Recreating Songlines from Trauma Trails
Weaving Indigenous Wisdom, Somatic Experiencing® and Collective Healing
Event Overview
Restoring Resilience is honoured to be co-hosting Recreating Songlines from Trauma Trails - Weaving Indigenous Wisdom, Somatic Experiencing® and Collective Healing on the lands of the Bundjalung Nation — led by Prof Judy Atkinson and Dr Caroline Atkinson (We Al-li), in collaboration with Dr Peter A. Levine, Maggie Kline, Dr Oscar Serrallach, Ash Dargan, and Restoring Resilience Co-Founders Anna Skolarikis and Phyllis Traficante.
Two-Eyed Seeing
This workshop weaves We Al-li Storywork and Somatic Experiencing® through the lens of Two-Eyed Seeing — walking with both eyes open:
- One eye grounded in Indigenous cultural knowledge, sovereignty, and ways of being
- One eye informed by deep observation of nature, physiology, instinct, and the body's innate capacity to heal
Together, these ways of knowing help restore what has been fragmented — returning people, families, and communities to belonging, dignity, and wholeness.
Held by Lake Ainsworth — a place of cleansing, reflection, and renewal — participants will move through a culturally held process of listening, story, movement, learning, and remembrance, guided by Country as teacher.
The Northern Rivers Workshop is Designed To:
- Honour the leadership, wisdom, and sovereignty of First Nations Peoples
- Practise Two-Eyed Seeing as a respectful meeting place between Indigenous and non-Indigenous healing knowledges
- Deepen into We Al-li's 6 Stages of Healing, as articulated by Prof Judy Atkinson
- Explore Somatic Experiencing® as a body-led, nature-informed approach to healing trauma, rooted in the study of animals in the wild, human physiology, and the rhythms of regulation and recovery
- Introduce The GROW Program practices where individual healing happens in relationship
- Foster pathways of reciprocity, responsibility, and collective wellbeing across cultures
We Al-li's 6 Stages of Healing
(Atkinson, 2002 — Return to Wholeness)
This gathering is guided by six culturally grounded stages of healing. These stages are relational, cyclical, and held within community — allowing each person to move at their own pace, in their own way:
Creating Culturally Safe Places
Establishing cultural, emotional, physical, and spiritual safety where people feel respected, protected, and supported.
Finding and Telling Our Stories
Sharing our stories in ways that are witnessed, honoured, and held with care — without judgement or shame.
Making Sense of Our Stories
Reflecting, understanding, and finding meaning — connecting experiences with identity, culture, and lived truth.
Feeling the Feelings
Allowing emotions to surface safely — grief, sadness, anger, fear, love — and letting the body process what it holds.
Moving Through Layers of Loss and Grief
Working through loss with support, restoring ownership, choice, and agency through gentle healing and self-determination.
Strengthening Cultural and Spiritual Identities
Reconnecting with spirit, culture, community, and belonging — restoring identity, purpose, and wholeness.
Program Highlights
- Welcome to Country & Cultural Ceremony — Bundjalung Elders
- We Al-li Storywork & Healing Processes guided through the 6 Stages
- Somatic Experiencing® teachings — Dr Peter Levine & Maggie Kline
- Honouring the body's innate wisdom, instinct, and capacity to restore balance
- GROW Program
- Yarning Circles — respectful dialogue across cultural knowledge systems
- Cultural performance, story, and music — Ash Dargan and local community
- Nature-based embodied practices by Lake Ainsworth
Schedule
Each element is held in alignment with the 6 Stages of Healing, ensuring a paced, respectful, and supported journey from arrival to departure.
Guiding Principles
Respect | Reciprocity | Relationship | Renewal
Participants are invited to engage with humility, courage, curiosity, and deep listening — recognising Country as teacher and community as medicine.
Who Should Attend
This event is for people who understand that healing from trauma is not only individual, but relational, cultural, and collective.
It is suited to those who can arrive with humility, respect for Country, and a willingness to listen, learn, and be in relationship, rather than to extract knowledge or seek quick outcomes.
