The Gifts of Receiving

I learned a lot about the gifts of receiving in 2016. It was a big year for cleaning and clearing and completing things. I didn’t get much blogging done as the year unfolded, but I picked it up again in December and wrote the following post for a newsletter I shared before Christmas.

One of the biggest gifts of 2016 came as a result of opening the door for a deeper experience of Freedom & Support. These were my “words for the year”, and from the start, all the arrows pointed to the gifts of RECEIVING.  It was a big lesson, since this is something I have to work at. I know I’m not alone in this.

As we enter this season of giving, I want to talk about the gifts of receiving that have a huge impact on your level of abundance, creativity, joy and pretty much anything you’ve been trying to manifest in your life.

Here’s something to consider: Giving and Receiving work together. They are not separate energies. They are part of a beautiful cycle, and both are equally necessary to maintain balance and keep energy flowing.

In our culture we uphold giving as a virtue… the only virtue within this cycle. Giving is good. Receiving on the other hand, is associated with selfishness, greed and other negative qualities.

Most of the people I work with are excellent givers, but when it comes to receiving, they feel a lot of guilt and struggle. The inability to be a good receiver creates self-abandonment, it creates lack, and upholds an energy of sacrifice. It gets in the way when we’re trying to make space in our lives for things we truly desire. It stops the flow of creative energy and vitality.

One of the key components of the manifesting is being able to receive. Here are a few ways to discern if you’re having trouble being a good receiver:

• You feel tired all the time and spread thin.
• You feel unsupported & like you have to do everything on your own – martyr syndrome.
• You experience lack in some area of your life: Not enough time, not enough money, etc.
• You feel resentful.
• You have to be in control all the time.
• You feel out of touch or even blocked with your intuition.
• You’re not a good listener.
• Whenever anyone gives you anything (a gift, a compliment, etc.) you feel like you have to turn around and immediately reciprocate or you feel bad.
• You feel guilty when people do nice things for you.
• You get uncomfortable when people give you praise.
• It is very difficult for you to make time for yourself.
• You feel guilty, frivolous, or like you’re playing hooky if you take a break, go on a vacation, or just do something that you enjoy for fun.

If you found that you resonate with 3 or more of these situations, there is a block around receiving, but even if you only found 1 thing that struck a chord, it’s time to take a look at how you can be a better receiver. Here’s why: 

• Become a better receiver makes you a better giver.  When you are a receiver, you are literally more open. You start to notice and observe better. You up-level your awareness, and notice where there are needs, desires, and preferences. Receiving is an energy of openness, and it allows you to take things in. When you do this, you are a better giver, steward, and nurturer of everything around you.
• Gratitude is a practice and a gift of receiving. The reason practicing gratitude can transform your life is that it’s a way of being open to blessings. Gratitude is a practice of receiving the good that is around you. When you're a better receiver, you naturally increase your gratitude and gratitude can increase your openness to receiving.
• Receiving strengthens your intuition. We all have intuition, but we aren’t necessarily in touch with it. Being a better receiver helps you open these channels. You literally receive information through your intuitive senses. As you fine-tune your receiving mechanism, this connection gets clearer and clearer.
• Listening is a function of receiving. If people tell you, you don’t listen or you constantly miss messages, forget things or don’t register stuff when people are interacting with you, you’re not receiving.  Consciously working on our listening skills can help you be a better receiver.
• You open to more support from the world around you and the Divine. By opening to receive you allow support to show up. Receiving your own gifts and deeply appreciating that you have particular and beautiful qualities within, brings you into vibrational alignment with greater support. So often we're taught to channel all our creative energy outward, but opening to receiving helps us value ourselves more deeply and bring in more support.
• Better health and well-being. When you're listening and receiving the guidance from your physical body, you come into a better alignment with your physical needs and well-being. You also hold your energy within in a more empowered way. More energy within, means better health.
• You experience the things you actually value. If you are desiring something that isn’t showing up, you are not allowing yourself to receive it at the subconscious level. Taking a look at those persistent stuck places can help you uncover where you've got wounds and blocked energy that may need some tending. Often, there are traumas and programs that override your best efforts and keep you in holding patterns, but these can be cleared.  It’s possible to open up the places where you aren’t receiving and awareness is the first step. 

More and more we are hearing messages about self-care – a need to nurture ourselves, our creative souls and our deepest desires. Yet it seems difficult to make these desires a reality. The call for self-care has become synonymous with taking a spa day, getting a massage or going to a yoga class, and these are lovely things to do…

But you may be trying to address a severely depleted cup with a tiny drop of receiving that’s relegated to one or two days out of an otherwise jam-packed year of sacrifice and obligation. It’s time to start actively learning to receive in our daily lives.

When you open to the gifts of receiving you become gentle with yourself. You're softer, and able to savor life more. You improve the quality of your days, you open your heart, and you create a peaceful world around you.

Learning to be a better receiver is a win/win,  and a tool for transformation. As the holidays crank up, allow yourself to receive. Let go of something that feels heavy and obligatory and make a conscious choice to dissolve the energy of sacrifice and uphold the energy of love. Give yourself some grace and you'll receive more grace.  I’m wishing you the most beautiful and happy holidays.  With all my love xo