We pause from goal setting and activities to let that settle with you and turn back to the topic of Epigenetics.
From Understanding to Action: The Nine-Step Path
Understanding that we carry epigenetic patterns is profound. But understanding alone doesn’t create change.
This is where Te Poutama o te Ora moves from insight to transformation—offering a practical pathway for working with what we’ve inherited.
The framework’s nine steps weren’t designed with epigenetics in mind, yet they align remarkably with what the science now shows us about how patterns shift. Each step addresses a different aspect of how we hold and transform inherited experiences.
Steps 1-3: Building the Foundation for Change – Te Tūāpapa
Before we can transform inherited patterns, we need to create the conditions that make change possible. These foundational steps establish the inner environment where new epigenetic expressions can take root:
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Te Whakatakato tō Mahere (Step 1 – Your Planning): We can’t change what we don’t see. This step teaches us to recognise inherited patterns—to notice when our responses aren’t truly ours but echoes of ancestral experience. You map where epigenetic patterns show up across the five dimensions.
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Te Ohorere – the Awakening
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Te Whāriki o te Ora – Goal Setting
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Te Whakatūria tō Mana (Step 2 – Establishing Your Authority): Resistance keeps patterns locked in place. When we accept what we carry without shame and establish our authority to change it, we create the spaciousness needed for transformation. You begin integrating new responses into daily life.
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Te Whakawhanake i tō Kaha (Step 3 – Developing Your Strength): Epigenetic shifts require sustained attention. This step deepens your capacity to maintain new patterns, knowing you’re healing not just for yourself but for the line.
Steps 4-9: The Universal Path of Transformation – Te Ara Hurihuri
These steps converge into one pathway that applies across all five dimensions of wellness, offering a universal approach for working with whatever you’ve inherited—whether it manifests in your relationships (Whakapapa), your body (Tinana), your mind (Hinengaro), your spirit (Wairua), or your sense of self (Tuakiri).
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Te Whakamana i tō Mana (Step 4 – Reclaiming Your Sovereignty): Where did this pattern originate? What purpose did it serve for our ancestors? Understanding the roots helps us hold compassion for what we carry while actively reclaiming our right to choose differently.
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Te Taunga Pūkenga (Step 5 – Developing Mastery): This is where conscious choice enters. We actively pause inherited responses, creating space between trigger and reaction. We develop mastery over the pattern rather than being mastered by it.
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Te Whakahōnore (Step 6 – Honouring Your Journey): New patterns need practice and recognition. Through nine-day cycles, we establish alternative responses that can become new cellular memories. We honour both the struggle and the progress.
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Te Kaupapa (Step 7 – Clarifying Your Purpose): The new pattern extends beyond practice into purpose. We understand why we’re breaking this cycle—not just for ourselves, but for those who came before and those who come after.
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Te Tū Rangatira (Step 8 – Standing in Your Power): Transformation isn’t linear. We refine, adjust, and deepen the new pattern, allowing it to mature. We stand firm in our new way of being, even when old patterns call us back.
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Te Ao Mārama (Step 9 – Living in Full Flourishing): The new expression becomes part of who we are. What was once a conscious effort becomes a natural response—creating a different inheritance to pass forward. This is a biological shift stabilising into lived reality.
Working With What You’ve Inherited: A Practical Example
Let’s make this concrete. Say you’ve recognised an inherited pattern of stress response—perhaps anxiety or hypervigilance that runs through your family line. This pattern shows up in your Hinengaro (mental/emotional wellness) dimension.
Through Te Whakamana i tō Mana (Step 4), you investigate and discover this pattern originated with ancestors who faced genuine threats—colonisation, displacement, survival challenges. The hypervigilance wasn’t dysfunction; it was adaptive intelligence. You reclaim your sovereignty by recognising you have the right to respond differently now.
With Te Taunga Pūkenga (Step 5), you develop mastery by noticing when this response activates in situations that don’t require it. You pause, breathe, and ask: “Is this mine, or am I responding to an inherited memory?” You practice creating space between stimulus and response.
During Te Whakahōnore (Step 6), you honour your journey by practising a new response over nine days—perhaps grounding techniques, somatic awareness, or connection practices that signal safety to your nervous system. You celebrate small wins and acknowledge the courage this work requires.
Through Te Kaupapa (Step 7), you clarify your purpose: “I’m breaking this pattern, so my children won’t carry this weight. I’m healing for the seven generations that came before and the seven generations that will come after.
With Te Tū Rangatira (Step 8), you stand in your power as the new pattern is tested. When stress comes, you don’t revert automatically. You choose your response from a place of strength, knowing you’re capable of something different.
Finally, through Te Ao Mārama (Step 9), the new pattern becomes your lived reality. Your nervous system has learned a new baseline. You’ve not just managed symptoms—you’ve shifted the biological expression that you’ll pass forward.
Why Nine Days Matter
The nine-day cycle isn’t arbitrary. While epigenetic research is still emerging, we know that sustained behavioural patterns can influence gene expression. Nine days provide enough time for initial cellular responses to begin, while remaining achievable for most people to maintain focus and commitment.
More importantly, working in nine-day cycles acknowledges a truth that is both ancient and modern: transformation occurs in rhythm, not as a single moment. Each nine-day cycle builds on the last, creating compounding change that reaches deeper than willpower alone. You’re training your biology, not just your behaviour.
The Invitation
You are not condemned to repeat what you’ve inherited. The patterns you carry are information, not destiny. Te Poutama o te Ora offers you a pathway to work with these patterns consciously, transforming what flows through you and changing what you’ll pass on.
This is healing as our ancestors understood it: not individual repair but relational restoration. When you shift a pattern in yourself, you honour those who came before and tend to those who come after. You become the ancestor your descendants will thank.
The question isn’t whether you carry inherited patterns. The question is: what will you do with them?