What is Dadirri and what has it got to do with psychotherapy anyway?
By Eleni Kyrpigikidis
“When I experience dadirri I am whole again, I can sit on the riverbank or walk through trees. Even if someone close to me passes away. I can find peace in this silent awareness. There is no need for words. A big part of dadirri is listening.”
- Miriam Rose Ungummerr-Bauman, Ngangiwumirr Elder
Dadirri
Dadirri is an Australian Aboriginal word from the Ngan’gikurunggur and Ngen’giwumirri languages of the aboriginal people of the Daly River region, 220 kilometres south of Darwin, Northern Territory.
Elder Miriam Rose describes it almost like a contemplation, an inner deep listening and quiet still awareness. Dadirri recognises the deep spring that is inside us. We call on it and it calls us.
Psycho-therapy
Psycho-therapy is a process of talking through current life challenges that may be fuelled by unresolved or un-acknowledged past traumas. The therapeutic relationship between therapist and client must be based on safety and trust, for any meaningful transformation to occur. What helps build trust and safety in the therapeutic relationship is the ability of the therapist it be able to sit, hold and deeply listen to the client’s own discomfort, shame, pain and suffering in a non-judgemental way . This is dadirri!!!
When a therapist is able to do that for a client, the journey then shifts towards the therapist safely guiding the client to apply deep inner listening towards their very own self. This can be a game changer for people who have experienced deep traumas, violation and a blurring of boundaries in families, relationships and work places, where listening to their own needs, intuition and body wisdom has been violated or ignored. This deep inner listening and experience of stillness is where healing lives! It’s not easy. Most people can’t just be with silence and stillness!
Transformation and healing begins when, despite the presence of negative self-talk, distressing thoughts and strong bodily sensations that fuel panic and anxiety, quiet stillness and inward facing attention can be tolerated. Listening to their own needs for the first time then becomes fundamental to experiencing wellbeing.
As a therapist, why does dadirri resonate with me so deeply?
At the heart of it, if our wounding, traumas, pain and suffering have not been deeply heard, acknowledged or seen, we may spend years repressing, brushing aside, denying or laughing away parts of ourselves that desperately need to be felt and witnessed. This can only happen when we are able to stop….to stop….to stop and deeply listen to what we are REALLY feeling and experiencing.
The challenges that people either experience in themselves or relationships such as addiction, overworking, partying too much, flitting from one unhealthy relationship to the next due to fear of being alone, overeating, not-eating enough or unnecessarily over consuming, are ways that we avoid our pain and suffering. These behaviours are symptoms of unresolved life challenges or traumas of some type.
My interest as a psycho-therapist is to get underneath these avoidant and problematic behaviours and reach those repressed and unacknowledged aspects of self that can, over time, befriended and accepted.
When you do experience dadirri, then my hope for you is that you will face life’s inevitable challenges with less anxiety and more loving kindness. May the quote below become you own lived experience!
“When I experience dadirri I am whole again, I can sit on the riverbank or walk through trees. Even if someone close to me passes away. I can find peace in this silent awareness. There is no need for words. A big part of dadirri is listening.”
- Miriam Rose Ungummerr-Bauman, Ngangiwumirr Elder
Watch a short film on dadirri click here
Eleni Kyrpigikidis
To book a session with me you can email me at: info@yogaharihealing.com or if you prefer to chat on the phone you can call me on: 0403 774 410
If you receive NDIS funding or know someone that does I am a registered NDIS provider under therapeutic supports.
Visit my website for more details on other healing modalities like Family Constellations and Radical Exposure Tapping for trauma click here