Receiving Love | Ep #86

I’m Andrea Giles. And you’re listening to the Heal from Infidelity Podcast,
episode number 86, Receiving Love.

Hello and welcome to the Heal from Infidelity Podcast, where courageous
women learn not only to heal from their spouse’s betrayal, but to become
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Stick around to learn how to create a life that will knock your own socks
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Andrea Giles. Are you ready? Let’s dive in.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Heal from Infidelity. If you
are new around here, I welcome you. I’m so glad to have you here. So today
I’m just going to jump right in. We’re going to talk about receiving. And
not just about receiving love, but receiving of all forms. Okay. All kinds
of receiving. Receiving for many people can feel very scary. It can feel
uncomfortable. And for most of us, it’s much easier to give than to
receive. And today we’re going to pull apart all of that and look at why
that is. Okay. There are things that get in the way of openly receiving.
And we’re going to talk about those things today. Number one, block to
receiving, thoughts about yourself. If you have a fundamental belief that
you are not enough, it will be hard for you to receive love. If you believe
that you are not worthy or unlovable, or you might think that you are weak,
if you need help or that you have to do it all and should be able to do it
all, you might have an unconscious block to receiving.

It might feel very uncomfortable to you because it goes against what you
fundamentally believe about yourself. We may think that we’re not worthy of
someone’s love because we X, Y, or Z, any number of things. Okay. Where
does this come from? Here’s a question for you. As a child what happened
when you asked for things, when you wanted things, whether it be a physical
thing or an emotional thing, what happened when you asked, how was your
request received? Did you get taught that it was safe for you to want
things and to be loved? Or were you taught something else? Was it safe for
you to ask for things? Some of you have probably been shamed when asked for
things, maybe you were told that you were ungrateful, that you were
unacceptable in some way. So when someone gives you something, you may go
to that place of shame, where you want to hide and feel undeserving, or
feel ungrateful, or like you didn’t do enough good things to receive this
thing.

Another thought that we have about receiving things is that it’s inherently
not safe. It feels vulnerable. You may feel more in control when you’re
giving than when you’re receiving. There is inherent vulnerability in
receiving. It can feel like they are controlling you, that they are in the
driver’s seat. One huge area where this shows up is in sexual intimacy.
Sometimes we can feel very threatened and scared to surrender to the
experience and want to control it so that we don’t fall prey or victim in
any way to feeling controlled. Okay. We don’t like to feel vulnerable. We
don’t like feeling like somebody else is running the show. And so we’re
blocking our own pleasure, blocking our ability to experience what the
giver is wanting to give us.

Okay. Sometimes in the realm of infidelity, it can feel very scary to have
vulnerable sexual moments with your partner. And it can be for good reason.
Sometimes it’s coming from a place of safety. It’s coming from a place of
keeping your body safe, of not engaging emotionally in things that will be
harmful as you’re trying to sort through things. But sometimes it can come
from old wounds, of being taught that somehow you receiving is not safe,
that you being pleasured, that you being given good things in any form is
unsafe. Okay. Another fear that comes up is that you owe them something. If
I received this thing, it means I have to pay them back. I have to give it
back in kind.

We may believe that we’re a burden and that we don’t want to take up too
much space. This is false. We are all humans on this earth and all deserve
to take up space because we are here, because we live on this earth at this
time. We are allowed to take up space. We just forgot. Another big way that
we struggle to receive is in our thoughts about others. Okay. I have a good
friend. We talk a lot. And we recently uncovered that she has a really hard
time receiving anything because her underlying belief is there’s always,
always a string attached, that no one gives you something without expecting
to be a repaid. Where did this come from for her? As a little girl, the
only way that she got any kind of praise of any kind is when she was like
shining bright.

When she was doing the right thing, being the good girl. As long as she was
doing those things, she got attention and got gifts and things like that.
The second she stopped those things dried up. So she felt like she had to
always be doing and performing and all those things to get the attention
and that she couldn’t just receive praise because it was always attached to
having to be more, she had to keep it up. So it kind of felt like a noose
around her neck when she was given praise. Like it felt good for a short
moment. And then there was the expectation that she had to keep performing.
Okay. What are some other thoughts that get in the way? One is, he’s just
doing this to smooth things over. He doesn’t mean it. He doesn’t mean this
nice thing he’s doing. He doesn’t mean this nice thing he’s buying for me.

He’s just trying to smooth things over. He’s trying to get himself off the
hook. What about this one? He’s not really doing this sincerely. He’s
hiding stuff. So he’s doing this to try to cover for it. Or he’s only doing
it because he feels guilty. He’s not doing it because he actually wants to,
or he’s doing it to look good. He wants the approval of others. He wants
others to tell him what a great husband he is, how wonderful he is. He’s
not actually doing it just for me. Any of those sound familiar? All of
those thoughts may feel really, really true, but they are blocking you from
actually receiving what is being offered to you. They’re keeping you from
opening up and receiving. Number three, another reason why we have a hard
time receiving is because of beliefs we have, faulty beliefs we have about
how the world works. We believe that others in general, can’t be trusted.
People only give things when they want something in return. If someone
gives me something, I have to owe them something back. Being independent is
honorable whereas being taken care of is weak.

