When You Are Settled, the World Becomes Settled: The Universal Journey Home

We look now at the final steps in the Life Re-Alignment Series that being Steps 4-9.

Awareness was introduced in Steps 1-3 to how colonisation impacted and fragmented your behaviours and livelihood. From digital and societal algorithms that learned your preferences and served you ‘just what you were looking for’, ‘at the right time’, ‘with a bargain, once only opportunity’ to engage, like, subscribe and, purchase what is being offered.

You established boundaries, built practices, and tested your capacity. These helped you re-discover the kaha you were born with which was real and gave you sustainable strength to resist these systems designed to keep you dependent.

The next part of the journey is to protect the sovereignty you have gained and integrate that learning across your entire life.

Steps 4-9 complete this transformation, not by adding more rules or fixing problems but by creating space to allow the learning to deepen to where sovereignty feels natural. Your practices become your tikanga, you become unshakeable – when you are Tau your world is Tau (the world of light becomes settled around you).

Let’s walk this universal journey together.

Step 4: Te Whakamana i tō Mana; From Practice to Power

Remember how setting boundaries felt awkward, maybe you justified every choice, apologised for protecting yourself, or explained your reasons hoping others would approve?

Step 4 is where those shift. Your practices stop being experiments and become your tikanga; the personal protocols, and non-negotiable ways of being. Notice the difference:

The shift: – The first statements are tentative, apologetic, seeking permission. The second statements are declarations of sovereignty. This is te Whakamana i tō Mana, actively reclaiming your authority.

In Step 4 you practice boundary enforcement without apology. You complete a nine-day sovereignty audit examining every significant practice, relationship, and pattern in your life asking these questions:

You learn to ground when overwhelmed, name what is distracting you, and continue without shame, choosing to be aligned with your core.

This is where you stop asking permission for your boundaries and start living them.

Step 5: Te Taunga Pūkenga; Mastery Without Perfectionism

Mastery doesn’t mean never struggling. It means skillfully navigating your ongoing relationship with each wellness dimension. You develop Pūkenga (expertise) in working with what is rather than being constantly overwhelmed by it.

Five capacities develop:

Recovery mastery matters most, because we will slip. Boundaries will be broken through miss-practices and where we find we have fallen back into old patterns. Mastery isn’t preventing that; it is recovering quickly without ‘shame’ stories that usually follow setbacks.

You practice a nine-day deep focus, giving one significant practice your first and best attention for nine consecutive days. You choose a specific skill within your dimension to learn, not just consume content about. You develop a clear recovery ritual for when you notice you’ve slipped:

o   Ask what you need.

o   Take one aligned action.

o   Return to practice without shame.

Mastery is skillful navigation of an ongoing relationship, not perfection.

Step 6: Te Whakahōnoretanga; Honouring How Far You’ve Come

In a culture that constantly pushes for more, faster, better, taking time to honour your progress is itself an act of resistance. You go back to your Part 1 assessments from Steps 1-3.

You look at where you were then and where you are now. The differences astound you.

What patterns have you broken? What new capacities have you developed? What’s different about how you engage with these dimensions now? How has this work rippled into other areas of your life?

You name three specific victories:

You acknowledge the difficulties. This work hasn’t been easy. You’ve confronted colonisation, trauma, shame, your own survival patterns. You’ve faced resistance both internal and external. You honour the courage it took to continue despite challenges.

For nine days, you write gratitude: for yourself and your commitment, for the guidance and support that helped get you through to now. For what’s now possible because of your transformed relationship with these dimensions.

Step 7: Te Kaupapa; Your Deeper Purpose Emerges

You’ve been working on digital wellness, financial wellness, food wellness but why? Not the surface reasons (productivity, saving money, losing weight). The deeper purposes that matter to you.

Over nine days, you sit with questions:

You craft a Kaupapa statement, a declaration of purpose for this dimension. Not what you should want, but what you want. Not compliance with external standards, but alignment with internal truth.

