Episode 1
Reinventing yourself, with Lana Jelenjev
Serena talks with Lana Jelenjev on the importance of community and rituals when returning to work after surviving breast cancer.
Links
- Lana's website
- Community Alchemy - Lana's Newletter
Transcript
Welcome to I'm back today, I'm going to have a conversation with Lana
Speaker:community health chemist, Y spirit, and my personal guardian engine.
Speaker:We are going to discuss coming back to work after an injury.
Speaker:The importance of communities and rituals.
Speaker:And also we are going to explore post-traumatic growth.
Speaker:Welcome to Lana.
Speaker:So what means I'm back for you?
Speaker:First.
Speaker:It's a pleasure to support you on this is a very powerful way to tell our
Speaker:stories and also to empower others students, to share their stories.
Speaker:I'm very fortunate that you've asked and they're much yeah, very
Speaker:much into the zone of thinking.
Speaker:What is back for me?
Speaker:I know and I'll put it in the context of my, part of my story was
Speaker:when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 37, that it was
Speaker:such a pivotal moment in my life.
Speaker:My mom passed away from breast cancer at the age of 49, and that
Speaker:has really left a big mark in the way then I started viewing life, like,
Speaker:okay, how do I really live life?
Speaker:And I remember one instance where I was crying and telling my
Speaker:husband or I don't want to live without, It's tied to my question.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How would it be to live a legacy rather than leaving a legacy behind?
Speaker:And one of the very, I would say very precious memory that
Speaker:I had a few years after where a friend of mine was at our home.
Speaker:And then she started asking my daughter.
Speaker:Oh, are you more your mom or you or your dad?
Speaker:And then she started saying characteristics that she sees
Speaker:in me and that wasn't there.
Speaker:And I wasn't, I was just in another room, but I can hear the conversation.
Speaker:He started telling me, oh, my mom is without my kids.
Speaker:No, we, I don't want to die without my kids knowing who I am.
Speaker:And at that time I teach for five and seven and my husband just casually asked.
Speaker:So how do you want them to remember you?
Speaker:And I was still crying oh no I don't know.
Speaker:So, so that was from you is like a very big moment.
Speaker:And I, it was a moment of really asking myself, what
Speaker:does it really mean to live in?
Speaker:What does it really mean to be in full expression of myself?
Speaker:So that I'm back really is tied to that.
Speaker:this and this and this.
Speaker:And that's when I felt, oh, wow.
Speaker:She knows me.
Speaker:And she sees.
Speaker:And that's one of the moments that I know for myself that I said, oh, I'm back.
Speaker:And this is where for me, it's like when people see and hear and feel
Speaker:my presence and the fullness that I can bring in those spaces, then
Speaker:that's when I say, okay, I'm back.
Speaker:Uh, So powerful and so beautiful.
Speaker:I'm really interested in the legacy aspect because for example, when we
Speaker:are coming back to work, it's really easy to forget that we are there.
Speaker:We are present we can uh, Certain legacy.
Speaker:And I was wondering, I was for you to come back to work and to find a
Speaker:new professional identity after that?
Speaker:Oh it did take a process and I did take long to get into that.
Speaker:One of the biggest parts that, that I had to.
Speaker:I would say understand for myself was what is it exactly that I
Speaker:need in different situations?
Speaker:So at that time while I was moving through therapy, I also took
Speaker:non-violent communication trainings.
Speaker:That started first with, oh, I want to understand myself.
Speaker:And it was so powerful that I I also to trainings to be a trainer
Speaker:because I felt that it was so crucial in understanding yeah.
Speaker:How they want to show up.
Speaker:And I know Carlos Saba from the Happy Startup since then sharing enough,
Speaker:that idea of leading with needs.
Speaker:And I don't, that's been a pivotal part of my practice of really checking
Speaker:in with myself and asking myself, is this, is this how I'm feeling and is
Speaker:this what I need at any given moment?
Speaker:And to make that as a practice, because I'm like this checking in for
Speaker:me, it was like, it's so fundamental.
Speaker:And yet, I didn't even know how to do that.
Speaker:Not until I was 37 and the boy through chemotherapy.
Speaker:And there was a point where my husband was not home because he
Speaker:had to go to work and already after chemotherapy, he stays with me.
Speaker:So he had to go to work and I was so frustrated.
Speaker:It was like, he's not even messaging me.
Speaker:He's not even, well, they ask how I'm doing.
Speaker:And then it felt like a brick in my head of like, not, I'm like, goodness, you're
Speaker:37 years old and you're still waiting for another person to ask you how you are.
Speaker:So I did this experiment for a year, were in, I had an alarm set
Speaker:on my phone and that said for nine o'clock, 12 o'clock, six o'clock.
Speaker:And anytime that alarm comes off, my only question to myself was checking moment.
Speaker:How are you doing Lana?
Speaker:How are you feeling?
Speaker:And that became a practice for me, gave a practice to such a point that
Speaker:we, I would say I also put feelings and needs cards in the toilet.
Speaker:So for those who come to our house at that point, yes, we did have a
Speaker:feelings and needs cards in the toilet.
