Pūkenga Psychology

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Over 60 cards drawing from the inspiration of 9 atua wahine. Each with an affirmation, reflection prompt and a hauora pr...
02/02/2026

Over 60 cards drawing from the inspiration of 9 atua wahine. Each with an affirmation, reflection prompt and a hauora practice

Comment light if you want to explore our Hīnatore card set.

02/02/2026

We so often talk about how we feel stressed. The thing it, stress isn't just stretching us past our capacity it puts us under strain.

I have spent so many years justifying my stress, talking to my resilience as if that was my buffer against it. Resilience got me through. It helped me survive the stress.

But I don't want to be resilient in the face of stress. The cost is far to high.

The stress of being to busy and not having enough time. Running on empty from late nights. Feeling like there is not enough of me to go around. It wears me down every time.

The more I've named the impacts of stress, the less I've tolerated it.

02/02/2026

People sometimes read calm as ease.

They assume that if you’re steady, reflective, or able to hold complexity, it must mean life hasn’t tested you. The truth is, this steadiness didn’t come from avoiding hard things. It came from meeting them, again and again, and learning how to carry what I’ve lived without letting it spill harmfully into everything else.

This is the same place my mahi comes from. Not perfection. Not resilience as a badge. But the slow work of integration, learning how to stay present, resourced, and relational, even when things are heavy.

Carrying things differently doesn’t mean they weren’t heavy.

It means they were held with care.

Finding ways for me to reach a state of calmness, being tau, has taken time. It's a work in progress, forever learning to adapt when life throws a curve ball.

Mauritau has been one of the biggest ways I've learned to do this. Comment hauora if you want to find our more about my mauritau course.

Your tinana, body can be brave for years.Many of us were taught to stay strong, capable, and composed. Over time, this c...
01/02/2026

Your tinana, body can be brave for years.

Many of us were taught to stay strong, capable, and composed. Over time, this can disconnect us from our tinana, overload our hinengaro, and leave our wairua carrying the weight alone.

This isn’t failure.
It’s information.
It's tohu.

A true balanced and healthy hauora isn’t about pushing harder, it’s about learning when to soften, pause, and listen. You don’t need to collapse to deserve care. You don’t need to keep your mauri on alert.

Comment mana for our whakaora card set. A set drawing from Whakatauki (Maori proverbs), withe english translations and practices to do every day to care for your hauora.

Tools that support nervous system regulation, wairua, and a thriving hauora

01/02/2026

Becoming a mum changed the way I move through the world.

It stripped away the need to prove, perform, or hold myself together for anyone else. In its place came a different kind of steadiness, a comfort in my own skin that didn’t come from confidence, but from learning how to slow down and listen.

I learned how to keep going without abandoning myself.
How to rest without guilt.
How to stay present instead of pushing through.

This is the heart of Mauritau for me, not doing more, but restoring balance.

Paying attention to my inner state, my surroundings, and the relationships I’m responsible for. Choosing steadiness over urgency.

This season hasn’t been about becoming more.

It’s been about returning to myself and letting that be enough.

Comment hauora if you want to explore our online mauritau course.

You know the moment.Someone looks at you and says, “Can you open?”Everyone’s waiting.The room goes quiet.And suddenly yo...
01/02/2026

You know the moment.
Someone looks at you and says, “Can you open?”
Everyone’s waiting.
The room goes quiet.

And suddenly your mind goes blank.

Your hinengaro can’t find the words.
Your tinana feels tight, hot, or shaky.
Your voice feels stuck in your throat.
Your wairua pulls inward instead of outward.

The whakama sets in, the pressure builds and the words still dont come.

For many people, being asked to karakia publicly, especially without warning, can trigger a freeze response. When the body feels watched, evaluated, or unsafe, it doesn’t access memory or language easily. Even familiar karakia can disappear.

What makes it harder is the unspoken expectation:
Karakia should come naturally.
Karakia should be easy.
Karakia feels like proof of "Maoritanga"

But karakia isn’t a performance.
And freezing doesn’t mean disconnection.

You can still be deeply grounded in your Maoritanga and struggle to speak under pressure. Both things can be true.

We don’t talk enough about how pressure affects our taha wairua. When tinana is tense and hinengaro is overwhelmed, wairua often needs support, not scrutiny.

Gentleness matters. Choice matters. Preparation matters. And so does understanding that silence can still be sacred.

If this resonates, if you’ve ever frozen, stumbled, or avoided karakia because of pressure, you’re not alone. This is one of the reasons I crated the karakia pack, for people to do karakia outside of the pressure. To be able to korero reo Maori, without feeling like stumble every second word. So its an accessible hauora practice for those who want it.

Comment Tihei if you want me to send you a link to karakia resources.

You don’t owe anyone a reason before you rest.So many of us were taught to explain first.To justify why we’re tired.To l...
31/01/2026

You don’t owe anyone a reason before you rest.

So many of us were taught to explain first.
To justify why we’re tired.
To list our stress, our workload, our trauma, just to make rest acceptable.
But rest is not a debate. Your body doesn’t need permission from other people to pause.

Let yourself find the reason for your tiredness after you have let yourself rest.

Sometimes rest is what happens when your body finally believes the danger has passed.When you’ve been in survival mode f...
31/01/2026

Sometimes rest is what happens when your body finally believes the danger has passed.

When you’ve been in survival mode for a long time, your whole system adapts around getting through. Your tinana learns to stay tight, tired but wired, running on stress hormones instead of true energy. Your body doesn’t rest because it doesn’t feel safe enough to.

Your hinengaro becomes hyper-alert. Always thinking, planning, worrying, replaying. Even when things are “okay,” your mind doesn’t switch off because survival taught it that stopping means risk.

Wairua, often carries it the heaviest. We can feel our matapono, mana and mauir take a hit.

This is what people don’t talk about: survival mode can look like productivity. It can look like strength. It can look like independence. But inside, your hauora is fragmented, each part of you carrying too much on its own.

So when life finally slows… when you feel heavy, unmotivated, tearful, or deeply tired, that doesn’t mean you’re failing. It often means your nervous system is standing down. The alarm has stopped blaring. Your body is saying, I don’t have to run anymore.

Rest is the bridge back.
Rest lets your tinana soften, your hinengaro exhale, your wairua return to the centre. Rest is how your whole self remembers what safety feels like.

Healing can feel like exhaustion before it feels like peace. Be gentle with yourself in this in-between space. You’re not going backwards, you’re coming home to your full hauora.

Take your time.

30/01/2026

Building this community online has made me much more intentional about whose voices I listen to.

Not everyone understands kaupapa Māori. Not everyone shares your mātāpono and not everyone will protect your mana, especially when you’re not in the room.

Advice can sound generous while quietly pulling you away from who you are and why you do this work. Over time, that misalignment costs more than it gives.

These days, I pay attention to who backs the kaupapa, who speaks my name with care, and who understands that integrity matters more than momentum.

That discernment is protection.

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