OK, so perhaps you are wondering what on earth macrobiotics is. That’s a good question and one that I find quite difficult to give a short answer to!
For me, macrobiotics is so many things but essentially it is about reaching our full potential in life. It’s about becoming more balanced in all areas of our lives and gaining insights into one’s health (and when I talk about health I mean it in a holistic sense so that includes everything about a person basically – mental, emotional, spiritual, energetic and physical). It’s also about understanding how the universe operates, the natural laws and eating and living according to all of this.
For me living a macrobiotic lifestyle means taking into consideration the different aspects of my being, my whole. I’ve often heard people refer to mind, body and soul but what about the emotions? Just by focusing on one of these aspects may give some results but in order for us to reach our full potential we must consider all the aspects that we are made of.
Physical
How am I doing physically? Am I exercising enough? Where is my energy? Are there any blockages? Am I feeling tired? What are my symptoms?
Mental
Am I stuck in a negative thinking pattern? Can I be more positive? Can I change the way I think about and approach things? Do I spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing
Emotional
How am I feeling? Am I in touch with what I’m feeling? Can I express myself? Am I following an emotional pattern? How can I maintain my emotional health? Am I following my heart?
Spiritual
What are my spiritual beliefs? Am I doing my best to contribute to the spiritual evolution of the planet? Have I found my soul purpose? Do I meditate? What are my spiritual experiences? Do I pray regularly?
Energetically
It may be that there is something going on on an energetic level that the above areas miss out on.
What does eating ‘macrobiotically’ involve?
It involves eating fresh and whole foods. Whole foods are foods that haven’t been tampered with or processed. They are natural foods, the things that nature intended for us.
As our world has developed, so has our ability to manipulate food. Food is now played around with so much that what we eat nowadays is far from it’s natural state and there is so much suffering and degeneration happening as a result.
Eating macrobiotically involves avoiding man-handled foods such as sugar, dairy, meat (which are extreme in terms of their energy and effect on the body) and too many processed foods - something that can be challenging in today’s dairy, meat and sugar polluted society! It’s really about eating foods that are natural and more balanced.
Now for what you can eat: whole grains, fruit and veg according to the season, nuts and seeds, beans, fish, sea vegetables and anything made from natural ingredients. You might think this sounds a little boring but once you start to see all the amazing possibilities there are I hope you will be surprised.
