Some of us learned how to give long before we ever learned how to receive.
Give your time.
Give your energy.
Help.
Support.
Take care of things.
Anticipate what other people need.
Be dependable.
Be the person who figures it out.
For many of us, giving feels comfortable.
Receiving?
That can be an entirely different story.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about reciprocity — the balance between giving and receiving — and I’ve realized that receiving is something I’ve had to learn.
Because receiving requires something different from us.
Sometimes it requires us to stop doing.
To stop controlling.
To stop proving.
To stop believing that everything good in our lives must somehow be earned through effort.
And simply allow something to come toward us.
That sounds easy.
It isn’t always.
Someone offers to help and we immediately say:
No, no. I’ve got it.
Someone gives us a compliment and we minimize it.
Someone does something kind for us and suddenly we feel like we owe them something.
An opportunity appears and instead of thinking, Why not me? we wonder:
Do I really deserve this?
Sometimes we can spend so much of our lives learning how to survive, work, give, achieve and take care of everyone else that receiving can actually feel vulnerable.
Because receiving asks us to open our hands.
And an open hand isn’t controlling what’s coming next.
It’s allowing.
I’ve started to realize that receiving isn’t passive.
It’s a practice.
It can look like saying thank you instead of explaining why you don’t deserve the compliment.
Letting someone help without immediately finding a way to repay them.
Resting without first completing everything on your list.
Allowing someone else to care for you.
Celebrating something good without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Accepting an opportunity without immediately questioning whether you’re qualified enough, ready enough or deserving enough.
Letting life be good without becoming suspicious of the goodness.
And maybe one of the hardest:
Allowing yourself to have something simply because it is being offered.
I believe there has to be room in our lives for both.
Giving and receiving.
Offering and accepting.
Doing and allowing.
Holding others and letting ourselves be held.
There is a natural reciprocity there.
An exchange.
And when we are always giving but never allowing ourselves to receive, eventually that exchange becomes one-sided.
I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to give.
These days, I’m learning something different.
I’m learning to leave my hands open.
To trust that I don’t have to chase everything meant for me.
To allow people to show up for me.
To enjoy what is good while it is good.
To receive without immediately asking myself what I need to give back.
And perhaps most importantly, to believe that I am worthy of receiving even when I haven’t done anything to earn it.
Because maybe receiving isn’t something we earn at all.
Maybe sometimes the practice is simply being able to say:
Thank you. I’ll receive that.
A gentle invitation to reflect
Notice what happens inside you when something is offered to you.
A compliment.
Help.
Rest.
Love.
An opportunity.
Someone else’s time.
Something unexpectedly good.
Can you receive it without minimizing it, explaining it away or immediately trying to repay it?
Where in your life are you comfortable giving but uncomfortable receiving?
And what might happen if, just once, you resisted the urge to close your hand?
You don’t have to grab.
You don’t have to chase.
You don’t have to prove.
Just practice leaving your hand open.
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