15/2/2026
The article was brought in the Winter issue of the magazine Macrobiotics today.
For me, the essence of macrobiotics always has been that we have the power to create our own life. Already, before I came into macrobiotics, I had a spiritual experience that showed me that I create my life through identifying with different energy forms. Macrobiotics gave me a language to understand energy flow and forms. I was and am delighted.
The way I teach macrobiotics today is quite different from the way I learned it. Although all the same models are still there, I am framing them in a more accessible way and, in some cases, adding complementary approaches.
In the spring of 2024, I created the Holistic Wheel of Health to clarify the full potential of using the macrobiotic approach to life. In the sections below, I will share the Holistic Wheel of Health as well as each of its parts.
In 2014, I participated in a workshop with microbiologist Bruce Lipton. Since then, I have used what I learned from him as a perfect doorway into macrobiotics. Many decades ago, he made an experiment of giving cloned stem cells, distributed in 3 petridishes, three different types of nutrition.
Because cloned cells have identical genes, he concluded that the nutrition a cell received determined its destiny. The science of Epigenetics confirms that genes may turn “on” or “off” depending on which nutrition they get. Because a cell get its nutrition from blood, Epigenetics confirms the macrobiotic perception that our health and wellbeing depend on our blood quality, which is determined mainly by three factors,
Basic factors influencing the nutrition available in the blood are:
Basic factors influencing how well our blood is oxygenated are:
An important learning from the workshop with Bruce Lipton is that our emotional state influences which kind of hormones are present in our blood. Mindset related factors that influence hormones in the blood are:
Of course, all of that is influenced by our subconscious programming and previous experiences.
Context related factors that influence hormones in the blood are our relationships to:
I placed these four factors (nutrition, oxygenation, mindset, and context) as four equally important spokes of the Holistic Wheel of Health. Each of the spokes provides a different path to create the life you want. Combining them is very powerful and allows for more freedom in each area. However, it may be beneficial to prioritize one of the paths at some points in time. I placed Epigenetics at the center of the wheel because it provides the scientific explanation that it is the quality of our blood that determines our well-being.
Luckily, we don’t need to understand the science of Epigenetics to be able to take charge over our lives. Macrobiotics provides us with an energetic approach to understand and deal with the phenomena of this world. Thus, I also placed Energetics at the center of the wheel. I sometimes wonder if they actually could be two sides of the same coin?
Of course, I have no proof of this crazy idea, but it could be a very interesting research project. In any case, once it is understood properly, the epigenetic approach is simple and straight forward to use in everyday life. It empowers us to take full responsibility for our life.
The energetic approach to life that macrobiotics provides is the least dogmatic approach that I know off. It is based on Ohsawa’s 7 Principles of the Order of the Universe and the 12 theorems about how energy moves. It doesn’t contain any do’s and don’ts—although it sometimes is used to argue for strong opinions on what is right or wrong. The basic idea is that every action has consequences. If you go out in the sea when the tide comes in, you get washed away.
Whether an action is assessed as appropriate or inappropriate depends on whether it leads to the goal you have in mind. If you want to drown, there is no problem going out in the sea when the tide comes in. If you want to live, it might be fatal.
Macrobiotics uses the energetic perspective to comprehend and predict consequences. Thus, it is used as a tool to make coherent choices. Seen through the lens of energetics, understanding phenomena in life becomes simple and straight forward.
From a scientific perspective, understanding phenomena in life often requires comprehensive and expensive tests because so many detailed factors are involved — increasing the possibility of overlooking components and making wrong conclusions.
“Macrobiotic” means creating or cultivating a great life. Using the four spokes of the Holistic Wheel of Health in combination allows us to do that. When all four spokes come into play, the need to be rigid or fanatic disappears. Combining the tools provided by the four spokes empowers us to take full charge of our lives without forcing the process.
Although macrobiotics always has recognized the other spokes, it has been primarily reduced to a way of eating for many people. In contrast, macrobiotics can be used as a comprehensive and empowering approach to life.
That is what it has been for me.
Although many people have used the Macrobiotic Principles to cure themselves of serious illness, practicing Macrobiotics doesn’t mean an easy life without challenges or health problems. It just means we are more well-equipped than the majority of people to deal with our challenges. Having these tools has allowed me to take on bigger challenges than I could have done without them. They make every new challenge an opportunity to deepen my understanding of how life works.
