In te ao Māori, wellbeing is not an individual pursuit but a reflection of balance — between wairua and tinana, feminine and masculine, atua wahine and atua tāne. This workshop, Te Ara Whakamana: Restoring Balance, offers an indigenous framework for understanding wellbeing and recovery through the lens of atua energy and whakapapa connection.
Drawing from kaupapa Māori practice and lived community experience, this wānanga explores how restoring relational balance — within ourselves, our whānau, and our wider systems — can transform pathways of healing from addiction and trauma. Through kōrero, reflection, and experiential exercises using atua-inspired resources, participants will engage in a process of reconnecting with both the nurturing and active energies that sustain or challenge us.
Grounded in mātauranga Māori and guided by tikanga, the workshop invites practitioners, clinicians, and community workers to experience the potential of atua-based frameworks as tools for engagement, empowerment, and self-regulation. Participants will gain insight into how gendered archetypes within te ao Māori can be used inclusively to support all people, rather than divide by identity, fostering wholeness and collective wellbeing.
This presentation bridges traditional wisdom and contemporary practice — an invitation to reimagine recovery and healing not through deficit, but through reconnection and balance. By returning to whakapapa-based models, we enable hope to move into action — and create new spaces of transformation for wāhine, tāne, and whānau alike.