energy.

[Dr. Leslie]

And then you set up like this fuck off boundary.

[Lisa Mercer]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Leslie]

How do you do that?

[Lisa Mercer]

By exactly that. Use your words, use your voice, project your energy that you are not somebody that can be messed with, that you are not somebody that tolerates darkness around you at all. And you do that a few times, word gets out energetically, so to speak. And so low vibrational, dark or negative energy. Knows it can't mess with you. It can't bother you. So when I approach it, when I. When I do feel it. Yeah, More in the real world, very few times in sessions with clients will I feel negative energy, because I just have such firm boundaries with spirit. When I feel it in the real world, I then go into my, you know, shoring up my energy boundaries, making sure I'm safe and protected, and then I just can go about my business. But I can feel it in my body. I have this very specific towel in my chest, and it almost feels like right over my heart center pressure and a flood of anxiety. But it doesn't fill my whole body. It's just at my heart. It's a very specific feeling, and it only flares up in my body when there's negative energy around.

[Dr. Leslie]

I have so many questions.

[Lisa Mercer]

So do you want me to answer about going to. Getting the training for.

[Dr. Leslie]

No, hold on. Wait. Fuck it.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

No.

[Dr. Leslie]

I do want to know about the training, but I want to know about the first time you really interacted with a dead person. A whole one, a clear one.

[Lisa Mercer]

Got it. So funny. It's gonna. I mean, I did. I mean, I was a little girl, so the very first. The very first soul I saw was an old man. And I still, to this day, I don't know who he is. And I've also backed off on trying to figure out who he was or is, because that. I don't think the point of me meeting him was to figure out who he was. It was to kickstart these abilities. It was to just go, you can see things like this. This is you. You can do this. And he just served as, like. As the visual kind of presence of. You've got this gift. You've got this ability. Four years old. Good luck. So I saw at four. But my childhood was filled with so many scary, ghosty experiences that I was so afraid of even the happy, friendly beings that were in the light. I didn't want anybody. I didn't want to know or feel any of them. And so I could see them and I could feel them, and a lot of them did scare me. I didn't, as a child, like, sit down and go, oh, okay, old man. Like, I want to talk to you. I want to have a conversation with you. Because I was very scared. Very, very scared because I had a lot of spooky things happen to me, so.

[Dr. Leslie]

And your parents were along for the ride. Like, they were aware this was happening.

[Lisa Mercer]

So our house growing up was known as the haunted house in the neighborhood. So everybody that visited. Not everybody. Most people that visited could feel the presence in the house. Wow. And I've lived in a handful of houses since then. And as a child, we moved two more times. And so the first time we moved out of my house that I grew up in in California, we were like, as a family. Okay, good. Were done dealing with ghosts. That was not the case.

[Dr. Leslie]

It was you.

[Lisa Mercer]

It wasn't me. It was that ghosts are everywhere and you just have a sensitive person in the family. And by the way, everyone in my family is very sensitive to spirit. I'm the only one that does this work professionally. But everybody has a varying degree of this gift, and I don't think it's unique to me or my family. We all have intuition, and that is the root of this gift in me. I just was born with a closer relationship to it from the beginning of my life. It's not like I had to develop trust and connection to my intuition. It was already there. But we all have it. So everybody has the ability to. To do what I do.

[Dr. Leslie]

So will you, like, sit down in, like, a therapist chair and then have, like, a ghost in the other chair and have a conversation?

[Lisa Mercer]

Do I do that now like in a movie? No. No, I don't really. So I. I have such strong boundaries with the other side because the majority of my life was this gift unbridled. So I was overwhelmed by it for so long, and I shut it down for so long and it manifested as anxiety in me. I learned how to have such strict boundaries with spirit. So I don't really acknowledge all the dead people in a space unless I'm working. Because just like, word gets out with the negative energies, once you say fuck off, you can't bother me. And word gets out. Word gets out for the beings in the light that are like, oh, she can see us. She'll give them a message. So you have to have boundaries with them too, otherwise they won't leave you alone. Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

And girls gotta get paid.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah. So I. And also I want to try to have a normal life.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

So I can't go out with my friends. I can't spend time with my family at a restaurant if I don't have boundaries, because souls are everywhere.

[Dr. Leslie]

So this is something you can get trained in?

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Dr. Leslie]

In a training program.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes.

[Dr. Leslie]

Okay.

[Lisa Mercer]

So I took mid to late. It was probably late around late 20s, after years and years of being in the criminal justice field as a victim advocate, a crisis responder.

[Dr. Leslie]

So. And victim advocate is like, what. What are job Duties for victims.

[Lisa Mercer]

So I work as an advocate. You go to court with them all the time. You explain everything. You provide them with resources and the.

[Dr. Leslie]

Full range of victims. So.

