Meet 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 leads adventure based programs that empower young women, and offers mindfulness workshops, retreats, and communities of practice to educators, parents and families in North Carolina and beyond. In her work, Lucy combines her experience as a classroom teacher, her background in adventure based learning, and her training in mindfulness, yoga and circle facilitation. She calls on the power of nature, storytelling, and the wisdom inherent within groups.
Lucy holds a degree in Sociology and is an accredited Montessori teacher. She is currently enrolled Antioch University's Masters in Education, Mindfulness for Educators program. She is a trained in facilitation through the Genuine Contact Way, and is a Genuine Contact Professional. She is a certified Children’s Yoga instructor, certified Mindful Schools instructor, and is trained as a Relax Kids Coach She serves as Mindfulness Consultant for Rainbow Institute, promoting holistic education and is classroom teacher at Rainbow Community School.
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 (www.peacealliance.org), U.N certified cross-cultural facilitator, Mindful Schools mentor (www.mindfulschools.org), brain science buff, school psychologist, Relax Kids trainer/coach (www.relaxkids.com) 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 (www.soliya.net) 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?”
What we do
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Design to Connect, LLC facilitators hold space in which the vitality, authenticity and wisdom inherent within each person and organization - becomes known to itself, - engages, grows and transforms in relationship with others, - and catalyzes transformative learning and action around a common purpose. Lucy and Jelena facilitate locally, nationally and internationally, in person and online, with children, youth, adults, families and school communities. |