Become What My People Need Me To Be

Recently, I saw this phrase on TikTok:

"Become what your people need you to be."

And it floored me. I needed to sit with it for a long time.

 

The more I sat with it, the more it moved into being a wero of having the courage to acknowledge what I have always been.

That sounds simple.

It wasn’t.

 

So often we are told to spend our lives collecting titles, qualifications, roles, and responsibilities. 

We become known for what we make, what we sell, what we manage, or what we achieve. We become comfortable introducing ourselves through our work.

Yet sometimes our work is not actually the work. Sometimes it is simply the vehicle.

For years people have asked me what I do.

I have answered with different versions of the truth.

I make jewellery.

I create tea.

I facilitate experiences.

I coach.

I sit on boards.

I support communities.

I build businesses.

All of these things are true.

Yet none of them reveal the full truth.

Through this process of sitting 

I have begun to understand that the jewellery, the tea, 

and the spaces were never the destination.

They were the tools.

The real work has always been something deeper.

The real work has been around releasing the components that

I am a wordsmith.

I am a weaver.

I am a conduit of old into the now.

I help bring forward stories, wisdom, relationships, 

and ways of being that already exist but have been forgotten, 

overlooked, or left behind in the rush of modern life.

The jewellery has never been just jewellery.

It was a way of carrying memory.

A way of holding story.

A way of helping people connect to place, ancestry, and belonging.

The tea has never been just tea.

It was a reason to gather.

A reason to slow down.

A reason to create a moment where conversation, 

reflection, and connection back to whenua could occur.

The spaces have never simply buildings.

They were vessels.

Places where people could arrive as strangers 

and leave feeling a little more connected

to themselves, to each other, and to the world around them.

Looking back, I can see the thread running through all of it.

Connection.

Not connection as a warm and comforting idea.

But Connection as a catalyst for change.

Because when people reconnect with themselves, things change.

When people reconnect with each other, things change.

When people reconnect with whenua, history, and purpose, things change.

Connection is not passive.

It is transformative.

It shifts how we see ourselves.

It shifts how we treat each other.

It shifts the futures we create.

And perhaps that is the part that requires courage.

Not creating the connection.

But Claiming my part in it.

Owning it.

And accepting that this is the work.

For a long time I thought I needed to explain myself through products, programmes, or businesses.

Now I find myself wondering whether my role is much simpler than that.

Perhaps I am simply here to help people remember.

To remember where they come from.

To remember what matters.

To remember their relationship with each other.

To remember that old wisdom is what gives us place in the modern world.

Because the old and the new are not opposing forces.

They are strands waiting to be woven together.

The knowledge of our ancestors is not something to be admired from a distance.

It is something to be lived.

Adopted.

Applied.

Brought into the present.

Opened into the now.

The older I get, 

the more I realise that becoming what my people need me to be 

is less about what they may admire

and more about acceptance.

Accepting my gifts.

Accepting my responsibility.

And accepting that some threads have followed me my entire life for a reason.

For me, those threads have always led back to connection.

Not as an outcome.

Not as a strategy.

But as a way of being.

A wordsmith.

A weaver.

A conduit of old into the now.

Using jewellery.

Using tea.

Using spaces.

Using whatever tools are required.

Creating the conditions for connection.

Trusting that connection itself will become the catalyst for change.

 

And now I can stand knowing that becoming what my people need me to be 

is not about striving to become more. 

It is about removing the layers that prevents me from fully being myself.

 

image credit: He ata ki runga, he ata ki raro (2020) by Ngataiharuru Taepa