The Art of Receiving

I always talk to you about themes. I don’t think they’re really themes. When something keeps showing up in our lives, over and over again, it’s time to listen. To hear what wants to be heard.

This week it’s been all around receiving. Being willing, and opening up enough, to receive. It sounds simple doesn’t it? But how much do you push away without even realising it? This week I’ve become conscious of how unconsciously I push away.

I’ve learnt over the years to receive a compliment, without sending it away in an instant. A simple “thank you” rather than diminishing it with “oh this cheap thing” or “I just threw it together” or “it’s nothing”. It isn’t nothing, it’s never nothing. You’re not nothing.

But somewhere we’ve learnt to close our hearts down. To continuously give, often at the expense of ourselves, rather than receive. Giving feels easier, more comfortable, selfless. As Jamie Catto says, we’ve learnt to be distrustful of receiving, that in some way if we receive, we then owe someone something. It becomes transactional.

Softening into receiving can feel vulnerable. We let down a layer of protection that’s grown within us. We open ourselves up. And whenever we open ourselves up, it’s always vulnerable. But when we do, there can be magic, there can be intimacy.

In receiving we allow the other person the graciousness of being able to give, the goodness of giving.

We don’t only receive from others. We can receive from ourselves. To allow ourselves to gift what we need in any given moment. It may be a bath, or some much needed rest. The gift to slow down. Or some beautiful flowers. Even a kind word to ourselves when the inner dialogue is harsh. To soften towards ourselves.

Pushing something away can be subtle. We need to become acutely aware of all the ways and all the things we push away.

It can be the dialogue that creeps in instantly. If we allow ourselves a beautiful bath, the dialogue “I shouldn’t have a bath”, “I haven’t got time”. Or we receive a gift and we say to ourselves “that’s not what I wanted/needed”. The guilt that can come in over buying something beautiful for ourselves.

Even when our loved one leans in for some affection and we push away. Sometimes necessary and needed, but sometimes pushing away love and affection, pushing away the ability to receive in that moment.

It can also show itself in the way we eat, even down to the way our body takes on nutrients. Can you allow yourself to receive the beautiful, nourishing nutrients food has to offer?

It will be different for all of us, but if you look, it’s likely there are elements you push away. That receiving in some way feels uncomfortable. Often handed down through generations.

A simple invitation into enquiry. I’m going to continue being with this, seeing what’s there to gently uncover, to gently see in a different way.

I’ll leave you with this poem that was shared with me this week.

Love after Love ~ David Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, who you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.