Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. 0:01
PH, women crave rest, support, love and abundance, yet when it arrives, many of us freeze, deflect or overcompensate. This episode explores why receiving often feels unsafe, how that wound was initially created, and how to reclaim the art of feminine receiving without fear guilt or possible danger. Welcome to the satisfied woman podcast. I'm your host. Alanna Kaivalya, this podcast is dedicated to helping women lean into their femininity and rediscover the power of their feminine gifts. We take a look at what it means to be a modern woman and how we can live a satisfied life on our own terms. So this is a challenging topic, and I'm really glad that we are here to unpack it in this podcast. I have done another podcast about the feminine art of receiving but honestly, this is such a huge issue for so many of us that it's worth taking a look at it from several different angles, because when I talk to women about receptivity and about the feminine principle of receptivity, I sometimes get the response it's like, okay, sure, Alanna, yeah, I'd love to receive but how do I do that? That sounds all well and good, but I've spent a lifetime over giving, overdoing, offering myself so much that I have nothing left of myself. Now that's not an uncommon refrain, and if you feel that way, I want to honor you by letting you know that you are not alone even the most accomplished and confident women struggle to receive. It's difficult to receive a compliment, it's difficult to accept or ask for help, and it can be especially difficult to receive money with ease. And one of the big reasons for that is because for so long, for too long. Receiving, for a woman, has come with a cost. It's come with strings. It's come with a sense of debt or owing another. This resistance to wanting to receive, this constant desire to re, deflect it or continue to over give, is not a weakness. It's a protection mechanism, because for centuries, we have learned that receiving is so costly. We're praised for giving, for caring, for pouring out ourselves, but receiving danger sometimes lives there and our bodies. Remember that look, if you've ever been to a bar and had someone try to buy you a drink? As a lady, you know that that often comes with an implied response. If you've ever accepted help from someone, you understand that there's an implied sense of reciprocity. And I recently had an interaction with a woman in my community who was frustrated with her partner because he asked her, What do you bring to the table? He's making the money. He's bringing home the primary financial safety and security. He's doing what he can as her partner to provide for her, but he's not doing it generously. Instead, he's doing it with strings attached and making her feel like she's not enough. She's not doing enough, and then everything that she does contribute still leaves her in deficit. I share these stories because they're common. I share these stories because on some level, we've probably all lived at least one aspect of them, and because we've all likely, as women, been trained that any kind of receiving, anytime we ask for help, anytime we take things on, anytime we just want To rest in our receptivity, we are pegged as selfish, maybe you like me grew up with being selfish as one of the most difficult and damaging qualities you could imagine someone calling you or thinking that You are a selfish woman is an ungrateful woman, and a selfish and ungrateful woman is a woman that no one does anything for, includes or accepts. So this idea of receiving, for many of us, actually trigger triggers internalized beliefs that we've all been embedded with in this cultural conditioning that we're living through, like it's selfish to want more, or I don't deserve that, or if I accept anything, I not just owe something back, but I know I owe more than my share back, oftentimes in our Alanna. A cultural conditioning in our history. A woman's value is tied to her service, to her ability to comply with her family unit, her community, to be submissive, subservient, and to offer not just labor, as in literal labor, but to offer all the labor that is available for a woman to offer, like emotional labor, psychological labor, the labor of managing the household, and even to some extent, physical labor, let's not kid ourselves. Having a family, raising children and being a woman in the world is a very physical and laborious experience, but most women in history are rewarded for what they give, not for how open they are to receive. So the moment something is offered, our nervous system is already wired to say something like, be careful. This could cost you. We already shrink or collapse into this idea of receptivity, and let me tell you something that is incredibly detrimental, not just to us, but to all of those around us, if we're constantly giving and over giving in order to try to prevent this sense of owing someone, in order to protect ourselves from the outside world in order to try to stay small, then we are denying our communities, our family, ourselves, the light, the messages, the gifts, the magic that we have to offer. Anything that causes us to shrink, anything that causes us to play small, anything that causes us to remain in fear