Hey, Manhattan. Hi, how
are you? This is Dr. DE Maris, Maria Grossman, and this is the mindfully integrative shell. And today we have a wonderful guest and mindful chat with Laura Lewis bar, she is an award winning. So I'm gonna say it wrong, but she's a filmmaker and an educator. But it's actually that short films there stop motion films. Is that correct? Yes. All right. So, and I'm just so excited for her to be on the show, because it's a different way of kind of talking about mindfulness and an integrative
approach to our life. So thank you so much for being on the show. I know that you have a world of personal growth and things to talk about. So how are you today?
Super excited, super excited to be with you.
Thank you so much. So um, let's kind of get into it. I usually ask just the quick fun fact. Something that people don't know about? Yeah.
Well, I think many people wouldn't know that my mother was in love with musical comedy. And she had me and my brother taking tap dancing lessons when we were children.
Oh, my gosh. Are you like a dancer too? Like with?
Oh, no, but it does. You know, I took Loise for years and my degrees in the theater. So I've just been sort of living this mythic artistic story life. Much of my life, I had to do day jobs. But yeah, that that world of story has been there forever. And, and musical comedy was sort of what I did as a kid.
And have you been doing the stop motion film and work for four years.
So that's only been about three or four years. And when the pandemic hit. I went into it more full time, because I was teaching storytelling to groups and couldn't do it anymore. Yeah, so I just started really making these films.
That's really neat. I mean, it's taken off, right?
Yeah, well, it is my passion. And it is an integration. So I was studying to be a psychologist. And then I have this theater. So it was always theater, psychology, theater, psychology, and now they've come together
come together. See is amazing. There. Is this free here? You had to talk to me about it? Because, I mean, I'm in a yoga and and and they're, you know, nursing and yeah. So let's talk about this. So what you were a psychologist or you're studying psychology at one point, studying,
okay, studying clinical psychology. And then drama went out. And I went and got my degrees and theatre. And then many, many years later, I went back and started reading all of this union psychology, and the unions are really into fairy tales. And so I was reading fairy tales and exploring them and exploring them with groups. Sometimes I would be leading and that there's a therapeutic. And then I started doing research, there's a whole therapeutic use
of fairy tales out there. When I started doing stop motion, fairy tales became sort of the perfect short vehicle for these short 10 minute films. So
in a way, almost like a mindfulness like stories to get people in.
Yeah, yeah, they're amazing. Fairy tales are amazing. In a way,
it's like a guided it's like a guided like store or guided tour of something to get them into like, another state of mind. Right, a
guided tour of your inner self. That's amazing. It is. Well, I mean, it's an art, right? So when we're involved in arts, there's a depths that you never reach that I never reach. So as I work, so right now I'm working finishing I'm finishing the Grail legend. And my take my modernization on the hunt for the Holy Grail, which is very related to fairy tales. It's like a fairy tale. And so I'm immersed in what is the Grail? What is it to seek it? And what
is my Grail? You know, so these deep, deep questions I live with for many months as I make these films, and then hopefully the viewer starts to live with those questions, too. Wow.
So when you're kind of diving into these stories, do you find that they've kind of opened up even more for you or for your clients or or, or people that watch this? Do they can people reach out to you and say, Wow, I feel like this has been Was there a certain fairy tale that's opened up certain things? Like, is there a psychology behind that, like certain fairy tales open up a certain kind of?
Yeah, there's a lot of psychology. And if people were to Google fairy tales and psychology, there's there's just a ton. The unions are always writing about this. And I'm not a union psychologist, but I have a passion for it. I'm voracious about it. And so continue to study. And there are union groups around the country. So the main, as in the state of Maine, Maine Young Center, has a fairy tale group I've been involved with since the pandemic, I'm in Chicago, but I
can be in Maine. And they had me do a program for them about my, my fairy tales, and they are really loving. So I'll be going out there again in September. So yeah, there are people who adore sort of this psychological exploration, and fairytales and stop motion. They're just fun. They're just yummy combinations. They're silly. Yeah.
Wow, what? Um, so tell me a little bit like, what's your favorite fairy tale? Oh,
I knew you're gonna ask me that.
I have that now. I mean, you brought it up. I don't know. What's your like, I mean, I think about like, you know, Little Red Riding Hood, right about like, three little bears. And I know, what are the fairy? Rapunzel? I know. What's that? What's the so?
