The Beginning

Why I Chose Traditional Chinese Medicine

There are moments in life that quietly change its direction.

Mine began with a feeling that something no longer fit.

After several years working in corporate digital marketing and sitting at a desk, I found myself questioning whether this was really the work I wanted to devote my life to. I really had days where id look out my window whilst trying to create a client campaign, wondering is this my career, is this what I actually love? So easily we can get tied up in the chase for money. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed many aspects of my career, but I couldn't ignore the growing feeling that I was searching for something more meaningful to me. Something that aligned more closely with the way I saw the world; stepping away from materialism, quietening the high critisim of myself, and focusing on slowing down my day.

So I made what felt like the biggest and silliest decision of my life.

I quit my job.

Without another career lined up, I gave myself two months to slow down. To read. To research. To explore. To look within and get to know myself fully again. I wasn't looking for a particular profession; I was looking for work that felt deeply purposeful.

Long before I discovered Traditional Chinese Medicine, I'd always felt that humans weren't separate from nature but that we were part of it. I loved noticing the changing seasons. The foods that naturally appeared throughout the year. The way animals instinctively adapted to their environment without questioning it. It seemed obvious that we belonged to those same rhythms, even if modern life had made us forget them and make us rush around instead.

What I couldn't explain was why those connections felt so important.

Then, somewhere amongst countless hours of research, I came across Traditional Chinese Medicine. The more I learnt, the more everything began to make sense.

Not because it introduced me to a new way of thinking.

Because it gave language to something I'd quietly believed for years.

Here was a medical system that had spent thousands of years observing the relationship between people and the natural world. It recognised that our health isn't shaped by one thing alone, but by the continual interaction between our environment, our emotions, our lifestyle, the seasons, the food we eat, the way we rest, and the body patterns that emerge over time.

It didn't ask me to separate the body from the world around it. It asked me to observe how they influence one another.

That perspective changed everything.

In July 2024, I began a Bachelor of Health Science majoring in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Alongside Chinese medicine practises, my studies would also include human biology, anatomy, physiology and clinical science. While each discipline approaches the body through a different lens, together they're teaching me something I find endlessly fascinating: just how complex, intelligent and interconnected the human body really is.

Before I'd even stepped into my first Chinese Medicine class, I also started paying more attention to the small things I did without thinking. Cold water first thing in the morning was replaced with warm water, and I began spending more time outside, even through winter. Nothing drastic, just the beginning of becoming a little more conscious of how I moved through each day.

Then KIRIKA was born from that same curiosity.

Not to position myself as an expert. Not to offer definitive answers. But to document the process of learning, seeing and becoming more conscious.

The Archive is a collection of my observations. A place where I'll share the ideas, philosophies, discoveries, and questions that continue to reshape the way I understand my own health. Some will come from Traditional Chinese Medicine education. Others from biomedical science. Many from simply paying closer attention to my day.

Because if there's one thing this journey has taught me already, it's that the body is constantly communicating; showing signs, patterns, signals. And when we start to become aware of what they mean, it opens new pathways to healing before there are major symptoms, illnesses or injuries.

The more we learn to observe our bodies and whats around, the more we begin to understand on a deeper level.

Welcome to The Archive.