Moving into RECEPTIVITY
How to not be hyper-individualist in the way you get your needs met
I’ve written extensively about self-care during revolutionary times on this page before (most recently here, talking about how we can relate to self care at all when the whole concept has been so effectively co-opted and commodified by colonial capitalism — go have a read if you like)
I want to revisit it today, to share with you a very simple shift in phrasing I’ve been working with for a while now.
This one little phrase has been making sure that the way I get my body’s needs met does not stray into the numbing out, hyper-individualist type “self care” we’re sold inside of colonial patriarchy…
…but rather calls me deeper into relational, community-oriented care.
Please feel free to take it and start using it for yourself, too.
Here’s the gist of it:
Any time I feel myself wanting to say —
“I need to relax”
“I need to recharge”
“I need some time to myself”
“I need to up my self care”
“I’m exhausted, I’m burning out, I don’t know how to keep going”
— I teach myself to say instead:
“Right now, I really need to receive.”
Through the lens of our culture, self care tends to feel like going into isolation, numbing ourselves out, and generally doing a whole bunch of stuff that runs counter to our revolutionary praxis and worldview.
But receiving feels like leaning on community.
“I need to receive right now” automatically invites us into relational care.
It reminds us that when we’re burnt out, depleted, exhausted, and running low on spoons, we need to receive nourishment from people who love and see us.
It takes us into recognition of the fact that we don’t have to carry the weight of it all alone.
It calls us into awareness of the web of care that exists around us, and it dissolves the illusion that our pain and stress is our fault personally, or our responsibility individually.
The best “self care” available to us happens in relationship, and in liberation-centric community.
We are most nourished, not by putting up walls against the world and trapping ourselves in isolation until we “fix ourselves” or “feel better”…
…but by the warmth and the love of safe people — people who settle our nervous systems with their very presence, and soften the noise in our minds with their reflections.
“I need to receive right now” also invites us to ask — what do we need to be receiving?
It invites inquiry into our needs that numbing out and isolating ourselves just doesn’t.
Yes, maybe what you need to receive is unconditional permission to rest. Of course you can give that to yourself (and you must, you won’t be able to settle without it), but rest comes much easier when someone you love says “I’ve got you. You can rest now. You’re safe. I’ll do your dishes, you don’t have to worry about it. I’m here.”
Yes, maybe what you need to receive is affirmation that you’re doing enough, that you’re good enough, that your work is valuable enough (we all need this sometimes, don’t worry). Like permission to rest, this is an inside job first. It has to be. But affirmation from someone we trust will settle our bodies.
So often, when we need to “relax” or “recharge” or “do some self care” or whatever, what we really need is to let ourselves receive the love, warmth, nourishment, and care from our Safe People that we’ve been denying ourselves.
(Either because we don’t think we’re worthy of it, we’re too afraid of the vulnerability of asking for it, or because we’ve got a sneaky transactional narrative happening in the background that says you’ll “have to pay for it later somehow” - which is the very last thing you need when you’re already overwrought and exhausted to the point of depletion)
Give it a try.
Sub in any call for “relaxing” or “recharging” or “self care” or whatever else with “I need to receive right now”.
See what happens to your understanding of your own needs.
See what it does to your relationships.
Notice yourself grounding deeper and deeper into the community-centric and relational care that we desperately need if we’re going to dismantle hyper-individualist colonial capitalism.
Love you.
Go let yourself receive.
