Learning to Receive

A while ago I hurt my arm at Pilates. Nothing dramatic, just enough that I could not grip or pick things up, or open anything, with my right hand, my dominant hand. Lifting things over my head, holding a blow dryer at the right angle, using a crimping iron, all of it became either impossible or genuinely painful. I have since gone back to Pilates, and I am back to about ninety percent use of my hand and arm.

The injury itself was the hard part. Not being able to open my own jars or pick things up with my right hand made ordinary days genuinely difficult. It got particularly hard on a day I had a lot going on, ending with tickets to see No Doubt at the Sphere, which was a great show.

Before I left, I looked in the mirror. My hair was a frizzy mess. I reached for the crimping iron and could not do it. I could not lift my arm into position, and even if I could have, I could not compress the iron itself to crimp my hair.

I have had that particular kind of frustration before, the kind where I know exactly what needs to happen but my body simply is not cooperating. Some people might lash out at something when the feeling hits them. Some people yell. I stood in front of the mirror and cried, which is what I do, and I am not embarrassed to say so.

My David found me like that. He asked what was wrong. I told him I could not use my arm and I needed to crimp my hair. I explained, through the leftover tears, how the crimping iron worked, how to section off the hair, how to hold it, to what count. He took the crimping iron from the counter, since I could not hold it, and got to work. It took him twenty minutes, and when he was done, it looked great. Now we can continue to joke that he can do anything.

I have been revisiting that morning longer than the story probably warrants. Underneath the humor of it, something real happened. I was in such a vulnerable place, and I had an understanding of what it meant for David to be so generous with his time. I felt loved. I felt cared for in a moment when I had nothing to offer back, no way to be reciprocal in that moment, nothing except my own vulnerability laid out plainly in front of him.

I think we talk a great deal, in spiritual circles especially, about giving love, being of service, showing up for other people. I do that work, and I believe in it. I am not sure we talk enough about what it does to us to actually receive love, cleanly, without deflecting it or minimizing our need or rushing to earn it back. That morning I could not earn anything back. My arm simply would not let me. All I could do was let him help.

Something happened in me because of that. I now carry, in a very concrete way, the memory of what it feels like to be tended to, within and without condition. I have noticed that this memory has become useful. When I come across someone who needs a small act of kindness, someone frustrated or overwhelmed by something that should be simple and is not, I know what that moment can mean to them, because I have been on the receiving end of it. I am not guessing at how it might feel. I know how it feels.

This is part of why I believe love has to move in both directions to really do its work in us. If I only ever gave and never let myself receive, I think I would eventually run dry, or worse, I would start to believe love was something I dispense rather than something I also get to be held by. Having My David crimp my hair taught me more about compassion, in twenty minutes, than a great deal of reading has.

There is a version of me from years ago who might have refused the help. Who would have insisted on figuring it out alone, out of pride or the old belief that needing something makes you a burden. I am grateful that version of me has softened. I am gentler with myself now than I used to be, and part of what makes that possible is having people in my life who show me, in ordinary unglamorous ways, that being cared for is not a weakness. It is just love, doing what love does, when we let it.

It is worth noticing, too, that My David did not try to fix my arm or lecture me about seeing a doctor sooner or point out that I probably overdid it at Pilates. He simply asked what I needed in that specific moment and then did that one thing, well. There is a lesson in there about support that has nothing to do with solving someone's whole problem and everything to do with meeting the immediate need in front of you. Sometimes the kindest response to someone in distress is not a five step plan. It is just showing up with a crimping iron.

If you know what it feels like to be met in a moment of need with real kindness, hold onto that memory. It is not just a nice thing that happened once. It is a template, teaching your body and your heart what to offer the next person standing in front of a mirror, frustrated, needing help they do not know how to ask for.

What I am contemplating this week is where I still resist receiving the very love I am so quick to offer everyone else.