About the Author

Kia ora,

I’m Matarena, author of What’s in Your Bowl?

For a long time, I knew I wanted more for my life. I could see the changes I wanted to make, understand what I should be doing, and genuinely try to move forward. Yet somehow, I kept finding myself back in familiar patterns, reactions, and emotional cycles.

I began asking deeper questions.

Why do we keep repeating things we have already promised ourselves we would change?

Why can we understand something logically, yet still struggle to live differently?

Why do certain experiences continue to shape the way we see ourselves, relate to others, and move through life?

As I searched for answers, I began to understand that we are often being influenced by far more than what is happening in the present.

Old beliefs, emotional experiences, learned behaviours, family patterns, unmet needs, and protective responses can quietly build within us over time. Even when we are no longer in the situations that shaped them, they can continue influencing our choices, relationships, reactions, and sense of who we are.

This understanding became the foundation of the Bowl.

The Bowl is a simple way of seeing what may be sitting beneath the surface of our lives. It helps us recognise what has shaped us, understand why certain patterns keep appearing, and begin meeting ourselves with greater awareness and compassion.

My work is grounded in lived experience, personal growth, psychology and neuroscience research, and a deep belief that people are not broken.

Sometimes, we are simply responding from what has been placed in our Bowl.

I wrote What’s in Your Bowl? for anyone who has ever felt stuck, confused by their own reactions, or frustrated that knowing better has not always made it easier to do differently.

My hope is that this book helps you understand yourself more deeply, recognise the hidden patterns shaping your life, and realise that change is possible.

Not through judging yourself for where you are, but through understanding how you got there.

And from that place, beginning to create something new.