My word for the year is Receive.
To walk in health, we must both inhale and exhale.
I love and breathe giving.
It’s better to give than receive.
To fulfill your dreams, help others fulfill theirs.
To have friends, be the friend.
Be the change you want to see.
Got it.
Been practicing it for decades.
And yet, to be a healthy giver, I must be a healthy receiver.
I wish that weren’t true.
It goes against the armor that once (and sometimes still) protected my heart.
“If it is to be, it is up to me” built my life. It built my strength. It built my independence.
But the gifts of our childhood that built our lives are often the ceilings for the next season.
Growth requires cultivating the other side of the sidewalk; the side that isn’t in our natural wheelhouse.
If takers are the unhealthy version of receivers, then rescuers, at their extreme, martyrs, are the unhealthy version of givers.
I have played that role more than I’d like to admit.
The solution for healing is not to give more.
It is to receive without guilt and give without depletion.
As I reflect on 2025, it wasn’t the fruit I thought I was chasing.
It was a root shift.
I’ve been practicing self-trust which is very different from self-abandonment. Courage feels costly upfront. But what it builds underneath is stability.
This year, I’m intentionally upleveling my skill of receiving.
And it’s showing up in the smallest places.
I bought my house in Spring 2022. It has a gas-log fireplace in the dining room. I tried multiple times to get it working. Paid subcontractors, multiple hours troubleshooting myself. Got it almost there but not quite. Almost 4 years….
It felt simple. But I couldn’t land it.
Yesterday was a home office day. The gas company knocked and said my house was “randomly” on a list for a new gas meter.
While they were there, they completed the final step.
My fireplace works.
A small thing.
A significant gift.
The solution came without more force, more money, or more effort.
Freedom is a different game than power.
Power is about what you can control.
Freedom is about what you can unleash.
Receiving is part of the strategic skill of freedom.
The Deeper Truth
Receiving isn’t passivity.
It’s regulated strength.
It’s the discipline of not over-functioning.
It’s the maturity of letting support/investment land.
It’s trusting that alignment can solve what force cannot.
For years, I mastered exhale.
This season, I’m practicing inhale.
Carpe Diem,
Wendy