We recently connected with Lise Porter and have shared our conversation below.

Lise, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew I wanted to pursue a creative path from a very young age. By the time I was in first grade, I was writing stories, acting in plays, and dancing all over the house. But I grew up in an academically minded household. I felt guilty for majoring in theatre in college and kept hearing an unnamed authority in my head whispering, “So what are you going to do for a real job? How will you make a living? And when you are going to grow up and stop being a dreamer?” So although I have studied acting and writing quite diligently for most of my life, I only began to pursue art professionally in 2016 when I moved to LA. I published a book, produced a short film, created and performed in a solo show, and landed a commercial agent. That said, I have a masters degree in psychology and am a licensed psychotherapist. I have made my living as a therapist and consultant my entire adult life and no longer see art and healing work as bifurcated. Healing requires enormous creativity and creativity is fundamentally healing. I also think “dreaming” + action is a powerful change agent.

Lise, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

When not doing therapy related work I lean into my artistic self. My book, “Own Your Life: How Our Wounds Become Our Gifts” was published in 2017 and explores how we transcend adversity. In 2018, I produced and acted in my solo show, “Selfish B*tch of a Daughter,” a one-act, one-daughter comedy about surviving your mother’s incarcerations. I’m currently in rehearsals for a new show, which I will debut later this summer or fall. And I recently completed writing a feature length rom-com, set in Los Angeles with a bit of edge and heart.

All of my creative work is commercial yet serves to wake people up from daily slumber. I want something in audience members’ hearts and minds to shift and evolve. I believe art can be a path to wholeness and to a higher dimension of reality. That signifies the healer in me.

To be more specific about my therapy related work, I utilize my psychology background to teach seminars on mental health and well being in the corporate sector. Since the pandemic, companies have seen a great need to provide more mental health support and education. In addition, I have done some consulting in the television/film world and am the employee assistant therapist at CNN, Los Angeles. I was also trained in something called drama therapy, which uses theatre as a treatment modality, so I always keep a creative mindset even when doing verbal psychotherapy with clients.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I first came to LA, I was cast in a Wayfair commercial playing a mom hosting a birthday party, which was great fun for me, as I don’t have children of my own. This gave me a chance to play out something I wanted to have occur in real life but that never transpired. I believe art gives us freedom to explore parts of ourselves that want expression and that in that, creativity builds resiliency.

If we link resiliency to art, I think the fact that I started a journal at age eight helped me cope with loneliness and isolation. My mother was developing a serious alcohol addiction, which in many ways rendered her unable to be there for me emotionally. My diary became a surrogate mother. My father later developed a drug addiction as well. Both my parents had rather tragic trajectories to their lives and my mother died by suicide. So in many ways, art was my life line, allowing me to channel emotional pain into something constructive vs. destructive. Art affirms life whereas depression, addiction and suicide can eclipse our life force. Story telling helps us make sense of that which cannot be easily explained, such as trauma. A friend of mine once said that creativity was my super power and I believe she is correct. It is the element I lean into the most as I navigate through the world.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is that it constantly takes me to the edge of becoming. Art, particularly drama, unfolds in the here and now. We enter into the unknown and see what emerges. We can also create beauty and agency by taking something from nothing and bringing it into form. And we get to be the authors of our own lives, which truly excites me.

Creativity is something that continually teaches us about ourselves and others. It helps us both express and contain feelings. It’s a way to tap into the subconscious and parts of ourselves that we might not be comfortable letting loose in our everyday lives. It also allows us to experience joy in a sometimes very painful world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://actor.liseporter.com & https://liseporter.com
• IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3425546/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lise_porter/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lise.porter
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lise-porter-8345813
• Twitter: @liseporter

Image Credits
Mark Atteberry