The Yoga Of Give & Take

Practicing the art of accepting a gift—be it a material item or something less tangible like a compliment, favor, or piece of wisdom—can help us live, and give, with more meaning.

- Sally Kempton

MY GENEROUS MOTHER could never accept a gift. On Christmases and birthdays, my brothers and I would each offer her something we thought she’d like—a sweater, a piece of jewelry, a certificate for a massage. She’d say, “Thank you,” of course. But she’d put the sweater in the bottom drawer, bag the jewelry, and never call the massage therapist. The same thing happened when we tried to tell her something nice about herself. “Oh, come on,” she’d say. “That’s too much.” We used to tease her about how she always had to be the giver. But we also found it frustrating, because we couldn’t express our affection for her in ways that she would accept.

I thought about this recently after a friend I’ll call Dylan busted me for not accepting a compliment. He had called to tell me how much he appreciated something I’d done. Without thinking, I answered, “Oh, it wasn’t a big deal. Anyone would have done that.” Dylan went quiet for a minute. Then he said, “Do you realize you just rejected my compliment?”

“No, I didn’t,” I protested. “I just told the truth. What I did really wasn’t a big deal.”

“Maybe not to you, but it was to me,” he replied. “I was trying to tell you something nice. You basically didn’t receive it.”

His words stopped me cold. I had just exhibited my own version of my mother’s behavior, turning aside a loved one’s offering out of false modesty or a kind of reverse pride. And this got me started on what turned out to be a long contemplation on the nuances of receiving. What I finally realized is this: Most of us have never learned how to fully take in a gift.