or to have a lack of security or safety. We're going to need to start in as many ways as possible to course correct. Now you all have heard me, I'm sure talk about curating our life. This is one of the directives I offer you as an actual, practical, concrete solution to moving more into your femininity, we want to start to curate the relationships, places, spaces, experiences, career opportunities, anything, communities that allow us or encourage us even to play small, that continuously demand things of us that we don't any longer have the energy to give because all of this is costly for us, and we have paid our dues over and over. Receiving has been costly in this cultural narrative that says women are only here to give when a woman accepts a gift or a gesture that later carries expectation that helps us, that makes us put our guardrails up, when a drink at a bar becomes a contract that we never signed, that makes us clam up and shut down if a favor turns into leverage That feels like coercion and control those kinds of receptivity are not receiving, not with clarity and not with the feminine power that we're all desiring to cultivate. Instead, that is all coercion disguised as generosity. And when your body learns that that kind of coercive expression leads to danger. Of course, you start rejecting the gift before it ever lands. But you're not broken. You're protecting yourself. And that makes sense when we don't have healthy, proper forms of protection, of providership in our lives as women, we collapse and we shut down in order to try to do that for ourselves. That's our own masculine energy doing its best, overworking most likely to try and provide the protection and the support that we need and that we're looking for. Now I want to name that it is possible, of course, especially in this modern day age for a woman to provide herself protection and support. We can make money, we can have our own houses, we can have our own bank accounts, we can have our own families. That is all possible. What I want us to remember is that as humans, we are designed for relationship, and oftentimes our greatest growth, both psychologically, energetically, emotionally, personally, comes through relationship. So even though we may choose times being single, when we have times of being in relationship or partnership or in community or however we want that to look, we want to make sure that we as the feminine are able to safely and confidently receive, because when we when we equate receptivity with risk, we armor up, and that armor prevents us from being authentically ourselves, and it prevents the world from fully seeing who we.
Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. 10:00
Are instead we over give we try to stay busy in order to stay safe. But ladies, I want us to do something different, because it's been too long that it's been like this. We don't need social contracts that say anything we receive is owed in multiples. We're not here to shoulder the burden of not just giving, but over giving in order to stay safe and supported in our lives and our communities and our relationships. When we downshift, when we take up space, when we allow those walls to fall, not only do we give ourselves permission to be most fully who we are, but we both allow and train others around us to treat us with generosity. We teach people how to treat us to some extent, and we give them the opportunity to rise into that healthy expression of generosity. Now I know that not everybody will. I get it. We cannot issue and offer all of the invitations possible for those around us to rise into healthy generosity that doesn't have that coercive contract laid upon it, that doesn't have an amount due at the end, that isn't asking. What are we bringing the table? We are the table. We are the foundational support that those around us need, but we need to be healthy in order to offer it. We are that vessel that houses the boundaries, the security, the purpose, everything that lives just lives are built on, but for us to be that incredible vessel, we need to be boundaried, we need to be safe, we need to be secure, we need to trust and we need to be cherished. Now if you recognize those things, and you've probably read my book and understand that those are the four keys, those four keys are required for any woman to feel ready to receive and ready to step into her feminine power, because true receiving listen close. True receiving is never transactional. It's rooted in sovereignty, in knowing that what comes towards you is yours to accept, not yours to repay. Active receptivity. Because, look, the point isn't as a feminine woman to sit back relax. Need Bon Bons all day. You're busy. I'm busy. We've got stuff to do. We've got important things to do. Look, I'm here doing my best to create a movement of modern femininity so that we can all thrive. I can't relax and eat bonbons all day. I can't just expect the world to do things for me. What we need as women is to have the support and the boundaries around us so that the energy that we have, we're able to give it in exactly the places that we want, not in the places trying to drain it from us. Because when we are drained of our essential feminine energy, when we are drained of that creativity, when we are drained