[Lisa Mercer]

Full range, yeah. So I was around the worst. I mean, and as a crisis responder, separate from the job of victim advocate, this was a voluntary position. I'd get called out 24 7. It was my shift.

[Dr. Leslie]

What's the worst scene you've arrived to?

[Lisa Mercer]

Probably one of the most. The saddest things I saw that broke my heart was on my own. I witnessed a guy get hit in an unmarked. He was crossing. He was jaywalking. This old man. Old, old man. I was a victim advocate at the time. Worked for their, you know, as a crisis responder. And it was middle of the night, and I heard screeching tires, and I heard the impact. And I knew my apartment was right. You know, the street was right there. I knew that somebody got hit by a car. And it was less about the sound that I heard and more about the intuitive knowing in my body, oh, this was a body that hit a car. Like, the car slammed into the body. And I frequently am in the wrong place, wrong time, or I always think of it as the right place, right time, because I can jump into action. I immediately ran outside in my pajamas and sat with this guy. And I could tell he had a pretty thick leather jacket, but I could tell his body was all disconnected. Like, his arms were not where the arms should be, so they were very loose. And so I knew that he had some dislocation. He was crushed. Yeah. And his shoes were. He had his shoes off. He was slowly dying. So he essentially died in front of me. And I was like, you're gonna. You're. This is okay. You're. You're gonna be okay. You can relax now. You're safe. We're not. I'm not gonna leave you. My boyfriend at the time was like, get out of the street. And I was like, I'm not leaving this man to die by himself in the middle of the road. And it was dark, and.

[Dr. Leslie]

And did you whisper, don't worry, I got you. We're gonna stay friends.

[Lisa Mercer]

You know, I. He. I. I know he visits me. Yeah, he visits me.

[Dr. Leslie]

Because you were the last person you saw.

[Lisa Mercer]

And I watched. I feel like. I not feel. I know that his breathing stopped as soon as he got taken into the back of the ambulance. His breathing was even more labored and slow. And I was like, oh, he left. He just left his body.

[Dr. Leslie]

Is it something you can actually see.

[Lisa Mercer]

Some People can see it. You can see. You can feel it. You can feel it. You can absolutely feel it.

[Dr. Leslie]

Do you remember coming to my house for the reading?

[Lisa Mercer]

I do. I don't remember. I remember a lot of women were there. I don't remember how many readings we did.

[Dr. Leslie]

I remember it.

[Lisa Mercer]

Tell me.

[Dr. Leslie]

So fucking vividly.

[Lisa Mercer]

Tell me, like.

[Dr. Leslie]

And I thought, okay, I'm going to be open to this, but I highly doubt that this is true. Right. I didn't believe. So it was six or seven of my friends, and we were all sitting around the couch, and I offered you wine, and you said no, even though most of us were drinking. We were probably, like, one or two glasses in, so a good giggle was on. You said, no, you didn't want to get distracted. And so we all sat on the brown leather couches, and you sat on the ottoman with the fireplace behind you, and you set a timer on your phone so you wouldn't go too long. And I could feel like you had kind of this brewing anxiety. And you didn't know anyone there. I hadn't told you any of their stories. And there was one girl there whose brother had just died weeks before, and it was shocking to everyone. So you were sitting there, and granted, all of us had dead people in our lives that could have been there. But you looked up straight into her eyes, and I won't say names or anything. You looked up straight into her eyes and you said, is it okay if I talk to you? Because he's been pressuring me. He's handsome, and I feel kind of bashful. And you. You were flushed.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes.

[Dr. Leslie]

And he was very cute.

[Lisa Mercer]

The cute boys, in spirit, always make me blush, as if there's a cute boy in front of me in real life. And they will tell me, like, look at me like I was cute. Tell them. Tell them how cute I am. And it's partly just to validate that we have this, like, adorable, charming, flirtatious guy here, but it's also showing their personality. Like, they would. He would want me to say and acknowledge how cute he is, so.

[Dr. Leslie]

And you won't. I won't get into details, but you. You knew how he died. You knew his message, and there was no fucking way in the world you could have known that.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

And she, on the receiving end, was as skeptical as I was and burst into tears.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah. I'm so glad that she was there. I'm so glad that she was open enough. You don't have to have any expectation. Just be open to it. And if something comes through, great. And if something doesn't, it's just not the right time. It doesn't mean that your people aren't with you. So I'm glad. I'm glad. I have a vague memory of that now.

[Dr. Leslie]

And I do remember one thing you said was you can't go that often. Like you can't see people that often. Like you have to give a space between when people see their dead family members.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes. So if I have clients that want to come for a reading, even, even once a month sometimes I will get an intuitive feeling this is delaying them processing the grief.

[Dr. Leslie]

I think it's incredible. I mean, you're turning away money and.

