Lila Morisee, PhD
Lila Morisee, PhD
Trained Spiritual Director and Play Therapist
Lila Morisee, PhD, has been serving individuals and families as a counselor/play therapist for more than 30 years. Most recently she completed her training in spiritual direction from HeartPaths, a spiritual leadership and spiritual direction training program. When asked what led her to begin incorporating spiritual direction into her counseling practice, Morisee says it was an invitation.
“I had a friend who was finishing up her training in spiritual direction and needed a directee for her practicum,” Morisee says. “I had been curious and thinking about spiritual direction, so when I had the opportunity to experience direction first-hand, it was like an answer to an unspoken prayer.”
Morisee found this to be such a positive experience, a couple of years later she decided to enter the HeartPaths program. She describes the additional richness that this training brings to her practice:
“The experience of inviting the presence and guidance of the Holy into sessions of sitting with and listening to people—their joys, their sorrows, their challenges and their longings - was what had been missing in my work, my vocation—ah, it was like new life, new meaning, a new energy of inviting and allowing the Holy Spirit to be in charge, to do the leading and be the knowing—relief and delight indeed!”
Morisee’s spiritual direction ministry is really a call within a call, a new way to serve that is less ego-driven and more focus on being an instrument of the Divine. She desires to connect deeply with her clients and directees by listening with humility and offering hospitality to those whom God sends and by being ever more open to positioning herself as a conduit for Holy to work. It also is her desire to engage with those she companions in a way that allows God to transform people’s suffering into possibility. She works with individuals and couples in a private practice setting, and with groups using story and movement as a form of embodied prayer she calls Divine Play.
Spiritual direction and/or counseling with Lila allows directees and clients to explore the sacredness of their story through:
~ Talking and telling
~ Deep listening
~ Prayer
~ Creative expression
Morisee meets with both couples and individuals in person at the Caddo building in East Dallas, right in the heart of Lakewood. Her office is warm and inviting. She deems this sacred space—a place of refuge, a place to experience calm and safety, a place to lighten one’s load in the Spirit of play when appropriate. She notes that sacred space also welcomes whatever one is experiencing—wherever, whenever, as we intentionally and sincerely invite God’s grace.
“God delights and mourns with us—always comes when we call. Dark spaces where hurt, harm, hatred have occurred can be cleared, consecrated and made holy in the presence and power of prayer— always the focus is on the power of prayer.
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