{"id":211963,"date":"2026-01-01T19:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/211963\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T19:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T19:02:08","slug":"hinemoa-elder-has-a-potent-piece-of-advice-for-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/211963\/","title":{"rendered":"Hinemoa Elder has a potent piece of advice for 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mentor, psychiatrist and author Dr Hinemoa Elder’s best-selling books draw from ancient M\u0101ori wisdom and mythology, but her main tip for this year is straight-up. She talks to Mariana Whareaitu. <\/p>\n

For Dr Hinemoa Elder, 2025 has been a \u201cpretty up and down\u201d year, one she sums up with a whakatau\u0101k\u012b, a proverb, that goes: Ka pari te tai, ka timu te tai, ka ngaro te tohu i haea engari ka mau tonu te wairua.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of my favourites from the k\u0101inga (home). You know, the tide comes in, the tide goes out. The line that was drawn in the sand \u2013 we might no longer see the actual line, but the wairua, the intention, and the spiritual significance of that remains.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, our decisions flow with some different influences on our lives but our intentions and our spiritual wellbeing are still there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The past year has been tough on families and communities, she says, including M\u0101ori. So she\u2019s looking forward to te tau hou P\u0101keh\u0101, the P\u0101keh\u0101 new year, and says planning for that looks very different to what she may do for Puanga, referring to the early winter star that signifies the coming of the M\u0101ori new year<\/a> for her Northland iwi.<\/p>\n

\"Orion<\/p>\n

Orion constellation with Puanga\/Rigel star (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n

The P\u0101keh\u0101 new year is about summer, she says. “It’s about planning for the heat and finding places that are cool and refreshing and enjoying the warmth and thinking about our water consumption. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike many other wh\u0101nau we are on tank water, so we have to think very carefully about the water that we use at this time of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Drought<\/p>\n

Drought is a significant and recurring hazard in Northland. (Source: Local Democracy Reporting)<\/p>\n

Elder has built a career integrating M\u0101ori cultural values and reo with her work as a psychiatrist, exploring practical solutions. Her PhD thesis included developing a tikanga-based therapeutic framework for M\u0101ori children with traumatic brain injuries.<\/p>\n

Now she works at iwi-run health services Te Hiku Hauora, where they live by M\u0101ori cultural values.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have whakamoemiti (giving thanks) and (my colleague) Uncle Bundy always asks me to talk about the maramataka (M\u0101ori lunar calendar) or te kanohi a Hina (the face of Hina, goddess of the moon) of a particular day… and we sing waiata, and we ground ourselves in our Muriwhenuatanga (Muriwhenua iwi identity), if you will.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s the same kind of reflective wisdom that can be found in her books \u2013 Aroha, Wawata, Waitohu and the latest, Ara \u2013 which encourage people to connect with the environment, with each other and, ultimately, ourselves. <\/p>\n

So it may come as a surprise to hear how concrete her first piece of advice is for 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first piece of advice is please make sure you are registered to vote and make sure that you are thinking about and learning about our political system and how you can have your voice, because that\u2019s also part of our mental health and wellbeing. <\/p>\n

\"It's<\/p>\n

It’s an election year in Aotearoa. (Source: TVNZ)<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, many people we know choose not to vote, and when I\u2019ve heard from people who choose those options, often they tell me that, well, they don\u2019t see much point for various reasons. So, I suppose my advice for people is find a purpose for voting. Voting is incredibly important. People fought for the right to vote and so I\u2019d encourage people to do that for our mental health and wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSecondly, get out in nature, get out in the taiao. Look up at the sky, look at the moon, look at the stars, look at the landscape around you. That is the tu\u0101papa (foundation) of health and wellbeing, to recognise how connected we are and that most of our lives are organised around things that actually keep us away from the natural world, unfortunately. <\/p>\n

\"Get<\/p>\n

Get among it. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we have to make an effort to be by the water, to be in the ngahere (forest), to get outdoors and feel comfortable outside and really sit in and pay attention and notice what\u2019s going on in te taiao.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ara,<\/p>\n

Ara, by Dr Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House NZ) is out now. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mentor, psychiatrist and author Dr Hinemoa Elder’s best-selling books draw from ancient M\u0101ori wisdom and mythology, but her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[156,81991,4432,111,139,29721,69,384,1297],"class_list":["post-211963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-hauora","tag-maori-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-ngahau","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-wellbeing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}