[Lisa Mercer]

Clients listen to your body. That's the biggest message that I embed in every session that I have with people, no matter what I'm providing is getting back in step with your intuition. So let your body tell you when you need another reading and listening to your intuition. Exactly.

[Dr. Leslie]

Right.

[Lisa Mercer]

Exactly.

[Dr. Leslie]

So fucking important.

[Lisa Mercer]

So important.

[Dr. Leslie]

We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.

[Ted Kennedy]

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[Lisa Mercer]

So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

[Ted Kennedy]

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond and.

[Lisa Mercer]

Left a woman woman behind to drown.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

There's a famous headline, I think, in.

[Lisa Mercer]

The New York Daily News. It's Teddy Escapes blonde Drowns. And in a strange way. Right. That sort of tells you the story really became about ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president?

[Ted Kennedy]

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

[Lisa Mercer]

And he's not the only Kennedy to.

[Ted Kennedy]

Survive a scandal the Kennedys have lived in through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Listen to United States of Kennedy on.

[Lisa Mercer]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

You get your podcast.

[Ted Kennedy]

From. Iheart Podcasts, before social media, before the Internet, before cable news, before there was Alan Berg.

[Lisa Mercer]

You dig what I do. You have a need. Unfortunately, you have no sense of humor. That's why you can't ever enjoy this show, and that's why you're a loser.

[Ted Kennedy]

He was the first and the original shock jock.

[Lisa Mercer]

That scratchy, irreverent kind of way of talking to people. You're as dumb as the rest. That's.

[Ted Kennedy]

I can't take anyone.

[Lisa Mercer]

I don't agree with you all the time. I don't want you to. I hope that you pick me apart.

[Ted Kennedy]

His voice changed media. His death shocked the nation.

[Lisa Mercer]

And it makes me so angry that he got himself killed cuz he had a big mouth. KOA Morning talk show host Alan Berg reportedly was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver. He pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, There are probably 2 million suspects. This guy aggravated everybody.

[Ted Kennedy]

From iheart podcasts, this is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Maybe you've heard that Stonewall was a riot where queer people fought back against police, or that it's the reason pride is celebrated this time of year.

[Lisa Mercer]

It was one of the most liberating things that I have ever done.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

But did you know that before it went down in history, the Stonewall was a queer hangout run by the mafia.

[Dr. Leslie]

The voguing at Stonewall was unbelievable.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

In the summer of 1969, it became the site that set off the modern movement for LGBTQ rights.

[Lisa Mercer]

Start banging on the door of the Stonewall like one. Boom, boom, boom.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Legend says Marsha P. Johnson, a mother in the fight for trans rights, threw the very first brick. She was really, like, scrubbed out of that history. This week on Afterlives, we'll separate the truth from the myth in the life of Marsha P. Johnson. Listen to afterlives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Leslie]

One thing I love about you is that when I work with firemen and police and just basically anyone who's endured horrific trauma and someone has died, you offer them closure. Yeah, in this way that I can't. And we talked about it a bit before, but it's this, it's a multi modality trauma focus. Right. So how do you handle, how do you handle, like, let's say I refer someone to you and they have had, they've seen horrific traumas and then they walk into your office. I don't tell you anything about them. What do you do with the level of their trauma that they've endured?

[Lisa Mercer]

For the most part, have no plan for any session. I learned super early on with this when as soon as I accepted this gift in me, I had to get out of the way. It isn't up to me how the flow of a session goes. People don't come to me to hear me. They come to me because of the messages coming through from their loved ones or from their spirit guides or from their own higher self, which is their intuition that I can tap into and help them with. But they're not coming because they want Lisa's advice. They're coming because they want the spiritual awareness, the spiritual meaning, that kind of guidance or advice. So if most people I see have a shit ton of trauma, I have a ton of, you know, this, a ton of first responder clients that have their own personal trauma, but then on the job, shit that they're exposed to, I can definitely feel it. And a lot of times it does incredible amounts of, of healing to just have the person hear me say, oof, I can feel what's in your body. I can feel that. And I can, I get a quick flash of what somebody has endured.

[Dr. Leslie]

Can you give me, you know, ethically? Can you give me a specific example?

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah, I've, I have a client, she has passed away. It was actually a very hard thing that I had to deal with because I have had clients die, which is a trip because then they come back and visit you and you're like, this is so, so this is so strange. Like I channeled and all of your dead people for you, and now you're the dead person. You're. You're coming through to say hi to me. It's wild.

[Dr. Leslie]

Are they like, like, cool, now I can do this easier.

[Lisa Mercer]

They're, they know how to communicate with me because they know me. I've had, I've Had. Yeah. I've lost. In the last four years, three clients have died. Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

And they've come back to message you. And.

