In Part 2 of my conversation with Dunja, founder of Earth Magic Medicine, we move from story into embodiment.

This episode explores what healing actually looks like after survival. We talk about the body, the nervous system, ancestral roots, ritual, spirituality, and why so many women are being called back to their lineage and inner wisdom.

Dunja shares how Earth Magic Medicine came to life, how ancestral practices support modern women, and why grounding, breath, and ritual are essential tools in a world that constantly pulls us away from ourselves.

This conversation is about slowing down, remembering where we come from, and finding our way home to ourselves.

• What healing looks like beyond talk therapy

• How trauma lives in the body and nervous system

• Why grounding and breathwork are so powerful

• Ancestral wisdom passed down through women

• Rituals and practices that support daily life

• Spirituality, religion, and why healing work is often misunderstood

• How reconnecting with roots supports identity and belonging

• The importance of village, family, and collective support

• Why evolving our consciousness matters now more than ever

• How Dunja supports women through Earth Magic Medicine

Between Part 1 and Part 2, Dunja offers a bonus meditation titled:

Bonus Meditation: Ancestral Roots & Grounding

A gentle grounding practice shared as a gift to support integration, regulation, and reconnection with your ancestral roots.

Dunja is a healer, breathwork and meditation guide, and the founder of Earth Magic Medicine. Her work supports women through:

• One-on-one sessions online and in person

• Group healing spaces and women’s circles

• Breathwork and meditation journeys

• Retreats in Byron Bay and Bali

• Hosting The Magic of Your Lineage podcast

Her work is rooted in embodiment, ancestral wisdom, and creating safe spaces for deep healing.

🌿 Website

https://www.earthmagicmedicine.com.au

🌿 All offerings and links

https://linktr.ee/earth_magic_medicine

🌿 Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/earthmagicmedicine

🌿 Podcast

The Magic of Your Lineage

📍 Instagram — Balkan Sis Podcast

https://www.instagram.com/balkansis

📍 Instagram — Ivana Strbac Alfonso

https://www.instagram.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/@ivanastrbacalfonso

This bonus meditation is a gentle grounding journey guided by Dunja of Earth Magic Medicine, offered as a gift to the Balkan Sis community.

In this practice, you are invited to slow down, settle into your body, and reconnect with your ancestral roots. Through breath, presence, and stillness, this meditation supports your nervous system and reminds you that you are held, supported, and never alone.

You do not need to know your family history or have all the answers. Simply allow yourself to feel the strength, wisdom, and safety that live within you, passed down through generations.

This meditation is best listened to when you have a few quiet moments to yourself. You can return to it whenever you feel ungrounded, overwhelmed, or in need of connection.

A moment to come home to yourself.

A reminder of where you come from.

A space to simply be.

Website

https://www.earthmagicmedicine.com.au

All Links & Offerings (Linktree)

https://linktr.ee/earth_magic_medicine

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/earthmagicmedicine

Instagram — Balkan Sis Podcast

https://www.instagram.com/balkansis

Instagram — Ivana Strbac Alfonso

https://www.instagram.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

TikTok — Ivana Strbac Alfonso

https://www.tiktok.com/@ivanastrbacalfonso

Facebook — Ivana Strbac Alfonso

https://www.facebook.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

YouTube — Ivana Strbac Alfonso

https://www.youtube.com/@ivanastrbacalfonso

Connect with Dunja

🌿 Website: https://www.earthmagicmedicine.com.au

🌿 All offerings: https://linktr.ee/earth_magic_medicine

🌿 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthmagicmedicine

Connect with Balkan Sis & Ivana

📍 Instagram – Balkan Sis Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/balkansis

📍 Instagram – Ivana: https://www.instagram.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 TikTok – Ivana: https://www.tiktok.com/@ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 Facebook – Ivana: https://www.facebook.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 YouTube – Ivana: https://www.youtube.com/@ivanastrbacalfonso

In this deeply personal and grounding episode of Balkan Sis Podcast, I sit down with Dunja, founder of Earth Magic Medicine, to explore lineage, loss, identity, motherhood, and what it truly means to become ourselves after everything we’ve lived through.