Yeah, I mean, all of those are juicy. And all of those can be excavated for a long time. Recently, somewhat recently, I did. One called the three languages. It's a grim tale, and the hero. So often, in these Grim Tales, the hero is the third son who's stupid, the dumpling, the one who nobody thinks has any intelligence at all, and they become the hero, which I was coaching myself around that fairy tale this morning, because I'm not going
to be on this podcast. And I don't consider myself an expert. I consider myself a student. But yes, yes. So I'm
a very open. Yes,
no, but it's my stuff. But, but that fairy tale comes to my mind, because those fairy tales tell you that it's the part of us that doesn't know exactly that often is the way through to the awareness to the awakening. Mindful that yeah, it's a mindfulness principle, right? Yeah.
Yeah. It's an awareness of self. Well, it's looking at the next level of your consciousness. And it's okay to not know, when realizing you don't know a lot. Like, it's what I found getting a doctor, right. You're like, Oh, you have a doctor. I have a doctor. It's great. Okay, but I found out in my expanding of my consciousness, that I know nothing. Okay. All right. So what that means to me is that I don't, it's not about your
educational things. It's where you are and what you're gonna do, you know, and what you're doing with yourself. So yeah, it's an awareness. I mean, this is when I think about your fairytale conversation. I'm thinking of it like as messaging right, when I do guided imagery for someone, I'm trying to message to them. When I have a fairy tale, there's always that underlying like, a lesson. This is what I'm getting from what you're, it's a lesson in a
message. So these stories are messages like you probably right and filmmaking, you're probably trying to give a story write a story, but like a message in the end of some sort. Right,
because these fairy tales have been around for centuries, sometimes millennia. And so they have taken human wisdom and congealed it into this structure. That is why everybody loves them, and everybody riffs off them, I riff off them. So I want to finish that little tale the three languages. So the the dumb guy, in my case, it's a it's the daughter. The mother says, I want you to be educated, I'm going to send you to school and
she comes back. She learned the languages of the dogs and the mother like what the heck, I'm sending you off to school again. She comes back, what did you learn and learn the languages of the birds? The mother's like, you're driving me crazy. I'm sending you to bootcamp. She comes back she learned the language of the frogs. And then and then the frogs and the birds and the dogs eventually help her overcome and be the hero and
marry the princess. And I love that tale about so cool these instinctual languages that we need to learn.
And I'm in the bird's eye and it's probably doesn't seem like it's meaningful to someone. But there is a meaning. Like a
dream. There's a lot of meaning. And we can learn to get better at recognizing the meaning when we when we play with them when we talk to people about them when we journal them.
Yeah, do you journal a lot?
Yeah, I do. It is a it is a great tool. Yeah. bringing different parts together.
Well, that in itself is a is a mindful moment. You know, my Yeah. aspect. And you probably journal a lot to even get more more content and work right to do more.
Right. Right, to sort of bring through what's trying to come through from the unconscious. Yeah.
What has been your favorite work that you've done in your stop motion?
Ah, it's usually the one I'm working on. This one is about the hunt for the Grail. It's
yeah, the hunt for the girl. Yeah, it's always really hardly interesting that yeah, spiritual though, too. They're all they're all very spiritual. Okay. Oh, that's very interesting. I didn't, I didn't. So there's something I'm learning because I didn't see that in. In we're from somebody on the outside not understanding the word. Sure. So for you, there's a spiritual messiness to when you're building these films. Oh, for sure.
Yeah. Because I think, yeah, fairy tales. I think they speak to the part of us that is spiritual, psychological, spiritual. So when we don't understand the tail, I think a lot of times it's because, you know, us moderns we sort of go into this ego brain place, and not the place that is of imagination or spirit. So, so yeah, I definitely see them as cautionary tales about how to live our life well, and how to how to surrender to higher
power. But I think they're, they're, they're open to interpretation other people.
So there is like, a good and bad, but I guess it's trying to piece together what is the overall picture?
Right, right. Yeah,
that's really neat. So that grass in the girl Holy Grail, I mean, you calling it the Holy Grail, or do you have another name for that?
So Percival is the traditional name of the character, Percival, and the Grail. And my title is Percy grows up, because I'm always trying to modernize these to make them applicable to today. So to me, this became a an exploration of toxic masculinity. I stumbled over saying that because I don't want to get on the man. I mean, I have met toxic masculinity. And my me too, you know, it's just the the, the certain part of us that isn't for life that doesn't go toward life,
you're more of just trying to like a growth, ego, but in a way, just just trying to like, you know, get through or like, do what you have to do getting getting things done, or just or like an overpowering like an overpowering kind of,
well, I think it's when the masculine in the world sort of is, this is the sort of killing, you know, negativity war is like, the extreme example. Yeah, there's a way we're killing the planet or, you know, sort of what I'm calling masculine versus feminine energies. But we have them both, and it's not. It's not about men. It's about energy. Yeah.