[Lisa Mercer]

Well, one of them. Well, it's. It's quite amazing. Both of the clients that I've lost, their family members are established clients with me. So it's very interesting how we're all in this together. So, like, for. So I'll tell you the story about this one woman. She was a expert trauma therapist. She was a remarkable human being. And she worked with me. I'm also a hypnotherapist. I don't practice that as much these days, but I'm trained in hypnotherapy and I use the same skills for past life regression, which we can talk about if you're interested in. At some point, she came to me to. Well, we did a lot of mediumship sessions together, and then she wanted to do hypnotherapy with me to. She had already healed tremendous amounts of her own trauma, but there were a few things that she was intuitively feeling I might be able to help her with with my kind of spiritual spin on. My intuitive spin on healing trauma. She was like, can we do hypnotherapy?

[Dr. Leslie]

And I was, can you explain hypnotherapy?

[Lisa Mercer]

Sure.

[Dr. Leslie]

To listeners? Cause most people think it's like, I'm gonna flick you on the forehead and you're gonna pass out and then wake up as a dog. Yes.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah. So hypnotherapy is essentially guided. I define it as guided meditation to kind of go into the mind, to go to the root cause of whatever the trauma is. So the first time that you felt that you didn't have a voice. The first time you felt that you didn't have control over the situation. The first time you felt fear and panic. We don't mess around with the. I think it's this. And I wonder if it's this. No, we relax you. It feels like a guided meditation through a series of visualizations and muscle relaxing techniques. It kind of gets you to this really calm, relaxed place where your conscious brain chills out enough so that it's not on guard, ready to be defensive or in denial of what you've gone through. It relaxes you enough to get into the subconscious part of the brain where all the shit is stored.

[Dr. Leslie]

I'd be a horrible fucking client. Can I do it drunk?

[Lisa Mercer]

No.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh. Cause I think it'd be better.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah. No. Well, maybe. Yeah. Off the record? Sure. On the record. No, I actually make people sign. Well, especially for past life regression, I make people sign. Part of my waiver is that they're not gonna be under the influen. Oh, number one, I'm not gonna manage your shit. We're doing enough. It's a lot. It's energetically. Because I can feel. I'm an empath. I can feel everything. So if I have to deal with your dead people, your higher self, the messages, the guidance that's coming through for you, and you're under the influence. No, it's too much. Too many obstacles for me.

[Dr. Leslie]

And too muddled.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah, way too muddled. Yeah, way too muddled. So I make people agree, and if I sense it at all, we don't proceed. Yeah, we don't proceed. And that's. That hasn't happened. So anyway, she.

[Dr. Leslie]

So your client who died, who came back to you, she. No. Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

I don't know. I don't think I'll meet another person who had as much trauma as she went through.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh, wow.

[Lisa Mercer]

Horrifically. Can we were free to talk about anything on this. Okay. Horrific sexual abuse.

[Dr. Leslie]

It is called intentionally disturbing.

[Lisa Mercer]

I should have known. She had endured horrific sexual abuse by her parents.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like, what makes it horrific?

[Lisa Mercer]

Like, mom would chase her and hold her down while her dad had sex with her, raped her and her siblings. Mom would hold her down. My dad would beat the shit out of her. She would be chained to things, locked in door cabinets or small spaces, locked in the basement.

[Dr. Leslie]

It's so interesting because the Madeleine Soto case is in the news. Are you familiar with that case?

[Lisa Mercer]

No.

[Dr. Leslie]

So she was abused by. She was sexually assaulted by her mom's boyfriend, and then he ended up. Well, we think he's gonna go to trial, but strangling and killing her. And people are all really shocked that mom would have let it happen.

[Lisa Mercer]

It's. Few things affect me emotionally more than that.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah. Say more because it's.

[Lisa Mercer]

It defies the law of nature.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

The bond, the maternal, nurturing protector. Something is deeply wrong with a female. I'm not letting men off the hook here. But something is deeply wrong with the female that allows that to happen to her young, to her baby.

[Dr. Leslie]

So can you say a little more about that? Because I have found it challenging to explain what is deeply wrong with the female. And in my mind, I go to, maybe it's autism, maybe it's Stockholm syndrome. Maybe she's a sexual predator herself. Yeah, but that's very, like, psychology, clinical shit.

[Lisa Mercer]

Well, that's true. And energetically, I would say whether. So they have a soul. Everyone has a soul. Well, I don't know that everyone has a soul.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh, okay. Bookmark that for two minutes.

[Lisa Mercer]

Well, I think, and I would say for the most part, everybody has a soul. But we have a choice. We have a choice of going, I am not gonna live that way, I am not gonna be that way. I am going to choose to tap into my inner light. Cause we're all born with that soul, we're born with that inner light. And it really is up to us to keep that light shining.

[Dr. Leslie]

How do you juxtapose that with Christian beliefs?