Born in Sisak then moving to Vukovar and shaped by displacement, migration, and survival, Dunja shares her story from early childhood through life as a refugee, adapting to Australia, becoming a mother, navigating grief, and ultimately finding her calling in healing and ancestral work.

This conversation is honest, reflective, and deeply human. We talk about trauma held in the body, the wisdom passed down through women, reconnecting with roots, and why so many of us feel called back to lineage and ritual later in life.

This episode is also dedicated in loving memory of Emilia, Dunja’s daughter, whose life was cut short after only a few weeks. Her presence and spirit are gently honoured throughout this conversation.

• Dunja’s early life and childhood

• Growing up with displacement and migration

• Adapting to life in Australia and identity shifts

• Marriage, motherhood, and what resurfaces after birth

• Loss, grief, and transformation

• The birth of Earth Magic Medicine

• Ancestral wisdom passed through women

• Lineage, ritual, and cultural remembrance

• Healing the nervous system through breath and embodiment

• Why this work is often misunderstood

• The importance of village, family, and community

• What healing actually looks like in real life

This episode includes a bonus healing meditation for your soul, lovingly shared by Dunja as a gift to the Balkan Sis community.

A gentle space to ground, breathe, and reconnect with yourself.

Dunja is a healer, breathwork and meditation guide, and the founder of Earth Magic Medicine. Her work supports women through:

• One-on-one sessions (online worldwide and in person)

• Group healing spaces and women’s circles

• Breathwork and meditation journeys

• Retreats in Byron Bay and Bali

• Hosting The Magic of Your Lineage podcast

Her work is rooted in ancestral wisdom, embodiment, and creating safe spaces for deep healing.

🌿 Website

https://www.earthmagicmedicine.com.au

🌿 All links and offerings

https://linktr.ee/earth_magic_medicine

🌿 Podcast

The Magic of Your Lineage

📍 Instagram

@balkansispodcast

📍 TikTok

@ivanastrbacalfonso

📍 Facebook

Ivana Strbac Alfonso

📍 YouTube

Ivana Strbac Alfonso

Thank you, Dunja, for your openness, your story, and the way you hold space.

And thank you to our listeners for being here, listening with open hearts, and walking this journey with us.

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.

In this final episode of 2025, I sit alone at the mic and reflect on a year that asked more of me than I ever imagined.

I talk openly about burnout and healing, motherhood, culture and tradition, and what the festive season looks like when life has reshaped you. I share how living alongside the effects of cancer within our family changed our priorities, tested our strength, and forced us to slow down, reassess, and choose what truly matters. I also reflect on surviving a cyclone this year another reminder of how quickly life can shift and how resilience is built in moments we don’t choose.

This episode is also about roots and community: why preserving culture, honouring tradition, and backing independent artists and creators is more important than ever. I speak about forging a community that didn’t exist yet, navigating judgment, staying persistent with dreams and aspirations, and continuing anyway quietly, bravely, imperfectly.

I reflect on powerful stories that stayed with me this year, including a recommended documentary about a two-time genocide survivor, and I share personal moments like preparing to welcome my aunt from Germany in 2026 for the very first time an arrival that feels symbolic of fresh energy, reconnection, and new beginnings.

As we close out 2025, I offer gratitude for the collaborations, conversations, and community that made this year meaningful, and I consciously welcome 2026 with hope, openness, and renewed intention.

<3 Ivana :)

Part 2 of my conversation with filmmaker and photographer Harun Mehmedinović, we move beyond survival and into responsibility. This episode focuses on memory, truth and what is asked of us once we know what has happened.

Harun and I speak about the ongoing impact of genocide denial, the erasure of historical sites in Bosnia, and why language matters when telling the truth about violence. We explore how denial becomes an extension of the crime itself and why remembering is not passive, but an active moral responsibility.