Example: I engage with technology to create meaningful work and connect authentically, not to escape difficult emotions or fill every moment of stillness. My digital life serves my larger purpose of presence and contribution. I will not compromise my morning sovereignty or evening presence with family.

This clarity changes everything. You review every practice against your Kaupapa: Does this serve my stated purpose? Suddenly, some practices you thought essential reveal themselves as obligations you can release. Others you dismissed as optional become non-negotiable.

Step 8: Te Tū Rangatira; Standing in Full Power

Tū Rangatira means standing with the dignity and authority of a chief. Not dominating others. Not being rigid. But grounded confidence in your worth, strategic use of power you have, commitment to collective thriving alongside personal sovereignty.

You feel power in your body first before enacting it in the world. You notice what it feels like when you set a clear boundary without explanation, make a choice from your Kaupapa rather than social pressure, protect what’s sacred as non-negotiable. This embodied sense becomes your compass.

You practice unapologetic boundaries: I am offline after 7pm (not I’m trying to spend less time on my phone). That is outside my budget (not I’m sorry, I wish I could help but…). I do not eat with screens (not I’m trying to be more mindful).

But power isn’t just for self-protection. You use it to create safer conditions for others. You call out manipulation when you see it; share what you’ve learned; support someone else in setting a boundary; mentor someone struggling in this dimension.

You make a Rangatira commitment: specific non-negotiable boundaries you will maintain, ways you will use your power to protect others, lines you will not cross in terms of compromise, how you will respond when your sovereignty is challenged.

Step 9: Te Ao Mārama; Living in the World of Light

Te Ao Mārama means living in full consciousness and flourishing. Wellness has become integrated into your life not something you struggle toward, but a natural way of being that allows you to thrive and contribute.

You establish sustainable practices: regular reassessment every lunar cycle or season, community of practice with at least one other person, sharing what you’ve learned when it feels aligned, building in rest (one day per week, one weekend per month, one week per season if possible).

When you find yourself struggling or returning to old practices you:

Where the struggle is significant you turn to Me Heke ki Mua to get flow back into your life.

Te Ao Mārama isn’t a destination you arrive at and stay forever. It’s a practice of returning repeatedly to light, to consciousness, to aligned living. Each return strengthens your capacity for flourishing.

When You Are Tau, Te Ao Mārama Is Tau

This is the profound truth you’ve discovered through nine cycles, three trinities, the complete spiral: every element of Te Poutama o te Ora ultimately serves the restoration of Taha Tuakiri your sense of self, identity and knowing of who you are beneath all the noise, pressure, and colonisation.

All nine dimensions support the central pillar: Taha Tuakiri. When identity is strong, everything else finds its place. When you are settled within yourself when you are ‘Tau’ the world becomes settled around you. Not because the world changes, but because you are no longer fragmented.

No longer scattered across feeds, debts, cravings, and external expectations.

You are gathered. Whole. Tau.

What you carry now: 

The nine-cycle journey mirrors natural rhythms lunar cycles, seasons, the spiral of growth. You return to familiar territory repeatedly, each time at deeper levels. This isn’t failure. It’s the nature of transformation.

You have improved life habits; remembered who you are, and from this memory, everything else becomes possible.

The challenges you faced across these dimensions were never personal failings. They were patterns of colonisation systems designed to extract your labour, attention, connection, creativity, spirit, identity, and life force. Your healing work is resistance. Your sovereignty is rebellion and when you rebel…flourishing is justice.

Continue the practices and share what you’ve learned. Support others in their journey and help to build collective power for systemic change while tending to your personal healing. Both are necessary. Both are sacred.

You are Te Poutama o te Ora.

You are the stairway of living wellbeing.

You are your own unshakeable self.

 

Kia kaha. Kia māia. Kia manawanui.

Be strong. Be brave. Remain steadfast.

When you are tau, te Ao Mārama is tau.

The spiral continues. The moon cycles on. Your Tuakiri deepens.