Navigate Te Ao as a wāhine.

In this article I have put some common factors of beginning a wāhine and some ways of how to help ease the stress, loneliness and mental health.

If you are struggling in everyday life? Feeling like you are all alone and overwhelmed with loneliness? Starting to feel down in the dumps and believing your mental health is getting worse and starting to feel depressed. Let’s be realistic as wāhine, māmā, bread winners we and under the pump working our ass off and no wonder we feel loneliness, stress and our mental health is going to shit.

Well, I’m going to share some ways of how I deal with Stress, Loneliness and Mental Health.

How stress affects periods?

Stress can significantly impact one’s menstrual cycle, leading to a range of outcomes such as the absence of a period or, oppositely, resulting in heavier bleeding than one typically experiences.

In my own experience, I observed that with each episode of heightened stress, my mental health would start to take a toll, spiralling into feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. This caused my menstrual cycle to be much heavier and they began to go out of sync with my usual cycle.

To overcome these challenges, I have learned to give myself permission to pause and rest. This is something as a hard-working māmā, I often find myself providing manaaki for everyone around me, but I realize I can’t truly awhi others if I don’t care for my own well-being. To nurture and awhi myself, is to empower me as a wāhine toa.

To nurture myself I have various grounding techniques that help centre my energy: I like to go outside and stand firm on the grass, taking three deep, cleansing breaths to reconnect with nature. Hā ki roto, Hā ki waho (breath in, breath out)

I also enjoy a soothing warm shower, which helps to ease the tightness in my tinana and brings relief to my wairua.

Additionally, I like to watch a drama or true story that allows me to shed tears, embracing the emotional release that often comes during my menstrual cycle, because who doesn’t feel a little more vulnerable and sentimental during their period?

Can stress make you sick?

Yes, stress can cause physical symptoms like headaches, stomach pains, tension in the tinana. It can cause mental health problems like anxiety, memory loss, depression these can lead to sleeplessness, eating disorders, mood swings.

I found that stress effects tangata in different ways and the more stressed one is the worse those symptoms are.

In my own experience I notice stress at a low level will start with little mood swings and a low tolerance of others. It will then move up to headaches/migraine, dizziness, lack of sleep. My hinengaro will start forgetting things, and depression will start to sneak in. Extreme is when illness-like symptoms start happening like head colds, the flu, kidney infections causing chronic lower back pain to more life threating illnesses like Cancer and Heart disease.

Ways, I help myself in the early days is to write up a list of things that I need to do. See if I can delegate any of these jobs to the people around me. Asking for help is one of the hardest things to do at the start but once you overcome the shame and embracement that you put on yourself and realise there are people who are willing to help you it becomes easier.

It’s about balance so slow down, rest, play more. Things like going to the beach by yourself or with tamariki can be both relaxing and healing for your wairua. Our tamariki show us how to have fun and enjoy what is happening in the now. This helps you to let go of the chaos in the hinengaro.

Always use the breath to help regulate the tinana, Hā ki roto, hā ki waho, repeat as many times as needed to relax and calm yourself.

When stress hits me!

A little stress can be a healthy phase of life if we know how to manage it.

Meditation can help cleanse your hinengaro and calm your wairua. During the mediation you can focus on the body and where you feel tension and pain, acknowledging these areas is the start of releasing them. You can then try tensing up your body and then releasing it which helps you to understand your tinana and how that changes your stress levels. Repeat as often as needed. Next imagine a bright light coming from Ranginui into those spaces.

When doing the deep breathing hā ki roto, hā ki waho, breath through your nose taking the breath over your head and down to your heart then back up through your throat and out your mouth. While doing this imagine that each breath is cleansing your mind and connecting with your heart to free your soul and allow movement.

These are somethings I use to help myself in my times of stress.