Strong Enough to Receive

Dear Sovereign Reader,

I wanted help. I just didn’t know how to receive it without feeling like I had failed at something.

For a long time, doing was how I knew myself. I worked. I figured things out. When something needed to happen, I became the person who made it happen.

People called me strong. They also described me as being in my masculine energy.

I had always been a tomboy, but I eventually learned that this conversation reached much further than clothes, heels, or how I presented myself. It touched how I moved through life, and whether I knew how to let anything come toward me without immediately working for it.

That way of living had a history.

At seventeen, I was working and carrying financial responsibilities at home. I remember giving my mother money for a bill and then not having enough left for my senior pictures.

When I told my boyfriend, he suggested asking my mother.

I couldn’t. I had just given her the money.

We were both teenagers, but we were carrying different responsibilities. I remember feeling frustrated with him, as though he had done something wrong. Looking back, I understand that he didn’t know how to help me navigate something he hadn’t experienced.

What became familiar was figuring it out. Rearranging the money. Working harder. Going without rest. Finding another way.

That resourcefulness helped me build a life. As my responsibilities grew, so did the expectation that I should be able to handle them.

I became the educated one. I had the education, the car, the job. People looked to me for answers, and I began to believe I should have all of them.

Even at home.

I had three young sons. I was in college, working, and building a business. I would look at my house and compare it with my friends’ homes. They seemed to keep everything clean and organized.

Why couldn’t I?

I gave myself very little room to consider everything I was carrying. I saw what wasn’t done and questioned myself.

Eventually, I hired a nanny and housekeeper who could help with cleaning and cooking.

The judgment I feared did come. People made comments about needing someone to clean my house or prepare meals for my family. Those comments touched the inadequacy I already felt.

But I also remember the relief.

Knowing she was coming. Walking into a clean house. Knowing my children had a home-cooked meal and I wasn’t bringing home McDonald’s or pizza again.

I could hardly articulate how much that helped.

I knew the help was helping. I was still afraid of what needing it said about me.

I knew the help was helping. I was still afraid of what needing it said about me.

So I kept the help, but I became quieter about receiving it.

I had changed something in my circumstances. My expectations of myself were taking longer to change.

There was another message I heard often growing up: “It is better to give than to receive.”

The biblical wording in Acts 20:35 is, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Paul recalls those words of Jesus while encouraging care for people in need.

I still value that teaching about generosity. But I wonder whether, somewhere along the way, I absorbed another meaning: that being the giver made me stronger, more valuable, or more deserving of respect.

I don’t believe that was necessarily what anyone intended to teach me. Still, I am learning to examine the meaning I carried.

Giving was familiar. I knew how to contribute, provide, and make myself useful. Receiving put me in a position I understood less well.

Even my giving carried a quiet sense of not enoughness. I knew I was giving all I had, and still my body and my mind would ask, Could I have done more?

Had I made giving a place where I felt worthy, while treating receiving as evidence that I had fallen short?

Eventually, I sought out a feminine coach because I wanted to understand how to receive.

Through that coaching, masculine and feminine energy became language for exploring capacities we all carry, regardless of gender: taking action and being receptive, initiating something and allowing someone else to contribute.

I knew how to act. I was learning how to receive.

What I noticed most was how reactive I was to receiving. When someone did something for me, I felt an immediate impulse to do something back, or an impulse to say no.

My body knew giving. Receiving felt unfamiliar.

In the beginning, it wasn’t easy. I leaned on what I teach in my ART method. I became aware of the impulse. I let it be present without judgment until my body grew more comfortable. Then I chose a different response.

That learning included recognizing receptivity as a capacity I could bring to my role as a CEO. I could listen, accept assistance, and benefit from another person’s knowledge without first establishing everything I already knew.

Doing had become part of who I believed I had to be. Receiving asked me to make room for more of myself.

Doing had become part of who I believed I had to be. Receiving asked me to make room for more of myself.

This is where I recognize what I call a Pierre pattern: the moments when receiving feels as though it could cost us our standing as the capable one.

Many of us experience that pattern. An offer comes, and we hear a judgment about our ability.

Someone suggests another approach, and we feel compelled to explain our own. We want relief, but we also want to protect the version of ourselves everyone has come to rely on.

Today, as an executive director and business owner, I see how much becomes possible through delegation and collaboration. Support gives me room to be in my gift and serve through it. Other people bring skills and perspectives that improve the work.

There is a be-do-have question underneath this for me:

Who am I being while I do all of this?

If I am always being the person who must manage alone, I can accomplish a great deal and still leave little room to experience the life I am building. Another achievement can become another responsibility to carry.

I am learning to participate on both sides of a relationship: contributing and receiving, acting and listening, caring for others and allowing myself to be considered.

Someone else’s generosity needs room to reach me, too.

Receiving still involves discernment. Some offers don’t fit. Some come with conditions. We can ask questions, set boundaries, or decline.

Sovereignty includes that choice. It also includes the freedom to say yes without treating our need as a loss of authority.

This month, notice what happens when support comes toward you.

Do you consider the offer, or say “I’m okay” before you’ve even heard it?

Can you experience a moment of relief without rushing to repay it?

What might become possible if you allowed someone else to contribute?

You can begin with one small moment. Listen to the offer. Notice the meaning you attach to it. Give yourself enough room to choose.

Receiving does not erase your strength.

For me, it has created room to experience more of the life my strength helped me build.

I explore this further in this month’s LIFE By Design blog, When “I’m Okay” Leaves No Room to Receive, a closer look at the cultural history behind appearing strong, keeping our needs private, and learning to let trustworthy support reach us.

If you recognize yourself here, I invite you to continue reading there.

And when you’re ready to explore your own patterns more intentionally, the L.I.F.E. Readiness Assessment offers another place to begin.

With clarity and care,

Dr. Shiela Little, PhD, LMSW

Emotional Strategist  |  Creator of the STOP IT NOW® Methodology