I live in a community that’s right out of “Little House on the Prairie”, complete with neighbors who care deeply about each other and that fussbudget at the County Store.  

For good or for bad, we tend to know more about each other’s business than we might like. Definitely not as much as when we were a community of 60 families since today we’re closer to 800 families, but a whole lot more than your average Tel Avivit knows about her neighbor across the hall.

The upside has always been that if someone was sick or had just given birth or was having financial trouble, the community could be counted on to come through with meals, clean laundry and even a no interest loan. The downside, of course, is the fussbudget at the County Store syndrome. After all, we all know what’s best for the wayward teenager of our neighbor who was seen in a sleeveless blouse downtown or the wife of the husband who never helps with the household chores.  

But even my community has not been left in its bubble of the ’50s in the USA with all the “progress” of the late 20th and early 21st centuries…whether it be the isolation made possible by wonderful new technologies or the frantic pace of business as usual with two breadwinners in the family.

Long gone are those lazy afternoons when mothers sat in the parks chatting with other mothers while their children happily played for hours. Those moms are rushing home from work to pick up their children at the after care center at 4 or 5.

Gone, too, are the hours spent sitting on the steps outside picking lice out of our children’s hair and chatting amiably.  Well, I guess that’s best gone and forgotten. But, truth be told, I have fond memories of those shared hours with my neighbors.

And as my generation – the pioneers and founding folks of the community – has mellowed into our 60’s and our children have married and begun to raise their own families, we’ve also found interests outside the community and left for the afternoons and evenings, shutting our doors, eyes and ears, behind us.

Part and parcel, I believe, of this natural process has been an adoption of that old adage, “It is better to give than to receive.”

When I gave birth to my fifth child, Rafael, who’s now 31 and awaiting his 2nd child’s birth as I write, I had a medical occurrence which resulted in a month’s stay in the hospital and 3 months of very limited activity once I finally arrived home.

We had only moved to our community the previous year and didn’t know all that many people all that well. By the time I came home from the hospital the community had a roster for people to make sure we had dinner delivered every day, to be available for shopping, childcare and household maintenance chores. The community nurse came every week to give me an injection I required, even though she was technically employed by a national health insurance plan other than ours.

Everything was done cheerfully and matter-of-factly. To this day I feel bonded with many of those people, even though we have not gone on to become actual friends, or even had occasion to meet very often. 

My neighbor has cancer. I don’t know what kind. She divorced from her 2nd husband after less than 2 years of marriage while I was on vacation recently. I don’t know why. I only know that she’s refused help of any kind.

I have a good friend who, over the course of our 30 year close relationship, has had her ups and downs like we all do. She refuses to acknowledge any difficulties…ever…and always refuses help.

Somehow, “It is better to give than to receive” has infiltrated our hearts, minds, lives, deep into our innermost belief system. Never mind that it makes no logical sense—to give requires someone to receive, so for someone it must be better to receive.  But who knows who that person might be. The other guy, I guess.

For the past few decades, we’ve practiced giving religiously; even while sometimes really REALLY needing to receive.  We could be counted on not only to give charity, but also to give our time, support, and skills. And then, in a rare blue moon, we just might be sad for a nanosecond for feeling unappreciated, all the while still giving.

If we ever knew, we seem to have forgotten how to receive. A compliment, countering any comment with insight about our faults or a deflection of the significance of what’s being complimented.

A gift? We immediately feel the need to give something in return, preferably bigger.

A kindness; we wave people away from helping us in a grocery line, no matter that we’re dropping bread as we speak.

How can we have gone through so much life and acquired so little experience with such a fundamental act as the ability to receive?

Maybe because we see receiving as involving vulnerability. When we give, we feel in charge.  When we receive, we feel less so.

Give feels like an action word; receive feels like something passive. Yet this is so mistaken! Giving and receiving are yin and yang, the equivalent of the infinity symbol—looping back and forth, neither side larger than the other, both integral to the larger whole.

Receiving creates a bond. A closeness. A trust. It allows for giving in return at some other juncture in life’s path.

I used to be the Queen of Giving and the Queen of Never Receiving in Return. But it got seriously old about a decade and a half ago and I’ve been learning to practice this shift into comfortable receiving ever since – slowly, one baby step at a time.

I receive a compliment with a simple thank you , no matter that inside I might be discounting the words.

It’s a learned skill. We can all learn this. We can let the words of a compliment sink in and fill an empty space. We can accept a gift with a thank you and let that be enough, even if we have to sit on our hands to keep from jumping up to return the favor.

We can let others help us with grace and the profound gratitude that someone wants to be of service.

We can let others have the fun of giving.

And ultimately, this is how we can give in a more genuine way and from a healthier place, by learning to refill our needs through receiving.

Giving to quench our own need will never be enough.

When we give, not from a full heart, but from an empty space that needs recognition, it’s exhausting.  Giving from our own need leads to resentment, victimhood, and even financial distress.  Yet I’ve learned that giving from a full heart is replenishing and sustaining. It brings joy into my own life.

And how wonderful when someone helps fill my heart with her giving so that I can bring joy into my own life through receiving…and then giving.

Here are  5 reminders another blogger recommended to help learn this new skill.

1. To begin, I must accept the basic premise that I am enough.

That before I give a thing, before I receive anything, I am enough just standing here. The act of giving or receiving doesn’t change this at all.

2.  I am becoming more discerning with giving.

I’m learning to examine my needs as well as the needs of others. To see when my gift is truly given from love and when it comes with expectations. To see when the expectations are self-imposed and when they come from others.

3. I am making room in my life for receiving.

This includes being aware of all the ways I can receive, whether it is accepting kind words, a stranger’s smile, or being let into the stream of traffic. I know that as I receive, I am becoming more comfortable with the art of receiving. I am staying conscious of how my receiving empowers those who are giving to me.

4. I am relaxing into the feeling of receiving…

…becoming okay with the feeling of openness that is necessary to truly receive. I allow this open space to be available to receive.

5. I remind myself that this is fun and joyful.

There’s no reason not to join in the fun!

How do you  open up to receiving?