The Capacity to Receive Love

When my first daughter, Emma, was born, there was a moment that has stayed with me ever since. She wasn't doing anything extraordinary. She was simply lying there while I looked at her. Then, all of a sudden, it was as though something inside me burst open.

The only way I can describe it is that it hit me like a freight train. A wave of love rose through me with such force that it almost took my breath away. My chest felt as though it had been blown wide open. I had never experienced anything like it before, and for those few moments I simply sat there, completely immersed in it.

Looking back now, I sometimes wonder whether that was the first time I had ever allowed myself to fully receive that much love. Not give it, but receive it. It wasn't something I was trying to create or hold onto. It simply arrived, and it felt almost bigger than I knew how to contain.

Almost as quickly as that feeling arrived, something else came with it. A huge sense of responsibility settled over me. This tiny little person was now mine to care for, protect and love, and then another thought quietly followed. How does anyone survive losing something they love this much?

It wasn't that I believed I was going to lose her. It was simply the realisation of how enormous love could feel. If loving someone could open my heart this deeply, then surely losing them would be just as overwhelming. Love and vulnerability seemed to arrive together.

Two years later, when Lexi was born, I didn't experience that same wave in quite the same way. That has often made me curious, because it certainly wasn't that I loved her any less. By then life was fuller. I was no longer quietly sitting with my first baby. I was also the mum of a busy two-year-old, and life had a very different rhythm.

Perhaps my capacity to hold that love had grown. Or perhaps I simply didn't stop long enough to let myself fully receive it in quite the same way. I honestly don't know the answer, and I don't think I need one. What has stayed with me is the question itself.

How often does life offer us something beautiful, yet we only allow ourselves to receive part of it?

Not because we don't want it. Not because we don't appreciate it. But because fully opening ourselves to it feels almost too much to hold.

The more I've reflected on that experience, the more I've wondered whether we don't only protect ourselves from pain. Perhaps we also protect ourselves from love. Not because love is dangerous, but because opening ourselves fully to love also means opening ourselves to vulnerability.

I wonder if that's true of so many other things as well. Support. Kindness. A heartfelt compliment. Being deeply seen by another person. Success. Abundance. Rest. Joy. Sometimes life offers us these things, yet before they have a chance to really land, we're already moving on to the next job, brushing them aside or telling ourselves they weren't really that important.

The more I sit with this, the more I find myself asking a different question. Rather than wondering how to get more love, support or abundance into my life, I wonder how much of what is already here I'm actually allowing myself to receive. They're very different questions.

The more I work with people, the more I notice this isn't just about love. People often come because they're anxious, overwhelmed, stuck, people-pleasing, carrying everyone else's emotions or repeating patterns they can't quite explain. On the surface those things all look very different, yet underneath I often find the same gentle protection at work.

Our subconscious is incredibly wise. It creates ways of helping us stay safe, stay connected and keep moving through life with the resources we had at the time. Those protective patterns aren't something to fight against. They deserve to be understood, because at some point they probably made perfect sense.

One of the things I love most about this work is watching what happens as those old protections begin to soften. People don't suddenly become someone different. They simply begin to feel more available to their own lives. More able to receive support without feeling guilty. More able to receive appreciation without brushing it off. More able to stay connected to themselves while remaining connected to the people they love.

Perhaps that's what increasing our capacity to receive really means.

Not becoming someone new.

Simply allowing ourselves to experience more of what has been there all along.

As I continue reflecting on that moment with Emma all those years ago, I find myself wondering if that wave of love wasn't there to show me how much love was possible. It showed me that my heart was capable of opening far wider than I had ever imagined. Maybe life has been gently inviting me to keep opening ever since.

So I'll leave you with the same question I've been sitting with myself.

What in your life is already here, quietly waiting for you to fully receive it?