Conversations With Cinthia

Do you let people love you?  Do you accept gifts graciously, receive compliments kindly, and gratefully experience help when it is offered?  If not, you aren’t alone; many people minimize compliments, feel uncomfortable with gifts and kindnesses given, and even reject help offered despite really needing it.  We all need love, but it can be harder to receive than we might expect.  Today Cinthia encourages us to allow ourselves to be loved, examining some reasons we may not do so and offering alternative responses that are more gracious.  Reasons for struggling to accept love can include suspicion or difficulty trusting others.  We may wonder if there are “strings” attached to a gift or fear that accepting a kind gesture will put us in debt to another person.  But a gift is, by definition, offered without the expectation of payment.  Receiving kindly means expressing appreciation, perhaps giving an authentic “thank you,” perhaps even telling the person what their kindness means to us or saying something like, “