The Confetti Project With Jelena

The Confetti Project

After being OOO for two years, Jelena is sharing a behind-the-scenes look into the heart of The Confetti Project's mission and evolution in 2022: reintroducing play in adulthood that has the potential to transform life into beauty and meaning. You'll be exploring life in its fullest, most colorful expression through a newly defined lens of celebration that plays with the question: what does it mean to be alive in the 21st century? Jelena will be weaving her own intimate storytelling with thought-provoking questions as she slows down to celebrate her own human experiences.

Episodes

  1. 01/11/2023

    2023: The Joy Movement

    In this finale episode, Jelena wraps up season 1 by looking back on every chapter of its story as she explored a range of key themes central to the human experience. She dives into what the personal impact this 1st season had: giving her the much needed transition she needed to process her pandemic, hone in on her storytelling style, and get vulnerable while reintroducing the heart of The Confetti Project’s mission. She goes into TCP's 2022 recap and how a workshop in a fitness studio in Flatiron changed everything and made her realize that it's all always been about: JOY. She gets real about 2023 goals and ethos’ she hopes to embody more of while on the quest for finding space to host monthly confetti workshop experiences for the people. Wrapped in gratitude, Jelena thanks every single one of you from the bottom of her heart for joining her on this inaugural ride and shares the season 2 premiere date in Spring 2023:) Please follow and leave a comment about how you felt about season 1 wherever you listen to podcasts. ❤️ Chapters Looking Back What It Takes to Create a Podcast What Season 1 of This Podcast Did for Me2022 Year RecapThe Workshop That Changed EverythingJoy: the Most Commonly Used Word to Describe What I Do The Confetti Project in 2023 Gratitude and a S2 Premiere Date Self-Reflection Questions What does joy mean to you? How do you integrate joy as a daily practice?What is your relationship to joy?What role does it play in your life?What does it mean to you?What are your favorite play active cities from childhood and adulthood?What are your barriers to joy? Resource Links Year Compass Joy In Motion Workshop Pinterest Gallery Books on Joy  Please subscribe, rate, and follow The Confetti Project on Instagram & Pinterest.

  2. 11/24/2022

    Have You Ever Felt Like You Don’t Belong?

    What is stigma? How does it influence how we live ? And, why is it so pervasive in society? In this episode, Jelena explores stigma - something she has been studying for the past two years - and how she believes it is at the root of all problems. She shares about her own experiences with stigma, where her vulnerability, big feelings, curvy body and immigrant household were a few of her most stigmatizing characteristics. She shares from some of the most trailblazing artists and activists that are actively challenging stigma and societal norms through a variety of ways to ultimately conclude: stigma has devastating, deadly consequences. Published days after the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs - where another act of violence to the Queer Community occurred - Jelena is here to prove that it’s all connected. And that stigma - and the stereotypes, prejudice, hatred, fear, and ignorance it cultivates - is a blueprint for how we, as a society, can begin to foster community care and collective well-being. This is a token of gratitude to The Confetti Project community - a group of trailblazers challenging societal norms. You have so much value in the world just by being who you are.❤️  Chapter Markers  4:57 - How the TCP Community Challenges Societal Norms 6:98 - Stigma is at the Root of All Problems 6:59 - What is Stigma?8:51 - Stigma in My Life14:37 - What Happens When We Deny Ourselves 18:33 - What Happens When Being You is Stigmatized in Society?23:52 - What Happens if Being Human Wasn’t Stigmatized? 25:16 - Unshaming 30:31- You Have Value in This World + I’m Glad You’re Here  Self-Reflection Questions What things come up when you think of social stigma?How have you been stigmatized? Have you internalized it? How do you view the most stigmatized communities in our society?How can you unshame yourself?Leaning into your weirdness, make a list of all the things you appreciate about yourself.  Resource Links Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global HealthAlyssa Boyer My Gold Standard ALOKJessica DeFinoJanet LoYumi SakugawaRichie Reseda ImansssPeople I’ve Loved  Call to Action Please subscribe, rate, and follow The Confetti Project on Instagram & Pinterest.

  3. 09/29/2022

    When Loss Breaks You Open

    Jelena gets candid about on of her favorite topics: loss, grief, and mortality. It all started with her father - and best friend - being diagnosed with lung cancer when she was 25 to ultimately die a year later. She calls it her year of “cancer and confetti” where she was either dousing strangers with confetti exploring what they celebrate or watching her father fight for his life. This time radically altered her life as she realized that grief and love are two sides of the same coin and how society has radically misunderstood the vital importance of having a relationship with our mortality. It’s been six years since her father died and Jelena brings you into her world - where grief is love and there are many different nuances to it - as she shares excerpts from her yet-to-be-seen, unpublished book - “Cancer & Confetti” - that she wrote during her first fatherless winter. Like always, she uses the written word as a conduit for how to processes her experience of loss and the nuances of being human while sharing her rituals of remembrance that can keep those we have loved and lost alive.  Chapter Markers  9:00 - My Story 19:32 - When My Dad Died27:45 - Cancer & Confetti29:37 - What is Grief?32:12 - What Grief Gifted Me37:08 - How Grief Shows Up in My Everyday Life43:37 - What Makes Life Beautiful & Meaningful Self-Reflection Questions What is your relationship to grief, loss, death? What does it bring up? How do you mourn? How does it feel? How can you honor those and what you’ve lost?  Resource Links Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic WisdomWhen Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief Smoke Gets In Your Eyes & and Other Lessons from the Crematory The Top Five Regrets of the Dying When You’re Grieving the Living Refuge in Grief  Call to Action Please subscribe, rate, and follow The Confetti Project on Instagram, Pinterest & Twitter.

