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Step into a space where stories, reflections, and practical wisdom converge to nurture your healing journey.
Why Read the Refugia Blog?
• Reflect and Renew: Discover thought-provoking insights that inspire deeper self-awareness and intentional living.
• Practical Tools for Change: Explore healing practices and actionable strategies to bring alignment and purpose into your daily life.
• Stories That Resonate: Find connection in the shared experiences of others navigating change, trauma, and healing.
• Stay Inspired: Learn how to integrate healing-centered approaches into your work and relationships
REKINDLING CELLULAR CONNECTIONS: Finding refuge in our cell bodies
Life did not begin as an individual act but as a relational one with cells sensing, signaling, discerning, and responding to one another in order to survive. The cellular realm is where we remember that belonging is not a social construct we invented later; it is a biological condition we emerged from.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 17 min read
AN INVITATION TO HEALING-CENTERED LEADERSHIP
Healing is not a personal endeavor. It is a cultural one, and when healing sits at the center of leadership, everything changes.
Lana Jelenjev
Nov 24, 20259 min read
HEALING ACROSS GENERATIONS: Re-authoring our Core Struggles into Core Blessings
Healing Across Generations, is a tending ground for what’s alive in us. We inherit so much from those who came before us — not just the color of our eyes or the shape of our hands, but the stories that were never told, the silences that shaped us, the patterns that keep repeating without our conscious knowing. These hidden legacies show up in our fears, our struggles, our language — in the way things are said or not said when we feel stuck or alone.
Lana Jelenjev
Oct 16, 20257 min read
FROM COLONIAL PATTERNS TO REGENERATIVE PRACTICES: An Ongoing Journey of Decolonisation
Decolonisation for me has not been a single moment, but a continuous, moment-to-moment process of learning and unlearning. It is a practice of noticing where colonial patterns still live in me—how I replicate them, how I resist them, and how I can consciously choose more regenerative, life-affirming ways of being.
Lana Jelenjev
Aug 26, 20255 min read
WHEN WE FREEZE: A Healing-Centered Reflection on Grief and Flow
Unlike flight or fight, which prepare us to act, freeze pulls us inward. Our heart rate slows. Our body feels heavy or detached. Thoughts might feel cloudy or far away.
This isn’t dysfunction. It’s protection. It’s the body saying: This is too much, too fast. Let’s pause.
Lana Jelenjev
May 13, 20253 min read
CULTIVATING LIMINAL LITERACY: Three Essential Shifts
To thrive, we must develop "liminal literacy"—the ability to read, respond to, and grow through the unique demands of threshold experiences.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 24, 20254 min read
THE GENTLE RHYTHM OF HEALING: How Pendulation Softens and Restores
Pendulation refers to the gentle movement of attention between states of distress or activation and states of calm.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 17, 20257 min read
POST TRAUMATIC GROWTH: Unearthing Strengths Amidst the Struggles
Within life's upheavals lie the potential for transformation—what Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun coined as Post-Traumatic Growth.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 13, 20255 min read
PENDULATION: Honoring the Rhythm Between Activation and Ease
Pendulation, a term introduced by Dr. Peter Levine, describes the natural rhythm of moving between states of activation and ease.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 10, 20255 min read
CULTIVATE EMPATHY: Building Bridges of Understanding and Healing (Part 2)
Empathy is a profound gift, one that we offer not only to others but also to ourselves. It is the foundation of meaningful relationships.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 6, 20258 min read
THE TEND AND BEFRIEND THEORY: A Pathway to Connection and Collective Healing
The "tend and befriend" theory expands the traditional fight-or-flight narrative. It shows how humans often respond to stress through care.
Lana Jelenjev
Jan 2, 20256 min read
EMPATHY: The Healing Bridge Between Us (Part 1)
Empathy is the thread that weaves the tapestry of our "kapwa" (our shared humanity). It allows us to feel seen, heard, and valued.
Lana Jelenjev
Dec 28, 20247 min read
LISTENING TO THE WHISPERS: Uncovering and Embracing Our Authentic Callings
There’s a quiet invitation that stirs within us—a whisper that nudges us toward something greater, something more aligned.
Lana Jelenjev
Dec 13, 20246 min read
PRACTICING ATTUNEMENT: HOW TO OWN THE ENERGY YOU BRING IN THE ROOM
Attunement is our assiduity and acuity in matching, mirroring, and making sense of the here and now. It is a foundational skill.
Lana Jelenjev
Dec 11, 20246 min read
UNDERSTANDING YOUR FREEZE RESPONSE TO SUPPORT A LOVED ONE WITH ILLNESS
Our bodies are wired with various survival mechanisms, and the freeze response is one of them. Freeze response is the body's survival tactic
Lana Jelenjev
Dec 11, 20247 min read
HERBS TO SUPPORT A HEAVY HEART
I wanted to share a tea blend that I’ve been leaning on to support vitality, focus, tend to the heart, and more.
Danièle Fogel
Dec 9, 20242 min read
SUGGESTIONS ON HOW TO HOLD SPACE FOR LOVE ONES RECENTLY DIAGNOSED WITH AN ILLNES
Holding space for love ones going through cancer diagnosis and treatments is not for the faint of heart.
Lana Jelenjev
Dec 8, 20248 min read
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