Self-esteem
por Elisabeth Cavalcante em STUM WORLDAtualizado em 26/04/2010 12:52:40
English version by Joseila Gerotto - [email protected]
Lack of self-love is the root cause of the imbalances found in the lives of the majority of the outsiders. Without this basic quality no one can lead a life in a positive way.
Unfortunately not all parents are aware of how important it is to stimulate their children since an early age to boost self-esteem. On the contrary, since lots of them are too critical and demanding, they never show appreciation of their children’s performance and strongly affirm this dissatisfaction requiring more perfection or comparing their kids to others they consider more intelligent or talented.
This attitude triggers off the most devastating consequences because it happens in a stage when the child is beginning to build his own self- image. The outcome is an insecure human being; unable to feel satisfied with himself, even if he possibly achieves some successes in life. In other words, he will never feel he has accomplished anything and will always have the feeling that he could have done better.
An inner emptiness results from this behavior and it has to be filled in different ways, through a compulsive desire for food, alcohol, any other powerful drug or even through an emotional dependence from someone. And so the individual has a temporary feeling that he is a man of worth.
In order to guarantee the development of an indestructible self-confidence there is nothing that can replace love, the attention and the stimulus to the positive attributes of a person.
To teach someone to love himself is not an encouragement to selfishness. On the contrary, it is a way of making him develop his ability to love so that he can direct this feeling to the outside world.
…Your first friend should be yourself, but we rarely find someone who is friendly to himself.
…They taught us to condemn ourselves. Self-love was considered a sin. It is not.
It is the foundation of all kinds of love and altruistic love is only possible through it.
As self-love was sentenced to death, all the other possibilities of love disappeared.
And this was a very cunning strategy to destroy love.
It is as if you said to a tree:”Do not get your nourishment from the earth, this is a sin. Do not get your nourishment from the moon, the rain, the sun and the stars. This is selfishness. Be altruistic, be of service to the other trees.”
It seems logical, and here lies the danger.
It seems logical: if you want to serve others, sacrifice yourself. To serve means to make sacrifices.
But if a tree sacrifices itself, it will die and will not be able to serve any other tree; there is no way it will be able to continue its existence.
“Do not love yourself” was the teaching. And this was practically the universal message of all the so-called organized religions. Not Jesus’s message but with no doubt the message of Christianity; not Buddha’s but the message of Buddhism.
All the organized religions had the same teaching: Condemn yourself, you are a sinner, you are of no worth. And because of this sentence, the tree of life stopped progressing, lost its beauty and can not celebrate any longer.
People live but in a dull manner, they do not have their roots in existence- they are rootless.
They try to be of service to others but can’t because they have never been friendly even to themselves.
…I do not condemn you, I do not blame you.
I do not say: “This is a sin”.I do not say that I will just love you if you fulfil some requirements. I love you the way you are because this is the way someone can be loved.
I accept you the way you are because this is the only way you can be.
This is how the Whole wished you to be. This is the way you were meant to be.
Relax, accept yourself and be happy - and changes will come. They do not happen through your efforts. They happen through self-acceptance with such a depth of love and happiness that there is no conscious, unconscious, known or unknown condition.
Love is alchemical. If you love, your ugly side disappears, it is absorbed, transformed.
And so is energy released.
Everything that is considered a sin simply disappears.
I do not say that you have to change things; you have to love your essence and so things change.
Change is a sub-product, a consequence.
Love yourself. That should be the fundamental commandment.
Love yourself. Everything will follow it but self-love is the foundation of life.
Osho, The True Sage, #4
