Meditation a workout for the brain
Over the next four weeks, rangatahi (youth) from The Kindness Institute, a nonprofit organisation supporting marginalised rangatahi with their mental health and wellbeing, will share a series they wrote on Te Whare Tapa Whā.
TE WHARE TAPA WHĀ – TAHA HINENGARO
OPINION: Tēnā tātou katoa! In this Backyard Banter series I will be sharing the concept of Te Whare Tapa Whā and how we can use this tool to check in with ourselves.
In each part of the series I will introduce one of the four taha (walls) of our whare (house) and discuss how we can utilise this taha in our day-to-day lives.
So you guys are probably wondering, what is Te Whare Tapa Whā? Te Whare Tapa Whā is an analogy developed by Dr Mason Durie. It describes health and wellbeing as a wharenui (meeting house) with four different walls. Each wall of our whare represents a different part of ourselves we have to nurture and look after in order for us to thrive. It is said that if all our taha of our whare are in balance, we thrive. But if one of our taha is out of balance it can impact our health and wellbeing.
TAHA HINENGARO
In te reo Māori our hinengaro is our brain. This represents how we feel emotion, how we process our thoughts and communicate with others. Ultimately our hinengaro tells us how we see ourselves and others in this world. There’s a lot of kōrero (talk) about mental health and what we can do to look after it.
We’re gonna have a little wānanga (discussion) and I’m going to share a few things I do for my taha hinengaro.
We hear a lot about working out at the gym and eating clean to look after our tinana (physical health), but what do we do to look after our hinengaro?
There are many ways we can train our minds and one tool I use is meditation.
It’s like working out your brain muscles; not only does this allow me to connect to my breath, but it also gives me time to sit back and check in with myself, what thoughts I may be attaching to and how I’ve been feeling lately.
This is an easy tool to use because even if you have a thousand things to do, all you need is one minute.
One minute of checking in with yourself each day can impact your whole mood! If you have a bit more time on your hands you might want to try a longer meditation or chuck on a guided meditation from YouTube.
It’s important we find time each day to look after our hinengaro, even if it’s just for one minute.