[Lisa Mercer]

So I think that was part of my journey. I spent many years very angry at the Christian church and really I am in a much, I would say, healthier place with it. I don't blame the sort of big business of religion. I hold the two pastors specifically that told me that I was dealing with the devil, that it was that I must have not meant it when I was baptized, that I must not be praying. I hold them more personal, personally responsible than the church itself. But my experience with church and now no longer not participating in church is that I believe in God in such a more expansive way now. I think a lot of religion actually limits God, limits your personal experience with God. And I believe in God, like that's never left me. I. Oh, I absolutely believe in God. I don't believe in God as this like dad in the sky. Like a lot of religion sort of plays that up. I don't believe that he's this like father figure in the clouds. No, I view God as just an energy source of love, pure love. And so I am very thankful that I've evolved kind of out of that because it felt very limiting and so breaking away. I see God in every client that I work with. I see God in every sign that I get from my loved ones on the other side. That to me is proof that God exists. Because only an all powerful source of love would allow or build into the lived experience that we get to always communicate with those that we've loved and connected with. That is God. And so I think the church itself, and I'm not knocking religion is important for a lot of people. I'm not knocking it. But I found God to be much more connected to me and I could find God in all of these details in my life that I couldn't necessarily feel or see when I was connected to the church.

[Dr. Leslie]

And going back to. I wanna do you a justice here, the training.

[Lisa Mercer]

So I sought it out. I just in the throes of my career and all the death and just ickiness that I was surrounded by. And all the dead people were like. I felt like they were kind of closing in where I could no longer pretend that they. That I couldn't do this. And so I just Googled, like, psychic development, spiritual development, Orange County. And I found, literally, that's what I did. And I was like, the first one that popped up, I was like, I'm gonna go. I'll just see it. And the moment I sat down and she started talking, I was like, oh, I'm home.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah, I'm not alone.

[Lisa Mercer]

I'm not crazy. I'm in a room full of people that are exactly like me. I've never felt that before. And so she had a professional psychic, professional mediumship, professional healer program. And so I did all these, you know, trainings and classes and practice. So she would host psychic fairs and so put our skills to the test. So we had to see like 15 people and go, go, go and train. And I'm grateful for that because I also. I am sort of this weird mix of. I am a very black and white thinker. I'm a very much like our first responder friends. Like, the evidence is either there or it's not. It either exists or it doesn't. So that was kind of a mind fuck for me to. That's part of my own personal side. But merge that with my abilities to talk to people that no one else can see. That's doesn't align with a black and white brain. So I am very grateful for that sort of formal education of doing this work, because I got the sort of like, the study and the practice. I'm also a Virgo. I'm an Earth sign. So I like to. It needs to. I want the validation. I want the credentials. I want the. I want it to be professional. And now I'm more like, let's just have fun with it. I get to be me and what I do for a living. So. But I'm very grateful. So I took classes there for years and then worked there for a little bit, helped run the psychic fairs and sort of was the advanced student that got to help lead smaller groups of newer students. And we still. I still have a connection to my mentor and. But she doesn't teach. She. She doesn't teach anymore. It's kind of sad.

[Dr. Leslie]

So. So, okay, so we work with cops and firemen. They're so skeptical of your ability.

[Lisa Mercer]

They're my favorite clients and probably like.

[Dr. Leslie]

All millions of people listening. I hope millions of people are listening. What do you say? To the skeptics, like my dad. My guy told him I was going to talk with you today. And he was like, it's bullshit.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah, that's fine. You know what's wonderful about being alive in this body, in this timeline, is that we are allowed to believe whatever we want to believe. It's okay that people don't believe in what I do. I had this response from a former partner of mine when I worked at the police department. I had to tell him that I was a medium because I was visited by a dead guy that I knew was attached to a case at the department. I didn't really know anything. Ooh, cold case prior to that. And so I told this guy, this is going to sound crazy. I absolutely know it. I can see dead people. I can talk to dead people. It's this gift I was born with. Here it is. And his response changed my life. So this is how I handle skeptics. He said to me, well, I don't believe that, but I believe you. And that shifted everything for me. And I thought, oh, I don't have to prove it to anybody. I am a trustworthy person. I am a reliable person. And if people know me, they might not believe in this, but they believe me. And they know me enough to know that I'm not gonna bullshit anybody. And I'm super honest in my sessions, if people ask me questions and there's no answer, I go, they have nothing to say. There's no answer. I don't fake it. I don't try to force it on anybody. So that sort of, to the skeptics, be skeptical. Yeah, that's okay. You should never believe something just because someone tells you to believe it, Right? No way.

