Offerings of Giving and Receiving

My recent newsletter has been nudging me to become a blog post… hope it resonates with you. And if you want to sign up for future newsletters, you can do so here.

It’s been a while! Over two months since I sent my last newsletter out. That is the longest pause since I started them back in 2016. Thank you for being here and for receiving these musings and offerings (whether you just joined or have been along for a while). 

Truth is, I didn’t have much to say. I didn’t have as much capacity to offer because, I realized, I’d become caught in a pattern of only responding and being available. I like responding. I like being available and present. These are all helpful things. 

What I was neglecting was my own need to receive.

So I paused. I focused on school and writing fairy tales. I went to more yoga classes, swing dances, and lectures at the library. I gave myself a Wellspring Acu-Sound healing session with my friend Annie. I didn’t retreat–not like how I used to where I’d be away in a training and offline completely for a week or ten days, but I did realize I miss those times of retreating.

I did take the opportunity for a trip to Salt Lake City that came my way. While there, I turned my out-of-office on for five days and and spent a whole day driving to the Salt Flats. I had no agenda and no time to be back. No meetings or work. Nothing to be available for or respond to. 

That evening, upon returning from the adventure, I met a great human. 

Talking with him was supportive. I let myself receive, even in listening. He asked questions about the past 20 years of life made me realize just how much has transformed. And how much I had forgotten. 

I had forgotten how much I re-engineered my life and path. I had forgotten how far I’ve come. I had forgotten myself.

I had also forgotten the huge web of healers who are in Brooklyn (and NYC). I didn’t forget that they are here, but I had started to take it for granted. Moving to NYC was a significant part of becoming a healing arts practitioner. Something my soul longed for. It is also where I found the people who taught me how to heal and who gave me so much, so that I now have so much to give.

From taking a moment to remember, I started to see, in a new way, the web so many of us are generating through energy healing and yoga and all kinds of spiritual offerings here in NYC and around the world.  

Reflecting on his questions made me realize how much I have forgotten about my own path and myself. I’d become a bit lost, and I hadn’t noticed.

Reflecting on his questions made me realize how I spend time and energy focusing on how things aren’t. This goes hand-in-hand with how much I had forgotten and had stopped noticing. All this has done is create feelings of despair. 

This story of despair (because it isn’t real–it’s definitely just a pattern of thought) comes from cutting off the receptive parts of myself and denying who I am. Trying to minimize, not matter, stay small. But I am not small, and I am finally recognizing that I will no longer diminish myself. 

Something significant has changed from these interactions that I did not see coming.

I remembered who I am.

This remembering came from giving myself nourishment and the space and time to connect.

From this remembering, I’ve found an even deeper understanding and appreciation for all that I also have to offer. All that I enjoy offering and hope will be received by others. I have spent so much time worrying and believing that what I do and who I am won’t be received or received well and that worry is now gone. 

Now, instead of focusing on what isn’t, I’m focusing on what is. And from that place there is strength and abundance and balanced power.

I can feel the flip within me and in my mind–like the blinders have been taken off.

So now, with open eyes, heart, and mind, I am more ready than ever to step in and step up. To offer without worry. To offer without holding back (yes, this has been me holding back and hiding all these years… haha). Offering, I realize as I write this, is entirely different from responding. It holds the nature and energy of exchange–giving and receiving or co-creating with those who are present. This also nourishes me and, I hope, nourishes others too. 

I share these insights, as always, in case they resonate with you in some way. In case perhaps you need to rebalance around giving and receiving or have a minute for a life review that lays open all of where you have come from and healed. And I state them to reinforce and make them more true because this is a commitment to myself: I’m ready.