Skip to main content
Home page

Hauora me te Hinengaro Wellbeing

Support and advice to help you maintain your mental and emotional wellbeing.


To live our best lives, our wellbeing is made up of four cornerstones and a strong foundation of place. This is the Te Whare Tapa Whā model of wellbeing, a Māori health model developed by Sir Mason Durie.

Te Whare Tapa Wha represents health as a wharenui (meeting house) with four pillars. The four pillars are equally important, and if one of them is missing or damaged, the person may become ‘unbalanced’ and unwell. The four pillars are:

  • Taha tinana | Physical wellbeing - Taha tinana is about how your body feels and how you care for it

  • Taha hinengaro | Mental and emotional wellbeing - Taha hinengaro is your mind, conscience, thoughts, and feelings. It’s about how you feel, as well as how you communicate and think.

  • Taha whānau | Family and social wellbeing - Taha whānau is about who makes you feel you belong, who you care about, and who you share your life with. It’s about your relationships not just with your family, but also your friends, collogues, and community.

  • Taha wairua | Spiritual wellbeing - For some people, wairua is about faith or religious beliefs. Others describe wairua as an internal connection to the universe or a person’s lifeforce - the intangible things that makes each of us who we are.

In this section

Is this page helpful?