of that life force, when we are drained of the energy to be able to connect with others, then we can't do our best work, and we're simply overdoing work for everyone else. So active receptivity for the feminine isn't passivity, isn't selfishness, it's power, and still, it's choosing what lands and how you want to move through it, or how you want it to move through you, you have the choice. Look, our vessels are not infinite. They are finite. They are receptacles where we get to say, this is exactly how much we want and need, and the rest, it's not ours to hold. This is exactly the energy we have to give and the rest. Find it from somewhere else. Maybe find it within yourself, my friend or my partner or my lover or my boss or my companion or my family member. I am not the infinite provider of all that you need in this world and life. I'm here to call in what's necessary to do my part and to ask everyone else around to rise up into what their best expression of themselves is too. I also want to talk about consent, because one of the things that happens with this sticky idea of receptive woman is a selfish woman, is that often we don't consent to the energetic drains or draws on our physical system, our energetic system, our psychological system we're drawn from. We are drained and really in its rawest form. And. Ladies, look, I've experienced this. I'd be surprised if at some point in your life you haven't experienced this, that awkward social contract when we go out and someone offers us something, maybe it's a drink, maybe it's a meal, maybe it's a coffee, maybe it's even a walk around town. But as soon as we offer our companionship to them, there is this sense that we owe them more. That is, again, this coercive control element of receptivity, and I don't blame women now in history, in the future, for shutting down around that. But we get to exercise consent. This is our power to decide when, how and from whom we receive. Part of being a boundaried feminine woman is creating that structural boundary, that vessel, and so much of that structural vessel comes with our ability to say no, to issue the No. For those of you that have been following my world, my work, or my podcast for any length of time, you know that really the heart, the foundation of this work, of reclaiming your feminine power, is finding your intuitive no and honoring it. That's how those boundaries get put in place so that your energy doesn't get drained. So you get to decide what goes into that vessel. You get to decide how you are filled up and if something starts pulling on you too much well, then that's a clear No, you are not obligated to receive anything that's given to you. You are only allowed to receive what most feels appropriate and good for you. Receptivity, in its greatest feminine form, allows you to receive fully and choose freely how to engage with it. That's what consent looks like in its energetic form, the freedom to choose how and where your energy moves like letting someone help you without guilt, accepting praise without deflection, receiving money generously without feeling indebted, and allowing rest without apology, issuing a no without explanation. Now if, as I offer this list to you, my dear listener, your ears go, Oh, my God, I can't imagine doing those things. I can't imagine just accepting money. I can't imagine accepting praise without trying to be, quote, unquote humble about it and deflect it. I can't imagine asking for help, let alone receiving help, and not feeling like I've compromised someone, or that I need to over care for them as a result, because they may have been put out by my simple ask for help. If those are the kinds of thoughts are having in response to this list exactly, exactly this is our cultural conditioning. Think about it in terms of your best friend. If your best friend was struggling and you offered to help, wouldn't you want her to accept your help? And wouldn't you feel elated and overjoyed that she is accepting your help? What if you had someone in your life that desperately needed a little extra money, and you happened to have some and this little bit extra was going to make a huge difference in their day, their week, their life? Wouldn't you feel overjoyed and compassionate and connected to them if you offered that help generously. You see this offering, this generosity, is one of the highest masculine qualities, so one of the fundamental masculine qualities really is protection and providership. But there are a lot of ways to protect and provide, and there are ways that come with a catch, that come with a drain, that come with a distortion, and there are ways to protect and provide that are generous, that are compassionate, that are courageous, that are full hearted and connective and communal and consent filled the same energies. One can be twisted and distorted. One can be offered freely and with compassion. So this idea of providership, this idea of generosity, this idea of offering, those are masculine principles, and when we are receiving, we are in our feminine so the next time someone offers to help you, let them or the next time you need help, ask, the next time someone offers you praise, even if it is something as simple as, gosh, I love your earrings, simply say thank you and receive it.
