Learning to give and to receive
Recently I have been playing with the balance of giving and receiving. I find it easier to give then to receive and I am noticing it more and more. The feminine energy is really about receiving and I am definitely out of balance.
In a timely matter, my life created two instances where I could practice receiving. I received two gifts from different students within two days of each other. One was a beautiful blue water bottle and the other was the most thoughtful card with a beautiful OM bookmark. I decided to open both in an instant and truly receive the gift being given to me. It was uncomfortable but it felt good to practice.
My life also showed me another place where I don’t receive enough. I don’t give myself the gift of asking for what I need.
Last week I spent three full days with my kids playing. I fully surrendered to what they wanted to do for those three days doing the minimum of what I had to do.
On the fourth day I decided I needed some “me time”. So I asked them if I could workout for 45 minutes at the gym while they went to the kids club. They did not like that one bit! My oldest told me he was not going to do that and my youngest followed right along with him. I told them that they didn’t have a choice this time and they were going to go because mommy needed some “me time”.
We went, I worked out, they went to the kids club. I picked them up and instead of happy, great to see you faces…. I got, grumpy I am mad at you, faces.
Needless to say, I was really irritated. I felt like I had just spent three days doing everything they wanted to do (not everything I wanted to do) and I deserved 45 minutes doing something I wanted to do.
So I had a “talking to”. That is what I call a serious, let’s get something straight, kind of conversation.
I told them that a relationship means that you give and receive. I expressed having given them all of my time the last few days and needing a short amount of time for me and that they weren’t willing to give that to me. I told them how frustrated I felt and how unfair I felt they were acting. I said we don’t always like to do things that others like to do but when we love someone we do our best to give to them even if we aren’t necessarily overjoyed about it.
It was a beautiful teaching moment for them and for me.
It reminded me that we don’t always enjoy doing things that others enjoy doing but we do it for them because we love them and we love to see them happy.
And it reminded me that we must ask for what we want because it is a form of receiving. It is like giving ourselves a gift. Finding the balance between giving and receiving can be difficult but is so incredibly necessary.
If we listen, to what children are going through, we will discover what we are going through as well.