How to be Open to Receiving 

Have you ever heard the quote, “You can’t pour from an empty cup?”

It is a reminder that you can’t wholeheartedly give to others if you don’t take care of yourself first.

Often we as women, spend our days taking care of others. Some say it’s our nature. We constantly put others before ourselves. We strive to be selfless and without even trying we just care heavily for others.

Without realizing, when we continue to care for others we end up neglecting ourselves. Furthermore, these good intentions tumble into expectations and high standards. What starts off as just trying to be the best mother or wife or friend you can be, spirals into an impossible standard of being the perfect mother or wife or friend. We relate taking care of ourselves as selfish and weak.

When in reality, we’re not weak…we are human.

Unintentionally we find ourselves in this place where we believe that we have to have it all together. We have to be perfect.

From keeping a tidy house, to being a full-time mom on top of being a successful career woman, you name it we place it all on ourselves.

At first, you might think it is because we care about what others think but if you dig a little deeper you uncover the heart that drives your expectations…you care, you care a lot. You care that you keep a clean house so your loved ones don’t live in filth, you care that your children are loved and have a safe home, you care about providing money for your family and you care about inspiring others and making a difference in this world.

You care so much about everything around you, you feel how important everyone and everything is to you that you become less of a priority.

That is how we find ourselves in exhaustion and frustration and maybe even a little anger.

Taking the weight of the world on our shoulders is hard enough, but after getting caught up in this life of unattainable standards we’ve adopted this belief that asking for help, accepting help, is not even a possibility for us.

From reasons that start off with if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself to perfectionism to thinking others will look at you differently if you couldn’t handle it. We begin to live in fear of all the negativity that could come from us not keeping up this front that we have it all.

What drives this hardship that we put on ourselves?

At the surface, again, you might think it is because we care what others would think, but worrying about other’s opinions and criticism is again driven by something else…our opinion of ourselves.

We care more about ourselves than others do.

So how can we release these barriers we put up, to be more open to receiving and fuel us when we feel depleted and empty.

That is what we are sharing today, five ways you can receive from others and the world around you to help guide you into filling your cup of wholeness up.

1.) Let others pour into you. The biggest struggle we face is learning to accept help from others. Sure, sometimes people never offer help and you learn to do everything on your own. Other times in a moment of stress when others offer to help we turn them down and just get it done on our own. Some of us are learning to say to yes when someone offers a hand or to take on some of the burdens, but we still find ourselves saying no more often than yes.

Taking the baby steps to say yes when someone offers help can already make a huge difference in your heavy load. Take it a little further by realizing that if people are used to you doing everything they may never offer help because they automatically assume the answer will be no, then ask them anyway. Don’t wait for people to offer.

Learning to accept help from others has been preached for a while, most of us have heard it over and over again and just struggle with actually implementing it into our lives.

However, I recently learned that there are other ways others can pour into you than just offering help in tasks and chores. In a holistic dance class, I recently took one-half of the room stood on one side and the other half of the room stood on the other side. We did an exercise where the first half would send out positive energy, pour their love and joy out and into the others standing on the other side. They didn’t move. They just stood there sending out the energy using intention. Next, the roles were reversed. The side that was sending energy out was now the receiving end and while the other side became radiant and poured their love and energy into the others. It was such an empowering and enlightening sensation. The lesson was that you didn’t have to move to pour energy into others; you just had to use intention. More importantly, you didn’t have to move to receive, you had to shift yourself within to be open to receive and feel the energy that was being poured into you. If you were open and observant you could not only feel but see how much these other women radiated their love for you. For me, it completely changed me. I learned how to feel something that I didn’t know I could feel from others and I learned how an inner shift can allow you to break down our outside barriers to feel what others are pouring into me….and it filled me right up.

2.) Absorb the energy surrounding you from the world. In the same holistic dance class, using that same inner shift, we learned that we don’t just absorb energy from others, but we have the ability to absorb energy from all of our surroundings. Through the movement in this class, the different parts of the body are broken down and even further how the energy flows from the world and into you. The Earth, the ground, below your feet supports you and grounds you. Your hands give, receive, and sense. They connect you with your surroundings. Your fingers point direction, steady you in balance, bring you power and set boundaries. Your body is what connects you to your surroundings. Those surroundings such as the ground beneath your feet, the water running through your fingers, the rhythm and bass of music that pound within you are ways this world pours its energy into you.

If you take a moment to connect with the world around you, you will be able to sense the energy coming from all these places.

You will then learn just how much energy the Earth, this world, is providing you and how all the gifts surrounding you support you endlessly.

3.) Acceptance. Whether others or the gifts of this world are pouring into you, if you are not open to receiving it, all this energy will be hitting these walls you put up and they will just bounce right off. The love, kindness, and positive energy of this world will never reach you unless you open the door to it and let it in to fill you up. You have to accept and receive the energy for it to have an impact on you.

You may be wondering, “How am I supposed to just start accepting all this energy? “ From making the intention to create an internal shift to taking it day by day in small moments, practicing to say yes to others or practicing awareness of your surroundings, can connect you with the energy flowing around you. There is one way to start this journey, with intention and awareness. Set the intention to work on receiving more and practice being aware when you are putting up your walls. Be aware of the energy being sent to you from the world and others. It starts with opening the door and exposing yourself to this change. Feel the difference within you from when you are open to receiving from the times that you struggle to be open. Notice how you feel. Do you feel depleted or do you feel more empowered, more loved, and more appreciative? Noticing a difference between the feeling of positivity and the not so great feeling will already guide you to strive towards the feelings and actions that make you feel better.

4.) Abundance. Once you’ve learned to be more open to accepting from others and your surroundings, what can really keep your cup feeling full and alive is knowing that the well of all this abundance of energy never dries up. Your loved ones, the amazing people of this world, and this world itself will always be there to pour into you so long as you are open to receive. Knowing that there is an abundance of energy and love being poured into you will remind you that the only way you can feel depleted and empty is if you let yourself run too low. You are in control. Your cup doesn’t require money or a clean house or everyone thinking you are absolutely perfect and having everyone admire you to fill it up. Filling your cup up doesn’t cost you anything. There is an abundance of heart filling energy out there and your fear of scarcity is just that, a fear. Let yourself feel relief, gratitude, and serenity. Let yourself feel good. There’s an abundance out there, don’t be afraid to fill your cup up.

5.) Give, Not Deplete. Finally, with a full cup, give back to others. From guiding them to learn how they can fill their own cups up to learning how to give to others without depriving yourself, it is never wrong to give to others.

Just as others can pour into us without having to do something for us or actually give us physical gifts, we can pour into others without sacrificing our sanity. Send out the positive radiant energy you love to receive from others. Either through a physical touch of a hand or a hug or through kind words or a listening ear, whether it is a physical act or the intention of radiating the energy out, you can pour your powerful love and care into others. If what you radiate is genuine, that kind of positivity will be radiant and whether or not people notice they will be able to feel it.

So work on not just taking care of others and doing chores and tasks for them. Work to give kind and good energy over physical tasks and the sanity of your mind. Finally, don’t forget what the power of pouring positivity into others can do.

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A new perspective, a new practice, is something to take the time to think about and process. Taking something new and weaving into your daily life can be transformative, but uncomfortable at first.

For me, learning how to be open to receiving from others, receiving from this world, was meant for me. I was done feeling depleted and empty and when this shift happened, I knew I was in great need of it so I was more open to just letting it happen.

I hope that with these steps you can begin to open yourself up to discovering the abundance this world offers and that they help you on your journey to choosing to receive over letting yourself run empty.