Speaker:And the question of how are you feeling today?
Speaker:So for me, that, that became one of the crucial pillars of, you know, there's
Speaker:this chunni into myself to really figuring out how I'd wanted to uh, was checking
Speaker:in with myself on a regular basis.
Speaker:And understanding of, is this the course of action or is this the
Speaker:way that I'd want to go about it?
Speaker:Or even if it's this a project that I want to say?
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:And it seems like our, it one that you set for yourself.
Speaker:And I feel that sometimes we need the rituals and we need community.
Speaker:Also from our ancestors, from our history, from our an ancient knowledge to
Speaker:being able to cope with life, actually,
Speaker:definitely, especially with and a healing is not something that we need,
Speaker:that we need to do in isolation, in a needs to accommodate within communities.
Speaker:Given that I'm a Filipina, who's not reciting here in the Netherlands.
Speaker:At that point I had, yeah, I had friends.
Speaker:I had acquaintances.
Speaker:I had people that I would say, okay, I know them.
Speaker:But they came to a point where are they?
Speaker:The type of people that I would easily call at 3:00 AM when I
Speaker:needed to be rushed to the hospital and the kids are left at all.
Speaker:So there's that, that happened at one point.
Speaker:And that made me realize the importance of really deeply connecting with people
Speaker:and how to nurture those relationships.
Speaker:So community's definitely a big piece of that.
Speaker:And then when we, especially when we're looking at, going back to
Speaker:work for in the times where we're still in the healing phase or.
Speaker:It's important that we have that support available for us.
Speaker:And if for me, one of the things is I didn't have that ease in
Speaker:Esau they did to make it happen.
Speaker:And I decided to figure out, okay, how can I find the support that I
Speaker:needed and be able to articulate what type of support is needed?
Speaker:It's also crucial.
Speaker:So yes, community is important and rituals are important because it helped
Speaker:me ground myself to my intentions.
Speaker:It helped me to to say, okay, if the, in my full yes is crucial to my
Speaker:healing, how can I practice this more?
Speaker:In what ways can I yeah.
Speaker:In what ways can I find, pockets of practices where this in show up.
Speaker:So having certain rituals help me in reminding me to my intestines
Speaker:and also really anchoring me to them
Speaker:and being in your fullness when you are not, well, it could be really hard.
Speaker:And So I'm wondering how can you have the courage to be your fullness
Speaker:when you are not well at all?
Speaker:Oh, well, that's a, that's an interesting question.
Speaker:And that I would say I struggled with at the start.
Speaker:I struggled a lot with the idea of.
Speaker:I am enough.
Speaker:Mainly because again, art, yeah.
Speaker:Art culture, part of what they've seen in society, part of what I've
Speaker:experienced with my mom, yeah.
Speaker:That, that there's a brokenness that we attached to illness.
Speaker:And I had to navigate into that finding fullness.
Speaker:Like one thing that I remembered was I even wrote a blog post about it at
Speaker:that time, like finding success and what's the measurement of success.
Speaker:And I realized that success is arbitrary and success at that time when I was going
Speaker:through chemotherapy and where I didn't have energy at all, meant that I can
Speaker:go downstairs and be with my kids for 30 minutes and make them laugh and, and
Speaker:be there for them for that period, for that 30 minutes that I was with them.
Speaker:And that was success.
Speaker:Uh, So the old me would be judging it as, oh my goodness.
Speaker:On that.
Speaker:You're not good active.
Speaker:, you're not doing these how they're expanded that people are expecting you
Speaker:to do so for me, the feel fullness, I had to reframe it for myself.
Speaker:So I think to really get in that, oh I am full I am.
Speaker:And then the illness is a part of what I'm going through or what
Speaker:I went through, but it does not define mindfulness as a person.
Speaker:So for me, it was really shifting that narrative for myself, helped
Speaker:me to realize that, oh, the things that I was holding on to.
Speaker:And the paradigms that I had around illness around productivity around success
Speaker:have been predefined for me by others.
Speaker:And that I have the agency for define it for myself.
Speaker:And the word success is really linked to societies and standards.
Speaker:What is needed or seem needed in the work environment.
Speaker:And it's true.
Speaker:Sometimes coming back to work and be successful on just means to be
Speaker:back and to be there and to show up.
Speaker:But I think the working environment is not ready yet.
Speaker:I think we need to do any healing process so far the working
Speaker:environment, but what do you think?
Speaker:Yeah, this is for me, this integration back before, it's something that we need
Speaker:to build in our systems, whether it is in the working meant, whether it's in the
Speaker:school settings, whether it is within the home and Ironman and within ourselves.
Speaker:I remember that there was really.
Speaker:Desire in me to understand how do I redesign life after breast cancer?
Speaker:Because I really had to question a lot of things and that questioning
Speaker:comes in many different forums.
Speaker:Like.
Speaker:That time do not put me in a grocery, mainly because I'll be there more
Speaker:than an hour, looking through labels, looking at stuff and judging it, will
Speaker:this be good for my body or will this not be good for my body eventually
Speaker:going out and not buying anything because I'll just be like, overthinking.
