Find Your Ikigai With Classical Five Element Acupuncture

​Just as last year you couldn’t move without hearing about hygge, there’s been A LOT written about Ikigai over the last few months, with another book on published recently (Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life).  I came across this concept just this summer, while on a yoga and transformational breath retreat with the wonderful folk at East of Eden and it resonated immediately with what I do in the treatment room.
 
So what is it?  And how the frick can acupuncture help find it?  Neatly translated from Japanese as ‘reason for being’, it’s the point at which passion, vocation, profession and mission meet  - and finding your own Ikigai can be transformative in the way you experience this life.    Waking up every day knowing you will get to do something that feeds you on the deepest level?    SIGN ME UP, YO.  A life with purpose can transform our existence, and gives things like money, status and power their proper perspective.
 
At the heart of Classical Five Element Acupuncture (CFEA) theory is the idea that if we live as an authentic expression of our true selves then we live in harmony and balance and thus in health.  So if you are struggling to identify your Ikigai, or you would like to live a life that is a truer external expression of your deepest self, then perhaps a Five Element Acupuncturist could help you figure that out.  How?  

Working out what really ticks your tock, finding the courage to make big life changes, or even quieting the external and mental noise that our lives generate can all be factors that hold us back from our Ikigai.  Acupuncture can help turn up that inner voice, the one which is your true north.  And that's when the magic happens.