You Are Learning to Receive

Your Higher Self is calling you to stop blocking the energy and resources that are there for you to draw upon. The help you need is all around you. Your roots are planted in love.

Your Higher Self is telling you that it is time for you to learn how to receive. You suffer from a misunderstanding that in order to receive what you want you must deserve it. In choosing this card you are ready to learn that receiving – like giving – is part of the natural cycle of life. It happens automatically. Hold out your hands palm upwards and allow yourself to participate in the natural cycle of life and receive the love you seek.

The energy you want and are ready to receive comes from two sources: yourself and others. The first source of emotional energy you receive from is the connection to your inner core; you can create and generate energy from a strong sense of self through positive thoughts and feelings (about yourself and your capabilities.) In feeling good about yourself you open up to and connect to Source – a well of power within, which guides you towards and provides you with the energy you need. The second source of emotional energy you receive is from your connection to others. In your interactions with others there is an interplay and dance of energy. You give and take energy through your interactions with those around you. At its simplest, every person you interact with gives you a gift; street directions, information, wisdom, help with your housework, help with a project, or a kind smile. You might return the gift of energy back to the person through words of gratitude, acknowledgement and affirmation, or like ‘Pass the Parcel’ you pass on the good energy you have been given to someone else.

You see gifts of energy exchanged in everyday lives between parent and child, nurse and patient, singers and their audience, and so on. You are constantly in the process of giving and receiving energy. Energy exchange is what creates balance in the cycle of life. You convert the energy you receive from others into something else. It is easy to visualise how this cycle happens with plants and trees: they receive energy stored within the soil and absorb the nutrients to grow. The plant or tree does not question whether it deserves to receive what it needs. It takes exactly what is required to reach full maturity. And so it naturally soaks up the water through its roots and sends the water along to the buds that ultimately grow into ripened fruit or flowers. These in turn provide the energy source for other living creatures supporting the growth of insects, birds, animals and humans. In this example of the cycle of life, the plant receives life and then gives life as a consequence. The balance of life is created through this natural cycle of giving and receiving.

When you give, you restore balance by filling a void where there is a gap. You might fill a gap by giving time and resources to a friend, family member or colleague who needs help. On the flip side, when you receive you accept what you need – you accept a compliment, a gift of love, a hug, a smile, financial aid, and childcare, you welcome help cleaning and painting your home, and in doing so you fill a gap to restore balance. The giving and receiving fits together like a lock and key, and generates the connection that creates flow. You are being asked to receive as the plant receives, to acknowl-edge receiving with no reservations, resistance or judgements about getting exactly what you need so that you can reach your full maturity and potential. In receiving all that is yours to receive you fulfil your dreams, your purpose and potential to be all that is yours to be. And in turn you become the source of life-affirming energy for others in the cycle of life.

In choosing this card you have identified a part of you that is unable, or is refusing, to receive what Spirit and others offer. This part of you has yet to understand that through giving and receiving you create connection, flow and balance. Adding to your difficulties in receiving are the false beliefs you have about yourself. These beliefs have disconnected you from your inner core and have blocked the natural flow of energy towards you. False beliefs suck all the nutrients from your soil and create poor conditions so that you struggle or feel unsupported in the journey to creating what you want. These beliefs, such as, ‘I’m not good enough, I’m unlovable, I haven’t done anything to deserve’, affect your ability to receive. The natural exchange of energy is blocked by false beliefs, such as, ‘I never get what I want; I am being selfish to ask, I don’t really need this, I’m responsible for this’, and so on. In judgement your beliefs may lead you to fear that others will think you incapable if you have a temporary shortfall or ask for help. You fear they will see you as weak, needy or dependent. Or you worry that if you ask for help or accept what others offer, they will have a form of power over you and you will feel obligated, undermined and vulnerable.

Those who struggle to receive can’t feel the praise in a compliment. The emotional support and affirmation they seek is given to them but they don’t have the structure in place for receiving so they brush the compliment off, feel uncomfortable or look towards only the next goal on their list. They can’t accept or feel the energy of support that is given to them.

Beliefs such as these are created in your formative years through the expe-rience and observation of the emotional interplay – energy flow – between your parents, siblings, teachers and other students. These beliefs form a pattern of receiving by which you now live; a pattern that reflects your early experiences. As a result, you repeat your childhood experiences as an adult by giving a lot of yourself for little in return from others. Look to your early years to understand the template that regulates your energy structure for giving and receiving. What did you have to do in order to receive the love you needed from caregivers who were emotionally withdrawn through ill health, overwhelmed by responsibility and work, lacking emotional stability or just plain cold? In the absence of love and feeling undeserving, do you only allow yourself to receive by first over-giving in order to feel worthy?

You become weighed down by such false beliefs. The balance of giving and receiving is tipped out of your favour and growth stops when you stop receiving the nutrients you need. You can over-give in different ways (accept-ing less pay, being a slave to your children or family, rescuing your partner). Or you can under-give by not giving to yourself. Participants in co-dependent relationships misguidedly believe that if they give enough love they can heal the person they love, help them find their way, cure their depression, and so on. They believe that they can create and receive the love they want by giving all their support to their partner. The distorted belief of someone who over-gives in this way could take the form of, ‘If I give enough love then I can help that person be happy, strong or better.’

If you hold these beliefs they create the structure for an imbalanced exchange of energy not in your favour. You forget that you too need to be nurtured in your relationship. Without the equal exchange of giving and receiving the relationship falls out of balance and doesn’t grow. Not only do you take away the opportunity from those who have already received and grown and are now ready to contribute to others, but in consciously or unconsciously refusing to receive you are disrupting the natural cycle of life.

To receive, one must be open and create a space to receive. When you ask a direct request of others or do so in visualisation, you are creating an energy gap between where you are and what you want. The gap is a space towards which your energy can flow in a balanced exchange of energy with others. As the energy flows, the gap is filled. Try observing in conversation with others those who receive easily. They understand and expect to receive, and so they leave a pause or a gap where others can contribute to the conversation. It is the same when the person asks for what they want; they leave a gap so that the space is created in which to receive what they want. They have a belief system, which forms the internal structure for a natural energy exchange, and this structure creates the path of flow.

Restore your natural cycle of flow through the following steps:

1. In order to receive you have to ask for what you want. Have clarity and own what you want.
2. Give yourself permission to receive and fully understand that you are restoring a natural balance of life by doing so.
3. Examine ways in which you can give to yourself. Do you need to give yourself time out in silence or in play?
4. Gratitude. Give thanks for what you are about to receive. By giving thanks you reprogramme your body to a new message of receiving.
5. Examine your childhood beliefs and conditioning. Who do you mirror in your family?
6. Choose two cards to identify where the blockage of energy flow occurs within your energy system. These cards identify where you find difficulty in receiving.

Allowing yourself to receive will fulfil you at your core. From your core connection you will allow yourself to fully connect to those around you. Ultimately self-realisation is not about self, being self-focused or selfish. Self-realisation is about connection, love and relationship. Reflect back on the plant and trees that have their roots firmly embedded in the rich soil from which they receive their nutrients. The resources they need are in front of them. It is time for you to learn how to receive. Stop resisting the soil below and the sun that shines overhead. Your roots are planted. Soak up all the nutrients that you need. Hold your palms upwards and receive.