The Art of Giving and Receiving
The season of giving is upon us, and although some of us are brilliant at finding that perfect gift, why do we find it so difficult sometimes to receive? We’ve perfected going through the motions when someone gives us something because we know what receiving is “supposed to look like”. We smile and nod with our humble thanks, or maybe even go overboard and gush. Receiving compliments can be the worst. They seem somehow dangerous and summon an instinctual urge to deflect the praise and protect ourselves from being exposed. So we laugh it off or self-deprecate.
But what does receiving actually FEEL like?
As kids, saying please and thank you was one of the first things we were taught. It was also one of the biggest ways we could disappoint our parents, if we forgot to say it. But saying and feeling are not the same thing. It’s easy to remember how badly we felt when we were reprimanded for not saying it- but did we ever have the opportunity to learn how giving thanks actually feels, when we mean it?
There is a gift in receiving. A reciprocal energy that is charged and cyclical. If we give thanks by rote when we receive something because we are “supposed to”, or when at the holidays it’s our turn to say what we’re thankful for around the dinner table, but don’t take the time to be vulnerable and dig into our hearts to express and share how we really feel, we have stopped the cycle and robbed the giver of the gift. And ourselves of the joy of receiving.
I have no doubt that we will all be feeling more connected to what really matters to us this holiday season after having lost so much. Perhaps it will be easier to receive the true gift of being able to gather, and celebrate with our families again this year.
This holiday season I urge you to slow down, and consider how you feel when you are giving thanks and to pass it on and pay it forward.
I know that I am truly thankful for you, dear listener for taking the time to listen.
And as my my gift to you, I offer the words of author Kahlil Gibran who wrote:
Go to your fields and your gardens,
and you shall learn that
it is the pleasure of the bee
to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower
to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower,
the giving and the receiving of pleasure
is a need and an ecstasy.
I’m Lisa Hopkins. Stay safe and healthy everyone and remember to live in the moment.