Flow Control

I have been aware, for some time, that my emotional makeup tends to be heavily weighted on the side of giving rather than receiving. This sounds like a good thing - but that's only because our culture is so acutely slanted in the opposite direction. In fact, an ideal goal should be to cultivate a balance - and for whatever complex set of reasons, I haven't done that.

The graceful and sincere acceptance of compliments, for example, requires conscious effort. The same applies to allowing others to make altruistic gestures of any size in my direction. I can certainly allow it, but not without effort, and certainly not without mentally calculating how I can make it up to them, later. On a more parapsychological note (bear with me if that's not your thing), I had the experience last week after a group "positive energy exchange" exercise of two of the participants actually verbalizing that although they were surprised by how powerful my "output" was, what they were sending back at me was initially just bouncing off. This was interesting, since during the exercise, it had taken several seconds of real effort of will for me to get into a "receiving" frame of mind.

On the surface, these seem like a not terribly serious problems: A person who gives (materially, emotionally, energetically) tends to be liked and sought-after. They tend to stand out. But like any other area of dynamic tension, it is a balance that is the healthy and ideal target.

In the framework that I've come to accept as "the way the universe works", a person's conscious and unconscious intention has a significant role in their experience of life. I believe this beyond a mere "positive thinking makes me happier" notion - I actually consider that our energetic intent and focus influences the nature of how reality unfolds around us. New Age-y types often speak of our ability as "co-creators" to "manifest" our own reality. A part of that equation, however, is our ability to "allow" those things to happen- to simply, unilaterally receive them from the Universe.

And here I come to the crux of why an imbalance in giving and receiving matters. As I feel around in the back corners of my mind, I can detect a resistance to allowing certain kinds of "gifts" in. It may, frankly, be an issue of belief in my own "worthiness". That sounds so pop-psychology-whiny - but it strikes me that that may be precisely the root issue - and something that I don't think I'd even consciously considered when I started typing this blog entry. Interesting.

When I consider why I'd feel that way, the first thought that comes to mind is that even though I've long-since moved on from the theology of my youth, it's very possible that a lingering notion of what "God" is like (Holy, transcendent, and only interested in interacting with me because of some act of astonishing mercy) is informing my beliefs even now. Certainly on an intellectual level, I've moved beyond all of that - but in my unconscious core? Perhaps not. Old habits, especially those ingrained from infancy until one's early adulthood, die hard.

Learning to gracefully receive sounds like it will probably be fun, though - even if slightly uncomfortable. Here goes!