Receiving as a Form of Restfulness
Reflections at the start of my personal new year, moving through another solar return 🎂
Sunning tulips, 35mm © Flory Huang, 2022.
In privilege of growing another year older, I am currently basking in the gratitude of joyful and luxurious birthday celebrations surrounded by loved ones both here near and strong in spirit, far. As a California-born Leo, this season feels like blossoming and radiance under clear skies and hot sun.
Receiving, like restfulness and restedness, takes shape in so many forms for us at the different times and places of our unique lives. There is no single or finite sources of receiving, thank goodness. Receiving is restful when it nourishes us through different aspects in the world.
I’ve been tending to this particular relationship within and with myself lately. There has been much contemplation and confrontation along with messier moments of radical forgiveness and multi-layered deconditioning. The latter certainly feel trying as they unravel over weeks without linear logic. And, as my understanding deepens; as my compassion extends to consistently include myself; and as I face my humanity with more tender willingness, I am laughing and crying at the intricacy of it all. Because there is also magic and medicine in my trusting of these processes which ultimately have been opening me to greater joy and even more authentic connection.
Our capacity and limitations to receive influence a powerful and essential bridge in our lives. I have been seeing exactly where this relationship determines my level of connection with myself and the world outside of me. (Spoiler alert: EVERYWHERE.) It eventually trickles through to how I show up for my dreams and desires, how much I earn in my work, how willing I am to try new things, how comfortable I am to be seen by others. This ability/capacity/bridge is a mostly invisible pathway that either delivers or denies me a spectrum of connection, among others. I keep learning and re-learning that the infrastructure of self-love is truly an invitation to be softening deeper and more whole… lifelong.
The rejection or resistance against receiving feels a lot like the lost energy in trying to do something all by yourself. There’s a kind of futility and at times, a naive foolishness. It isn’t necessary nor is it even that integrous for the intentions we hold to do what we do well. Receiving holds a restful nature when it is active in reciprocal, relational sources. When we allow, embrace and accept receiving, we’re simultaneously paving reinforcement for this same bridge. Every time I allow someone or something to reach me with grace (bonus love and joy totally being felt when I lean into unapologetic delight and or gratitude too), this exchange lays a new material that ultimately expands the bridge’s structure, facilitating more connection as time passes. It’s like a whole system upgrade that enables faster, smoother and more exchange. Isn’t that at the heart of our nature as relational beings? This is the opportunity for facilitating more flow in our lives: we can choose to welcome the countless possible ways of being nourished and touched by joy anytime and anywhere.
It feels like this is present across so many forms of abundance. When I hold myself back from receiving, I am in effect denying myself by choosing not to receive the gift given by another, which takes a toll. (No pun intended, yet fully appreciated at the least by myself! The discernment here is that I am not talking about all given gifts as there are such things as gifts given with ulterior motives, but I refer to the many gifts in the shapes of recognition, love, truth, joy and integrity from those with our best interests at heart.) These are behaviors and actions as much as they may be monetary and material. This is part of being anti-oppressive in the sacred and intimate relationship with our own selves— the longest relationship any one of us will ever be in, phew. This is also part of a decolonial and more liberated way of being that is possible. We can choose to reduce violence within ourselves. Thus, here is an alchemical form of restedness that each of us have resources to create. This is part of the ongoing practice in remembering restedness.
I invite you to think about gifts (from those with your best interests at heart) that you have had trouble receiving in the past, or maybe even recently. If you’ve ever felt sort of squeamish, undeserving, repulsed or suddenly activated to do something (like gift right back or to fawn the giver) chances are you have just brushed up again a thread that was woven at one point in your life that created a belief around what it means to receive.
The act of receiving involves elements such as presence, humility, and love. Many, if not all of us, were at one point informed by external sources in our community what the definitions and conditions of receiving are. In my own threshold where there is difficulty receiving, I can trace the edges to my lived experiences of pain, shame and fear. Receiving gets complicated because these definitions come with unspoken yet felt definitions and conditions about who you are or are not supposed to be in the event of being given something. Here, we greet our humanity. Our natural precedent state of being rested has largely been buried underneath biased definitions and conditions. One of the most prominent forms is the way colonial capitalism is intolerant to resting, because it disrupts the continued extraction and exploitation of your output which benefit and further uphold superiority and systems of oppression. Here, we have disconnected from our humanity.
As we move through summer and approach the harvesting season of autumn, I hope you will give yourself ample moments in time to become a little softer, slower and aware of what you are or are not receiving. Remember, it’s quality, not quantity. I hope that you also have loved ones, teachers, healers and earth angels who are subtly or not-so-subtly supporting your practice of softening deeper and wholler. Thank goodness for those of you who model the different ways we can grow and glow. I am so damn grateful for and inspired by my community.
May you also be celebrating what is in front of you and unabashedly enjoying all the aspects of your life that are nourishing. I’ll close this consideration with some introspective portals for you to explore in the high energy and pace of the summer season:
