‘You know, I don’t think most Murri people have idea about healing. A lot of people I know think healing is just going to the doctor and getting fixed up – getting some pills or something like that. Faith healers – religion – stuff like that.
Saddest thing is they don’t even realise that they’ve got all the coping mechanisms, and they’ve been healing themselves all these years. If it was pointed out to them, things would really start to happen. They would build on it, because they know things are wrong, but they just don’t know what to do about it.
What I’ve learnt is, healing is facing up to the fact that you’ve got choices, and there is no need to live your life in this pain. You can always get out of it.
Yeah, just knowing that fact is a healing thing itself, and it shifts you from that place you’ve been in all the time, and you never thought you could get out of. You just accepted it, you know, you can’t change anything.
One of the things I have learnt in the workshops – the pain isn’t a bad thing, even though it may seem like a really bad thing. Going into the pain was some of the best learning experiences I’ve ever had. You go back into the shittiest experience, and afterwards you realise that if it hadn’t happened you wouldn’t be who you are, you wouldn’t have grown.’
Mary, in Trauma Trails: Recreating Song Lines – The Transgenerational Effects of Trauma in Indigenous Australia by Judy Atkinson
You can also obtain this wonderful book from the publisher in Australia. The workshop referred to is the We Al-Li is a programme of healing, developed by Judy Atkinson, which is based on the integrity of Indigenous cultural and spiritual practices.
