In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) there are 2 things to look at when we speak of living a healthy life. External influences and internal ones. The TCM view is that sickness is brought about by an imbalance in either of these two categories, usually both.

Traditionally external is looked at first and internal second. External is the category of things that affect us from the outside in, lifestyle, diet, exercise, etc. Internal is the opposite, so the things that affect us from the inside out, i.e. our mindset, thoughts and emotional state.

Both of these things can bring about drastic changes in our health and wellness. Today we'll be covering internal influences. Particularly how our unbalanced/subconscious emotional reactions affect our health. I'll be following up this post with another on how we can deter these problems and/or come to move past them. My preferred method to do this is a simple approach to meditation attitude and journaling.  Let's dive into internal influences.

My personal view is that Meditation is the process by which we shape our mind to rest in the Way and create the life we desire to be reflected in the world. Meditation for me is three fold. Without honesty, action and reflection in all three pursuits meditation lacks objectivity and falls into self-proclaimed 'enlightenment' which in actuality is a delusion.

3 folds of meditation.

• discernment
• facing existence
• preparing yourself for right action

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Therefore training (the mind, and in turn the body) to follow 'The Way' is how we go on the path to our better life, a path of success regardless of the endeavour. We'll start exploring these folds by elaborating on what they specifically mean and how I apply them...

In short practicing meditation helps to uncover root causes for our deepest emotional imbalances and traumas. It forms a great tool to better health by smoothing out our emotional changes. If you want to read more on how emotional states can affect our health read: Smooth Emotions BETTER HEALTH! ... then come back =)