Giving and Receiving
Feb 03, 2019
So, I know I don’t have to explain this to you but sometimes I do weird things.
Today I was contemplating “give and receive” and what that meant. As I often do, if I don’t want to forget something, I wrote those words on my palms. Receive on one palm and Give on the other. I did this so I could remember to contemplate them when I looked at my hands. Weird, I know…
I’m not sure I fully understand or if I can yet come close to grasping what “give and receive” mean, but the visuals I have been given when I look at my hands is quite powerful. I was looking at my palms with my hands touching each other, and I noticed that the only reason I could read the words “Receive” and “Give” is because my hands were open. If my hands were closed, I wouldn’t be able to read them. Duh…
But that was a lesson. If I’m grasping onto something, If my hand is closed, I cannot receive anything because I don’t have an open hand to accept anything. And, if I am holding onto something, If I can’t let go, I am unable to give anything away. Boom! I taught myself something by being silly!
But there was another lesson. My hands were together, touching each other, as one hand. And then it hit me: Receiving and Giving are the same thing. Without one, you can’t have the other.
In OS we always teach that Stability is Mobility, that those two often separated quantities are both the same thing: movement expression. This physical lesson opened the door to understanding Receiving and Giving. They are the same thing: life expression. It’s not an “if this, then that” linear relationship. It’s circular, whole. If you are unable to receive, you are unable to give. And, if you are unable to give, you are unable to receive. They dance together as one.
Again, I’m nowhere close to understanding the depth of the relationship between giving and receiving, but I find the visual of the words written on my palms to be thought provoking if not silencing.
Think of the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would treat yourself, or Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Another way to say that is give to another what you would want given to you, or give to another what you would want to receive. Think of this scandalous thought! Give away the very thing you want to receive. Let go to have. That’s deep…
Or, think of “Ask and you shall receive”: Be open to receive. You ever just need something but you were too proud, too closed minded, or too focused to stop and simply ask to have it?
What if that’s how it really worked? What if we let go of fear to receive boldness? What if we let go of the scarcity mentality to receive abundance? What if we gave away our ideas to receive more creativity? What if we gave away our wealth in order to have more to give away?
We can’t let go and get rid of what we hold so tight. If we hold onto fear, how can we ever be set free from it? And we can’t receive what we desperately want when we are too busy holding something we won’t give away. If we want to be loved, why wouldn’t we shower others with it?
What if we gave ourselves away in order to find ourselves? What if we let go of what we thought others wanted us to be and discovered who we were created to be? What if we realized there was no end to the love and joy we could receive because there was no limit to the love and joy we were willing to share?
What if…? I’m just thinking out loud with you. Asking questions to receive answers… All I really know is that I think I should keep my hands open. Maybe we all should.
Oh! Movement connection:
If we hold onto things too tightly - fear, ideas, beliefs, whatever, we may become rigid in our thinking and rigid in our movements. The tighter we hold, the more we fret, fight, defend or get agitated. We lose our ability to flow in thought and body. Our movements become slow and tense, our stress levels spiral higher and higher and we breathe shallower and shallower, unable to move well and feel good because we are unable to let go and be free. As a result we tighten our jaw and tighten our grip on whatever we are holding even more until our body asks us for change by way of pain, stiffness, weakness and limitation - all things we weren’t created for.
That’s a good tie in. Right?
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