I’ve
always been the one who gives. I give time, energy, advice, comfort, effort
– and I give it wholeheartedly. From a young age, we were taught the virtue of
giving. That to give selflessly was noble. That giving made us stronger, wiser,
more capable than most. And I believed that. I lived it. I even felt proud of
it – because to give felt like a privilege. But no one ever taught us how to
receive. Especially receiving without having done anything.
We
were never told that it’s okay to receive something without earning it, proving
ourselves, or balancing the scales. I didn’t know how to just accept – a compliment,
someone paying for lunch, a helping hand, or even the gift of stillness –
without shrinking, without feeling the need to repay it immediately. My first
instinct was always to wave it off, brush it aside of joke it away. And now
I see how that belief has quietly seeped into my deepest places – even into my
fear of falling in love.
I
love deeply. I have taste. I have softness. I give love freely. But when it
comes to receiving love, especially in its rawest form, I shrink. I feel guilty
– like I’m too much to be loved just as I am. I’ve taken care of myself for so
long, I forgot what it’s like to let someone care for me – without feeling like
I have to immediately prove I’m worth it. Beneath it all, I carry the same
universal wound many of us do: The fear that my truest self might be too
different, too intense, too complicated to be truly accepted. I thought I
had healed this. I really did.
But
lately, I’m realizing it still lingers – like background music I forgot was
playing. It shows up in quiet ways disrupting my peace with sudden anxiety, awkward
timing, unexpected chaos. And some days, I find myself asking, “Why does it
feel so hard when I have so much to give?” But maybe this is the work. Not
to stop giving, but to learn to receive with the same open heart. To
know that I’m not too much, and I don’t have to earn what is meant for me. To believe,
deeply, that I deserve love, softness, joy – simply because I exist.
And
maybe that’s where real healing begins.