Restoring Balance: Remembering the Path Back to Inner and Collective Harmony

There are moments in life when something unsettles us so deeply that the ripples move through our mind, our body, our relationships, and even our sense of who we are. It may be a conversation that lands awkwardly, a misunderstanding that lingers, or a situation that touches an old wound we thought had healed long ago. Often, our first instinct is to fix the imbalance “out there” — to explain, correct, defend, or seek resolution with the other person involved.

But there is another way.

Restoring balance begins long before the external conversation takes place. It begins within the wairua — the unseen, energetic space where our truth, intuition, ancestry, and inner authority reside. It begins when we choose to turn toward ourselves with honesty, curiosity, and compassion, rather than abandoning ourselves for harmony at any cost.

In a world that moves quickly, where opinions are shared faster than understanding is cultivated, restoring balance has become not just a personal skill, but a collective responsibility. The Māori concept of hohou te rongo speaks to the restoration of peace in relationships — not only between people, but within the self, with the land, with spirit, and with lineage. It is a process of returning to right relationship.

This article explores the deeper journey of restoring balance — through the lenses of somatics, ancestral healing, the Gene Keys, and equine wisdom — and why lasting harmony is an inside-out process.

The Universal Wound We All Carry

At the heart of human suffering lives a single illusion: that we are separate — from others, from love, from belonging, from wholeness. The moment that separation is felt, a wound is formed.

Different traditions describe this wound in different ways, but the essence is the same. It is the part of us that believes:

• “I am not enough.”

• “I am alone in this.”

• “Something is wrong with me.”

• “I must earn my place, my worth, my right to exist.”

  
  

In the Gene Keys — a contemplative wisdom tradition weaving the I Ching, astrology, and human design — this is known as the Core Wound. Each of us carries a “Line” of that wound, which shapes how we experience separation and how we are called to transmute it.

The six Core Wound Lines are not personality types, but soul paths of evolution:

• Line 1: From Repression → to Honesty

• Line 2: From Denial → to Ease

• Line 3: From Shame → to Innocence

• Line 4: From Guilt → to Forgiveness

• Line 5: From Blame → to Leadership

• Line 6: From Separation → to Peace

Every human carries all six wounds, but one tends to be dominant in our lived experience. When we begin to recognise the shape of our particular wound, we also begin to recognise the doorway to our liberation.

If you have ever felt like you needed to “hold it together”, to apologise for your existence, or to make yourself smaller to avoid judgement, then you have tasted the Line 3 wound of Shame — a core wound many of us know intimately.

The Line 3 Journey: Shame to Innocence

Shame is one of the most painful and private flavours of the human wound. It whispers not “I did something wrong” (that is guilt), but “I am wrong.”

Shame makes us:

• shrink

• self-correct before anyone corrects us

• stay silent rather than speak truth

• shape-shift to make others comfortable

• abandon our inner knowing to avoid judgement

Shame disconnects us from our mana — our inner authority, dignity, and spiritual presence.

For those walking a Line 3 soul path, the medicine is not perfection — it is authenticity and playfulness born from lived experience. Line 3s learn through trying, stumbling, experimenting, feeling, recalibrating, and integrating. They transform shame not by hiding, but by being seen in their humanness — which liberates others to do the same.

At its highest expression, Line 3 returns us to Innocence — the pure essence we came in with, before shame ever touched us. Innocence is not naïve; it is the remembered truth that nothing was ever wrong with us in the first place.

Restoring Balance Through a Māori Lens

Within te ao Māori, the journey of restoring balance is relational, holistic, and deeply spiritual. Balance is not a static state, but a living relationship between:

• Wairua (spirit)

• Hinengaro (mind)

• Tinana (body)

• Whānau & Whakapapa (relationships & ancestry)

• Whenua & Taiao (land & environment)

When one of these dimensions becomes compromised, the person’s mauri — life force — becomes dimmed or disturbed. The aim is not to fix the person, but to restore mauri, uplift mana, and reconnect the person to what holds them.

The process of hohou te rongo (restoring peace) is not simply conflict resolution. It is about:

• acknowledging the wounding or imbalance

• hearing truth with dignity

• restoring mana on all sides

• allowing wairua to settle

• integrating the learning

• completing the relational circle

Sometimes this happens between two people. Often, it must happen within before it can happen between.

From this worldview, healing is not an individual act. It is a relational act — with self, with others, with ancestors, with land, and with the unseen.

The Body as the First Messenger

Long before the mind formulates a story about what is wrong, the body already knows.

