Welcome to Lisa McCrohan, wellness counselor for FSAP & GUWellness: GUWellness: Mind, Body, Soul

Meet Lisa McCrohan

Our new FSAP (and GUWellness!) Wellness Counselor joined our community in January and is already making an impact. Read on and get to know her. Better yet, plan to attend one of the wellness programs she'll be facilitating in February. Check out the calendar for details.

GU: What were you doing (in the wellness arena) before you came to Georgetown?
LM: Prior to coming to Georgetown, I was the small business owner of the Barefoot Barn. I provided mindfulness-based psychotherapy in private practice and with Spanish-speaking clients at Catholic Charities in Frederick, MD. I facilitated wellness workshops weaving together neuroscience, faith, body movement, and mindfulness. I also published articles on yoga, compassion, and parenting, and began a mindful parenting blog.

GU: What interested you/brought you into the wellness field?
LM: I grew up in a family that honored the wholistic expression of wellness through body movement, spirituality, intellectual pursuits, and emotional wellbeing. In college, I had an internship at a local free clinical. I intuited that medicine had to be about more than just addressing symptoms. This experience defined my professional and educational path as one of promoting wellness as a wholistic integration of physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.

GU: What is your greatest wellness passion?
LM: I have a saying, “follow what delights your heart and you’ll inspire the world.” My vocation is accompanying people to mindfully cultivate this sense of deep calm and delight within themselves, and then make decisions from this space. I believe this inspires others to do the same and this is how we create change on this planet. Whether I’m facilitating a wellness workshop or sitting with a client in psychotherapy, my work is all about offering people practical tools to do just this in everyday life.

GU: What will you be doing in your role as Wellness Counselor with FSAP and GUWellness?
LM: I have jumped in and am counseling faculty and staff. We have revamped our meditation program and I am now facilitating “Relaxation and Meditation Series: 5 Practices, 5 Weeks” at the Law Center. We are also offering to tailor this series for interested departments across the GU community. Starting in February, we have a Book Club lined up. Each month there will be a new theme and book. George Reese and I will be co-facilitating an all-day stress reduction workshop in April. We envision me helping to continue to shape the University’s vision of a well-work place and offer programs, workshops, conferences, and retreats that support and sustain the wholistic wellbeing of all employees.

GU: We hear you have a connection to GU (your brother); could you tell us about that?
LM: My brother, Jason Ackerman, works here. He leads the University’s internal audit department. Jason encouraged me to apply for this position. In some ways, it feels like coming full circle – Jason and I worked together over 20 years ago in high school and in college.