Prana, qi (chi), and ki are different names for the vital energy underlying all of creation. As humans, we exist in many dimensions. When we experience a creation at the energetic dimension, we can make instant changes. Sometimes, a change in the energetic dimension penetrates into the other dimensions immediately. Sometimes, there is a delay.
A key point of macrobiotics is that every phenomenon may be perceived from the energetic perspective. Energy moves in cyclical patterns and, thus, the phenomena do as well. We see this in the rhythm of day and night, the rhythm of the year, the cycle of life and death, the pull between contraction and expansion, and the interplay of inner and outer forces.
Most original cultures had some kind of language describing these basic energy patterns. In macrobiotics, we use yin/yang or five transformations. Everything contains both of these forces, but with either yin or yang in excess. At any given moment in the cycle, we may perceive one of these forces as being
dominant. As everything changes, the other one inevitably becomes dominant. It is only a question of how quickly or slowly this happens.
When Ohsawa formulated the 12 theorems to describe the movement, he changed the original Chinese terminology, which sometimes confuses people. If you get caught up in the terminology, you may end up throwing the baby out with the bathing water. 🙂
When we fully understand the order of the universe, life becomes simple. I use it to create or stop creating manifestations in my life.
The first principle of the order of the universe is about how a creation enters the relative world:
We — and everything there is — are manifested from the Infinite and are continually nourished by it.
Practically speaking, this means that in order for something to exist in the relative world it continually needs to be nourished. In other words: Giving energy to what you want brings it to life. Ceasing to give energy to what you don’t like to have in your life (anymore) makes it shrink.
In spiritual circles, this principle is called the ‘Law of Attraction.’ In the medical scientific world, it is called the placebo effect.
We give energy to things with our actions, by focusing on them with emotionally charged attention (reactions and judgments) or believing in them. Observing something from a neutral, non-judgmental place doesn’t give it energy.
This is simple. However, there is a complication. We don’t have one mind, but two minds and they function very differently.
Our conscious mind is concerned with identity, creativity, fantasy, deliberate choices, deliberate actions, intentions, aims, goal setting, missions, positive thinking. Our subconscious mind is concerned with survival and automatizing basic functions, habits, and instincts. It records experiences and plays them back to us. It learns from “aha” moments, traumatic events, and repetitions.
The processor of our conscious mind can handle around 40 bits of information per second, where as the processor of our subconscious mind can handle 40 million bits of information per second. Thus, much of our behavior is shaped by unconscious processes.
Because we are unaware of what our subconscious mind gives energy to, we tend to perceive ourselves as victims of the circumstances our subconscious mind is creating.
It seems that these circumstances are coming from ‘outside of us’, while in reality they are being produced by the beliefs and mental programs stored in our subconscious mind.
Thus, I believe that the majority of bad habits and situations that exist in our life are because our subconscious programming gives them energy. Blaming ourselves for lack of will power, etc., only gives more energy to them.
The stronger we resist something and the more trapped we feel, the more energy we give to it. We can enter a negative spiral in which it feels very uncomfortable to be trapped. I think all of us have experienced that at some point in our lives. The good news is that it can be reversed.
Once a creation has entered the relative world, there are certain laws of existence, which are covered by the last 6 principles of the Order of the Universe:
Many people use a lot of energy to fight situations they don’t like, trying to overcome them by creating what they want. I have found it much more efficient to stop giving energy to such situations. When I do that what I want often manifests without much effort.
The Transformation Procedure I created allows us to stop giving energy to any phenomenon we have in our life. I have seen so-called miracles happen. Issues people have struggled with for a lifetime have disappeared not by magic, but by
common sense.
Basically, using the Transformation procedure we observe any phenomenon in our life through these six lenses. Once we have done that from a neutral non-judgmental place, we will end up where we have a choice whether we want to continue to nourish this phenomenon or let it go (the first principle).
Once we stop giving energy to something, we free up creative energy. I’ve seen cancer healed with just one 2.5 hour session. I have seen relationships and limiting beliefs resolve. I’ve even seen personality changes when used over a period of time. Our ability to think for ourselves increases, when we put these principles into practice in our lives. All answers are within. I use the transformation procedure in symphony with other tools to understand and transform the underlying issues, focus our energy, understand relationships, etc.
There is no such thing as the macrobiotic diet or way of life — although you may find the terms in many macrobiotic books and on websites. Several macrobiotic approaches have developed over time. Each of them are right from some perspective.
