Osho Shivo is an enlightened mystic who lives his life in totality as a channel of divine love. He has coached and conducted workshops for couples which lead the lovers through creativity, intelligence, and sensuousness to the celebration of love. He is also an Osho Sanyasin going through an intense spiritual journey through Oshodhara. You can add him in your facebook profile by name Osho Shivo. You can also email him at thirdeyeastrology@gmail.com
Mansi Bhagdeo has realized that while she enjoys her adventures in chemistry, education, tarot, yoga, and mindful cooking, the true essence of her life is to give and receive love. Shivo and Mansi have co written a mystical tale “Dancing with the Timeless Beast” which is based on the transformational power of unconditional love.
In this current series “Man woman Relationships: From Conflict to Celebration”, they attempt to articulate the essential conflict between man and woman and highlight the polarity between them to ultimately synthesize those polarities into a divine union. This article “Man Woman Relationships: Enhancing Your self Esteem” is the third interaction in this series. Do check out first two interactions namely “Man Woman Relationships: From Agony to Ecstasy“ and “Man Woman Relationships: Synthesis of Love and Adventure”.
Interview
Mansi: Shivo, in the last interaction, you mentioned that shadow aspects of love and adventure — namely insecurity and aggression. These shadows creep in and make so many relationships ugly. How does one move from those shadows into light?
Osho Shivo: Shadows appear, when the light is obstructed. Our own true nature is light and acquiring the false nature is shadow. So, we need to rejoice who we are, instead of following what the world expect us to be. When we celebrate our own existence, the fragrance spread and we begin to attract true love in life. Hence the key is to love yourself, then only one can give love to others. If one does not love oneself, it is not possible to love anyone else truly. Hence, those how cant love themselves, use giving love as a strategy to acquire love. However, such a pseudo love remains inauthentic and can not give deep satisfaction and bliss.
Mansi: What is preventing us from loving ourselves?
Osho Shivo: “Why we dont love ourselves?” is a million dollar question. When we get disconnected from our soul, the love for ourselves is lost. We start to believe that if others love us then we are lovable and this makes us vulnerable towards manipulation. Also, the strange thing is that everyone is susceptible towards this “I am not worthy of love” syndrome, including those we consider highly successful. Even the most beautiful women tend to have complaints towards their own worthiness and it is not surprising that even they end up with a loser quite often in relationships.
Mansi: So Shivo, if I am getting this right, what you are saying is that we are essentially depending on others approval to give ourselves the permission to love ourselves. So this would automatically make us vulnerable to manipulation. Actually, one instance of unworthiness among women that I have come across all too frequently is poor body image. Every girl I have talked to (including myself) is either always unhappy or is unhappy at some point with her body. As a matter of fact, I think that beautiful women may have more problems with body image than an average woman since a beautiful woman’s self esteem might be more dependent on her looks and body. Can you share your views on this subject.
Osho Shivo: You are so very true. Looks are an overpowering influence on today’s woman. Many beautiful women tend to think that they deserve love, just because they are beautiful; hence they begin to overlook the art of relating and this turns them even more dependent on their looks. And it is true that even the most beautiful woman may have the same kind of complex about her own body, as an average looking woman has. However, such dependency on looks only invites mis fortune in life, as the real beauty of soul connection goes missing in relationship. Guys may get fascinated with such girls and get married but they soon realize that they made a wrong choice and soon the bickering begins. This can hit the girl hard as she has been used to being charmed vigorously before marriage and now suddenly this guy not only has turned cold to her, he even seems to be taking interest in girls much less beautiful than her. This may cause her to get many doubts about, if she really has a good body and face.
Mansi: Shivo, that was a quite a wonderful insight about a beautiful person feeling a sense of entitlement to love even though he/ she doesn’t care about relating with his/her partner. Now, delving deeper into the issue of body image, many of us don’t completely love our bodies and this hampers our ability to love ourselves and our self esteem. So in this particular context, how do we enhance our self esteem?
Osho Shivo: Here I am sharing a small but miraculous technique to enhance the self body image. Stand in front of mirror and continue to watch the body part you don’t like. Suppose someone you do not like your nose, and then just keep watching your nose for 5 minutes everyday for 21 days. And you will realize that you have begun to love your nose and your self image has gone up. Similarly, sometimes lovers / partners have issues with their partners body, which can cause their intimate moments to turn cold. In such situation, normally one tends to avoid looking at the part one doesn’t like or one tends to hide it from lover. However, such an approach of avoidance can never resolves the issue. It will be of great help if one meditates on the body parts of his lover and continues to look at that particular body part for long time intimately. Such a simple understanding can enhance the love and intimacy between lovers. When you look at your own body part, you connect it to the soul and then it gets integrated with the whole body and you fall in love with it.
Mansi : Shivo, that sounds like quite a beautiful technique and I can’t wait to try it out. This technique certainly has the potential to not only enhance self esteem but also to enhance intimacy and love between partners which in turn can further transform self esteem and so this starts a very beautiful loving cycle. Thank you for your heart felt sharing and enlightening thoughts.
Posts by SpeakBindas Editorial Team.