The Practice of Receiving | Where Life Supports Us

One of my teachers asked a question that has stayed with me ever since:

Where is life already supporting you?

It’s such a simple question, but I noticed how quickly my mind wanted to leap somewhere else.

To the things I haven’t figured out yet. The conversations I’m still having. The dreams I’m still working towards. The places that still feel uncertain.

Our minds are brilliant at scanning for what’s missing.

They’re much less practised at noticing what’s already here.

Our attention goes to what's missing

I’ve been experimenting with turning my attention towards what is here.

Not in a “look on the bright side” kind of way. Not as a way of pretending that difficult things aren't difficult, or that uncertainty disappears if we simply practise enough gratitude.

But as a genuine practice of receiving.

Of noticing the small moments of support that are so easy to overlook when our attention is fixed on what needs changing, fixing or figuring out.

Receiving the friend who checks in.

Receiving the swim that clears my head.

Receiving a really good cup of coffee.

Receiving an evening where I don’t have to rush anywhere.

Receiving help when someone offers it, instead of immediately saying, “No, no, I’m fine.”

The practice of receiving

Because if I’m honest, I think I’m much better at giving than I am at receiving.

And perhaps that’s true for many of us.

We spend so much of our lives holding things together, looking after other people, planning ahead, anticipating what needs doing and trying to improve ourselves that we forget to notice the quiet ways life is already holding us.

There’s something interesting about receiving because, in some ways, it asks us to do less.

To stop reaching for a moment.

To soften our grip.

To allow something to come towards us without immediately feeling the need to earn it, reciprocate it or turn it into something productive.

Perhaps receiving is its own kind of practice.

The quiet ways life holds us

The warmth of the sun on your face.

The sea.

Your dog asleep beside you.

The smell of tomatoes growing in the greenhouse.

The conversation that arrives exactly when you needed it.

None of these things solve life’s difficulties.

But they remind us that support doesn’t always arrive in grand gestures.

Sometimes it whispers.

Sometimes it looks like beauty.

Sometimes it's another person.

Sometimes it's the earth beneath us, quietly continuing to hold our weight.

And sometimes it simply asks us to slow down long enough to notice.

So perhaps, instead of searching for more, there is another question we might sit with:

Where is life already quietly holding me?

With love,

Emilie x

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