During 12 years of practicing acupuncture, I have counselled hundreds of people on the importance of healthy diet, supplements and exercise as a means of creating and maintaining wellness. Chinese medicine is not just acupuncture alone, but rather includes a large part of participation of the patient OUTSIDE of the treatment room. Therefore, lifestyle choices greatly impact the benefit of acupuncture treatments. Recently, however, I have found that a large missing piece of this puzzle is mindfulness.
In order to practice mindfulness, we must first have the desire to make changes. Next, we must consciously make the choice to stay with the original goal every minute of every hour of every day. There is no short cut for this part, unfortunately. One tool that is helpful to create mindfulness is regular meditation. Meditation trains the mind to quiet itself so that our truths can come to the surface. For example, cutting out sugar can be a very difficult task for many of us. A meditation practice can help explore the why behind our behavior, which creates consciousness around this specific behavior. Consciousness is then the driving force behind real, meaningful change.
Leave a Reply