If I get betrayed after I open myself to healing, I won’t ever trust anyone
again. Let’s talk about this one. Okay. This one is false because when we
learn how to receive, it is a skill that we’re learning. It’s creating a
blueprint inside ourselves. So some people can’t give freely because of
their own faulty beliefs, but someone can and will. So what I mean by that
is even if your partner can’t give freely because of their own issues,
because of their own fears and limitations, there’s someone else that can.
And there’s someone else that wants to give you all the things. If it is
not the person who you’re with there will be someone else and you’ll be
ready for it just by practicing this right where you are.

Okay. So how do you override this and learn to receive? First, you start
trying on new beliefs about how the world works. Allow yourself to be wrong
and practice opening up. Receiving gracefully comes from your thoughts, it
comes from what’s going on in your mind and in your heart. It has to do
with what you’re thinking about the other person. When we’re thinking
loving thoughts about the other person, it’s easier to receive. When we’re
thinking kind of scary thoughts about the other person or judgmental
thoughts, it makes it harder. So practice being present in the moment.
Okay. Practice being in the moment.

These are some things that you can think. This person is not hurting me
right now. This person is trying to repair. This person is trying to show
me love. Okay. Start practicing these new beliefs about how the world
works. Did you know that men like to be the hero, they like to give? They
like to be the Knight and shining armor. And some may say it’s just to feed
their ego. But I believe that at depth it’s because they really like to
take care of their people. They like to feel like they’re taking care of
their people. So receiving is a way of creating connection with your
partner, opening hearts up in this space, creating connection by receiving.
It’s a gift. Did you know that receiving is just as much of a gift as
giving? Openly receiving is a gift because you’re opening yourself up.
You’re showing that you care enough to open up to this person and receive
what they want to give you.

Some other thoughts to think are I am worthy of love just as I am. I can
have this. It is safe to have this. It is safe to be deeply cared for.
Okay. I want to talk about receiving yourself first. Something that I want
you to practice is receiving the beautiful things about yourself. Is it
hard for you to do this? Here’s a way to know. Do you ever notice yourself
going yeah, I am pretty good at that but, yeah I do like this about myself,
but yeah, I am pretty smart, but. Do you know that? Are you familiar with
that?

I want you to practice just noticing without the but, notice the good.
Lately, something that I’ve been practicing is when I look at my little
baby girl, who is the cutest little thing in the whole world, she’s so
cute, I think my body is amazing. And you know what? I’m heavier right now
than I ever have been in my life, than I ever have been. Having a baby at
44, kind of took a toll on me and my body, but I can still say to my body,
thank you for making this perfect child. Look what you did body. Imagine if
I tagged a but at the end, but you could have gained less weight, but blah,
blah, blah, whatever. Nope, I’m just leaving it there. Thank you amazing
body for creating this perfect human.

You can do the same thing. Thank you hair for looking good today. Thank you
beautiful eyes for shining so bright. Anything. Notice the things about
yourself that you like and take the but off. Receive yourself first, and it
will make it so much easier to receive from other people. You’ll build a
habit of not having to come rebut the things that people say to you with a
but. You can just receive it. No, pushing it back. Okay. Remember this law,
we are meant to receive. When we open up to receiving, we become available
for more, is just a law. When we open up to receiving, we’re making space
to receive more.

Okay. I want to read you a quote. When I was preparing for this episode, I
came across this quote by someone by the name of John Amodeo, PhD. Okay.
It’s from a book that he wrote, the name of the book is Dancing with Fire:
A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships. He says this, “The parched earth
can’t let in a life giving rain if it is covered by plastic tarp. Without
the capacity to be touched by caring and appreciation, we render these
gifts less meaningful. Sacred receiving, letting things in with heartfelt
gratitude is a gift to the giver. When we are visibly moved, it conveys
that they’ve made a difference in our lives. We may then base together in a
non-dual moment in which there’s no distinction between the giver and the
receiver. Both people are giving and receiving in their own unique ways.
This shared experience can be profoundly sacred and intimate, a moment of
delectable grace.”

So like I said, a little bit ago, receiving can be such a gift to the giver
every bit as much as their gift is to us. Just allowing ourselves to
receive, by allowing ourself to be vulnerable enough to receive, to let our
guard down, to not feel like we have to control the moment, to not feel
like we have to hurry with a rebuttal of why we don’t deserve that thing or
why we shouldn’t have that thing. I know that it can feel scary. I know
that it can feel hard. I know a pattern in myself that I’ve uncovered and
that I’m practicing to work through is that sometimes after a particularly
vulnerable situation or moment where I have really let my guard down and
felt really close, I sometimes tend to find a reason to put a wall up,
something that I have been working on. And it’s because I too am still
learning how to receive. I too, am undoing lifelong patterns of what it
means to receive.

And so I’m learning to just let myself be, let myself remember that I’m
safe. That I’m worthy of having. That it’s okay for me to have, it’s okay
for me to let people take care of me. That it doesn’t mean that I’m
incapable of it. It means that I’m allowing other people to help me. And it
feels wonderful. I want that for you too. Go practice receiving, go
practice being open. You are worthy. You are worthy of all the good things.
If it’s not coming to you from the person you are with, it will come. It
will come. You will have it.

All right. My friends. Thank you for being here. Can I just ask you a
favor? If you have been listening to this podcast and have not left a
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Okay. Thank you. I will see you again next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

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