What we do
Design to Connect facilitates integrated, sustainable, and applied mindfulness for personal resilience, transformative relationships, and thriving organizational culture.
We support the resilience, capacity, and compassion of individuals, teams, and organizations so they can live and work with vitality, from a center of sustainable well-being, aligned with passion, purpose, and values.
Through participatory methods, you'll gain foundational skills in:
From this trustworthy inner space, you'll be prepared to act in alignment with what matters in your life, family, community or organization.
Through participatory methods, you'll gain foundational skills in:
- Accessing and expanding your resilience zone
- Engaging with self and others from empathy and compassion
- Asking good questions to increase self and relational understanding
- Taking action based on thoughtful decision making
From this trustworthy inner space, you'll be prepared to act in alignment with what matters in your life, family, community or organization.
Our Team
Lucy MacGregor & Jelena Popovic
Lucy MacGregor (left in picture) is an adventurer through the joys and intensity of human life. While honoring that we each travel our own unique journey, Lucy believes that each of us are deeply and intricately connected to one another. She believes that we awaken to the fullness of of living when we are present with open eyes, nurturing inclusive hearts, and the support and challenge of authentic community. Her work is to support individuals and communities as they adventure in this “one wild and precious life”.
Lucy, holds a M. Ed, Mindfulness for Educators, from Antioch University and is an accredited Montessori teacher through the Center for Guided Montessori Studies. Her facilitation style draws from training in Genuine Contact (a holistic approach to organizational success), The Circle Way, and the Art of Hosting. She is a certified Children’s Yoga instructor, a Relax Kids coach, and is trained in cross-cultural dialogue with Soliya. She is a program facilitator with Mindful Schools and a mentor with Forum. Lucy is trained in trauma sensitive practices, brain based learning, and restorative practices through IIRP.
Lucy continues to be challenged, inspired, uplifted, and opened by her own journey through life, and is incredibly grateful to the entire community of beings travelling with her.
Jelena (Yelena) Popovic (right in picture) is best described as a “hearticulator" and an "experienced beginner", who inspires others to search for their inner genius with curiosity and compassion. She is a life-long inquirer with a passion for peace education. She is a mom, Teaching Peace in Schools leadership council lead for The Peace Alliance, U.N certified cross-cultural facilitator, Mindful Schools Program Facilitator, brain science buff, school psychologist, Relax Kids trainer/coach and mindfulness educator.
She holds a graduate degree in school psychology from Tufts University, but is most proud of listening to the wisdom of a third grade boy who questioned her purpose and told her she is much better at teaching with a “breathing ball” (aka, Hoberman sphere) than giving that “boring test”. Now Jelena spends most of her time in classrooms connecting with educators and students, teaching mindfulness (with and without the “breathing ball”) and with Lucy MacGregor helps design customized, sustainable and embedded implementation of mindfulness practices within educational settings though their unique Communities Of Practice model. She also co-facilitates mindfulness workshops and retreats for educators, trains others on the Relax Kids model, co-facilitates cross-cultural dialog for Soliya and finds herself immersed in numerous and perpetual pilot projects.
Jelena is a lover of books, especially pop-up picture books and poetry, and is a devoted admirer of Renaissance art. She finds joy and gratitude in everyday, ordinary moments. People with kind, beautiful hearts inspire her. She tends to question everything and her most frequent response is “Don’t know. How might we work on it and grow together?”