Becoming Trauma-Attuned

Cultivating the embodied relational capacities needed for radically inclusive groups and communities.

24th - 28th July 2026Brimpts Farm, Dartmoor, Devon

Created and facilitated by Madelanne Rust-D’Eye of Body-Informed Leadership, and Claire Milne of Starter Culture

A 4-day immersion for space-holders, facilitators and guides. 

For many facilitators, being trauma-informed is not enough. Even with frameworks and perspectives on trauma in-hand, a facilitator can feel helpless when the dynamics of trauma activate in the living, breathing process of a group. Or, we might not even notice when trauma is present, and those most impacted quietly withdraw, disengage or never return. Without having made a deeper journey into the sensed-and-felt reality of our own body, and the places we ourselves carry disconnective or protective patterns, facilitators can easily miss signals from the group field, and unconsciously replicate the old patterns of marginalisation, privilege or urgency that we seek to interrupt and compost.

Becoming Trauma-attuned takes a bottom-up approach, supporting practitioners to attune to, and speak and act from, the sensory language of their bodies and nervous systems as a portal into deeper connection with themselves, others and with the group field as a whole. These four days will weave together Western scientific frameworks and a rigorous somatic skillset, with practices that support us to attune across all four dimensions of Primal Attunement: attunement with self, with other humans, with the other-than-humans (natural world) and with the invisible more-than-human realms of ancestors, spirit and soul. 

We understand trauma not only as individual wounding, but as a fractal pattern which manifests in our individual, relational, and group neurobiology, as well as in the broader cultural dynamics which manifest in Modernity, colonialism, systemic violence and species-wide civilisation trauma. To become trauma-attuned is to become sensitive to these deeper layers of the field, including the subtle ways they move through group dynamics at the non-verbal, embodied level.

Without this capacity for attunement, those already carrying the heaviest burdens of Modernity, and particularly those from marginalised identities, often end up paying the price.

This is very much the terrain of “we don’t know what we don’t know.” By choosing to become trauma-attuned, we open our capacity to perceive dimensions of the group field that were previously invisible to us.

Over four days, we will:

• Cultivate nervous system literacy and drop into truly embodied presence.
  

• Explore our own protective strategies and shadow as space-holders
  

• Get to know the core embodied dynamics of trauma and attachment, and how they inform the broader patterns of our relationships and our groups, as well as our own qualities of presence as facilitators.
  

• Rewrite the script for power; exploring Dominance through the lens of embodied dynamics and the Drama Triangle, and sense-and-feel the potential to experience power as the fundamentally interconnected energy that is our Life-force. 
  

• Practise real-time tracking and articulation of embodied group dynamics as they emerge.
  

• Practise staying with uncertainty, rupture, discomfort and intensity without collapsing, fixing or bypassing.
  

• Engage in relational repair processes when needed.
  

• Deepen our capacity to attune with nature/ the other-than-humans, and the more-than-human realms of spirit, soul, ancestors and Mystery/the Holy, as co-regulating and grounding allies.
  

• Create the conditions needed for the imaginal dimension of the collective process to emerge.

Becoming trauma-attuned supports us to stay with the trouble. When trauma arises in the group field, as it inevitably will, rather than missing it, ignoring it, reacting to it, defending against it, making it wrong, or rushing to fix it, we become more able to notice and name it and hold grounded presence for it to unravel as is needed. From this steadiness, the field can relax and reveal its deeper intelligence, allowing new, restorative, relational, and sometimes surprising responses to emerge. As part of the immersion, we will explicitly track the ever-emergent phenomenon of our own group culture, providing live opportunities to practise noticing, naming and shifting patterns as they arise as well as supporting the deeper imaginal language and meanings of the group’s process to emerge.

What’s more, through attunement with the other-than-human world (what is often called ‘nature’), and the invisible greater-than-human dimensions of Life (soul, spirit, ancestors, Mystery), participants will be supported to connect with ways of being within themselves and in their groups that extend beyond trauma’s repeating patterns, into spaces of aliveness, regeneration and possibility in wild reciprocity with the wider web of Life we are inherently a part of.

This immersion is experiential and relational. It is not a therapy training, nor a substitute for personal therapeutic work. Participants need to have appropriate support structures in place for their own healing journeys.

Becoming trauma-attuned is not a technique to master. It is a practice of humility, embodied awareness and collective care. We see it as an ethical and political responsibility for those who hold space for others. It requires tender/ fierce courage, and a commitment to meet our own edges whilst staying in relationship. For those willing to engage at this level, it can enable you to show up for yourself, others, and the world in radically more connective, inclusive, creative, transformative and beautiful ways. 

Eligibility Criteria:

We want this immersion to be a supportive experience for everyone. For this reason we are letting you know about some criteria for participation that we feel will help this to be the case.

Essential

• Space-holder: Actively engaged in group/ organisational/ community contexts within a space-holding/ facilitation or guiding capacity, within which you can apply your learning;

• Self- and relational awareness: Familiarity and a ‘working relationship’ with your personal defensive reactions, protective strategies and trauma patterning, and a demonstrated capacity to hold and modulate discomfort and charge, and remain relational, when activated, in support of the group field.

Desirable

• Clarity of intention: A clear, considered  intention for how you want to integrate and apply learnings.

Exchange:

We are aware that finances are very tight for many right now and we have endeavoured to keep costs as low as possible. We have included a sliding scale so that those with more financial abundance can make it possible for those with less to still participate. Payment plans are also possible to spread the cost across time.

Please feel into the sliding scale below and let us know how much you will contribute by way of an exchange if you are offered a place.£500 - £650: For those able to meet their basic needs but not much else

£650 - £800: For those able to meet their basic needs as well as being able to eat out, take simple holidays etc

£800 - £1000: For those who are financially comfortable, for example, have savings and/or own their own home. 

£1000+: For those who have financial abundance and would like to contribute in a way that supports those who are financially challenged to receive mentoring support.

Accommodation and food ingredients are included. Meals will be prepared by participants as part of our collective inquiry space.

If the lowest end of the scale is still not within your limits then please let us know what is possible for you, and a little bit about your life, work and financial context.

This system relies on those who are able to pay the more generous rates, so that those with less financial abundance are also able to participate.

This immersion is being brought to Life through a collaboration between Body-Informed Leadership and Starter Culture.

To apply: Please fill in this short application form