The common macrobiotic approach to food is energetic. Usually, foods are organized on a line from contracting to expanding as in the illustration below, sometimes more detailed, sometimes more simple. Don’t get too caught up on the exactness of the illustration as there are lots of overlaps; exactness isn’t that important. Getting the general idea is important.
You find most of the foods eaten by modern people in the red bubbles of the illustration. Many of those foods also tend to be acid-forming. To get a general idea of what the consequences are of such an energetically more extreme diet, imagine a constant swing between these two extremes. Imagine what happens if your cells keep shifting between expansion and contraction.
It is not hard to get the idea that they get tired, which cause the person to become worn out on a cellular level and become old too soon. It is also not hard to imagine that the person may experience some tension and stress in their body, and feel confused, overwhelmed, and without direction. On the positive side, they may experience a lot of dynamics and excitement. They may feel alive. Something is happening.
Now imagine a different scenario: choosing the more balanced foods in the middle, as represented by the green bubble in the illustration. Because the swings are shorter and slower, they don’t get far away from the center, and they pass through the center more slowly. Thus, the advantage of a more balanced diet is a stronger sense of direction, more peace of mind, and a sense of connection with oneself and the universe. The
disadvantage is that, compared to the lifestyle of friends and family, there may be less happening on the surface. Some may perceive this as boring or, for that matter, quite challenging. It is not always comfortable to connect with deeper layers of ourselves.
It is up to each person to choose how they want to live their life. When I was young, I had the motto ‘Live strong—die young’. At the age of 21, I had a burn-out (yes, that is very early!), where I slept 12 hours a day, was tired the rest of the day, and struggled to climb to the third floor, I knew how it felt to be old. During the 1.5 years when I wasn’t able to get a diagnosis or treatment, the ‘live-strong—die-young’ motto lost its appeal to me. When I finally agreed to see an alternative practitioner, I recovered with a more balanced diet.
Combining that with a women’s group, where we talked about our lives, and meditation made me become healthier than ever before. I had a spontaneous spiritual experience showing me how life works. Then I discovered macrobiotics which gave me a lot of aha moments. ‘This is why I burned out’. ‘This is
why I got well’. ‘This is how energy works’. And so on.
What for me is so amazing is that macrobiotics gives me the choice of eating balanced foods most of the time and then going a bit more extreme when I want to party or experience some excitement. Because most people come from a modern diet of extreme foods that are heavily processed and filled with chemicals, they tend to choose a more strict version of the balanced foods (the green bubble in the diagram) in order to heal and reconnect with themselves and life.
It is possible to heal without being very precise or rigid in your practice providing you also work with the other three spokes of the Holistic Wheel of Health. A good understanding of quality assessment and preparation methods are essential. It increases the pleasure and joy of eating, the healing effect as well as contributing to healing our Earth, which also suffers from the modern lifestyle. Here are a few principles to follow:
Learning the energetic effects of different foods and preparation methods allows us to be more flexible and maintain a dynamically balanced state, which can help us deal with the extreme society that we live in today.
It is important to notice that changing our general energy pattern with food provides a good, steady balance in the long run. However, regarding fluctuations in day-to-day life, I have found that changing a belief or attitude to life or doing a little extra movement often creates an instant change in the energy pattern. Of course, it may change back equally quickly. The key is to reprogram your subconscious mind as described above.
A good level of oxygen in our blood supports efficient energy production, endurance, and cognitive performance as well as healthy organ function and faster recovery during illness.
Breathing is, of course, a major factor. So is circulation. That means movement. It may be in the form of physical work, exercises, walking, etc. Movement also helps to build muscle mass, which is strongly linked to longevity. I personally prefer movements that connect me with the energy system of the body. I still do some liberating movements I learned back in 1982. Qigong, Do-in, martial arts, yoga, etc. are other methods based on the energy system of the body.
The key is that movement is important. In cases where movement is not possible, various body and breathing therapies may be very useful. And various home remedies, such as ginger compresses and body rubs, may help increase circulation. Another important point is to create balance between activity and rest. Much more can be said here. My recommendation is to use the methods of self care that you find enjoyable and fun.
Avnø Oasis Ecovillage & Højskole
Flyvervej 10
4750 Lundby
Denmark
© 2025 Avnø Oasis. All rights reserved.