It’s harder to receive love than it is to give it.
Your life is grace, the Appreciation Effect and learning to be loved.
As some of you know, I created a platform called The Appreciation Effect, where you can create an appreciation campaign for someone (or yourself).
You put their name and email into our system and we spit you back a link.
You share that link with all the person’s friends, family, and loved ones, who write appreciation notes.
The platform then sends the Recipient one note per morning until the notes run out.
The gift of being seen
It’s pretty amazing to receive an Appreciation Campaign. A couple of things happen when you are appreciated for day and days. I know, because I did one for my 50th birthday and was appreciated for 101 days!1
First, when you are appreciated for days on end, it becomes liminal space. It’s very different than getting a bunch of notes all at once, like getting birthday wishes on your Facebook page. When they get the idea, friends and family write very poignant and special notes. And there’s a moment of anticipatory delight when you see that person’s name in your inbox that morning. More importantly, you pay attention to each note more when they come one at a time. And ultimately, the quality of your attention is the quality of your life.
Second, themes emerge. Things you don’t see about yourself or you think are normal become really obvious. You see your gifts in a way you had never seen before. It takes being appreciated by others, the gift of being seen, to see your own gifts.
Many Recipients say getting an appreciation campaign was the most special of their life. Lately we’ve been encouraging people to create campaigns for themselves. Why? Because for many people, it’s harder to receive love than it is to give it. For anyone who takes spiritual and personal growth seriously, the ability to receive and embrace the love that others have for us is the work. At least it’s my work. I’ve have wounds that make it hard to accept love. Painful ones from childhood that I carry til this day.
Maybe you too?
In Franciscan terms, it’s the lifelong process of accepting grace. Sister Mary Jo, my Franciscan teacher explained to me the two tenants of Franciscan theology:
God loves you extravagantly, like more than you can ever imagine, i.e. grace.
God’s extravagant love shows up as your everyday life, i.e. the people, things, and experiences around you.
In other words, your life is grace.
Grace, i.e. love, is all around us. Can we accept it? Or do you, like me, subtly push it away? I will spend a lifetime learning to be loved.
"The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realized." — Henri Nouwen
So many of us are good at giving love.
Let yourself to be appreciated others. So many of us are good at giving love.
My friend Patricia Ryan Madsen is a beloved teacher of improv at Stanford University. She loves that the Appreciation Effect sends one note per day each morning. She says:
“We’re always in a world that always wants to go faster. The Appreciation Effect is a way to slow down. The world around you will “appreciate” i.e. grow if you notice what you’re receiving”
If you want to practice slowing down and noticing all the love in your life, start a campaign for yourself. I know it’s vulnerable and, as per Brene Brown, that’s part of the point. The quality of your relationships and indeed, your well-being, depends on how well you receive.
Imagine a world where we were able to receive love, i.e. grace. What would it be like? What conflicts would we have? Would consumerism exist? Would climate change exist? Would we overwork? The wounds of the world are all wounds of not-enoughness.
The love is there. If we could learn to receive love better, we all be satisfied. Content. That is the spiritual journey, learning enoughness.
“While expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer
Why do we push away love? A few thoughts:
We think it would give us an inflated ego
There’s self-protection in self depreciation
Brains are hard-wired to negativity and it’s real effort to believe the good in ourselves.
But it’s not natural for us to live this way. Soul activist Francis Weller says “we are, by nature, made for the intimate exchange of wonder and appreciation.” Feeling seen and valued for our gifts by others is one of our primary satisfactions:
In the end, the primary satisfactions are what we want, what each of us longs for. Culturally, we have forgotten these basic needs of the soul and instead have followed the pathway of secondary satisfactions such as power, rank, wealth, and status, and have lifted these up as goals to attain. To the soul however, these hold virtually no value. In reality, these secondary pursuits have added to the chronic sense of emptiness in many people. Emptiness has become an overriding experience in this culture. It drives unconscious consumption, addictions of every sort, and is the basis for our relentless drive towards empire. We always want MORE. Resolving this crisis in soul hunger is at the core of our work and is indispensable in the healing of our planet. Nearly all of our critical challenges, from environmental degradation to economic injustice, racial and gender divides, are driven by the emptiness that arises from the neglect of what the psyche needs to be whole.
When we don’t allow others to appreciate us, we’re substituting poor food for good food. And we feel like we’re starving.
An invitation for you
It’s real effort to believe in the good in ourselves. In other words, that we are God’s grace for others too. That is what the Appreciation Effect really is, learning that you’re part of God’s extravagant Love for others. Do you believe that?
What would happen if you did?
If you want to feel more comfortable receiving love and being Love, I encourage to you start an appreciation campaign for yourself. It’s practice for learning to receive. You’ll start your mornings with a note of appreciation and love and get read it privately (i.e. if you don’t like being the center of attention). And since the writer won’t know you received their note that day, you don’t have to respond immediately to someone’s appreciation. In other words, you get to savor.
Oh, did I mention it’s free? If you want to donate, please do. Drew and I created and maintain this as grace. The Appreciation Effect is part of our Living in the Gift. It’s part of God’s extravagant love for you.
“In my experience heartfelt appreciation or gratitude is a direct connection to the conscious oneness that is and animates all.” — Alex Dorsey
If you have the ability to receive love, what would you have? Everything.
It takes a lifetime to learn.
Wanna practice? The Appreciation Effect. Start a campaign for yourself.
Warmly,
Douglas
Our longest appreciation campaign is going on right now, 158 days!