The body contracts when something is misaligned.The breath tightens when truth is withheld.The heart races when mana is compromised.The nervous system jolts when shame is triggered.

You may have noticed this:

• a sudden freeze in conversation

• a heat rising in the chest

• a spook or startle response

• that “something is off” feeling in your gut

We often override these sensations because the cognitive mind rushes in with logic, justification, or self-blame. Yet the body is the most ancient keeper of truth.

When you begin to recognise somatic cues as information rather than weakness, you open the doorway to inner balance. The body becomes a guide rather than an adversary.

The Role of Ancestors & Whakapapa in Restoring Balance

Not all imbalance belongs to the present moment. Some of it is inherited through whakapapa — the ancestral lines we are born into. Patterns of shame, silence, suppression, trauma, or unworthiness can travel through generations until someone feels it rise and chooses to meet it.

When we engage in ritual, ceremony, somatic release, and ancestral acknowledgement, we are not only healing for ourselves — we restore balance for those who came before and those who will follow. This is part of restoring mauri at a lineage level.

Sometimes, the moment we recognise that “this pain isn’t mine, but it lives in me” becomes the moment of liberation. We are not here to carry our ancestors’ wounds — we are here to free the line.

Equine Wisdom: Horses as Mirrors of Our Inner State

If you spend time with horses, you already know: they feel what we feel before we do.

Horses live in a state of somatic coherence — their nervous systems seek safety, presence, clarity, and congruence. When a human approaches a horse while out of balance internally, the horse won’t judge them — but it will respond truthfully.

When shame is present, a horse may:

• freeze

• brace or become hyper-alert

• move away

• spook or jolt in resonance with the human’s nervous system

This is not disobedience — it is feedback.

Horses reflect truth without story. They teach us about energetic responsibility.

When we restore our balance — not by suppressing vulnerability but by integrating it — the horse responds immediately. This is what inner congruence feels like.

From External Validation to Internal Equilibrium

Many of us were taught that balance comes through external resolution:

• “I need them to understand my point.”

• “I need the apology.”

• “I need to explain so they don’t think badly of me.”

But if balance depends entirely on another person’s response, we are not free — we are energetically entangled.

The moment we seek to restore balance out there before restoring it in here, we risk approaching the situation from the wound.

In te ao Māori, the inner restoration of wairua and mana is what enables the outer restoration of relationship. When wairua is settled and mana is intact, any external conversation (if it happens at all) becomes clean, grounded, and truthful.

Sometimes, when inner balance is restored, the need for the external conversation dissolves — because the lesson has already been integrated.

A Living Example

There are times when an experience touches a core wound — and the mind races, the body contracts, and the story loops. You may find yourself rehearsing conversations, defending yourself silently, or wanting to correct what was said.

But something different becomes possible when you pause.

Sometimes, you step away into nature, into ceremony, into healing, into stillness — and something begins to shift. Shame rises to be witnessed, not to punish you, but to be released. You may discover that the pain you were carrying wasn’t only yours — an ancestor may have passed on a story of unworthiness or unfinished grief that found completion through you.

And then, a quiet clarity emerges. You feel balanced again — without needing the situation to change.

From that place, if a conversation does occur, it is no longer fuelled by hurt. It is simply an honouring — a completion of the energetic thread.

If it never happens, peace is still present.

A Pathway to Restore Balance in Your Own Life

Here is a simple, grounded process you can use when imbalance arises:

1. Acknowledge the Imbalance

Pause before reacting. Notice what feels off — in the body, the heart, or the energy. Name it gently.

2. Return to the Body and Breath

Place a hand on the body where you feel the contraction. Breathe into that space. Let the energy move.

3. Reconnect with Inner Truth, Whakapapa, and Spirit

Ask: Whose story is this? Call in support — the land, your horse, your tīpuna, your higher self. Let truth return.

4. Repair or Release with Integrity

Only once balance is restored inside, choose your outer action — if any.Any step should reflect your restored mana, not fill a wound.

The Deeper Truth About Balance

Balance is not a destination — it is a relationship. A relationship with self. With others. With land. With lineage. With spirit.

We all lose balance. The aim is not to avoid rupture, but to know how to return — with more wisdom, more compassion, and more truth than we left with.

When we restore balance within, we contribute to restoring balance around us. This is how personal healing becomes collective healing.

Perhaps the deepest remembering of all is this:

You don’t need to be understood to be at peace. Balance begins the moment you come home to yourself.