The Receiving Project

A week or so back, my sister forwarded me a link for The Receiving Project, a 32-day commitment where you set an intention every day to receive gifts of loving from the universe, and then acknowledge what you get. It seemed just like the thing I wanted to do, just like the thing I needed to do. 

Even when I have things and get things, they seem to pass right out of me. I don’t quite take them in. I am scared of pulling them towards me. I am scared of needing them or being touched by them. It feels like I can’t quite take in the very air that is available to me, that it is there but my capacity to pull it in isn’t.

I am learning about my heart. It needs to receive as much as give, that there is a delicate balance and that for it to be open, there need to be both movements – of giving as well as receiving. Without receiving, I work against the very nature of my heart, against its yearnings. I want it to be wholly self-sufficient for myself, and yet be able to give to others, and that leaves it depleted. 

If it doesn’t get from somewhere, where is its pool to give from? What store can it dip into? It walks hobbled. It wishes it were like it was once a long time ago, when it felt like it was connected to an infinite source, when it could give without falling over itself. 

So, this project, this intention is to look at the way I relate to the world, to trust again in it. It is to take in things fully, to look at what I am already receiving. There are things that are coming to me, but that I am not integrating, am not giving thanks for. On some level, I feel that I am rejecting the gifts that I get because I am angry with God, and you don’t take things from someone you are angry with.

There’s that, and there are other things. I am scratching through many beliefs. Another one seems to be that receiving makes you weaker. You start needing something, and it is more self-sufficient to just not want or need a whole lot. It makes you invulnerable. But it also makes you gasp for breath. It makes you treat yourself as someone who shouldn’t have any needs. That seems to be another pattern. You shouldn’t want too much, some voice tells me. You should just make do. 

But receiving is not making do. It’s about becoming more expansive. It’s about listening to the stars dancing inside you, listening to the nudges that come from deep withing and from outside, engaging in the magical reality of the world, taking up more and more space and not shrinking to fit some imaginary space you think has been marked for you or that you are allowed.

It is about drinking the water slowly, instead of gulping it down. It is okay to trust in this moment.

It’s okay to give things importance. It is okay to need things.

I am just beginning to step into this space where receiving is as good as giving. In fact, it is what I need more of right now. Maybe, you are a bit like me, struggling in this space between receiving and giving, feeling like you need to or should always be on the giving side. Maybe it is time for both of us to shift, to move over to receiving, to fill in and get nourished. Maybe, giving and receiving are cycles in our own beings, and each brings something that we need.

We need this rain. We need this thing we are thirsting for. How can we allow it to soak inside of us, instead of putting up obstructions so it can’t reach us? What is the cost of remaining impervious, of pretending to never need anything? There are cracks that need to go through our exterior so we can stop being so nice, and both authentically receive and authentically give. 

I wonder what that would look like.