Having the tool to actually let things go
and deal with things was just like
this major eyeopener to me.
Doing mindful walking and especially for me,
I’m not good at meditating like I can’t sit still, so
if my body is moving it makes my mind free up a bit
just being able to forgive people, forgive myself, let go.
Kia ora, ko Manu Walters tōku ingoa.
Ko Te Rarawa,
Te Aupouri
me Ngāpuhi ōku iwi.
Nō Tāmaki Makaurau, Grey Lynn Central ahau
and this is my hood.
Everybody do this, hā ki roto...
hā ki waho
So, now we’re going to go for our mindful walk.
Solid, keen?
All right.
So, kia āta haere (go slow), take it real slow,
walk way slower than normal.
Just relaxing our whole body, our tinana,
our ringaringa, waewae.
Just want to feel everything we can from the wind
to the ground as our feet come up from the ground and return back to Papa...
Stay silent, don’t be talking to no one.
Try not to catch eye contact with each other.
We’re just going to try and hono to ourselves,
so we can feel all our senses.
Āta whakarongo
to all the movement that our bodies are making.
tuarā, torso, puku,
ringaringa, waewae.
Our waewae move through the air...
Āta whakarongo to any sounds our body is making.
Our puku - when we breathe.
Look around
Take in all the colours, the different shades, the same colours.
As we come back to, we’re going to take a few breaths, ease out.
Hā ki roto,
hā ki waho...
We’re currently in Grey Lynn Park and this is where I grew up.
This is where I used to play league. This is where I used to run around.
Where I used to smoke joints, yeah.
I thought I was like good at like staying happy
and seeing like the best out of situations
but I wasn’t really good at healing and kind of dealing with stuff,
you know, and I think that’s the main thing that it’s kind of taught me to do.
Ka hīkoi mātou ia rā, ia rā. Ka taea te āta titiro,
whakarongo ki ngā mea katoa, ki tō ao.
To me, I was like, how do you mindfully walk?
Like that’s such a weird concept
but it’s actually like really simple, it’s just like being present.
We just use hīkoi as a means to get from A to B but you know,
if we’re doing that
we can just turn off our phones for a bit as well,
no headphones for a minute
and just kind of take in whatever we can,
it’s pretty dope eh?
I heard the winds of Tāwhirimātea
and when you spoke of our feet lifting
and touching down on Papatuānuku,
that’s not something I focussed on before,
it was a new experience for me when we started this journey.
It’s buzzy eh, like walking and meditating not like
sitting down, I find it really hard just to like sit down
and just be like, sweet come in to this state.
If I’m like doing something
then I find it yeah a lot easier and super relaxing eh.
Everyone in my whānau is creative in you know, someway.
All the boys you know, have to know how to play the gat,
you have to know how to play one song,
be able to play a sport and be able to cook a meal.
That’s what Mum kind of drilled in to us.
Which was solid because it paid off.
I'm mean at spag-bol now!
I think learning to like laugh at myself
and I think if you can laugh at yourself
no one is laughing at you because you’re laughing with the world, I guess.
Try and enjoy your senses, everything that you can see,
you know, everything you can hear,
you know, everything you feel, you know with your body.
If you can tune in with your body at the same time, you know,
basically just taking in everything that’s just around you,
being present with everything, yeah.
I felt really connected to sound
and noticed lots of sounds that I hadn’t when we first got here,
like realised the ocean is so close hearing the waves,
and you know when you told us to tune in to our senses
I really liked seeing the light in between the trees and the different colour
of the leaves, it was beautiful,
and I just feel it was a really quick way for me to feel present, you know.
Sometimes sitting in mauritau meditation practice
can take a while for me to get there but
being in the rōpū and doing it all together
felt really awesome, so ngā mihi.
I was quite like vain, you know, I thought
I wanted to be like perfect
or tried to be like perfect or like, the man
you know and it’s like these things would pop in to my head
and it would be a reminder, "you’re not the man",
which, I’m not the man and that’s solid you know,
I dont need to be the man
and I think those are cool like little reminders.
Now I welcome them, you know like
and when you can openly talk about things that
you’re I guess embarrassed of or whatever,
people can kind of relate to you more
and it’s opening yourself up and letting your guard down.
Dont take life so seriously just laugh,
laugh solid.