As a caring professional it can feel so easy, natural and fulfilling, to give to others. Even if we know the importance of filling our own cup, when it comes to giving to ourselves, it can feel a lot harder. And if this happens in overload, or a long period of time, we can end up exhausted, burnt out, and unable to serve our clients in the way we most desire to, while our personal development, dreams and fulfillment get left on the backburner.
If we want to give in a sustainable way, where we remain stable, grounded, and resourced enough to give authentically to others, we must master the art of receiving.
Receiving is essential, especially when it comes to service-based business. Without a wellspring of resources (both inner and outer) to draw on, we cannot authentically give to others. Giving and receiving work in tandem; the more we allow ourselves to receive, the more we have to give - and vice versa.
Receiving comes naturally to us. It is part of our authentic make up. Except most of us have not had healthy receiving modelled to us, and this has led to an amnesia around what receiving looks like and how to do it. Layer on top of this all manner of limiting beliefs, ideas and programs, from society and our ancestral line, and we likely find our capacity and willingness to receive further impaired.
Thankfully, it is not so difficult to shift up our relationship to receiving.
In this article, I outline three practical techniques for increasing your capacity to receive in life and business, so you can begin to experience what it looks like and show up as a fuller, more expanded version of you.
Tend to your own needs first.
Now this one’s thrown around a lot. It’s the age old ‘put your own oxygen mask on first’ adage, and may be easy to dismiss at first glance. However there are many levels and nuances to the ways we take care of ourselves that do make a difference.
There are four essential levels on which we have needs. These are: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. If one of these levels is missing or left untended, it interrupts the flow of energy in our channel and our life, which impacts our ability to receive.
Let’s break these down:
Spiritual - can look like feeling connected to a deeper mission, sense of purpose or ‘Why’, as well as a Source that is greater than you.
Mental - can look like cleaning up your mindset and any thoughts, beliefs or perspectives that are limiting you from making the moves you desire to make in business or in life.
Emotional - can look like ensuring that you are energetically filled up with loving intent, that all parts of you are being allowed to be seen and heard.
Physical - can look like eating well, sleeping well, staying watered, and moving your physical body in ways that feel nourishing and supportive to you.
Take a moment now to pause and reflect on how well you are tending to each of these four levels of wellbeing in your daily life. Is one being tended to with more ease than another? How might you bring more love and awareness to the one’s that need it most?
If you work from home, are you taking a break for lunch and making sure you feed yourself in the same way you would if you're working for someone else? Do you have friends, colleges or family members you can reach out to for support when you need it?
Make a plan to increase your self care in just one area of your life, and stick to it until it becomes a habit.
On a very practical level, ‘putting your onw oxygen mask on first’ translates to making sure you are fed, clothed, watered and loved up (to the best of your ability), before tending to the needs of others.
Where feasible, you can quite literally change up the order of your tasks and activities to suit. For example, meditating, exercising and tending to such basic needs as eating and getting ready for the day, before picking up the phone to respond to a friend in need, or checking on client emails.
When you are well resourced to begin with, you are much better able to respond to the needs of others around you, while holding your ground.
2. Sit with it just a little bit longer
As a kind-hearted, open and compassionate individual who truly cares about the wellbeing of others, it can be tempting to want to give away what we receive, and share it with others, almost as soon as we receive it.
However, if you first pause and take a moment to fully receive it for yourself - on all four levels of your being - it will become part of who you are. Then you will be able to give it away without any cost or detriment to you because you’re resonating at the new frequency.
So next time you experience something positive, see if you can stick with that desirable feeling longer than you ordinarily might, before distracting yourself or diverting attention elsewhere.
Here’s a few examples of how this might apply:
Insights and aha moments
Ah, so you’ve received that magical moment of breakthrough, the rush of insight, the incredible aha moment. When this happens it’s so tempting to want to rush off to share it with others, and make sure everyone has access to the magic you’ve just discovered….
But before you do, can you just sit with it just that little bit longer? Allow it to marinate, to sink into your bones, receive the medicine, breathe it in, and let it become a part of you? Before you go plastering it online, can you be sure you've fully integrated it into your life… and then go about sharing it?
The same goes for that life-changing book, resource, or speaker you’ve just discovered. By all means, share the love, but before you do, can you allow yourself to marinate in the joyful magic of your discovery?
With income and money
The same goes for your bank account. The next time you receive an influx of cash or extra bonus in your paycheck, can you hold it in your account for an extra hour or two, or even overnight, before you spend it? As tempting as it is to purchase the next thing on our wishlist, the one we’ve been waiting ages to buy, this often does not serve our growth in the way we might like it to. Instead, can you stretch your comfort zone and sit with the money in your account a teeny bit longer, before making the purchase and discharging the energy?
Often, when something desirable happens (think: receiving a compliment, positive feedback, an unexpected gift, a new idea, new client, testimonials, the joy of a beautiful sunset or meal) it can push at our limits of receiving. The longer you can be with and 'normalize' the feeling of expansion, without needing to discharge it, the more your nervous system will calibrate to, and be able to hold, this new level of receiving.
3. Take your own medicine
Your medicine is there for a reason – it’s literally yours to take. It’s for you, first and foremost. If there is a technique, practice, modality or process you advocate for in your client work, and even more so if it's a signature approach, make sure you’re incorporate it in your own life, too.
Yes it’s a case of practicing what you preach, but more than that – it’s about letting your medicine feed and stabilise you, so you’re fuelled up and ready to go.
For example, one of the practices I recommend to my clients when they are in a place of stretch speaking their truth or posting on social media, is to call their energy back from that post or conversation. And then to see their words touching into the hearts and minds of the people who need to hear them, in the way they need to hear them.
Because I can also get stuck in the fear of what others will think, or saying the wrong thing, I use this practice myself, too. It helps me reclaim my energy and set the tone of my field at the level I would like it to be, and this is what I emit.
This is what your medicine does - it steeps you in your truth.
So whatever practices, approaches or rituals you use in your client work, be sure to incorporate them into your daily routine, structure, ritual or ways of being and doing in the world. The more often you are immersed in the magic of your own medicine, the faster you will rise and the more the resonance of your field will attract those in need of your medicine. Walking, talking and breathing your authentic truth is so much more magnetic than any “top 10 tips,” teaching tool or technique will ever be.
At the end of the day, receiving more in business means first receiving more of you. Then your life naturally opens up as a reflection of how deeply received you are.
Where in your life do you feel contracted, or and as though you could be more of you?
How can you intentionally create space for any suppressed or contracted parts of you to come through and be seen, heard and valued more fully?
How can you open the gateway to receive more of your true essence in every area of your life?
As you create this space to receive more of you, you will become a fuller, bigger, more embodied, expansive and abundant version of the self you know yourself to be. And this will naturally be reflected back through the lens of your business, and in every way and area in which you experience your life.
Before you go, I'd love to know what resonated most for you from this article. Take a moment to drink in its medicine, and even comment below, before carrying on with your day.
If you would like to explore how staying true to yourself and receiving more of who you are, can lead to increased abundance and satisfaction in all areas of your life - business included - reach out.
Each week I make available a limited number of free 1:1 discovery call’s where we will get together and envisage how it would look to become your most abundant and beautiful self, in all areas of your life.
With love,
Jessica xo