Energetically on a negative or a positive. Yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. But I think that it's ways I mean, that's where the balance comes in. Yes. And also understanding, you're saying that you have that we all probably have that type of mentality and some mass, it just matter where we're lying it right for what Right.
Right. I mean, in some ways, it just exploring what Jung called the shadow part. What is what is not, you know, what you're saying growth oriented, or, you know, what is what is destructive? And, you know, there's a usefulness to destruction, but it has to be a conscious I think, or make it conscious. I don't know I'm in some deep waters here. Have you? Oh, no,
you're fine. Don't worry, you don't have to get too into it. We Yeah, I get where you're coming from. So overall, did you want to tell me a little bit about kind of where this? I know you said it from your stop motion film came like it's because of the pandemic, right. But what were you doing before that? What was it in your life that kind of you went from clinical to college, you wanted to transition more into the arts, because that was your thing. That was your passion.
Obviously, if you use, you know, thoughtful thinking and trying to make messages in your work, what has changed? Or what or what was before that stop motion that in your work that really felt like as changed or helped you?
Well, I always had sort of two tracks. I was always pursuing the theater, I was writing, directing, I taught. But then I went into corporate training to make money. And I was I
mean, everybody has to do something. Yes. I mean, but you know, I mean, depending but you do both. You did both?
Well, I was really lucky because I started to use my creativity to do corporate training and emotional intelligence and storytelling, and
oh, I love emotional talents. I'm trying to write a story book for children. Yeah, it's
it's amazing stuff and relates to the theater, in some ways, because theater is about emotion. So all of that was really good. Directing, writing all that was good. But the filmmaking is kind of amazing. Because I can do it all on my own. I can control it all. I am the master of this domain. And that's pretty cool. It's a little overwhelming, but very cool tool. So it feels like it spin evolution towards this. And it feels like it's becoming my career now. And when I'm
sure it's another path. Yeah, people have 234 careers in their life. Exactly. Yeah, this is your new career. This? Yes.
It is me.
Yeah, I love it. I mean, I know that I find that you're, it's almost like you're going through your own mindful path, getting, you know, changing and transitioning, but you're finding you're bringing your message to others. And that's important. What would you like to share with the audience, a mindful tip, as I say, that has helped guide you?
Yeah, I think the big shift in my life in the last part of my life is to recognize that dreams or fantasy stories, fairy tales, have a lot of wisdom. And if I can quiet down, if I can get mindful to allow those in, then I can shift into new places in myself, I can grow and transform. So the irrational, which in earlier days, I would have thought was, you know, not that important, I think is really important. That's the mindful tip.
That's the takes a really good point in the sense of, you're saying irrationality, but really, you're saying creativity, right? So that creativity, or that voice of something different, doesn't mean that it was wrong. So when I just generally talk about mindfulness, and we talk about the non judgement, and the good and the bad, when we were younger, we may have been taught that things are right or wrong.
But when I've learned through the years, that quietness and this you know, time that you've had for yourself, you've been able to create this beautiful message to individuals in this film film way that is nor not good or bad. You've, you've seen this, it's another side of yourself another part and message that you are bringing to others. And if you hadn't tapped into it, you wouldn't be where you are. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's beautiful. Um, no, I thank you so much for being on
the show. Is there anything additionally you like to share with us and then also, how can those reach you?
Fantastic. Well, my website is Laura L. A, you are a Louis Lewi. S bar ba RR Laura Lewis bar films.com. That's a great way to just catch me on social media on my links. And yeah, I am so happy to talk with you. This felt like a really nice combination of mindfulness and fairy tale.
Yeah, I love it. And so for me, I think my fair retell and like I said, I think I do like three little bears and I think that one's because they've toddlers. And it's always that I'm going through the I think of you when we're talking about this mindfulness and I think about you know how it's just good enough or the too hot too cold and bright in the middle. That's kind of where you lie right in the middle where it's, you know, it's that good pour. It's, you know, it's not too hot, not too cold.
Well done. Not that well done. Yeah. But it makes you think about for anyone ya know that. That skill of discerning what is the right for me is, is the lesson of that fairy tale. I love that.
So, I want to thank you so much for being on the show and taking your time. And those watching. Thank you. So thanks again. Thank you. And as I tell each one of you, make sure you find mindful way each and every day. Have a wonderful day or evening, whatever that is for you.