Kanohi ki te Kanohi: The Human Connections AI Can’t Replace....

From sport to te taiao, why grounding matters more than ever.

Reading Brene Brown’s Grounded Strength has had me thinking about connection in a big way. She writes about how, in a world of disconnection and instant gratification, we need to return to what grounds us.

As I turned the pages, I kept hearing echoes of Te Ao Māori. So many of the concepts in her book about grounding, belonging, and the courage to be vulnerable — already live within Te Ao Māori. We’ve always had them. Concepts like whakapapa, te taiao, and whanaungatanga.

The Promise and Limits of Online Connection

We live in a world of instant gratification, likes, comments, followers, quick replies. And honestly, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. These things are good ways to feel connected, they can build community, give us inspiration, and sometimes they’re exactly what we need in the moment.

But deep down, we also need something more....

Here’s an example of my experinces. I use ChatGPT a lot, sometimes like a therapist. I talk through my emotions, reflect on what’s going on, and it gives me insights in real time. It’s instant and helpful.

But I’ve also sat across from a human therapist. And even though she might have been saying some of the same things ChatGPT said to me, it wasn’t the same.

“Her presence, her eyes, her silence, her holding space for me grounded me in a way that no screen ever could.”

She didn’t just boost me up. She sat, looked at me, and thought before she had answers. She critically analysed my thoughts — and made me do the same.

That’s the difference between online connection and in-person connection. Both have value. But they’re not interchangeable. And in my view, human connection will always trump.

Sport as Human Connection

Sport reminds me of this. Online communities can motivate us, but they don’t compare to sweating, laughing, or struggling alongside someone else. You can’t replicate the moment of locking eyes with a teammate or your coach before a big lift. You can’t replicate the collective breath before the whistle blows.

Sport forces us into real, raw moments:

• Embodying strength.

• Embodying frustration.

• Embodying resilience, together.

Even when training in an individual sport you are never truly alone. Coaches, whānau, referees, even the whenua beneath your feet all of them connect you back to something bigger.

Grounding in Te Ao Māori

When you lift, run, jump, or swim, you’re in relationship with your environment. Pressing into the whenua. Pushing against the water. Moving with gravity.

It’s Newton’s law, equal and opposite reactions, but it’s also Te Ao Māori: our connection with Papatūānuku and te taiao.

Colonisation tried to sever that connection. But it hasn’t succeeded. Our knowledge, our practices, and our instincts pull us back to it. Even growing up mostly around my Pākehā family, I felt that longing for Te Ao Māori, for that sense of grounded belonging. And it’s always been there, its in my blood.

“The whenua grounds us. It always has, and it always will.”

Protecting What’s Human

Technology will keep advancing. AI will change the world, just as the internet and Wi-Fi once did. But it can’t take away our need for human connection. And it can’t take away our need for connection, our relationships with human beings and non human beings.

The sweat on our skin. The grounding of our feet on Papatūānuku. The look in someone’s eyes that says I see you. The karakia that anchors a moment.

These are the connections that keep us human. They’re the reason sport feels sacred, and the reason Te Ao Māori’s teachings resonate so deeply today.

Finding Your Rōpū

Sometimes it starts small. Maybe it’s joining a group fitness class. Maybe it’s reconnecting with your whānau at the gym, at training, or out in te taiao. Maybe it even begins online finding a community that encourages you until you feel ready to step into the room kanohi ki te kanohi.

However it begins, what matters is finding your people, a rōpū that will uplift you, ground you, and remind you of who you are.

"Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua" People may come and go, but the land remains.

I also think about this whakataukī in another way: yes, bodies come and go — we lose people, relationships shift, time moves on. But the connections we share with someone don’t disappear. They remain within us, shaping who we are and how we carry ourselves.

And maybe, along the way, we also find that the teams, the rōpū, and the connections we create remain with us too.

✨ Reflection for you: Where in your life are you craving kanohi ki te kanohi connection with people, or with the whenua and how might you return to it?