You don’t just need to rest, you need to receive.
note from self
How are you at receiving? Can you let a present moment experience of receiving – whether it be a compliment, resting on the couch, embracing a loved one, or eating a meal – really land inside of you? Can you let more of those sensations in? Can you be changed by it? Can your muscles soften and your breathing slow? Can you feel the energy pouring into you and be present with it without distraction, deflection, or defense?
If we were shaped by our family, community, workplace, and systemic/historical forces to overextend and care for others over ourselves, receiving can feel like a threat to our adapted sense of self-worth and what’s “OK”. We might feel shameful, guilty, or just uncomfortable and wrong being on the receiving end of all the care we’ve provided to others.
If we have unresolved trauma or boundaries that have been broken open and not yet repaired, receiving might feel life-threatening. Our muscles and senses may always be on alert, scanning for danger, so that the softening and relaxing that must precede receiving is impossible to choose through force of mind alone. Deep healing to restore our felt sense of safety in the present moment is called for.
In the Strozzi somatics lineage that I offer clients, learning to receive might look like shoring up our boundaries – practicing saying “no” and declining requests. It might look like practicing making requests and growing your tolerance for the uncomfortable feelings that come with asking someone else to meet your needs (without attachment to their response). It might look like practicing a full-body “yes” so your system can start to register what it feels like when you want something, or to begin building up repetitions in your muscle memory of times when you opened up and said “yes” without being punished for it.
Wow, sounds uncomfortable! Yes, it may be. But isn’t existing in a perpetual state of exhaustion or burnout uncomfortable?
We practice receiving for the sake of resourcing ourselves to fulfill our dreams and desires. To finally give our inner self the love and care that they needed, and maybe didn’t get earlier in life. To allow ourselves to actually rest when it’s time to rest, so that we can act when it’s time to act. To move beyond patterns that keep us stuck, distracted, and isolated. To fill up our energy when it’s been depleted. To recharge us for the good and necessary work of living and transforming our culture into one that serves all life, instead of one that orders the death of the many for the wealth of the few.
The time is now. We all deserve it. Let’s practice together.
