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

by Ruku I'Anson | Feb 16, 2026 | Identity, Mental Health Counselling

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.

Taha Pūtea – Money as Mana; Breaking Free from Financial Colonisation

by Ruku I'Anson | Jan 28, 2026 | Identity, Mental Health Counselling

Last week we looked at how our Digital Wellness is impacted in todays modern fast-paced world and how Te Poutama o te Ora can bring light to what that looks like and a path forward to help transform where we currently are stuck to a healthier you.

We continue with this deep dive with this weeks topic Taha Pūtea – Money as Mana.

Scenario:

You are sitting at your kitchen table at 2 AM, calculator in hand, trying to figure out which bill you can pay late this month without catastrophic consequences.

Power…No, it’s winter. Phone…No, you need it for work. Food…Already down to basics. Rent…Can’t risk eviction. You think to yourself, “how come this keeps happening…I’m responsible, I work hard, I don’t spend recklessly…”.

But here you are, doing the same desperate math your mother did, and her mother did before her. The math that defines poverty: stretching not-enough into barely-enough.

And the worst part…The voice in your head is saying “you should be better with money…if you budgeted smarter, saved more, worked harder, you wouldn’t be in this position”.

The voice that blames you for a system designed to keep you broke.

Here’s the truth nobody wants you to know: the biggest lie about poverty…”it is not a personal failing”. The financial system isn’t broken – it’s working exactly as designed.

Taha Pūtea, a Māori financial wellness framework, offers a pathway out of this trap through three foundational steps that move you from financial shame to economic sovereignty.

Step 1: Te Ohorere – The Awakening (Facing Financial Reality Without Shame)

Financial trauma is real trauma. It lives in your body – the knot in your stomach when checking your bank balance, the tension that never leaves your shoulders, the panic that rises with unexpected expenses.

It shapes your relationships, making money the number one thing couples fight about. It distorts your identity, making you believe your worth equals your earning capacity. It crushes your spirit, leaving no space for joy or rest. It occupies your mind completely, consuming mental energy that could go toward creativity, healing, or growth.

And here’s the most insidious part: financial trauma gets passed down. Your parents’ money stress became your money stress. Their scarcity thinking became yours. Not just through what they taught you, but through actual biological mechanisms – their financial stress literally changed how their genes expressed, and you inherited those changes.

Te Ohorere asks you to look directly at your financial reality for seven days. Not to judge yourself. Not to fix anything yet. Just to see what’s true. You’ll track how money affects five dimensions of your life:

Whakapapa (relationships): How is money stress damaging your connections? What patterns did you inherit from your parents? Which ones are you passing to your children?

Tinana (body): What’s happening physically? The chronic stress of poverty causes real illness – high blood pressure, heart disease, weakened immunity, chronic pain. Your body is trying to tell you something.

Tuakiri (identity): Have you started measuring your worth by your bank balance? Are you compromising your values for survival? Losing touch with who you are beneath what you earn?

Wairua (spirit): Has financial stress replaced abundance thinking with scarcity? Can you trust that your needs will be met when your experience has taught you, they won’t be?

Hinengaro (mind): Is money worry consuming all your mental bandwidth? Are you stuck in shame spirals – feeling bad, avoiding dealing with it, making it worse, avoiding more?

This awareness work takes courage. Most of us avoid looking at our finances because looking means feeling the fear, the shame, the overwhelm. But avoidance keeps you stuck. You can’t change what you won’t look at. You can’t heal what you keep hidden.

After seven days, you see patterns clearly. You identify which dimension is suffering most; recognise where avoidance keeps you trapped; name the stories about money that keep repeating. And acknowledge the forms of wealth you have that capitalism taught you to discount – relationships, knowledge, cultural connection, community.

Step 2: Te Whakatūria tō Mana – Establishing Your Authority (Reclaiming Your Power)

Mana is your authority, your sovereignty, your power to choose. Right now, the financial system has your Mana. It decides where your money goes through predatory lending, planned obsolescence, subscription traps, and marketing designed to convince you that happiness requires constant purchasing.

Te Whakatūria tō Mana is about taking that power back. You start by converting vague intentions (Te Whāriki o te Ora – goals) from Step 1 into concrete, achievable goals (Te Whakatakato tō Mahere – the plan). Instead of – I want to be better with money…you create specific commitments: – I will check my account balances every morning. – I will wait 24 hours before any non-essential purchases. – I will redirect spare money to future bills.

The framework uses a three-tier system to keep this sustainable:

Tier 1 – Daily Non-Negotiables: These are your foundation. Things you do every single day without exception. Maybe it’s checking your balances each morning or logging all spending. Applying a 24-hour rule before buying anything non-essential. You pick 1-2 practices that matter most and commit completely.

Tier 2 – Regular Practices: These happen weekly or fortnightly. Perhaps a weekly budget review session. Automatic savings transfers every payday. Monthly subscription audits. These keep you moving forward without overwhelming you.

Tier 3 – Aspirational Rhythms: These are things you do, without guilt. A quarterly financial goal review; an annual meeting with a financial mentor; a monthly no-spend challenge. These stretch you without breaking you.

Here’s the critical part: start with ONE Tier 1 practice. Master that until it becomes automatic. Then add more. Trying to change everything at once is why most people fail. Your brain can only handle so much change at a time.