[Dr. Leslie]

Well, I mean, I was so skeptical of you. Right. Like when we. When did we meet? Five years. I don't know. So many years ago.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah. Five or six years ago. Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

Hold on. You've got psychologists, psychiatrists, nurse, mft. I don't know all these initials. Medium.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

I can't. I can't put my name to this. Like, I can't. What is this? I can't testify to this. I'm going to be in court and lawyer's going to be like, wait, you.

[Lisa Mercer]

Work, you're on staff with a medium? Like.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah, yeah. But it was. It was getting to know you and believing your consistent character.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

And trusting you. So how do you stay happy?

[Lisa Mercer]

It's a really good. You know, it's so funny. This year, I turned 40 earlier this year, and I don't know if it's just age or I don't know what's. I never have stopped to realize that what I do is really heavy. It sounds so stupid that, like, how unself aware are you? I'm very self aware, but I just have never paused long enough to go, fuck, yeah. All you do is. I've banked the feeling in my psychic dictionary, my psychic reference guide, so to speak. So now anytime there's a car accident or a severed neck, I just get a quick feeling in my neck. And I know exactly what it is, Lisa.

[Dr. Leslie]

I've banked it in my mind. Yeah, but I only just realized how heavy the work I did. Exactly.

[Lisa Mercer]

I'm telling you, it sounds ridiculous. I just think it's. I don't stop.

[Dr. Leslie]

Where do you bank it? Where does it go?

[Lisa Mercer]

It just stays in my.

[Dr. Leslie]

It's compartmentalized. You can access it when you want to, but it doesn't bleed out.

[Lisa Mercer]

I don't access it. It will. It sort of stores. I'm gonna say maybe in my energetic body. It stores so that when I meet someone else who has a loved one who died in a car accident and had a severed neck, then they just go. They give me a quick feeling at the back of the neck and I know what it is. I know what stabbing feels like. I know what a heart attack feels like. I know what stroke feels like. I know what lung cancer feels like. Wow. Paralysis feels like. So how do I stay happy?

[Dr. Leslie]

How do you stay happy? But also, I'm so curious about the cold case thing that you mentioned.

[Lisa Mercer]

One of my dreams, one of my visions is that specifically in this county that I get to be a part of a case that they use me. Like, officially not this back channel. But I understand the stigma too. It's nuts. I completely get it. Completely understand the stigma. But because I live here and I have roots here, I would love to see the openness kind of grow. They use psychics all the time on these coast. It's like a non issue. Oh, it's a non issue. Yeah. And so I'd love to bring some of that openness here.

[Dr. Leslie]

Can I ask you a personal question?

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

Not that this hasn't been entirely personal. How's your dating life?

[Lisa Mercer]

Crickets. So I'm single. It's hard. It's hard to date because, well, multi layered. But I am fully aware that what I do is not widely received. Well, I'm also aware that it takes a really confident male to say, hey, this chick I'm seeing talks to dead people. Because then he runs the risk of getting made fun of or teased or mocked. So it takes really strong, confident people. And also, I am. I can feel living people's energy as well, too. So if something is off in the relationship, I can't. I am uncomfortable. I can't be myself. I can't let my guard down. So I will bring things up and not in a mean way. I'm not, like, calling people out, like, change. I can feel this or stop behaving that way. No, it's a very loving exchange. But a lot of people don't want to be seen and felt fully.

[Dr. Leslie]

That's what I was going to say, is a lot of people don't want to be seen as how they really are.

[Lisa Mercer]

And the sad thing is they're miss. Well, they're missing out. No. To my own horn. But the truth is, I have tremendous. I am an empath, but I have tremendous empathy for people. I don't care. The life that you lived before you started to date me. Like, I don't care. What are you working on? Like, what lights you up? What are you doing to heal your shit? That is, as you're doing something good.

[Dr. Leslie]

But that's the other end of the spectrum when, you know, most people spend their whole life trying to get to that point. Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

Showing up at 40 as a transparent, authentic woman is almost unheard of in this world.

[Lisa Mercer]

It's hard. And it's hard to. I mean, I don't. It's so funny. I worry about a lot of things in my life, and that area of my life I just don't worry about. Which tells me that, like, God has it taken care of. I don't stress out about it. I also don't like to force anything to fit. So if. If it's not, you know, a yes throughout my entire being that I want to be with somebody, I am not gonna fake it and force it. It's just not. It's not authentic. It's not good for me. It's not good for the other person. So I am much happier holding out for and trusting that the universe is gonna sort of, you know, make that happen for me at the right time, than I am willing to bend and force it to work with somebody that's not meant for me.

[Dr. Leslie]

But would you force an orgasm? Cause that's like a different layer.

[Lisa Mercer]

No.

[Dr. Leslie]

Really? You wouldn't even pretend?

[Lisa Mercer]

No. Oh, shoot.

[Dr. Leslie]

No. I'm sorry. It's time for a commercial.