Alanna Kaivalya, Ph.D. 20:00
It. If ever someone should offer you money, say thank you and receive it, you'll do the same in your future, when you have the abundance. I'm not worried about it. It's not selfish. And the next time you want to rest, simply rest and let go of the guilt that inner voice that says, But I should keep going. I should keep doing I don't I shouldn't take time for myself. So, as I did last week, because this is really becoming a series, I'm doing a little mini series in these podcasts. And this is episode number two for this series this month, in October, and all this month, we're really gearing up and leading up to my live guided feminine power experience where we're going to spend four weeks going step by step through my book, The Way of the satisfied woman and the companion course, the way of the satisfied woman in learning to reclaim our feminine power in real time. It's going to be a group experience with women just like you, I'm going to show up live for you 90 minutes every week, giving you some practical and concrete tools and exercises to embody some of this work, as well as do some hot seat coaching and Q and A in order to hold ourselves accountable to this work. Because I know it sounds easy for me to say, Look, stop apologizing. And as soon as you try to do it, your nervous system collapses around it. This is why community support is critical in this work. Because yeah, you might be able to do it by yourself, but you're going to be able to do it better and faster with help. As feminine women, we are hard wired for connection and community. We are hard wired for this kind of support, which is why I have built a membership, why I have a community, why I do these podcasts, why I offer one on one coaching, and why I'm starting this four week experience on October 29 for a group of women who are ready to say, You know what? This over apologizing stuff is messed up and I am fucking done. Or, you know what I hear the truth in this I am desperate to simply receive, to relax and to choose exactly how and where I then reinvest my energy. If any of this sounds true to you, but all of it sounds difficult to do in practice, you're not alone. You're not wrong. It is possible to do in practice. Just remember, this culture was not built for us. This world was not built with us in mind, and so for you and I, to change it. Number one, we have to start small with our world, our family, our immediate social circles, our lives. Number two, we need to be in companionship and community and communication with one another, which is why I offer these kinds of things. So this being part two, and last week, I issued the challenge of, do not apologize for seven days. Literally don't apologize. Women play small all the time over, apologizing for themselves, excusing themselves for even existing, and I wanted you to just offer yourself a seven day respite for that to see how it feels, to see how it feels to take up space, to own your actions, to own your authenticity, to see how others react when you don't excuse yourself, and to see if after seven days, that's something that you want to pick back up, or if you're truly ready to let go. Because all of these things look we've got a lot of cultural conditioning to unpack and undo. We have a lot of belief systems that we need to upgrade and a lot of cognitive behavioral patterns that we need to break, and because many of us have lived with a dysregulated nervous system for so long that that feels normal when we start to shift, there's going to be some sense of panic, especially when those around us react, because we spend a lot of time micromanaging them and trying to keep them comfortable. But our world will never change. Our ability will never shift if we don't find ways to invite those around us and there are capable people around us to step up and in to supporting us as feminine women. There are amazing people in our lives with big, big hearts, lots of compassion, who are on the masculine polarity, or our friends who are on the feminine polarity, and they can all support us in this as we start to learn to shift and hold our boundaries and that sacred container that determines exactly what it is we want to receive, exactly the energy We want to hold so that we are not drained, because burnout is not our birthright over giving is not our default condition, and we are not infinite. We are lost. Limited in our energetic ability to just live every day. This is like basic if you're a woman and your energy has ever fluctuated, then you know that to be true, right? Who you were yesterday is not who you are today. It won't be who you are tomorrow. The expectation that we should be the same every day and give as much every single day is ridiculous. Our lives are in flow. Our bodies are in flow. Our hormones are in flow, our emotions are in flow. So we need to learn to work with this and around this, and this work isn't just about learning to receive. It's learning to trust that you can receive and still be safe and be even more sovereign, and that truly you are in control of what you offer in return. So I challenge you this week to notice where receiving might feel unsafe, and if that's the case, what might need to shift, either within you or within your world. Maybe think about what receiving has cost you in the past and decide once and for all that that is a tax that you no longer want to pay, and how can receiving actually be a profound and radical act of trust in yourself as a feminine woman, that you will know exactly what you want to let in And exactly what you want to hold the boundary against because not only will you appreciate it, but everyone in your world will also appreciate it. That's where your power lies, where you let things land, what you let fill and nourish you, and what and how you decide to respond. That's safety and that sovereignty. So if you want to start to practice this and lean more into this concept of receptivity, this consent based receptivity, that really is founded, the foundational piece of it is you as a boundary, feminine woman, then I really want you to come join me in my rooted membership. It is free this month, so head over to my website, the satisfied woman.com to check it out. That's where you'll find all things. You'll find my book, you'll find my membership, you'll find me. You can always book a call with me to chat and let me know what you're carrying and what I might help you curate or release. So the satisfiedwoman.com is where you start. Everything is easy to find there. Come join me in rooted and think about joining me for this four week guided experience right into your feminine power, starting on October 29 and one way or the other. I'm so grateful that you've been here on this podcast. I hope it's inspired some thought for you and some consideration into what it is you want to be filled and nourished by, and what it is you'd like to release and let go. So until our next podcast, my satisfied sister, stay sovereign and stay boundaried.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