You also set up your environment to support your Mana. Automatic transfers so savings happen before you can spend the money. Separate accounts for different purposes (bills, savings, spending). Deleted shopping apps and unsubscribing from promotional emails. Physically removing credit cards from your wallet (if spending is an issue).

This is not about willpower – it’s about making the right choice as the easy choice. When you’re stressed and tired (which poverty ensures you often are), decision quality deteriorates. Environmental supports protect you when your capacity is low.

After 2-3 weeks, you review what’s working. Which practices feel natural…which still feel like constant struggle…what unexpected benefits showed up – better sleep, less conflict, more peace of mind. You adjust, refine, and find your rhythm. This isn’t about achieving perfect financial management. It’s about building practices that genuinely support your wellbeing and strengthen your Mana.

Step 3: Te Whakawhanake i tō Kaha – Building Your Resistance (Developing Strength)

Here’s what happens once you start protecting your money: the system pushes back. Sales become more urgent and – limited time offers. Credit offers become more convenient. Subscription cancellation becomes harder. Social spending pressure increases. Friends question why you’re being “so cheap!”. Every possible tactic gets deployed to get your money back.

This isn’t paranoia. When you extract yourself from wealth dependency, those systems fight back. They escalate, test your boundaries to find new hooks.

Te Whakawhanake i tō Kaha is about building kaha – strength, capacity, resilience – to withstand this pushback. The nine-day challenge progressively increases your resistance across different domains. Maybe Day 1 is resisting urgency tactics (sale ends tonight!). Day 2 might be navigating social pressure without justifying your choices. Day 3 could be rejecting convenience when it conflicts with your values.

Each day builds different resistance muscles. By Day 9, you’ve proven to yourself that you can protect your wealth even when systems actively try to extract it.

But resistance goes beyond willpower. You create architectural boundaries – structures that make wealth protection automatic. Account segregation means keeping spending money separate from bill money and savings. Access segregation means making impulse spending physically difficult (leaving credit cards at home, deleting stored payment methods). Time segregation means specific windows for checking finances, making purchases, and reviewing spending.

One of the hardest challenges? Social pressure. Family and friends who don’t understand why you’re suddenly being “difficult about money”. Te Whakawhanake i tō Kaha teaches you to prepare authority statements – responses that assert your boundaries without apology.

The difference seems subtle, but it’s profound. One invites negotiation and suggests your boundary might change if someone pushes hard enough. The other states a fact without apologising for it.

The framework also encourages forming resistance circles – small groups (2-4 people) pursuing financial wellness together. You meet weekly or bi-weekly for 30-45 minutes to share wins and challenges, identify dependency tactics you’re facing, problem-solve without shame or judgment, and celebrate sovereignty victories.

Individual resistance is powerful. Collective resistance is transformative. When others normalise your boundaries, shared strategies strengthen everyone, and community resilience sustains individual efforts, the impossible becomes possible.

By the end of Step 3, you’ve completed the nine-day resistance challenge. You’ve built architectural systems protecting your wealth automatically and developed authority statements you can deploy without hesitation.

Most importantly, you’ve experienced your own capacity to resist when dependency systems escalate. You’ve proven to yourself that you have kaha – the strength to protect your money and make it stick. You are building Tū Pūmau (consistency) through Whai Mua (success and productivity) giving you Tū Māia (stability).

Your Economic Sovereignty Awaits

These first three steps of Taha Pūtea – awakening, establishing authority, and building resistance – create a pathway from economic colonisation to financial sovereignty. They move you from unconscious spending to intentional choice, from system dependency to personal authority, from reactive patterns to sustained strength.

This isn’t about becoming wealthy by capitalist standards. It’s about reclaiming your Mana – your right to decide where your money goes, your capacity to make financial decisions aligned with your values, your sovereignty over your economic life.

The work requires courage. You’ll face uncomfortable truths about your financial situation and the patterns you inherited. You’ll recognise how thoroughly money stress has consumed every dimension of your life. But here’s what awaits on the other side: relationships no longer poisoned by money conflict, a body not constantly carrying financial stress, an identity separate from your bank balance, spiritual peace not drowned by scarcity thinking, a mind freed from constant money worry.

Remember: your financial situation is not a moral failing. The system is working exactly as designed – to extract wealth from you and keep you economically stressed. These practices aren’t about willpower or discipline. They’re about creating environmental and habitual supports that make aligned choices easier than misaligned ones.

Every time you check your balance, track your spending, or protect your savings (Tū Pūmau – consistency), you strengthen your mana. Every time you resist dependency, you build kaha. Every time you notice you’ve been pulled into unconscious spending and choose to realign with your values, you prove your capacity for transformation. Success and productivity (Whai Mua) have transformed to stability (Tū Māia).

The biggest lie about poverty is that it’s your fault. The truth? Economic colonisation is a system, and you can refuse to participate in your own exploitation.

Your mana is real. Your kaha is growing. Your wealth is becoming yours again.

Kua rite? Are you ready?

Me timata. Let’s begin.

Epigenetics Insights for Wellness

by Ruku I'Anson | Dec 31, 2025 | Identity, Mental Health Counselling

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:

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).

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?