Meet Lepa
Lepa Modie, LCSW, is a mental health therapist, author, educator, and creator of the SEW Balance Method™ with more than 25 years of clinical experience. Her work focuses on prevention-focused mental health and everyday wellbeing for adults, college students, and student athletes. She is the author of Well… Now What?!, Well Sh*t! Now What?!, and Strong On The Outside, and works with clinicians, colleges, universities, and athletic programs to make mental health education more practical and accessible.
PERSONAL LIFE
Lepa is happily married, a mom of three, and has called Charlotte, NC home since 1994. Her roots stretch from the former Yugoslavia (now Serbia) to northeastern New Jersey, and growing up biculturally shaped much of who she is today. She believes laughter is essential to survival and loves traveling, gardening, skiing, hiking, biking, yoga, reading, and simply being outdoors.
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They left the political and economic instability of the former Yugoslavia with hopes for a better life in the United States.
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But money didn’t come easily or quickly. While still just a toddler, Lepa’s parents had to send her and her infant sister by themselves overseas, back to Eastern Europe. She didn’t see her parents again for 17 months.
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Once back in the U.S., their neighborhood had high poverty, high crime, and high levels of trauma. Violence and abuse took their toll.
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As a 17-year old in a strict, religious community, she was expected to marry upon turning 18. But she had other plans.
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A hidden college application, a scholarship appeal, and a 13-hour train ride got Lepa out of New Jersey for good and down to North Carolina, sight unseen.
What It Taught Me
I learned early that we can’t control everything, but we can understand what’s within our influence. That lesson became part of the foundation for the SEW Balance Method™.
MEET THE FOUNDER
In 2021, I turned an idea shaped by decades of clinical work and lived experience into the SEW Balance Method™.
What began as a way to help people better understand the everyday factors affecting their wellbeing has grown into books, assessments, educational resources, and tools for adults, college students, student athletes, clinicians, and higher education.
The goal remains simple: help people understand themselves sooner, so they have more tools for whatever comes next.