Meet Elana, MSW/LSW

Your Creative Strategy Guide

Elana Merzin (she/her) is a neurodivergent Licensed Macro Social Worker, trauma-responsive coach, and the visionary founder of Tikkunelana and The WildHERness Co.

With over 14 years of experience in the nonprofit and Jewish communal sectors, she guides frontline professionals, changemakers, and highly sensitive leaders in healing from burnout, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and workplace harm—especially those who have long felt unseen within traditional wellness models.

What sets Elana apart is that her work is not theoretical—it’s lived. She knows the toll of holding space for others inside broken systems. She’s walked through deep burnout, high-functioning depression, and the isolation that comes from being a highly sensitive, neurodivergent soul in environments that demand conformity and constant output. Rather than bypassing those experiences, she built a new path through them—one rooted in embodiment, intuition, Jewish mysticism, and ritual.

Elana is known for creating sacred, trauma-informed spaces where authenticity, slowness, and creativity are not only welcomed but necessary. Her signature tools—like the Wild Wellness Map and Creative Awakening Cards—help participants regulate their nervous systems, reconnect with their truth, and reclaim their power. She brings a rare blend of spiritual depth, clinical insight, and radical empathy to every room she’s in.

A 200-hour certified yoga teacher, Builders + Backers Idea Accelerator Fellow, and emerging voice in the healing justice movement, Elana helps us remember what resilience really looks like: not pushing through—but coming home to ourselves.