Te Whare Tapa Wha is basically a four-dimensional house that contains the four walls of our well-being. The four walls/sides of our whare are Taha Tinana (Physical), Taha Whānau (Social), Taha Wairua (Spiritual) and Taha Hinengaro (Mental/Emotional). These four dimensions contain keywords that relate to our well-being.
The first dimension displayed is Physical, also known as Taha Tinana in the Māori language. Our physical well-being gives us the ability to move, to develop physically and so much more. Our physical well-being can be affected in a positive way which would mean this dimension would be strong, but then it can also be affected in a negative way which could mean this dimension could be weak or in a negative condition. For example, I have maintained my well-being in a positive way as I got back into Waka-Ama. Physically it affected me positively because I have been able to get some exercise into my daily life.
The next dimension is Social, or in Māori - Taha Whānau. This dimension represents our Social well-being. Our social well-being is when we communicate with the people we are surrounded by in our daily lives. Our social well-being can be affected both positively and negatively. But recently my social well-being has been in positive condition as I reunited with some old friends from my Waka-ama team. As I reunited with them it felt as if our friendship blossomed more and we became closer.
Another dimension is our spiritual well-being or in Māori, Taha Wairua. Our spiritual well-being can be affected in a positive or negative way. Depending on who we are our spiritual beliefs can be different from how others view it, but nonetheless our spiritual well-being still has a huge impact on our lives no matter who we are. There are many aspects to our spiritual well-being that plays a huge role in our spiritual well-being. For example, we have our self-esteem, values, self-awareness, etc.
The last dimension we have is Mental/Emotional also known in Māori as Taha Hinengaro. In my opinion, this dimension is one of the most important walls of our well-being whare as it can impact your life hugely. This is because the different thoughts and mindsets your brain and mind take in have many different effects on you. This aspect of your well-being can be really weak but can also be strong, but it can have a huge effect in the end.
How do the four dimensions interconnect? As all four dimensions create our whare, it can be described as a whare that represents all the aspects of our well-being. All four of these dimensions interconnect because they all play a part in our well-being. If one of these dimensions is weak or crumbling it could have a small impact on our whare. But if most dimensions are extremely weak it could have a huge impact on our well-being to the point where we’d be unhealthy in all or most aspects of our well-being. So, in conclusion, the different aspects of our well-being are really important as each and every one of them needs to be positive and healthy for our well-being to be stable.
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This here is some work we were focusing on in Health class. In health, we learned about 'Te Whare Tapa Wha'. It's a whare made up of four dimensions that represent the aspects of our well-being. We then made a model of what we wanted our whare to look like (Photo above). We then had to write an explanation on each dimension and what they represented. So this blog post will display my model and explanation. I hope you enjoy it.
