Are You A Good Receiver??

Growing up, how many times did we hear the phrase, "it's better to give than to receive".  Yes, it is VERY important to be a good giver, BUT you also have to be a good receiver, or else the equation is NOT balanced.  One cannot give give give and never receive.  If this is the case, the giver eventually will stop giving.

In saying this, I recently attended a seminar where we touched on the topic of being a good receiver.  Giving is never an issue for me.  I am the kind of person that will give to the point of my detriment, mostly in time and energy (I am paying the price for that right now!).  When the topic of receiving came up, I was like, yeah sure, receiving is NOT tough.  Then we got into talking about ways of receiving.  Do you receive compliments well?  Do you accept help from others when they offer? These two were my BIG downfalls.  I have NEVER accepted compliments well and I am not really sure why.  Whenever someone would compliment me for something, I would feel a little embarrassed (I blush SO easy) or I would downplay whatever it was they were complimenting me for and feel obligated to right away compliment that person back, taking the focus off of me. How many of you do that? I know I'm not alone in this.  I guess it is because somewhere along the line, I got the idea planted in my head that if you revel in compliments, you are being self centered and egotistical.  Thereby agreeing, "YES, I AM fabulous, aren't I!".  Lord knows I never wanted to come off like that.  On the other hand, whenever someone offered to help me in some way, I always felt like I never wanted to be an imposition on anyone.  I could take care of things all on my own.  I'm guessing this is where my need to control things comes into play, along with the saying that my dad ALWAYS used to say to me "if you want anything done right, you need to do it yourself". Thereby instilling in me that I could not trust anyone to do anything as good as I could do it.  It really is amazing how such simple words can program you in a certain way for the rest of your life.

So back at the seminar, we were given this task.  We had to get up and move to a different part of the room (there were 600 of us there), thereby interacting with someone that you had never spoken to before.  We had to go up to people and RECEIVE compliments, and the only way you could respond was to smile and say thank you.  Sounds simple, right? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. OMG, at first I rushed to be the person to do the complimenting. Once I realized what I was doing, I had to physically be conscious of not being so quick to speak, to allow the other person to compliment me, for me to smile and say thank you.  I have to admit that my blood pressure went up on this one, but the longer we did this exercise, the easier it became.  It felt good to be complimented, and to hear how other people, complete strangers perceived me.  Some things that people complimented me on were unexpected and were very appreciated.

Whenever we are NOT good receivers, we have to realize what we are doing to the person that is trying to give to us.  Has anyone offered to buy your coffee and you said, no that's ok?  What about doing a task/errand for you and you turned them down saying that you'd get to it? When we turn down someone trying to give to us we are taking away the good feeling that person would feel by giving to us.  WOW, now doesn't that sound selfish?  We are taking away another persons right to feel good!!!  After I realized that, I vowed that I would never want to do that to another person again, as I certainly wouldn't want someone to take a good feeling away from me!!

So now if you believe as I do in the Law of Attraction, in whatever you give, you receive......I challenge you to GIVE lots of compliments, give of yourself in whatever way you can each and every day, for whatever reason, then in turn you will be blessed by receiving........................:)

The Universe has SO many different ways to bless us.........be open and willing to accept whatever those blessings are!!!

YOU ARE AN AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL PERSON!!! 

(now smile and say to yourself....thank you!)