Allowing Myself to Receive

I've been letting my hair grow out for over 2 years, and it had finally gotten long enough that it both could be and needed to be styled. For those who don't know me, I have a mop of curls, so finding a stylist has always been a challenge.  I had done my homework and located someone with advanced training in curls. I showed up expecting my usual 20-30 minute cut. Was I ever in for a surprise!

For two hours I was pampered and cared for as never before. Now I think that I should clarify: this was not a spa treatment or even coloring. This was a two-hour haircut and shampoo. My hair looked nice, but that became almost incidental to how the treatment felt.

What was particularly interesting to me in retrospect was the cycle of feelings I experienced over the two hours. Initially, I was relaxed...until the cutting part went on for almost an hour with stylist taking just a few strands at a time and studying them before cutting--not in a weird way but in a very attentive and caring way.

Then I went through a stage that I can only describe as discomfort with deserving such attention. Next there was the stage of questioning: did I accidentally sign up for the wrong thing and wouldn't be able to pay for it at the end? (No.) At last, I just relaxed and experienced the joy of pampering. In this stage I didn't care how much this cost: it was worth it.

As I walked to the train to meet a friend for dinner, I wondered; I wondered about the Protestant Work Ethic and what it had done to us. One of my coaching clients summarized it as "work hard and keep your nose clean." That's pretty much how I've lived.

This afternoon something seemed terribly wrong with that. I felt present and loved. I felt like I was really able to be patient and to connect with people, even in the end-of-the-week, rush-hour bustle of the city. I've never felt like that when I've been doing the Protestant Work Ethic "work hard thing."

I just haven't allowed myself to receive, even when I am sick. Last winter I had been very sick and thought I ought to get back to work. I was still so weak that my legs were shaking and still I went for my coat. If my legs hadn't given out at that moment, I would probably have pushed on.  How does pushing to work make sense when my body is screaming for some tender loving care?

As I've been writing this, I've recalled being in a new city for work a few years ago. A friend who had worked there shortly before told me about a special restaurant. He said it would not be on my expense account budget, but promised that it would be worth the splurge. It was. I enjoyed every bite. When the waiter brought my check, I had only been charged for the glass of wine I had with dinner. The waiter said the chef and the rest of the staff had so delighted in watching the enjoyment I had with the meal that the rest was on the house. When we allow others to care for us, we give them pleasure as well. We create connection when none would have been there in a "work hard" state of being.

Perhaps this is how we start the flow of Love. I've been concerned about giving love when I might generate more Love by receiving it. For me that is a tremendous stretch, since allowing myself to be loved will require undoing a lifetime of programming. But again stretching is how we grow.

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Everything is Planned to Teach Me Love

Some days as I go through my affirmations, one will particularly resonate with me, and then it hangs in the back of my mind all day. Today when I got to "Everything is planned to teach me love," the statement wouldn't let go of me and whispered to me all day.

Even before I got to the office, I was pondering, "Why does something need to teach me love?"  The immediate answer seemed to be that I don't know love.  When I focus on breathing into my heart, I am sure the "vibration" that I feel is God's love.  By extension, since I believe that we are all connected through God's love, I am sure that it should be the same or similar.

Yet, I don't know that I've experienced that feeling with any human being when I know I should feel it with all human beings.  Hmmm...  Maybe I don't know love, or don't know how to feel love.  Or, just maybe, I've guarded myself so that I shut others out.  Ouch!  That again.

I believe that part of our basic equipment as humans is to be able to give and receive love.  Is it possible that my equipment is so under-used and rusted that it has forgotten what is basically human?

One of my favorite little books is one that has been around for awhile, called The Knight in Rusty Armor (Robert Fisher.) The book relates a parable about a knight who has lived in his armor so long that he can no longer take it off at the end of the day when he is done doing battle.  Only when he weeps at not being able to hug his family do his tears cause pieces of his armor to drop off. 

I sense his experience may be similar to what occurs to well guarded hearts, like mine.  I haven't cried...yet. I have been overwhelmed with a deep sense of loss about all the people I have "loved" intellectually in my life but for whom I have thought it was just too risky to really open my heart. Well, I didn't really "think" the risk part in a conscious sort of way.  I am pretty certain, though, that it was happening in a less-than-conscious way. Now I realize that whatever damage I thought might be done to my heart could only be exceed by the sadness at not having really let "my people" in. 

