Let’s be straight up. When you are trapped in a toxic relationship or drowning in domestic chaos, survival mode blurs everything. You are running on pure adrenaline, hyper-vigilance, and exhaustion.
But you cannot heal a warzone while you are still standing on the battlefield.
Over the last three tracks of The Kete, we’ve peeled back the layers of what it actually takes to get safe, stay sane, and reclaim your wairua. If you’ve been living in the smoke, this is your blueprint to breaking the cycle.
Layer 1: Squeezing the Shit Out of Your Bones
When the chaos hits its peak, your only job is physical survival. It’s about external safety and crisis triage.
We talk about safety plans, running, hiding, or getting protection orders. In those moments, you are squeezing every ounce of grit out of your bones just to keep yourself and your kids breathing. It is heavy, diabolical pain—but you know how to handle it. You survive.
But once you step across the threshold of an external safe house, a new battle begins. One that most people don’t warn you about.
Layer 2: Numbing the Battlefield
Straight up: You cannot hold an external safe house if you are still a warzone on the inside. When the external screaming stops, the internal wreckage surfaces. This is where the trap snaps shut. Because the unhealed, unresolved trauma inside you has devalued you for years, you start starving for connection.
And the moment some man gives you any sort of attention—even if it’s toxic, even if it comes with a fist or a scream—you grab onto it and call it love.
It’s not love. It’s just attention. You are settling for crumbs because you’ve forgotten the value of the wāhine sitting in your skin. What happens next? Two unresolved traumas collide and beat each other up. Mind of a child, body of an adult, just continuous trauma bashing. You use his external madness to distract yourself from facing your own internal battle. And if there are kids in the house witnessing that war, it is not okay. They deserve better.
Layer 3: Guarding Your Wairua & Locking the Gates
So you make the decision to walk away. You choose to prioritise your wellbeing and your children’s lives for the first time. You say, “No more.”
But do not underestimate the silence that follows. When the adrenaline fades and the house gets quiet, your brain will start starving for that toxic hit again. Your skin will crawl because you are addicted to the chaos.
What do most of us do? We block the phone number but leave the Instagram open. We tell ourselves we are just “checking to see if he’s okay.”
Let’s call it what it is: That is leaving the gate to your safe house wide open. A real safety plan isn’t a suggestion—it is an iron-clad commitment to no communication and no engagement, no matter what. You only control yourself; you cannot control him, and he will keep hitting that gate.
Your spirit, your wairua, is tapu. It is sacred. Every single time you look at his page or reply to a late-night text just to argue back, you are letting his madness breach your fortress. You are giving him free rent in a space that belongs to your healing.
Reclaim the Wāhine Inside Your Skin
The silence isn’t emptiness. It is room for your wairua to breathe. It is the sacred space where you remember exactly who the hell you were before the battlefield broke you.
Stop guarding his feelings. Start guarding your soul.
Look at the tools. Take the lifelines below. Step into the kete, drop the weights you’ve been carrying alone, and remember who you are.
The Lifelines (Free & Confidential):
- Physical Safety & Crisis Planning: Women’s Refuge | 0800 REFUGE (0800 733 843)
- Internal Battle & Mental Health Support: Need to Talk? Counselor Line | Free call or text 1737
- Addiction & Numbing Support: Alcohol & Drug Helpline | 0800 787 797
- Cultural & Wairua Rebuilding: National Healthpoint Directory (Search Māori Health or Rongoā)
Listen to the full audio breakdown of these three chapters directly on our resource hub at stayingsafeandsane.nz/the-kete.
Staying Safe and Sane 