This event is especially suited for:
- First Nations community members, Elders, cultural leaders, and knowledge holders
- Indigenous healers, storytellers, artists, and community practitioners
- Psychotherapists, psychologists, counsellors, social workers, and mental health clinicians
- Somatic Experiencing® practitioners and students, and other body-based practitioners
- Educators, early childhood professionals, school wellbeing staff, and youth workers
- Maternal and Child Health nurses and family support practitioners
- Health professionals, including Aboriginal health workers, nurses, and doctors
- Justice, youth justice, and forensic workers
- Community workers, humanitarian and crisis-response practitioners
- Organisational leaders and decision-makers shaping trauma-informed systems
- People with lived experience of trauma who are seeking healing grounded in culture, land, and community
This is not a clinical training or a certification program. It is a held, relational event that weaves Indigenous wisdom, Somatic Experiencing® and collective healing.
Participants are invited to come with openness, respect for cultural protocols, and a readiness to engage in shared learning, reflection, and connection.
About Your Presenters
Peter A Levine, Ph.D., is the developer of Somatic Experiencing®, a naturalistic and neurobiological approach to healing trauma, which he has developed over the past 50 years. He holds a doctorate in Biophysics from UC Berkeley and a doctorate in Psychology.
He is the Founder and President of the Ergos Institute of Somatic Education and the Founder and Advisor for Somatic Experiencing International, where his work has been taught to almost 2,000,000 therapists in 55 countries.
He is the author of several landmark books on trauma, including Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma (published in over 33 languages); In an Unspoken Voice, How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness; and An Autobiography of Trauma, A Healing Journey (2025).
Emeritus Professor Judy Atkinson is a Jiman (central west Queensland) and Bundjalung (northern New South Wales) woman, with Anglo-Celtic and German heritage.
Her academic contributions to the understanding of trauma related issues stemming from the violence of colonisation and the healing/recovery of Indigenous peoples from such trauma won her the Carrick Neville Bonner Award in 2006 and the Fritz Redlick Memorial Award for Human Rights and Mental Health from Harvard University in 2011.
On 26 January 2019, Judy received a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to the Indigenous community, to education and to mental health. She is the founder and Patron of We Al-li.
Carlie (Caroline) Atkinson is a Bundjalung and Yiman woman and an accredited Social Worker with a PhD (Charles Darwin University, 2009). Associate Professor Atkinson is an international leader in complex and intergenerational trauma and culturally informed strengths-based healing approaches in Indigenous Australia.
She is the CEO of her family organisation, We Al-li, designing and coordinating the delivery of Culturally Informed Trauma Integrated Healing Approaches (CITIHA) training and resource development for organisations and communities across Australia.
She is also the founder of the Northern Rivers Community Healing Hub, an Indigenous Framework response to the catastrophic floods in the Northern Rivers in 2022.
Maggie Kline, LMFT has been in education since the 1970s, a Family Therapist and School Psychologist since the 1980s, and a Somatic Experiencing® International Faculty Member since the 1990s.
She is owner of Conscious Connections PlayShops and co-author with Peter Levine of Trauma Through a Child's Eyes and Trauma-Proofing Your Kids.
Her latest contribution is My Inner Doggie Is Growling—a somatic and interactive children's picture book to help kids (and grown-ups) discover the sensations hidden beneath big emotions.
Ash is a Larrakia artist, storyteller, adventurer and educator from Darwin in the Top End. As a cultural ambassador for the Northern Territory throughout the 2000's he reached a global audience and achieved worldwide acclaim for his unique style of storytelling and live musical performance.
Ash gained his Masters of Indigenous Studies under Dr. Judy Atkinson following her work in Trauma Informed approaches to community recovery and has worked with We Al-li nationally as an Elder Facilitator for 14 years.
He is currently a Chief Investigator with the University of Sydney leading research and development of a VR immersive experience to help Aboriginal youth at risk of entering the justice system reconnect to self, Country, Culture and spirit.
Dr. Oscar Serrallach is an internationally recognised expert in trauma-informed care and healing practices. His work integrates somatic approaches with cultural awareness and community-based healing methodologies.
With extensive experience in supporting individuals and communities through trauma recovery, Dr. Serrallach brings a deep understanding of the interconnection between body, mind, and spirit in the healing journey.
His contributions to this gathering will enhance the weaving of Indigenous wisdom and Somatic Experiencing® practices, offering participants rich insights into holistic trauma resolution.
Acknowledgment
We acknowledge the Bundjalung people as the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters on which this event takes place. We pay deep respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations peoples who guide this work.
Purchase Tickets
This is a once-in-a-lifetime gathering bringing together Indigenous wisdom and Somatic Experiencing® in a profound healing journey.