“No one can ask another to be healed. But he can let himself be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received. Who can bestow upon another what he does not have? And who can share what he denies himself?” ~ ACIM
Happy Sunday!
This week Peter told me that the song sung by Anne Murray “You Needed Me” always had great meaning for him. I remembered the song but needed to look up the lyrics. When I read them I was confused; the singer is saying how the other person lifted them up and then saying that the other person needed them. I spent time thinking and writing about the song that evening and gained many insights about the song and myself.
The composer of the song, Randy Goodrum, said it was about “unconditional undeserved love”. This helped me to appreciate the message of the song because I found myself hung up on ‘need’. I understand unconditional love, when I replace the thought of need with LOVE, wow! I get the song on many levels.
So what is my issue with need? This is what I want to contemplate this morning.
In my mind I say to myself I don’t need anyone or anything. I know this is a lie; I am lying to myself.
From a spiritual perspective that I hold now, not needing seems to reflect an understanding that I am eternal and don’t need any of the stuff of this life. The strange thing is I used to say to myself I didn’t need anyone or anything before I ‘woke up’ so I was lying back then too. What am I hiding?
Peter has told me that there are one of three core beliefs that we hold onto to judge ourselves; we feel we are either unlovable, unworthy, or helpless. Key to my ‘waking up’ back in 2012 was the realization that I was worthy to know and understand; this changed me. Now I am wondering if I hold something deep down regarding feeling helpless that is the cause of my aversion to needing.
Am I afraid of being helpless so I won’t acknowledge needing anything?
I was not sure where I was going with this writing so I ‘googled’ “what’s the difference between loving and needing?” I read a few blogs by psychologists regarding want and need in relationships. I was surprised to read that my first sense against needing was possibly true as need in relationships is either to fill something that is missing in one-self or about being dependent.
So maybe I wasn’t so off with not wanting to be needy but I am sensing that this is not really what I am seeking to understand. I feel this has something to do with what I wrote about last week when I learned to seek out a person’s intention in situations when mis-understanding is occurring. There was more to the trouble with Peter and I than that – I think I am to reflect on my having a problem with receiving.
If you need something, you have to be willing to receive it. If you give something it has to be accepted.
I think I am OK when others do for me the tasks that are part of their roles, Peter doing the husband things or my assistants at work doing their regular tasks, but when someone does something ‘for me’ that is unexpected I feel disturbed by it instead of receiving it as help. I am sure the intention of the other is to help so why can I not recognize that and receive it?
I get it … ‘you reap what you sow’ which means what I want to give will not be received until I can be receptive!
As I think over my life I don’t find any pain that maybe the cause of this but it was well ingrained in my head that ‘it is better to give then to receive’. I think that I just need to learn that it is OK to receive. This thought brings about a change in me, I feel like my heart is more open. Perhaps receiving takes a bigger heart even than giving!
I can recall numerous Christmases taking in the joy of seeing my gifts accepted and appreciated but giving little attention to what was given to me. I thought the giving was most important, my ignoring the fact that by not receiving I was not allowing those who gave to me to have the same joyful experience I was having. There is that selfishness again!
In giving the ego gets so much reward: feeling superior in being able to give, hiding true emotion in the form of the giving of an object, and the approval of others when the gift is received.
To receive I feel I must open my heart to accept and understand the kind intention behind the gift and, here is the big one … accept that I am worthy of the gift!
Whoa … it is still there. I thought I had conquered it and it has been lying low in another form.
And … there is more! Vulnerability!
To receive is to make your self vulnerable. I have to be willing to accept Love in and not fear that it may not be forever. Someday it may be gone and that may hurt but right now we are connected in LOVE.
OK, I feel like this little trek this morning has had me open many doors and to peer in. Can I pull this all together into one Truth to hold onto?
The thing that I do need is to learn and grow, God has blessed me with this life to do so in this Earth School. I learn from everything in this life so I need everyone and everything.
I believe Love is the greatest lesson of all; today I have realized another way to give Love and that is by allowing myself to receive.
Amen.