Happy Friday the Thirteenth, dear loves, and welcome to the Open Mic! I can’t wait to chat with you in the comments.
Last week I got together with some writer friends and we were discussing our plans for this year. Ron, who was hosting, posed an interesting question: if you could make a request to the people around you, or to humanity at large, what would you ask for? (Well, this may not have been his exact question, but it’s my interpretation of it.)
I find it an intriguing question. We ask people for things all the time: hugs, favors, a cup of sugar, forgiveness. But wanting something, and being able to receive it, are two different things. The first time I heard my yoga teachers talk about a “receiving” practice, I thought this was hokey, but now I realize it’s profound. Just as you can give with a closed heart (grudgingly, carelessly, automatically) or an open one, you can receive in the same spirit: closed-down, taking the gift at its face value (or less) — or opened completely to receiving whatever it will become in you.
So what would you ask for? What could you rise to receive in the fullest spirit possible?
I realize this could be a very personal question, so no pressure to share if you’d rather not. Only, if the question does something for you, I hope you’ll comment on that even if you don’t explain what you’d ask for. 🙂
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Lisa, I love this question! What I would ask to receive from others is exactly what I try to give to others (though not always successfully) and that is to recognize me — to see me as I am in Reality. Namaste. A bow of the had over raised hands. “The God in me acknowledges the God in You.” No judgment or criticism. Just I AM and Thou Art and we are One.
Indeed, Sherry, this is one of the hardest things to do with one another. I loved the book The Four Agreements because it says, essentially, that everything we know is a product of what we imagine. (“We see things not as they are, but as we are.” That’s from Anaïs Nin, but the book is by Don Miguel Ruiz.) We so often see other people as projections of how we think of ourselves, or how we understand the world. It’s understandable but it’s also sad because we’re so limited by what we can imagine of each other. So much deeper and more interesting (and sometimes scary) to try to see people without any preconceptions.
On a related note, I was telling these same IWL friends in the same get-together that I was once reading a meditation book on BART. When I got out in downtown Berkeley I was crossing the street and I had a moment where I really, completely felt that every person was my brother or sister, and we were all one. It was so beautiful and shocking and vulnerable that after a few moments of that sensation, I completely freaked out and went back to my usual way of being! It was a feeling of boundarylessness; what freaked me out was recognizing that if someone came up to me and attacked, I would respond only with love and peace and compassion. Very different.
Oh, yes, Lisa! I know that feeling too! That expansiveness/boundarylessness is, I think, our natural state of being. But our small self-protective self is such a habit that it is only rarely that in a moment when we think not, it surprises us with it’s beauty……My son gave me a copy of The Four Agreements a few years ago, but I still haven’t read it. I need to get it out.
I actually read Mastery of Love, his second book, before I read The Four Agreements. I don’t know if that order would work for everyone, but it did for me.
I’m with Sherry on this one – no judgment.
So difficult to do and so worthwhile. 🙂
What a question this is. I’ve been struggling lately with how I receive (in the past year or so when I’ve noticed it more.) I realize that sometimes I don’t express my gratefulness from a place of openness. It’s as if a part of me closes down, as if I’m sure deep down that I’m unworthy or doing something wrong. I haven’t figured it out yet. I want to be gracious and open whether I’m giving or receiving, but it’s weirdly hard for me.
I’m not sure what I would ask for simply for me. The only thing I can think to ask of humanity is that we care about examining and truly understanding the thought processes, motivations, desires and feelings of others, because that knowledge produces the ways we all get better at living with each other. I want us to all remember that that’s what we do here on earth. Live together.
It is a huge question, right? I love how everyone is responding to it. I imagine you are not alone in closing down when receiving; that must be why the yogis tell us to make a practice of it. I think we as women are especially conditioned to downplay our own needs and worry that if other people are taking care of us, we owe them, or we’ve fallen down on the job, or we’re causing too much trouble.
I wish for that empathy and compassionate inquiry too. It always amazes and saddens me when I see people don’t believe we’re all here to live together.
I would ask for kindness. That everyone could stop for a moment and act with kindness towards one another. Negative energy can be so draining and when you’re kind to someone it can really lift you and the person up.
Very good question; thanks for posting :)!
Thanks for responding, Ariane! 🙂 Kindness can go a long way, that’s for sure. Even just a smile can do a lot. I blogged once in college about how scary it can sometimes feel to just smile at strangers; it can feel like a rejection whenever anyone doesn’t smile back. But it’s good practice. 🙂
I remember my grandmother always telling me that it was easier to give than to receive. I believe there is ego associated with giving, whether we realize it or not, and a little humiliation maybe, with receiving. I have a very hard time asking for help, chopping firewood, doing dishes, feeding dogs. But when I do get help with those chores, I do not receive graciously at all. Outwardly I do, inwardly I get mad at myself for needing the help. I think that I should be able to do everything my family needs, and see the need for help as failure.
Ooh, I love that bit of grandmotherly wisdom. I think there is ego with giving… at least there is with me, much as I wish it weren’t so. I think it’s not just humility I feel with receiving — I’m afraid I’m not much good at humility — but vulnerability. I was raised to believe that interactions between people are like a balance sheet; you don’t let someone do you a favor without doing them an even bigger one back. So sometimes, when I’ve received a lot from someone, I feel disconcertingly beholden, with a “debt” I can’t pay back.
I noted in my comment to Ré above that I think we women feel a lot of pressure to not need anything, and to instead provide for everyone else.
I love reading everyone’s responses to this question!!! When Ron asked us last week, I couldn’t think of what I would ask from other people, but something I’d ask of myself (in relation to others): trust. In the usual way of speaking, I’m a trusting person, but lately I’ve become more aware that I have a deep reservedness toward others. I think it’s related to my need for control, and my belief that no one else will ever do things as well as I will (which is to say: other people will always let me down). I think, for someone who is extremely open in many ways as well as extremely loving, I actually hold back quite a lot.
Now that I think of it, this is related to the loneliness I wrote about a month ago. When I feel lonely, it’s not because I think there’s no one who loves me, but I fear I’m not loved the way I want to be loved. In other words, I don’t trust the people who love me to do the job right! And isn’t that depressing? I want to be able to trust myself more — to let myself be imperfectly me — and trust others to do the same, to be imperfectly themselves no matter if I find it disappointing. I want to let us all off the hook of perfection.
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