[Ted Kennedy]

Ugh. Spam calls sound familiar? Introducing line two. Get a second phone number right on your existing phone. Imagine discounts, appointments online, forms. Handle it all without giving out your personal number. It's like having a secret weapon against spam. And when those unwanted calls sneak through. Boom. Blocked. No more interruptions, no more stress. Stay connected, stay protected. Keep your main number safe and out of harm's way. Ready to take back your phone? Visit line2.com audio or download line2 in the app Store today.

[Lisa Mercer]

So what happened to Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

[Ted Kennedy]

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car in and left a.

[Lisa Mercer]

Woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president?

[Ted Kennedy]

Kappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

[Lisa Mercer]

And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Scandal.

[Ted Kennedy]

The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Listen to United States of Kennedy on.

[Lisa Mercer]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

You get your podcast.

[Ted Kennedy]

From. Iheart Podcasts. Before social media, before the Internet, before cable news, there was Alan Berg.

[Lisa Mercer]

You dig what I do. You have a need. Unfortunately, you have no sense of humor. That's why you can't ever enjoy this show, and that's why you're a loser. He was the first and the original shock jock, that scratchy, irreverent kind of.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Way of talking to people.

[Lisa Mercer]

You're as dumb as the rest. That's.

[Ted Kennedy]

I can't take anyone.

[Lisa Mercer]

I don't agree with you all the time. I don't want you to. I. I hope that you pick me apart.

[Ted Kennedy]

His voice changed media. His death shocked the nation.

[Dr. Leslie]

And it makes me so angry that.

[Lisa Mercer]

He got himself killed because he had a big mouth. KOA Morning talk show host Alan Berg reportedly was shot and killed tonight in downtown Denver. He pointed to the Denver phone book and said, well, There are probably 2 million suspects. This guy aggravated everybody.

[Ted Kennedy]

From iheart podcasts, this is Live Wire, the loud life and shocking murder of Alan Berg. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Maybe you've heard that Stonewall was a riot where queer people fought back against police, or that it's the reason Pride is celebrated this time of year.

[Lisa Mercer]

It was one of the most liberating things that I have ever done.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

But did you know that before it went down in history, the Stonewall was a queer hangout run by the Mafia.

[Dr. Leslie]

The voguing at Stonewall was unbelievable.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

In the summer of 1969, it became the site that set off the modern movement for LGBTQ rights.

[Lisa Mercer]

Start banging on the door of the Stonewall, like one boom, boom, boom.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Legend says Marsha P. Johnson, a mother in the fight for trans rights, threw the very first brick. She was really, like, scrubbed out of that history. This week on Afterlives, we'll separate the truth from the myth in the life of Marsha P. Johnson. Listen to afterlives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Leslie]

Okay, I have to ask this, and I know I said I wouldn't. Who's here?

[Lisa Mercer]

Now, I'm not looking to do, like, a total reading, but there is a younger male energy that is present, who is cute. So remember we talked about, like, they like to show up and tell me how cute they were. It's a little bit of the. They like the spotlight. They like the attention. But I would say, say that he would have passed away. There's some sort. My heart is racing giving you this information, some sort of unexpected nature surrounding his death. So whether he died suddenly or he was sick and died before, we sort of expected it, there is that kind of. But he's very lively. He has a very beautiful personality. He's fun. He has a great laugh. I feel like I hear him singing.

[Dr. Leslie]

Nothing comes to mind.

[Lisa Mercer]

There's also an older. There's an older male and an older female, and they feel, to me like grandparents. So, like, if you have a grandmother on the other side and. Or a grandfather on the other side, because I feel like. Well, do you have a grandmother on the other side?

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah, I never met her, but a grandfather who passed away last year.

[Lisa Mercer]

Okay. Okay. There is this overwhelming love for you. And also this. I don't. This. I'll just say it. Permission to have all the spectrum of feelings surrounding who he was when he was alive. So all the good things and all the not so good things, like, there's this message to you of, you don't have to pretend like, I always contributed good stuff to the family. Like, I also contributed to some of the dysfunction, some of the shit in the family, and it's okay to be real about that. He owns that. He takes accountability and responsibility for that.

[Dr. Leslie]

What's really interesting is since he died, my family has fallen apart.

[Lisa Mercer]

Wow.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

Wow.

[Dr. Leslie]

Like, he was the. Oh, it's fine. I'm cold and callous and burnt out. But he was the reason we all got together for holidays.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

Since he died, there hasn't been one.

[Lisa Mercer]

I'm sorry. It's harder because it adds to the. It adds to the experience of loss because the tradition then is also lost. But do you understand that when he says I also contributed to some of the. Like, okay.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh, yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

Okay. Because he's, like, saying, be real about who I was.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

So it's interesting that you said, the family's kind of falling apart. I'm gonna just say this and be direct. He goes, it wasn't really that intact.

