How is your Receiving?

Today marks the middle of December and one week before the Solstice. How is your receiving? Are you letting it in? Are you feeling it?

This time of year is known as the time of giving. It is also the time of receiving.

So how is your receiving?

Do you feel worthy? Are you feeling anticipation? Are you letting in money, love, health, good feelings, joyful experiences, and spontaneous laughter? Are you feeling in the spirit? Celebratory? Are you feeling spoiled?

I’m willing to bet that most of us…if not all of us…struggle a bit with receiving. I’m not talking about how easy or hard it is to accept a gift from a friend or family member, I’m referring to a deeper and broader receiving, the receiving that lets all of it in.

The planet Venus represents love and money, but also beauty and creativity. On Monday, December 17^th, Venus will cross over 10^o 50’ Scorpio, the same spot where she stationed retrograde on October 5^th. She started moving forward again one month ago today.

In looking back, I readily see what Venus did for a number of us. I see how her retrograde motion helped us let it in. And it makes perfect sense! Venus is detriment in Scorpio. It is an uncomfortable place for her. So, this time, after traveling one-third of the way into Scorpio, she stopped and retreated back into her ruling sign of Libra. She dusted herself off, reminded herself of her love, beauty, and worth, then gave it another go.

And this time, she is traveling through Scorpio with more grace and ease. She’s winning without fighting. She reminded herself that she deserves love and money and respect and affection…and because she opened the valves, she is now letting it in better than before.

I walked with Venus myself. As most of you know, my parents passed this summer. For whatever reason, I was having a hard time letting their money come to me. In my mind, I kept feeling like I wasn’t ready. Manifestationally, the documents weren’t getting through. My siblings were getting their forms, but I was not.

Smack dab in the middle of Venus retrograde, I heard my mother say this to me: “I left that money for you. Why are you not accepting it. Why are you not letting it in?”

After hearing that message, I decided with intent to let it in. Even if I didn’t know what I would do with it (where I would put it), I would accept it and with appreciation. In fact, if I didn’t let it in soon, I was going to have to pull money out of my investments to pay bills!

About a week later, my first beneficiary claim forms showed up. They were completely soiled! Yellow stains had soaked all the way through every page. It looked as if it sat in a puddle and got pissed on.

My first reaction was a strong negative emotion I can’t quite describe. The words that bounced around in my head were something akin to, “It’s not fair!” That is something Venus would say retrograding back from Scorpio into Libra. Libra is all about the concept of fair! So if Venus feels beat up upon, she is going to point out the injustice of it all!

Being a Gemini, the other half of me set myself straight. “Why are you surprised?” I asked my other half. “You weren’t letting it in! This is exactly what happens when you do that!”

Not only were these forms soiled, from the sound of it, a prior set were mailed and never got to me. Turns out, some of the accounts didn’t have my apartment number. The forms were mailed, got all the way here, and were then returned to the sender!

The point is, if you’re not letting it in, you’re not letting it in. The Universe arranges itself around YOU. I know this!!!

So, like Venus, I dusted myself off. I accepted the manifestations as perfect. I cleaned up my vibration. And like Venus, I turned forward and took the first step.

The first step quickly led to the next and the next. It took less than a week for the first funds to reach me!

Receiving is addicting! It feels so go to let something in you’ve been holding off. It feels even better when you have your hand in it.

For a few weeks now, a friend and I have been sharing daily appreciation. We identify three experiences from the day before that we enjoyed. Through this, we practice letting it in (and letting more in). It’s not always easy. Some mornings, I get her text and I can’t even look at it. In that moment, I’m not feeling appreciation and instead, feel like a kid who didn’t do his homework. So I remind myself that this is supposed to be fun and that there is no schedule. Rather than fake it, I spend some time focusing on the good…here and now, yesterday, or in general. Sometimes my appreciation is so general, it is vague. Other times I have delicious detailed events to convey. It ebbs and flows, but is trending upward for sure!

The point of the exercise was solely to feel good (doing it) and to feel better (overall). But, with all we have learned from Abraham and life itself, you can’t help but begin manifesting good stuff after that.

And it has started. For example, this morning, during my morning meditation, my kitty girl Cali crawled into my lap and laid there. She has pretty much never done this before!!! Certainly not of her own accord!

Not surprisingly, I now have a list of experiences I have specifically wanted. In some cases, even though I let the experience in, I’m still not quite letting it all in. But that’s OK because I am where I am and I’m decidedly heading in the right direction.

One of the best parts of where I am, is I’m not hunting for anything specific. Days when the appreciation is beyond my fingertips, I simply remind myself that I have everything I need and there’s plenty of time.

But, you know, when you reach for appreciation daily, it gets ever so easy to find.

You all have been good boys and girls this year…you really have. You’ve endured. You’ve loved. You’ve nurtured. You’ve given. In fact, you’ve given and given and given.

So, for the rest of this season, let it in! You deserve it! It’s in the mail and has been trying to get to you. Don’t worry, they’ll mail another and another until it gets through. All you gotta do is open the valve!

And a funny thing just happened. A typo just showed me something. Value and Valve are nearly the same word! Value you and the valve will fly open and then some real receiving will begin!