Science - Politic -Indigeneity - Animism : A provocative and non-Eurocentric somatic approach to grief and trauma
A soft space for embracing the uncertainty of where grief and trauma may lead us.
“The Eurocentric paradigm often centers on 'healing' trauma by fixing individuals, pathologizing, and suppressing grief. In contrast, the approach I live by invites us to lean into grief—to feel it fully, own it, and become curious about our fragmented parts. I can’t promise “healing”, but I invite you to explore what “healing” truly means for you, in your own body.” Tobi Ayé
ANCESTRAL RESPONSIBILITY: FACING THE COLONIAL GENOGRAM AND THE DEATH OF EMPIRE
Weekly gathering , Every Friday from OCTOBER 3rd, 20:00 pm to 22 pm, Berlin time
Language: English
Length: 12 - week journey (OCTOBER 3rd - DECEMBER 19th)
WHY THIS WORKSHOP
“Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their great grandparents maybe even…” Elon Musk at AfD’s far right rally in Germany, January 2025
“One of the things our ancestors will guide us to do from the realm they now inhabit is to take responsibility for the past and repair for the future” Nago saying, Benin
In a world shaped by the legacies of empire, two worldviews collide. One seeks to forget: “It’s not my fault, so it’s not my responsibility.” The other calls us to remember, insists on continuity and responsibility: “I am part of a lineage, and I have the responsibility to repair what was done wrong.”
As descendants of colonizers, white people carry an inheritance that is more than material wealth and privilege. It is also silence, guilt, diconnection, shame and collective amnesia. This workshop is not about blame. It is about responsibility. Repair. Right relationship with the past for the present and the future.
In this 3-month online process based on weekly meetings, we will trace the colonial genogram, looking honestly at the personal, familial, and systemic lines that tie us to histories of conquest, extraction, and violence. We will use the Soma and grief-centered practices to explore what it means to be shaped by empire, and to begin the slow work of metabolizing shame, and stepping into forms of repair.
This is not a space for performance or quick fixes. It’s a space to grieve, witness and practices being in right relationship with the past, the body, and with the more just futures we long for. If you feel called to turn towards this work, to hold ancestral responsibility as a living, breathing practicing rather than an intellectual idea, I invite you to join us.
My Offerings
My Approach
1-1 Sessions
In Person / Virtual
Facilitation & Training
In Person / Virtual
Free Monthly Grief Space
About Tobi
Tobi is a dyer, mender, and weaver of stories, born and raised in Benin. Movement and displacement have been integral to her life, shaping her identity. Growing up across the West African sub-region and living in North Africa, notably Tunisia, she has personally experienced the ethnic, inter-religious, and social divisions rooted in the continent's colonial trauma.
Now based in Portugal after years in Germany, she is a cultural somatic practitioner, grief worker, and educator. Her work focuses on helping individuals and communities repair fractured connections and integrate collective, intergenerational, individual, and systemic trauma and grief.
With a commitment to bridging Indigenous perspectives and modern neurobiology, Tobi created Collective Resonance™, a grief program that trains facilitators to hold space for collective grief processes and acknowledge systemic grief. This program fosters deeper community connections by addressing grief somatically, helping people integrate their losses while nurturing resilience and collective transformation.
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