 So it's 2024 and you go on YouTube and you're Googling, how to design my dream life. And you start looking and wait a second, is that me? So yes, of course you could watch this other video by me on how to design your dream life. But in this video, I wanna focus on little daily rituals you can do in your healing journey itself. Now there are lots of things that you could do to improve your life and make sure that 2024 is your best year. And when it comes to healing though, what is the singular difference that changes this year being just another year where you promise yourself something and nothing changes versus a year where it actually does all change. That's what we're talking about in this video here today. Hey guys, it's Dr. Alex Hine, board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book, Master of the Day. So let's jump in. Now ritual number one, I like to call checking your emotional bank account. Have you ever noticed how people who are really in debt or struggle with their finances are terrified to actually open those checks from their student loan providers or to actually check how much debt they have on their credit card or how people who are really out of shape are terrified to step on the scale. You can make a really good argument for both. You should step on the scale or you shouldn't and just focus on what makes you happy. But in reality, for a lot of us, you need to actually get a pulse on the situation. What is the actual reality of where you are? In particular right now, we're talking about what is your emotional bank account? I like to focus on two major buckets. Number one, what do you really, really want to do? So we're focusing on excitement and inspiration. What condition do you really want to heal? What problem are you having with your health and really if you made a big difference, you'd feel amazing and you'd be able to go after your other goals in life. And on the other side of the emotional bank account is what do you hate? What is making you feel so terrible that you cannot live? It can be an emotional thing like you're having problems with basically going to bed early. So you're staying up till 2 a.m. and you have to get a bit, let's say 7 or 8 a.m. for work and so you're always grumpy and then you're eating the wrong foods. It could be something like you're tired of being single and you would really, really love to find love this year and that would make a big difference in your life. But the first is always like in traditional Chinese medicine, we feel the pulse. So what is the emotional pulse of your life right now? Now there are other healing rituals that I've put together that I haven't shared here. It's the link right below this video. 4D the rituals that could potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So you guys can check that out. I also accept a limited number of new patients in my practice in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine. So right in the bio of this video you can contact my practice, my clinic that way. The second ritual is to keep a healing playbook. You know, when I got really, really sick in my late 20s and early 30s one of the things that I began doing was I put together this giant Evernote file called the healing path. And what I did was for six years until I felt normal again. I documented every single healing therapy that I did. Every basically formula I tried in traditional Chinese medicine every doctor I'd seen east versus west. And the point of this was that it allowed my mind to go to a space that was like a digital journal where I could focus on what are the things that I've tried? What's worked? What's not worked? What do I feel today? What symptoms are getting better and which haven't changed at all? And the point of this healing path little notebook is that it really gave my mind a focal point for when I wasn't feeling well. For example, you wake up and your symptoms are bad again depression symptoms, whatever it is. And you go to your healing playbook and you realize, oh, last year I saw this person and it actually really helped. Or last year I tried these three supplements that I'm thinking about again and they really did nothing. So the healing playbook is one way to document your process and your journey of healing. It helps you document what worked and what didn't work and really on the worst days it just helps you to revisit that you're on this journey. You're on this process, right? Not everything is going to fix every single person but on the worst days you can be reminded that some things have worked and that there has been progress. The third ritual is to come up with your big three. In other words, what three things if you did them would make this the best year ever? So for example, let's say we're talking about health and healing here because it's a primary focus for you. Well, if I could get my, let's say anxiety under control or my gut dysbiosis, the bloating, the irregular bowel movements, the acid reflux. If I could get those two things under control this would really be the best year ever because I'm not sleeping well due to my anxiety or I'm having heart palpitations or I'm constantly feeling on edge. And so I'm not going out on Friday to see friends because I'm feeling on edge and I just wanna be in my quiet home and my quiet environment. But what would those three things be? Let's say for example, one of them is to get your anxiety to a manageable level. Let's say another is, you'd like to save $300 per month. And let's say a third is you're in a transitional period in your life where if you really had a strong community of friends that would actually be a profoundly healing force for you because that connection has real measurable science about how healing and predictive on the other side of disease it is. So let's just say those are your big three. Now how can we break those three down to