[Dr. Leslie]

It wasn't.

[Lisa Mercer]

Okay. Is that. That's not. I don't wanna be offensive or demeaning.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh, it's 100% true.

[Lisa Mercer]

Okay. Okay.

[Dr. Leslie]

It was a false intactness.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes.

[Dr. Leslie]

Which I think is so important for so many people to know because every family is so fucked up. And what we see is. Is never what is really what's happening behind the scenes.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

And it's heartbreaking when clients realize the shattering. I call it the fall from grace. It's heartbreaking.

[Lisa Mercer]

Yes. Yeah. And so he's. I think, too, the. He has this message for you of, like, accept that I was kind of an asshole. Maybe didn't hold himself to, like, such high moral standards always. But he also had a lot of love, had a lot of happiness, and had a good sense of humor. And so that fueled a lot of the togetherness. But at the core of the family unit, there's a lot of half in, half out, take it or leave it kind of energy. That makes sense to you.

[Dr. Leslie]

Oh, total dysfunction.

[Lisa Mercer]

Okay. Yeah.

[Dr. Leslie]

I don't want anything to do with that.

[Lisa Mercer]

Well, so he. But I'm gonna tell you this. The positive message that he has is you get to just. In your own line of work, but also you know how to help people heal. So I'll just be direct and tell you this. He says, do that for yourself. Do that for yourself. Do that for yourself. So that you made a joke, like, I'm disconnected. I don't have feelings. I'm numb.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

That's a joke. But that's very true. And he says, don't live like that.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

Don't live like that. Because you're only getting. Well, you're getting a false sense of what your life actually is.

[Dr. Leslie]

Yeah.

[Lisa Mercer]

And even. Even if you have to go into the heavy, icky feeling the truth of the dysfunction of my family. Good. You're gonna face it, and then you never. When you face it in the future, it's never gonna be that intense. It's never gonna be that dark. As soon as you shine the smallest bit of light through something that's dark, you can no longer say that it's all dark.

[Dr. Leslie]

That's true.

[Lisa Mercer]

And so he's encouraging you, the same passion that you have had all of these years, to help other people. Why the hell aren't you taking that seriously within yourself?

[Dr. Leslie]

Because I'm not paying myself.

[Lisa Mercer]

And there's the connection to the dysfunction.

[Dr. Leslie]

Lisa, thank you for being here. And thank you to everyone for listening or watching. Intentionally disturbing. I hope this opened your mind a little bit to other forms of therapy and other forms of ways to treat trauma and just different ways to look at the world. Tune in next time. Oh hey, you're here.

[Ted Kennedy]

Let's talk photos. Not just storing them, showcasing them. You've got images that matter. Whether you're a photographer, a business updating your followers, or just someone who wants to share life's moments the right way. So why hand them over to Big Tech's one size fits all Cloud? Big tech companies are the fast food of photo sharing. Quick, easy, but not exactly gourmet. And what about your data integrity? Jalbum.net is the photo sharing solution that puts you in control. Want to host images on your own server? You can want a layout that actually reflects your brand or style. J Album's customizability is unmatched. And if you're a business sharing regular photo updates with your audience, this tool was built with you in mind. But don't just take our word for it. Over 230 million web pages have been created with Jalbum, and it's got stellar reviews on Trustpilot to prove it. So head to jalbum.net to download your free software and try it out. When you're ready to upgrade, use the code podcast for 20% off your photos, your layout, your rules. Jalbum.net.

[Lisa Mercer]

Lowes knows how to help you save this 4th of July. Upgrade your laundry routine with a new.

[Ted Kennedy]

And exclusive first of its kind, all.

[Lisa Mercer]

In one vented laundry combo. Wash and dry in just 68 minutes. Save up to 40% on select major appliances. Plus when you buy more, you save more. Shop Samsung this July 4th at Lowe's, valid through 7nineseeloes.com for details. Savings vary based on purchase amount.

[Ted Kennedy]

Selection varies by location.

[Lisa Mercer]

So what happened to Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to.

[Ted Kennedy]

There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond and.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Left a woman behind to drown.

[Ted Kennedy]

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Listen to United States of Kennedy on.

[Lisa Mercer]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

You get your podcast. Maybe you've heard that Stonewall was a riot where queer people fought back against police, or that it's the reason pride is celebrated this time of year. It was one of the most nibble.

[Lisa Mercer]

That I have ever done.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

Legend says Marsha P. Johnson threw the very first brick.

[Lisa Mercer]

Start banging on the door of the Stonewall like one. Boom.

[Marsha P. Johnson]

This week on afterlives, we'll separate the truth from the myth in the life of Marsha P. Johnson. Listen to afterlives on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dr. Leslie]

This is an iHeart podcast.