“Ask and it shall be given.” So it says in the Bible, and in The Secret, the book and the movie. You just have to really, really want it, and visualize, and somehow—voilà!—there it is! But for the most part I haven’t found that to be the case.

What gets lost and goes unmentioned, unrecognized, in all the talk about The Secret and positive thinking and you-can-have-what-you-want, is the mindset you need in order to have it: You need to be open to receive.

We can want and need all day long, but if we are not open to receiving what we are asking for, or open to receive, period, we are likely not to get it.

Why, though, would someone not be open to receiving? It seems really silly and stupid. But it’s not.

Many of us have learned through hard experience that we won’t get what we want or, even more importantly, need in our lives. It often starts somewhere in childhood, sometimes later in life. If our needs and wants keep not being met; if we are told not to want, not to need help and nurturance; and/or if physical, emotional, and spiritual needs are ignored, then we stop expecting to have our needs and wants met. It’s simple self-defense, and a learning from experience.

However, we can’t stop the wanting, the needing—it is an essential part of our humanness and our survival. But, we squash the expectation of good.

Consciously we may want it, we may think we expect it, we may think we deserve it, but deep down underneath where our formative experiences lie, and our core beliefs drive our current life experiences, we no longer believe we can have it, that the meeting of our needs and wants will happen. We are closed down.

We have told ourselves that we don’t really want it, need it, whatever the it is. We have shut down, as much as possible, the part of us that wants and needs. We tell ourselves: We are strong, we are independent, we don’t need anyone or anything, we can make it on our own!

And why should we expect things to be any different? We’ve tried and tried, and nothing good has come of it. So we build walls around wanting and needing, and expecting, so that disappointment doesn’t keep waltzing in.

But this makes it really hard when we decide to try getting what we want and need in a conscious manner. We don’t realize that unconsciously we have shut down both our ability to receive and our belief that good things can actually happen to us.

We end up standing in our own way and blocking what we want, with no realization that we are in part putting up the barriers to what we are asking for.

How sad and awful for us!

When you realize this about yourself, you may be very angry with yourself for doing this and punish yourself with thoughts or words or actions.

But this is a time to be kind to yourself. Understand how hurt you have been and what difficult experiences led you to this point. Thank yourself for taking care of you in the way it knew how. You, your Self, did the best you could in the circumstances you were in. If you can’t thank yourself, then at least don’t berate yourself for your “stupidity”. Respect yourself for surviving difficult experiences.

Now, though, you are in the present and can open yourself to receive.

This can be very scary and make you feel vulnerable and unprotected. That’s okay, you can go about this at your own pace.

The point is to start opening yourself at a pace you are comfortable with. Or maybe it’s a matter of pushing yourself a bit beyond your comfort zone, but not so much that it is punishing or cruel to yourself.

Understand that if you close yourself off to what you are asking for and what is offered to you, then you may very well not get it. . So you may want to figure out how to open yourself to receiving what you’ve asked for.

Ask yourself; Am I ready to receive this? Do I feel I deserve it or do I feel that I don’t? If I don’t, how can I change that into a feeling of “I do deserve it”?

Sometimes the way to receive is to simply know that you have been closed to it and find how to open yourself up and allow it into yourself and/or your life. It may be as simple as a shift in your attitude.

Sometimes it takes understanding the psychic, emotional, maybe even physical barriers you have put in the way and removing them. You may be able to do this instantly, or it may take time—hours, days, weeks, months, maybe even years.

How long it takes depends in part on how many beliefs you have blocking the way, and what your process is for dealing with them. Also, what the psychic weight of the block is and how much pain is attached to it. If there is a lot of pain, or shame, or guilt (or all three, yikes!) it can take time to process and release them. But it can be done. And it is worth it.

Sometimes in order to receive you have to understand that you deserve to receive, that you are a worthy person. And also understand that other people want to give to you, and that it is alright to receive what you ask for. You aren’t greedy or selfish or bad for wanting and then taking and receiving.

Because, for the most part, what you, I, most people want is reasonable—help with our lives and our work, to live comfortably and well, to be loved, to be part of a loving community. To be safe, to be healthy, to be happy. To be fully human. And to not have to go it alone.

The genesis of this article was about a year ago, when I was taking an apprenticeship with Joanna Scaparotti. Something she had written or said suddenly opened me to the stunning (to me) realization that I didn’t know how to receive! Oh my goodness! If I was going to receive then I had to actually make room in my thinking and my expectations. And it meant that I had to allow things into my life, and to admit that I am not a self-contained entity who can exist in complete isolation. It meant/means–*gulp*–that I have to admit and accept that I need others and that I can’t do it all myself.

That realization was actually really freeing and I have been practicing receiving since then. It has been lovely, freeing me from trying so hard and not getting anywhere and finding that life can be easier and more joyous with less effort.

I was quite surprised a couple months ago when I went into a part of myself that holds experiences from early childhood, and found that way back then (about age 3) I had decided not to need or want, and that I was still, at age 57, acting on that decision. If I don’t need or want, I can’t be disappointed and nothing bad will happen (or so went the 3-year-old’s belief). I have been practicing changing that belief and learning how to receive from Spirit as well as humans, Nature, the plants and animals since then. It is a journey that I am enjoying, and I am still learning!