Science - Politic - Culture- Creativity - Animism : A provocative and non-Eurocentric somatic approach to trauma, grief and nervous system restoration
The art of bringing softness and safety back within us.
Whatever happened to you, you’re not broken. Working with me is not about fixing you, I rather help you to restore harmony within you and widen your window of resilience.
My Approach
My approach to trauma and grief is body centered. The body has the innate capacity to heal, protect, expand and thrive by itself. Our modern society has us forgetting and neglecting this truth.
As a trauma-trained care practitioner and grief worker, I believe the answer are not in the story but in the body. I assist you to build on your capacity, not on your wound and to sit in the discomfort of the empty space that loss has left and slowly fill it with hope and life.
As I also believe in the individual body being part of the collective body and nervous system, I decentralize the clients and their narrative and lean into community, ancestral bodies, society and the cosmos to place us in the larger web of interconnectedness. We’re inevitably linked. As our traumas and grief are interconnected, so is our joy and healing.
Trauma removes our capacity to be in our body. And grief remind us what truly love means. All the healing modalities that are the cornerstones of my work aim to bring wholeness and liveliness in your body. These are:
Tao of Trauma principles
Ancestral practices
Touch work or bodywork (virtual touch techniques when working online)
Breathing techniques and breathwork
Polyvagal theory
Embodiment & cultural somatic practices
Benefits
These sessions help you to:
Alleviate pain.
process grief
Develop and or deepen somatic awareness.
Breathe better.
Restore balance in our nervous system.
Increase a sense of expansion and spaciousness within.
Bring more attention to breath, sensation, thoughts and beliefs.
Find truth and safety within the body.
Expand our window of resilience and tolerance.
Find peace and softness within and around us.
Increase felt sense.
Fade fears and worries.
Surrender.
Develop more compassion towards our story.
Find a sense of belonging, dignity and worthiness.
Boost creativity.
Feel wholeness and beauty in our cracks.
Reduce stress and sense of urgency.
Own our agency and frame the way we talk about our wounds.
Trust hope and faith in life.
Listen to a deep inner voice.
Awaken our curiosity towards ourselves and the world around us.
Topics
Individual - Ancestral - Collective - Racial - Systemic Trauma / Grief / Creativity / Shame & systemic humiliation / Anxiety /Boundary/ Identity & belonging / Immigration trauma / Compassion / Anger / Sexual shame/ Depression / Fear / Parenting/ religion and/or spiritual trauma/ Breathing and somatic for children and youth
Pricing Policy
Accessibility & Inclusivity
Coming from a systemically marginalized group myself, I believe that care should be accessible for everyone regardless of their gender, race, age and class. Also healing is not a solo journey - it’s deeper and more meaningful when shared as a community. I practice community support by offering sliding scale payment for Global South Bodies and Bodies of culture who are students or currently experiencing financial hardship and want to work with me. Get in touch!
Frequently Asked Questions
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Developed by Alaine Duncan, the Tao of Trauma is an integrative model and a healing path that uses the Five (5) Element Chinese Medicine concepts (metal, water, wood, fire, and air) and the cycles of nature to look at and treat ways that trauma survivors engage in a self-protective response. It’s a somatic and embodied approach, combined with touch work (bodywork).
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Breathwork is an umbrella term for various breathing techniques and exercices that were used in several ancient cultures but mainly originated in modern-day China, India, and Tibet. All of these exercises focus on your conscious awareness of your inhales and exhales. People often perform them to improve mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.
As a breathwork practitioner, I have been trained with different breathing techniques that support nervous system regulation including an ancient pranayama breathing technique that is a tool for deep emotional and energetical release and breakthrough.
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Remote sessions work via zoom. As a Tao of Trauma practitioner I have being trained to facilitate virtual touch techniques which give incredible results, just as physical touch.
This also applies for breathing techniques and pranayama breathwork.
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All depends on your story. For some 2 or 3 sessions might be enough and for different needs, more sessions may be required to feel the whole benefit.
My philosophy is to empower my clients by giving them practical tools that will help them so they don’t need me in they everyday life. Simple exercises or homework will be given to practice between sessions to support and build on the work we do together. To achieve consistent results, you will be invited to do your part and commit to consistent practice outside of the sessions.
If it’s your first time working with me, please book a discovery call so we get to know each other and agree on how we want to work.
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There are 1 hour sessions and 1.5 hour sessions. It all depends on your need. If you’re working with me for the first time, book a discovery call with me first.
Trainings & Certifications
All the training courses and certificates listed below are based on a solid foundation of many years of learning and indigenous experience specific to my culture, which I value enormously.
Ancestral Healing Journey with Thomas Hübl
Body as Healer with Peter A. Levine
Body Awareness with Idan Yoav
Bodywork: Sacred Art of Tai Yoga Body work with Ericka Bhavani
Breathwork with David Elliot
Essential breathing Module I (Down-regulation), II (Up-regulation) & III (Women & Children) with Rakel Sosa
Family Constellation (On going)
Motherhood and parenting (2 humans and 2 pets)
Polyvagal Theory with Stephen Porges
Tao of Trauma informed by Somatic experiencing & Polyvagal theory with Alaine D. Duncan
Trauma-informed Leadership with Thomas Hübl
Traumatic stress studies (on going) with Trauma research foundation & Dr Bessel van der Kolk
Transcending Trauma with Terry Marks-Tarlow & Leanne Domash
Virtual & in-person facilitation training with Virtilitation
About Tobi
Tobi is a dyer, a mender and a weaver of story, 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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