How Well Do You Receive?

Do you receive with genuine appreciation?

How do you feel when you offer a gift and the receiver responds with a perfunctory “thank you” or doesn’t even open it in your presence?

How do feel when you want to help and your offer to assist is ‘brushed off”?

How do you feel when your thoughts and feelings are not truly heard?

I learned a valuable lesson on the power of gracious receiving from my husband Bob. Often after he presents me with a gift, he says, “It’s so much fun to give to you. I so enjoy feeling your pleasure. I think I get more out of it than you do.”

Throughout my childhood – and perhaps yours as well – there was lots of cultural messaging around the importance of giving. Women in particular were taught that it was desirable to be a “giver.” I took that message on, sublimating my needs in order to prioritize the desires of others – particularly parents and authority figures who had the power to grant or withhold love and approval. – That is how I became a “Good Girl”.

“Good Girls” miss out on an essential experience — happily receiving. Gracious receiving encourages giving from others and from within. It is half of a beautiful cycle, central to a satisfying life. Just as breathing is a rhythm of exhaling and inhaling, a healthy life requires giving and receiving. We are meant to experience both parts of this cycle in balance.

Do you encourage or discourage others from giving to you? In my 29 year counseling practice I often heard women unconsciously discourage others from giving to them while they were saddened by feelings of deprivation.

They made statements like:

“Thank you, but I can do that for myself.”

“You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“That isn’t necessary”

Understand: Appreciation is a Gift in Itself

Ask yourself what kind of receiver you are.

Do you generously acknowledge and appreciate the gifts you are given – whether a tangible object, large and impressive, or a small gesture or service?

Do you focus on your pleasure in the other’s desire to give to you?

When you find yourself feeling resentful about the things you haven’t gotten or your needs that have yet to be met, can you give yourself the pleasure of remembering what you already have.

Being an appreciative receiver will have a transformational impact in you and on your relationships. It encourages giving, supporting your desire to be given to. (Expressing desire is something most “Good Girls” need to practice.) It also makes the giver happy to have brought you pleasure. Relationships become stronger and more authentic. Happiness is contagious!

Are You an Open Listener?

Listening is giving the gift of attention. It is one of the most important ways we receive people and feel received by them. It is a gift of love when a mate, friend, child, workmate or supervisor gives us their time, interest, respect or empathy to hear and take in our thoughts and feelings. The manner in which others openly listen to us, even when challenging, is the gift of being received. How able we are to listen is a measure of our ability to receive others. This interaction is what creates intimacy, a feeling that we all yearn for.

To learn more about Jane's work, visit JaneWyker.com