let's say one habit for each? Let's say for anxiety determine if I do physical exercise every day that so far has been the biggest inflection point the biggest thing that moves the needle in how I feel. So that's my one thing. And then let's say saving and you realize, you know what? If I just get a cup of coffee every other day and I put that to a savings account that's $150 ish of savings and I'm gonna automate that. An automated transfer out of my account that's my ritual there. And let's say for friends yes my anxiety may be preventing me yes the lack of money may be preventing me but you know what I'm gonna do to get new friends I'm gonna join one new community and I'm gonna go twice a week. Tennis lessons, bachata, salsa, a wellness meetup a business meetup, whatever it is I'm gonna join one community and I'm gonna go twice a week. Just having those on a piece of paper are something that will give you such complete clarity about what you need to do every week to actually improve your quality of life. But the average person, they don't think about their top three and they don't think about the daily rituals required to reach those top three. Ritual number four is figure out your first 90. Now your first 90 is a ritual I began doing years ago when one I was juggling working while doing my doctoral program but what it is is whatever the number one goal is for you spending the first 90 minutes of the day on it. So today these days at this moment in my life the number one goal is mastery of medicine always working towards being the best in the world at what I do. And what that looks like is I go to the same cafe every single day from seven or 730 until about nine and I'm studying one specific dynamic or aspect of my craft it could be a specific condition like MS it could be a specific treatment like I'm studying new acupuncture techniques or new formulas we can use to treat certain conditions. But in general, the first 90 minutes of the day on my calendar I go to the same place, I do the same thing I study the same topic and that creates a powerful anchor emotionally in my brain that I know the first 90 minutes one, what is my one thing and two, I'm going to the same place to do the same things. This makes it very easy to make progress in your life where you have clarity and you have commitment and accountability but for you on your healing journey it may not be going to a cafe studying medicine it may mean that, you know what we just talked about anxiety being my number one goal I wanna work on and what I need to do is I really have to exercise because I notice on the days where I'm really consistent with exercise I feel really grounded and on the days where I'm not, I don't. So as a result, you know the first doesn't have to be 90 minutes, 30 minutes or 60 minutes I'm gonna start doing a yoga class in the morning just on YouTube you can figure out what that 60 or 90 minutes is and you prioritize thinking about it, studying it understanding your condition every day that can make an amazing difference because if you read 30 pages a day for a year that's almost an entire book you will really be a specialist and you will see healing. Now the fifth ritual is expected to happen. You know, I'll never forget one day on my healing journey when I was sick where I had actually been feeling really down because I'd spent a lot of money on medical practitioners I'd seen lots of doctors east and west and I was feeling very discouraged because I'd been feeling well for a long period of time and now suddenly out of the blue I wasn't sleeping well I was having lots of these adrenal fatigue symptoms crop up again and as I was walking around one day I was thinking about a lot how our emotional states our psychological states and our body all intertwine right now there's a whole study of this called psychoneuroimmunology the relationship between these things but in that particular day I was thinking about how difficult the healing process is and how sometimes how non-linear it is you get better than you get worse I did a long hike when I was looking at this overlook and I thought for one year even if I'm not better I'm just going to live with the expectation that I will get better I don't know when I don't know how I don't know through who what's healer which doctor which method but I'm going to expect it to happen and let me just see how I feel and see what works now that year of course I ended up finding a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner that totally changed my life over a couple years who specialized in formulas like I do now and it made me think back to that moment of the expectation of healing is no different from the expectation of someone who wants to desperately find love that yes I may have been single and I'm not finding the person that I want to spend my life with but I will trust God's timing that one day it will happen it could be today in a cafe it could be a year from now in a salsa class it could be five years from now I don't know when but let me operate in a state of positive expectation it's going to happen I don't know when and that is a very healing force on its own and also I've put together a brand new program an online program called introduction to healing with traditional Chinese medicine there should be a pinned comment and there should be a link below this video with a link if you guys want to check it out more and the reason why I'm launching these online programs is that a lot of you will never be able to come see me in person and also it helps to keep this channel really sponsor and ad-free as much as possible while still trying to produce better and better videos for you to learn about self-healing and traditional Chinese medicine check out those links below and then also I have one other related video that will show you how to take giant steps on your healing journey right there