Speaker:And that was really a struggle for me.
Speaker:So this reconfiguration back to society due to our work is very crucial
Speaker:because for me, what I felt and what I've experienced was there so much
Speaker:support for people while you're in the thick of it while you're within the
Speaker:medical field, and then after that, you're just left to your own devices.
Speaker:Whereas.
Speaker:As far as I've read there's actually more pieces of depression after
Speaker:treatment because that's when the support is no longer there.
Speaker:And people expect that.
Speaker:You're out of treatment, so you're okay now.
Speaker:You can just go back to whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker:So for me, meet integration needs to be a crucial part of our systems,
Speaker:especially the working system.
Speaker:The work environment needs to provide that soft landing where people can meet
Speaker:themselves depending on how their time, their energy, their focus, uh, Our at
Speaker:that given moment, because you cannot just expect someone who has gone through
Speaker:a very painful, oftentimes traumatic life event and expect them to say here, here's
Speaker:your pilot board, come on, do this now.
Speaker:Um, So for me, what makes a human centered work environment is when we can add in the
Speaker:soft landing spaces for people, especially for people who have gone through a lot
Speaker:and are needing in a needs, needs a work through to also add into their fullness.
Speaker:It also needs the support of colleagues for that and how the work
Speaker:field, wherever you're, wherever you are and support, that would be
Speaker:tremendous in one's healing process.
Speaker:And then wondering if this is also connected to the notion of
Speaker:post-traumatic growth for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh one of the things that I realized again that this narratives, right.
Speaker:And the language was this idea of PVC post-traumatic growth.
Speaker:And I only came across that mainly because I was struggling with
Speaker:what is gone, what's happened.
Speaker:And I was like, what happened in my life?
Speaker:Fucking boundaries where, before it was not there.
Speaker:Uh, So I started filtering through friendships, losing some and
Speaker:gaining a lot in the process.
Speaker:I started really considering what spirituality meant for me.
Speaker:And at that time, I think I have an idea of what is going on, People
Speaker:expected for me to go back to normal.
Speaker:And what I was thinking at that time was like, there's no going back
Speaker:in RMO for me because that old me had played a role in any of the.
Speaker:So, so that cannot be my path.
Speaker:So who's the new me.
Speaker:And yeah the learner that I was, yeah.
Speaker:That I am, I got into reading about post-traumatic growth and.
Speaker:Oh, this is me.
Speaker:This was a process that I fit through that I needed to set the boundaries.
Speaker:I needed to say no to friends before and cultivate other relationships if necessary
Speaker:in the understand, the difference between religion and spirituality.
Speaker:And so maybe aspects of the things that I started shifting.
Speaker:I realize it was because of post-traumatic growth.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It has been a traumatic experience for me and for my family, for my
Speaker:loved ones and that they were, amidst the pain and needs the struggles.
Speaker:There's also growth that is available in the process.
Speaker:It does not take the trauma.
Speaker:It does not take the pain away.
Speaker:It only shows that there is.
Speaker:Learnings and strengths that are inherently there and that we can
Speaker:take from in this situations.
Speaker:It's a beautiful Lana.
Speaker:Any, it gives me hopes, not only for myself, but for other people.
Speaker:Do you want to give a last message to everyone with listening right now?
Speaker:If there's something has helped me a lot in my own healing in my own is to really
Speaker:tune in with, and what's alive in me?
Speaker:It's so easy to fall into despair.
Speaker:It's so easy to fall into.
Speaker:Oh, this is not working.
Speaker:And the deficit, we see the deficits we see what's not there.
Speaker:And I just wanted, invited everyone start also really in our strengths.
Speaker:The start also bringing what's already there that we can celebrate.
Speaker:So instead of be so immersed in, what's not working, how can we also amplify
Speaker:in our language, in our conversations, in in how we interact with each
Speaker:other and how interact with it?
Speaker:How can we leverage more of surfacing what's already there.
Speaker:If we can get into the space of, you know, harvesting our strengths,
Speaker:harvesting the potentials that are already there, obviously even just the thought
Speaker:that we're breathing and we're here.
Speaker:Even if it's just that, that you can find something to celebrate, take
Speaker:that in, take those micro moments of celebration and take it in as much
Speaker:as you can as many doses as you can.
Speaker:To help guide you through your healing for you to be back and a, not with
Speaker:what society is telling you to be.
Speaker:And this is also why I love the definition of labor Scalia about love.
Speaker:Love is the process of me leaving you gently back to yourself.
Speaker:So how can we start loving ourselves so that we can lead ourselves
Speaker:back to us, to our essence?
Speaker:thank you.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Nana.
Speaker:My pleasure.
Speaker:Really was my pleasure.
Speaker:thank you for listening.
Speaker:If you enjoy this episode.
Speaker:Please share it with others, with friends, the needs to hear
Speaker:this meaningful conversation.
Speaker:For more information, you can visit the website, serenheart.com.
Speaker:You have the link in the description
Speaker:Thanks again.
