It is natural for our bodies to stop growing after twenty years. It is only recently that people continue to gain weight as they grow older. After the first twenty years of life, we continue to grow our personality, not our body. We decide what type of person we would like to become. We ask what image we have of ourselves. How can we develop the understanding and ability to embrace life? This growing of our personality and consciousness depends on our gratitude or appreciation. When we have this gratitude and appreciation, that always creates a kind of openness. However, if we follow modern society and we start to blame and accuse, it cuts us off and makes us more isolated and narrow and then we automatically start to shrink. We start our lives open and full of curiosity and then through different experiences and responsibilities we gain many concepts. Those concepts make us start to close off unless we break through and become open again. As a result, we can’t age in a healthy way and we start to age unnaturally. True aging is a result of being open, as a child is open, but with greater maturity.

Strengthening Health Macrobiotics approaches daily life; eating, and the prevention or attempt to cure cancer and many other diseases with a goal of good circulation. The Body Rub is one of the main ways to achieve increased openness and improved circulation. Sitting down to eat, tasting and noticing our food, chewing it well, helps create gratitude. With these and other seemingly simple practices, we may age naturally after all.