Heart Series: Jelena Aleksich - Founder of The Confetti Project
Jelena Aleksich
Jelena Aleksich
2020 is finally over, but we are still picking up the pieces. We have learned to work remotely, but are still figuring out how to do it healthily. We have learned to compromise on deadlines and dreams, but are still longing the old days when we could come and go freely. We have learned how to live through a pandemic, but are still behind when it comes to overcoming it. It has been a year about loss, adaptation and survival and, among that, there's grief. So why don't we talk more often about it? To answer that and a few other questions, I talked to Jelena Aleksich, the founder of The Confetti Project— an initiative that portraits people doused in confetti (Yup! You heard it just right! Confetti!) as a result of exploring one of the biggest questions in life:
What do you celebrate?
Six years and over two hundred celebratory sessions later, Jelena has built a community of people who celebrate life among other things. "I'm trying to redefine what celebration means. We don't have to be deserving of celebration. We don't need to be waiting on a pile of confetti, or have a birthday, or a big milestone or we don't have to wait to watch someone we love die. We don't need to be awakened by tragedy.", she enlightens.
the confetti project.jpg
When The Confetti Project had to abruptly cease its in person sessions because of Covid, an immediate grief took place but, as after all torrential storms, a clear sky showed up along afterwards. "I already had some storms, so when this big one came, I knew a breakthrough would come from this breakdown if I were patient, kind and compassionate with myself. It completely made me realize what I've been doing with confetti. I am changing the way confetti is used. For being the worldwide symbol of celebration from thousands of years, that is why when we see confetti, we automatically connect it with celebration." Within a few months into the pandemic, Jelena has built an unimaginable bridge. She brought grief and celebration together while using confetti as a tool: "Confetti is the new healing modality. Grief and Celebration has become a subset of the Confetti Project.", she explains.
The project offers a safe space for grief and healing. "Holding space for everything that grief brings up is healing.", Jelena declares. To celebrate grief with confetti and community is her mission. She alerts, "Where it becomes dangerous is when you don't allow yourself to feel it." In a society that oversimplifies grief, it is essential to humanize it and demystify it in order to allow the process of healing to happen. "Grief is the most universal experience, the most universal truth.", Jelena says. Last December, the 19th, I participated in the workshop Grief As Celebration | Reflecting + Releasing 2020. My package with confetti arrived days before with a warm little note, confetti and instructions for the event.
the confetti project
How has the process with confetti been for you?
I have been working with confetti for many years and I have been holding space for other people. At the same time, it was a reciprocal experience. I was feeling the effects of healing.
And that was exactly how I felt in my own experience in my own Grief + Celebration process. "These little pieces of paper give you freedom to be able to express yourself.", Jelena says. It's like being a child again. We are freer when we are kids and we deal with grief in a different way. Perhaps we have more tools or less fear. In our adulthood, we are socially castrated in so many ways. The permission to make a mess with confetti can be a breakthrough in life. "We need a lot of permission to do things. Permission to make a mess. Permission to even celebrate challenging things.", she concludes.
How do you perceive this connection?
A lot of adults love to grasp onto illusions of control because there is so much that is uncertain. Our whole existence is rooted in uncertainty.
As the workshop progressed, that group of strangers began to share their experiences. One at a time, we gave space and held space for one another. Historically, we are taught to feel ashamed of our feelings, we are taught to only carefully outlet our emotions. However, once I witnessed my peers opening up their hearts, I felt compelled to do the same and a change happened. By sharing my experience, I rinsed off some of that unreasonable shame. By embracing my grief, I found out I wasn't alone in my pain. It is cathartic to realize how many things can be cured by being in community.
"We are all connected to our grief in one way or another."
the confetti project
How does it make you feel that now people are doing the confetti at home and they are a little more in charge of their own process with confetti?
I love it. I love that people can have their own experience at their own homes, I think that is beautiful. The model has shifted so much this year with not being able to meet in person, how much that impacts more accessibility. People don't have to live in NY to be able to do it.
What is the future of The Confetti Project?
The year of 2020 has been a turning point for it. As creatives, we envision futures that don't exist yet. We are the bridges to actualizing that for people to see. I'm always thinking about the future of this work. It is one of my life purposes. I truly believe I was meant to be the vessel through this specific message. I'll be getting a space in the future, a community and lifestyle space. First line of products called mental hygiene collection, which used confetti and journaling to have more mental health check-ins throughout your week or day. The Grief and Celebration Initiative will grow.
Jelena lost her father in a battle against cancer. For a whole year, as she watched him fight for his life, she brought The Confetti Project to life.
After six years of all that you've learned, what would you say to your dad now? If you had a chance to look him in the eye and say it, what would be the message?
I would just hug him and thank him for everything. I would thank him for teaching me what unconditional love is and for how to live life well, I would thank him for everything that I have become. I am everything that I am because of him.
Would you have to say for those who are grieving right now?
You are valid. Everything you're feeling is valid. If you feel alone, you would be surprised by how many people are feeling what you're feeling. We all feel the same things, maybe in different ways and in different times but, grief connects every single person. It is okay for you to feel what you're feeling. You are feeling something many people are afraid to feel. Reach out to your community. It is not that you are alone, you have been given this opportunity to go deeper within yourself and feel everything that is coming up.
the confetti project
When the workshop ended, we were all covered in confetti of all colors. It felt like a giant hug from life. A gentle reminder that beauty and fragility can coexist. "The confetti is a beautiful metaphor for it. Because it is so spontaneous, and it moves. When you use it, you can't control it. It is a reflection on life in itself. All you can do is keep moving forward and try to be as present as possible. It is a nice way to get out of your head and bring the energy in your body. And to be in the moment.", Jelena summarizes.
One of Jelena's most powerful statements that resonates with me is "All of the people that we have lost, they have given us that gift of being closer to our mortality." because it made me realize that to celebrate grief is an opportunity to reset life. For better or worse, the idea of mortality is what gives life meaning and a sense of purpose. Towards the end of our interview, she asks "How many times do you have something physical to represent all the stuff that is happening in your mind?". Almost never, I suggested. That's what confetti does. "It gives you an edge, it gives you that superpower of thinking about who you were and allowing for you to be present.", Jelena concludes.
the confetti project
When the workshop was over, I played some music. As the sound and the lyrics traversed the room, I thought of my friend who passed away four years ago. I thought of how much she liked that song and how much fun she would have had with confetti herself if she was here. As I gathered up the remaining confetti off the floor, I didn't bother to pursue the scattered ones presumably behind the couch or underneath the rug because that could be a memoryland for the residual effect of confetti. A few weeks from now, as I get ready for another important thing to cross off my routine to-do list, a piece of confetti may cross my day and completely shift my energy. It may remind me too that life is worth living not because it ends, but because it always begins somewhere.
All images are courtesy of Jelena. You can check out The Confetti Project here. :)