I started writing this book about one year ago, after finding myself in the resuscitation room of the Sunny Coast Hospital. ​ It had been seven years since the day my brother was assassinated. Seven years since my health began to collapse.  The first unmistakable sign was an aggressive breast cancer. Then came the inflammation and the pain, and finally, the allergies.  ​ Seven years. Seven years until I reached the edge of what medicine could do for me. If I wanted to find my way back to myself, I would need to understand what trauma had done to my body. ​ The impact of trauma on human biology has been profoundly studied, and there is a vast body of literature about it. But I still couldn’t truly understand it. ​ The language felt too complex, too technical, too far away from my lived experience. ​ I needed something easier to digest, a way to see the biology I was learning -- which is how the sketches were born. ​ At first, they were difficult words connected by lines. But as the drawing took shape, I realised the body functions like a Village with: Structure. Movement. Gossip. A place where something is always happening. ​ So I started substituting the difficult words with simple aspects of a Village: the hypothalamus became a bridge, the mitochondria, the power generators.  ​ Bit by bit, the Village grew.  And so did my understanding of what was happening inside of me. And slowly, my health began to improve. Not because I found a cure. I didn't. What I found was a way of seeing. And once we can see clearly, we can respond better. ​ When we are going through traumatic events, we tend to believe that no one understands our suffering because no one has suffered as much as we did. But everybody has a story that hurts, which makes trauma just a part of the human condition. One that often comes with the questions of What is happening to my body? How do I find my way back to myself? Each of us carries a different story. A different cast. Different storms. Different scenes from the theatre of life. But underneath it all, we carry the same biology. The same Village. ​ That is why I wrote this book. This book is your map to your inner Village. ​