We also talk about Harun’s upcoming documentary The Acts of Reburial, why this project must be made now, and what it means to return to places that others are trying to erase. Harun shares what he sees happening inside Bosnia today, what he observes in the diaspora, and why silence and softened language are so dangerous.

This conversation also opens into questions of forgiveness, activism, creativity and the role of the artist as a witness. We discuss how people living far from Bosnia can still be meaningfully involved, how memory lives in the body and the culture, and what future generations deserve to inherit from us.

This episode is about truth, accountability and the cost of looking away.

What memory demands once survival is no longer the question

Genocide denial and the erasure of historical sites

Why language matters when naming violence

The responsibility of witnessing and documenting truth

Harun’s upcoming film The Acts of Reburial

How denial retraumatizes survivors and communities

The role of the artist as an activist

Forgiveness, justice and personal boundaries

What is happening inside Bosnia today

What Harun sees within the diaspora

How people outside the region can take meaningful action

What future generations deserve to inherit

Harun Mehmedinović is a Bosnian filmmaker, photographer and survivor of the Siege of Sarajevo. His work has appeared in National Geographic, TIME and BBC, and he has collaborated with artists including The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, Paul Simon and John Mayer. He is the creator of the SKYGLOW project and the director of the upcoming documentary The Acts of Reburial. Harun is also the co-producer and cinematographer of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ice on Fire.

Website and portfolio

https://www.bloodhoney.com

SKYGLOW project

https://www.bloodhoney.com/skyglow-project

The Acts of Reburial

https://theactsofreburial.com

IMDb

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1175698

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_Mehmedinović

I’m Ivana Alfonso, host of the Balkan Sis Podcast, where I hold space for conversations about identity, culture, memory, creativity and the lived experiences of the Balkan diaspora. Through this podcast, I explore what it means to honour where we come from while living fully and truthfully in the present.

Podcast

Balkan Sis Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major platforms

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/balkansispodcast

My Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

In Part 1 of this conversation, I sit down with filmmaker, photographer and Sarajevo siege survivor Harun Mehmedinović to explore what survival teaches us about life, memory and meaning.

We talk about Harun’s childhood in Sarajevo before the war, the moment survival replaced innocence, and how those early experiences shaped his inner world. Together, we reflect on family, ritual, fireflies, migration and the emotional numbness that followed resettlement in the United States.

This episode is about how trauma lives in the body, how creativity becomes a form of testimony, and how survival does not end when the war does. Harun shares his perspective on memory, identity and the responsibility of witness, and we explore the quiet ways the past continues to shape who we become.

This is a deeply human conversation about memory, culture and the wisdom that comes from lived experience.

Growing up in Sarajevo before the war

The moment childhood shifted into survival

Family, memory and early rituals

Fireflies and vivid childhood symbolism

Life after war and emotional numbness

Migration and identity in a new country

Creativity as a form of testimony

What survival teaches us beyond endurance

Harun Mehmedinović is a Bosnian filmmaker, photographer and survivor of the Siege of Sarajevo. His work has appeared in National Geographic, TIME and BBC, and he has collaborated with artists including The Rolling Stones, Roger Waters, Paul Simon and John Mayer. He is the creator of the SKYGLOW project and the director of the upcoming documentary The Acts of Reburial. Harun is also the co-producer and cinematographer of Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ice on Fire.

Website and portfolio

https://www.bloodhoney.com

SKYGLOW project

https://www.bloodhoney.com/skyglow-project

The Acts of Reburial

https://theactsofreburial.com

IMDb

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1175698

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harun_Mehmedinović

I’m Ivana Alfonso, host of the Balkan Sis Podcast, where I hold space for conversations about identity, culture, memory, creativity and the lived experiences of the Balkan diaspora. Through this podcast, I explore what it means to honour where we come from while living fully in the present.

