Practicing to Receive Love

Photo: Unsplash: James Crabel

I have loved others fully, as if I were trying to prove something. If I gave enough, stayed long enough, showed up in every way I knew how, I believed I would eventually earn the kind of love that felt safe. I am very good at giving. I anticipate needs before they are spoken. I fix what isn’t mine to fix. I hold things together even when I am quietly falling apart. I thought that was love.

I had learned how to give love in a way that kept me in control. If I were the one pouring, I wouldn’t have to sit in the place of needing anything in return. Giving felt active. Receiving feels the most vulnerable.

What I have had to understand is that I had never actually learned how to receive love.

When dealing with a love that doesn’t require me to be performative, the kind of love that showed up steady, consistent, not demanding anything from me, I don’t relax into it. I question it. I wait for it to change. I search for signs that it would eventually require the same level of overextension I had come to expect.

It wasn’t because something was wrong with the love, it’s because receiving it feels unfamiliar.

My entire life, I have associated love with effort. If I wasn’t doing something, fixing something, or giving something, it didn’t feel real. Simply being cared for, I have no idea how to settle into it. My instinct is to balance it out, to give something back immediately, to make sure I wasn’t owing anything.

That’s when I realized that receiving love is not passive; it’s a skill I don’t possess. And like anything else, it requires consistent practice.

Practicing receiving love has meant slowing down my instinct to overgive. It has meant allowing someone to show up for me without immediately trying to match it or manage it. It has meant sitting in moments where nothing is wrong and resisting the urge to fix problems just because receiving love feels unfamiliar.

Because receiving love will highlight the places where you still believe you have to earn it. It will bring up the urge to perform, to show, to prove, to justify your presence in someone’s life. And if you’re not aware of it, you will slip right back into giving, failing to receive.

Some days, practicing receiving love looks simple: letting someone help without resisting it, accepting care without downplaying it, and allowing yourself to be seen without trying to present a stronger version.

Other days, it’s more intentional.

Catching yourself before overextending, pausing when you feel the need to even the score

Reminding myself that love is not a transaction. This will be one of the more difficult shifts for most of us, as giving love feels natural. Receiving requires you to trust not just the other person, but the idea that you are worthy of being loved without extending constant effort.

That happens through repetition. Through small, consistent choices to allow love to reach you instead of redirecting and rejecting it. Through learning to sit in care without questioning how long it will last or what it will cost.

I’ve also had to learn that this practice doesn’t start with someone else. It starts with me loving myself enough. How I respond to my own needs, how I speak to myself, and if I am willing to offer myself the same care I so easily give to others.

I have had to practice recognizing love when it comes from me; if not, I won’t fully recognize it when it comes from anyone else.

Love is not just something you give well. It’s something you allow yourself to receive, but if you don’t practice allowing it, you will spend your life overgiving in places that only require you to receive.

I still catch myself moving too quickly to give, to fix, to prove. But I’m more aware now. I pause and, with effort, choose differently; that’s what practice looks like.

No measuring against perfection or instant change, but a continuous willingness to show up differently, again and again. Practicing receiving love has been about becoming the kind of person who can actually hold what is offered.

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Rosalind Jackson Stewart

Rosalind Jackson-Stewart, aka Roz

A fierce mother of five and loving grandmother of 21, Rosalind is full of overprotective, all-inclusive love for those who belong to her. She loves fiercely, completely, and believes in giving one hundred percent of herself.

A lover of words, random facts, researching, and the Bible – Roz writes her thoughts, dreams, and inspirations to share with her closest friends.

A firm believer of love, life, laughter, and loyalty, seeking any opportunity to take a quick road trip or a mini-vacation.