  4. 09/15/2022

    Play is a Vehicle for Release

    (TW/SA) What is play? What role does it have in your everyday, adult life? And why is it lost in adulthood? This podcast is about exploring and deconstructing things we all experience but don’t talk about - giving you the full picture behind complex, stigmatized topics through a lens of curiosity and celebration. In this episode, Jelena breaks down PLAY. At first, from an intellectual, evolutionary and biological perspective that proves its impact on our brain development and survival. She brings her own unique perspective from witnessing thousands of adults express themselves with play through The Confetti Project and how that’s shaped her discovery that adults are massively play-deprived…which has detrimental impact as we try to keep up with the sheer demand of daily living. Please join us on a multi-sensory experience where you get to hear about the poignant stories behind the confetti while scrolling through the biggest TCP archive on the web as you are introduced to how play can change your life.  Chapter Markers  7:00 - What is Play?9:07 - Play Across a Lifetime11:35 - Play in Adulthood14:30 - Depriving Ourselves of Pleasure16:33 - Celebratory Play 17:36 - What if We Played and Celebrated All the Time?***18:10- MULTI-SENSORY ACTIVITY*** (TCP Confetti Photo Archives) 33:29 - Confetti34:44 - Why Making Play Part Of Our Daily Lives is Life-Enhancing35:58 - How to Bring More Play Back Into Your Life37:49 - Play Can Heal Us as a Society  Self-Reflection Questions How would you define play?What was play like for you as a child? How has it changed over time?What’s your earliest play memory?What is your play history? What is your definition of being “an adult?”What is your relationship with play as an adult?What does it feel like when someone compliments you?What is your relationship to receiving?How can you integrate more play in your life? Invitation: think about some of your favorite ways of activating your senses. Resource Links  The Confetti Project Pinterest Photo Archives (Multi-Sensory Activity)Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul Play is More Than Just Fun Why Playing Games is Good For You Call to Action Please subscribe, rate, and follow The Confetti Project on Instagram, Pinterest & Twitter.

  5. 08/10/2022

    I'm Back and I'm Redefining Celebration

    The Confetti Project with Jelena kicks off season 1 with an inaugural episode that goes back 7 years ago to the beginning of how The Confetti Project started in order to best explain why it’s been OOO for the past 2 years. This first chapter sets the foundation of an 8-part storytelling series that explores key themes of the human experience that are overly simplified and stigmatized through the lens of play & celebration - in an attempt to humanize being human. Filled with raw, unfiltered storytelling, Jelena takes you on a heartfelt journey filled with self-reflection questions as she dives deep into the profound impact her father had on her, what his death taught her about life, and how his ethos for living directly influences the evolution of The Confetti Project - in its most authentic form - now. In this episode, you will discover the new definition of celebration, how pain and pleasure are inextricably linked, and why you have to feel in order to feel alive. Chapter Markers:  7:24 - How Did You Start The Confetti Project?11:14 - What Does Confetti Even Mean?15:57 - Something Bigger Than Me 19:58 - Dad’s Diagnosis23:00 - Cancer & Confetti 27:16 - I Can Die 5 Minutes from Now29:41 - 4 Life Truths Watching my Father Die34:58 - The Pandemic 36:09 - A Deep Depression38:38 - The Privilege of Healing Childhood Trauma 42:00 - The Mother Wound 44:00 - TCP in it’s Most Authentic Form45:19 - Being Alive in the 21st Century48: 05 - Why I’m Back & Redefining Celebration 49:08 - Reconnecting to Feeling Alive  Resource Links: TCP Archive My Shame LibraryUnresolved Trauma The Mother WoundCulture of Loneliness & DisconnectionThe State of Mental Health in AmericaPlay Deprivation in AdulthoodEmotional Suppression Please subscribe and follow The Confetti Project on Instagram, Pinterest & Twitter.

5
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

After being OOO for two years, Jelena is sharing a behind-the-scenes look into the heart of The Confetti Project's mission and evolution in 2022: reintroducing play in adulthood that has the potential to transform life into beauty and meaning. You'll be exploring life in its fullest, most colorful expression through a newly defined lens of celebration that plays with the question: what does it mean to be alive in the 21st century? Jelena will be weaving her own intimate storytelling with thought-provoking questions as she slows down to celebrate her own human experiences.