Engaging in research with Indigenous people requires acknowledging the limitations of institutional consent processes. Ones which do not reflect the ongoing creation, decision making, and changing dynamics of participatory design, nor the embodied and relationship-making processes of engaging on Country and respecting Indigenous onto-epistemes. Drawing from a participatory design education program on Western Arrarnta Country in Australia, this paper reflects on how learning, teaching, and designing together required finding ways of ensuring consent that left everybody with ‘ilkwatharra’, or a ‘good feeling’. As a way of being with others, ‘ilkwatharra’ encapsulates an ethical practice which unsettles dominant consent requirements while presenting a respectful way of entering collaborative work to ensure trust, accountability, and well-being.