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BodyMind Balancing

an interview with Greta Mildenberg

Finding Your Own Answers

What is a healthy diet? How much sleep do you need? What kind of exercise is right for you, and how much? Are there symptoms in your body that need your attention?
OSHO Reminding Yourself of the Forgotten Language of Talking to the BodyMind is a hypnosis meditation that lasts one hour a day for seven days. It doesn’t give you any answers or any rules. Instead it helps you recognize and respect the wisdom of your own bodymind.
[Gandha:] What issues does the process address? Who can use it?

[Greta Mildenberg:] This process guides us to reconnect deeply with the needs and the messages of our body, in an integrated way. Everybody can use it . It’s a process that starts by addressing physical symptoms, tensions, pain, diseases in the body. Over the years we have become aware that people have worked with it with bigger issues also. They’ve worked with old habits, with smoking…directly or indirectly, things have started to change and drop.

How does this happen?

Sometimes people consciously work on a particular issue. They talk to the body: what is your message, what is it that you are trying to do for me, what can I do for you? Sometimes they receive answers during the meditation. Some people expect to hear an inner voice telling them exactly what they need to do…or seeing clear pictures, or having very distinct feelings, and that’s not how it always works. It’s a very subtle and fine process for some people. They may not be aware of receiving any messages, and yet something changes in their behavior. They may have a cigarette and after one puff they say, this is disgusting, and they just stop it. Or they might go on smoking for days or weeks and then suddenly they realize enough is enough.

People normally come with a ‘fix-it’ model. They say, I’m going to do this process to get rid of my back pain, or my cough or whatever. This whole attitude of wanting to get rid things changes. People suddenly start saying, oh actually, this is a loving part of myself that has been wanting to do something for me, that has been wanting to give me a message, that has a positive intention.

In this process people start to befriend themselves, and it’s something that goes on way beyond the seven days. It’s a general inner attitude that they take with them wherever they go. Befriending yourself is the most precious key in the work.

One of the tasks of the meditation leader is to hold the space and to help people relax and trust in their own inner process.

You’ve been one of the leaders of this process for …. years, and also one of the trainers. How has it benefited you personally?

It has been one of my biggest gifts. The focus is on witnessing and watching the processes in the body. We gain awareness and bring this loving awareness about our body into everyday life.

I used to be more lazy. I used to spend so much time on my sofa. Now I listen to my body and I know I need to move. Even if it’s cold or rainy outside I say, ok I’m going to go for a walk. I don’t let inertia take me over, I move. I take time to take care of the body. I don’t just sit at the computer and then have dinner. I also ask what my body needs right now. It’s a much more caring attitude.

When I’m in Germany I take time to go to the sauna or I give myself time for a massage. In the past I would have said there are more important things to do: make this call, work on the computer, see this client. Now I make time for taking care of myself too.

Osho says bodymind is one, one word. This is a precious understanding, a gem that influences my work in whatever direction I go: bodymind is one.

What do you do when your body sends you a message that it wants to walk or to rest and it’s not possible?

If it’s not possible I look for things that are possible. Sometimes it’s not possible to go for a run. Many people say it’s too far to drive to a fitness club, or they don’t have that much time, so wherever I go I make sure that I take things that make things possible. Wherever I go, I take my walking shoes with me [and] make sure that I do things that feel good, like using a nice cream on my body. It’s a whole attitude of loving myself [...]

(excerpted from Osho Times International, March 2008)
Osho Times International (OTI), March 2008. Interview by Gandha (Editor of OTI)
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