I feel like a toddler at this, taking my first wobbly steps.  I am certain that I need something to hang onto as I steady myself, and my heart tells me that something will be God's love--it will be my compass teaching me love.

Gratitude

Gratitude has been on my heart lately.  A friend sent me an article today on gratitude. In the email exchange that followed, I was reminded for the 1000th or 10,000th time that, whenever my life is off kilter, one thing will instantly begin to right the ship: renewing my gratitude practice.

Gratitude practice.  Something I do, over and over again so that I get better at it.  In those off-kilter periods, it is easy to be dragged into what isn't working in my life.  Gratitude turns that all around.  Gratitude implies that I focus on what is working.  Soon I notice that more and more is working.  This is the part I really don't understand: why do I stop?  Or even, when do I stop?  I don't usually realize that I've stopped until things are off-kilter.  Then I have a palm-against-the head "Duh!" moment: I had stopped practicing gratitude.

Almost 20 years ago now, I received an act of pure grace--a gift that we receive (often attributed to God or Higher Power) that we didn't ask for.  It just shows up.  Writer Scott Peck used to say that grace was like grits in the south.  Before the homogenization of food by chains across the country, travelers through the south would receive grits on their plates three meals a day--they were just added to every plate.  I remember receiving my unordered grits as child from the north.  First question: what in the world is that?  Then: I didn't order that!  To which the incredulous waitress in starched yellow and white gingham said, "Everyone gets grits, but we don't charge for them."  That is grace.  A gift that we didn't ask for, just shows up, and doesn't cost anything.

Anyway, about my act of grace.  I'd bumped into a friend in a parking lot.  She told me about a weekend seminar that she'd attended on gratitude.  I was curious.  She reached into her car and pulled out a packaged set of cassette tapes.  (I did say this was 20 years ago.)  She told me to listen to them.  Knowing I was at a transition in my life, she wished for me a breakthrough similar to the one she'd had.

Less than a day later, I was awakened in the most excruciating pain I could imagine.  It was the start of a six-week battle with a raging infection that would eventually cause my neck to break.  I literally couldn't get out of bed.  Throughout the whole six weeks, my small boom box sat on my bed. (Did I say it was 20 years ago?)  I'd pop in a tape, push the start button, and almost as soon as the tape started, I'd doze off until the end of the tape would pop, signaling that is was finished and waking just long enough to start the cycle again.

I have no idea how many times I heard those tapes, but over and again, I'd turn the tape, push start, and fade away.  On a subliminal level though, the messages were sinking in.  There were three keys that the speaker described that, if done for 30 days, promised to transform the listener's life:

1. Don't complain...about anything...for 30 days.  (It's rainy today: a complaint.  It's warm in here: a complaint.  Couldn't that waiter give us better service: a complaint.) NONE for 30 days.  Whew!  That was a big one.
2. Record and count the "gifts" you receive every day.  (Someone lets me in front of them in traffic: a gift.  Someone opens the door: a gift.  The letter carrier hands me my mail before finishing putting other mail in mail slots: a gift.)
3. Finally, record and count the "gifts" that you give every day. (Same as above except in reverse: letting someone in front in traffic, opening a door, leaving the barista a tip, etc.)

Easy as that. Oh, one more thing, if you complain at any point, even Day 29, you have to start the 30 days over again.  I've always had to start over at least once.

So there I lay, in excruciating pain and unable to move out of bed.  But, I wanted to try it.  I pulled out my journal.  How could I get through this pain and communicate with my doctors without complaining?  How could I give gifts when I could hardly move?  I tried, though, and I started over several times. This is the practice that I embark on anew whenever my life is out of sorts.  For years, and several times each year, I practice. An amazing phenomenon occurs every time:  I have never been able to give more gifts than I've received in any day.  Even on days when I set out to do nothing but give gifts, at the end of the day, I'd received more.  Give 10: get 20.  Give 20: get 50...and so on. Never fails!

One creation myth is that God created humans because she/he couldn't be happy without someone to give gifts to.  We were created to receive gifts.  Our reason for being is to receive gifts. Gratitude is the practice of focusing our attention on the gift of receiving.  That's what I know in my heart today!


NOTE: I believe in giving credit where it is due, but I truly don't remember the speaker on the tapes, but if any of you do, please let me know.  I'd love to publish it.