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Tobi Ayé

@tobi.aye

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Group Facilitator - Grief worker & Educator
🎙 Vernacular Pathways
Art: @remembering_the_unforgettable & @an.anthropology.of.presence 🎞📸

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« Take time to reflect on everything you learn in the system and don’t hesitate to transform and adapt it to you, to your condition », precious advice from my dearest mother.
In my training on trauma and somatics here in the West, I’ve learned and am still learning an enormous amount, but at the same time there are quite a few things I have to throw out or readapt so that they speak to the people I support. The word « regulation » is one example, and it’s bothered me ever since I first heard it. And with everything that’s going on right now, it makes me even more uncomfortable. It’s time for an official adjustment on my end.
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Self-expansion instead of self-regulation
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Co-expansion instead of Co-regulation
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#nervoussytemexpansion #coexpansion #traumahealing #dysregulatednervoussystem #dysregulatedsystems #nervoussystemregulation by @tobi.aye

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3 years ago

Today, many of us still struggle to self-regulate our nervous system, even with all the somatic tools at our disposal, simply because we did not receive enough co-regulation growing up.

Coregulation lies at the heart of all human relationships. According to Polyvagal theory, it is the reciprocal sending and receiving of signals of safety. It is not merely the absence of danger but connection between two nervous systems; each nourishing and regulating the other in the process.
Because it is baked into our evolutionary past, it is not a desire, but a need – one developed to facilitate survival. As humans, we, therefore, are programmed to seek interpersonal connection: it is a biological imperative.

But the good thing is, it is still possible to repair our ability to self-regulate, simply by reaching out more to our surroundings when we are struggling to regulate, the more we are receiving support, the more we are able to learn to do it by ourselves. Co-regulation before Self-regulation.
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NB : A human being needs to co-regulate with parents, caregivers, or friends from the age of 0 to 25, to be able to self-regulate easily after. Take care of your loved ones, and please be gentle with yourself, you can still learn. 🫂💕
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#coregulation #coregulationbeforeregulation #coregulationbeforeselfreguation by @tobi.aye

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4 years ago

To say this week has been a heavy week is an understatement. But remember you are not alone, we a whole in this web that is being more and more weakened and fragmented by white supremacy, colonial and collective trauma. So please don’t stay in isolation, don't carry this alone, don't let it freeze you, don't let it numb you. Don't let capitalism make you forget to pause, honor your sadness, and connect with your people, your emotions, your body, and your breath….only connection, a deep and authentic connection will create constructive dialogue, and help us see humanity in each other.
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Sending this to you from my heavy heart, full of pain and sorrow and also love and hope. ✨🌱 by @tobi.aye

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3 years ago

Sometimes, what we need is not another explanation of what is happening in the world, but a space to meet what it is doing to us.

Join us this November.
Details and registration via the LINK IN BIO by @tobi.aye

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2 days ago

If you are wondering why a year-long journey instead of a one-time event.

Because grief ask us to return, grieving is a practice to returning to what is loss.
To return to listen again, to notice what has changed to understand more deeply, to keep company with what is still unfolding.
A year felt like the right rhythm for this.

LINK IN BIO FOR MORE DETAILS by @tobi.aye

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a month ago

There are things happening in the world that do not simply stay “out there.” They enter our bodies, they settle into our nervous systems, our relationships, our sleep, our capacity to imagine a future.

We carry the grief of wars, genocide, rising fascism, colonial violence, forced migration, ecological destruction, borders, racism, political repression, and the fragmentation of our communities. We carry what we witness, we carry what we cannot stop thinking about, and also what we cannot change. And most of the time we carry it alone.

I have been thinking a lot about political as something that lives in our bodies and shapes how we move through the world.

What does it mean to make space for this grief?
What might become possible when we stop asking ourselves to simply keep going? And what happens when we sit with others who are also carrying something, even when what they are grieving is not the same thing we are?

This is the beginning of something I have been wanting to create for a while.

Political Grief: A Year-Long Practice of Collective Witnessing

Starting in November, amonthly gathering to slow down, witness what is present, and explore how we might grow our capacity to stay with what political life asks of us.

LINK IN BIO FOR MORE DETAILS

Collage by me ✨🌱🐜 by @tobi.aye

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a month ago

What’s coming up this season ✨🌱 September → December
Courses, workshops and gatherings on grief, ancestry, responsibility, death and the many thresholds we move through.
A few familiar spaces.
A few new ones.
All invitations to slow down, pay attention, learn, question, feel and be in relationship.

✨ Registration is still open for most offerings.

Come find your place. by @tobi.aye

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a month ago

KINDA CHIC TO DO ANCESTRY WORK.
And becoming curious about the people, histories and relationships that existed before us and understanding how they continue to shape the lives we live today.

We begin in one month. ✨

If this work speaks to you, come join us. Link in bio. by @tobi.aye

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2 months ago

Plötzlich back at Podcasting and this time with the topic of disappointment. In this episode, I want to invite you into a simple grieving practice, one that has helped me meet disappointment with more honesty and gentleness. Link in bio to listen to it ☺️ by @tobi.aye

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3 months ago

Some of the deepest conversations I have about colonialism begin with the sentence, “But my country never colonized anyone.”

The history of colonialism is far more interconnected than we often imagine. Colonialism was not only built through overseas empires. It was also sustained through trade, finance, industry, knowledge, religion, migration, and political alliances. Its legacies continue to shape Europe, and the lives of all of us, in different ways.

Ancestral responsibility is not about assigning guilt. It is about understanding the histories we inherit, recognizing the relationships we are part of, and asking what it means to respond with honesty, humility, and care.

If you’re ready to explore your own family history through this lens, I’d love to welcome you into the Ancestral Responsibility course.

✨ Registration is now open. Follow the link in my bio to learn more.
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#ancestralresponsibity by @tobi.aye

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3 months ago

Ancestral responsibility is an invitation to be in relationship with history. To turn toward it with honesty, humility, and curiosity. To recognize that we have inherited more than our names or our DNA, we have also inherited stories, silences, privileges, wounds, and ways of seeing the world.
We cannot choose what we inherit. But we can choose how we relate to it.

If you’re white and ready to explore your own lineage, inherited histories, and what it means to become a responsible descendant, my Ancestral Responsibility course is now open for registration.
The link is in my bio.

#ancestralwisdom by @tobi.aye

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3 months ago

This is for those who are willing to turn toward history with honesty, curiosity, and care.
LINK IN BIO FOR MORE DETAILS by @tobi.aye

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3 months ago