Podcast

Balkan Sis Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all major platforms

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/balkansispodcast

My Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/ivanastrbacalfonso

Health, heritage & cancer at 33: Monica’s story

In this raw and deeply personal episode of Balkan Sis, I sit down with Monica Ackermann, a 33-year-old Croatian-Australian woman living in Split, Croatia — currently navigating life with stage 4 colon cancer.

This conversation is close to my heart. After my nephew Luka’s leukemia diagnosis, cancer has become more than a word — it’s real, it’s close, and it’s affecting so many young people in our communities.

Monica and I talk about everything:

• The early symptoms that were dismissed and misdiagnosed

• What it’s like being a young woman trying to be heard in a medical system that often doesn’t listen

• Why she chose to stay in Croatia for treatment — and what that experience has been like

• The healing power of her rescue dog, Duje

• The emotional, financial, and identity toll of long-term illness

• Why cancer is showing up more in our generation — and what could be behind it

• Her message for people who think “this would never happen to me”

• And the unexpected gifts, silver linings, and shifts that come from facing something this big

  
  

This episode is about more than illness — it’s about truth-telling, cultural silence, self-advocacy, and choosing life again and again, even when it’s hard.

📲 CONNECT WITH MONICA

TikTok: @monack92

Instagram: @mon_ack

🎥 WATCH HER FULL STORY

YouTube: Young and Diagnosed with Colon Cancer — The Patient Story

🎧 Listen to Balkan Sis on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or YouTube

📸 Follow me on Instagram: @ivanastrbacalfonso

🎧 A soulful and uplifting conversation exploring Greek roots, modern motherhood, and the beauty of surrender.

Mary Sotiropoulos — teacher, author, and creator of The Mum Who Found Her Sparkle shares her reflections after two transformative months in Greece. Her journey is marked by lessons from her yiya, moments of slowing down, and a deeper reconnection to joy and her heritage.

Themes of identity, culture, and motherhood flow through this episode, celebrating the power of storytelling, community, and rediscovering your inner light. From Greek wisdom to modern-day mum truths, it’s a gentle reminder that life doesn’t need to be perfect to be beautiful — you just have to keep your sparkle alive.

💫 Highlights

* Reconnecting with heritage and slowing down in Greece

* Lessons and love passed down from yiya

* Rediscovering joy through motherhood

* Building community and connection among women

* Letting go of control and embracing surrender

💛 Connect with Mary

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/marysotiropoulos_)

Book: The Mum Who Found Her Sparkle

🎙Connect with Balkan Sis

Instagram: @ivanastrbacalfonso

🎧 Iskren i inspirativan razgovor koji istražuje grčke korijene, suvremeno majčinstvo i ljepotu prepuštanja životu.

Mary Sotiropoulos — učiteljica, autorica i kreatorica projekta The Mum Who Found Her Sparkle — dijeli svoja razmišljanja nakon dva transformativna mjeseca provedena u Grčkoj. Njezino putovanje ispunjeno je lekcijama od njezine yiye, trenucima usporavanja i ponovnog povezivanja s radošću i nasljeđem.

Kroz teme identiteta, kulture i majčinstva, ova epizoda slavi moć pripovijedanja, zajedništva i ponovno otkrivanje vlastitog unutarnjeg sjaja. Od grčke mudrosti do stvarnosti suvremenog majčinstva, ovo je nježan podsjetnik da život ne mora biti savršen da bi bio prekrasan — dovoljno je da zadržiš svoj sjaj.

💫 Istaknuti trenuci

* Ponovno povezivanje s korijenima i usporavanje u Grčkoj

* Lekcije i ljubav prenesene od yiye

* Ponovno otkrivanje radosti kroz majčinstvo

* Izgradnja zajednice i povezanosti među ženama

* Otpuštanje kontrole i prihvaćanje prepuštanja

💛 Poveži se s Mary:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/marysotiropoulos_)

Knjiga: The Mum Who Found Her Sparkle

🎙️ Poveži se s Balkan Sis:

Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/ivanastrbacalfonso)