Why Receiving Feels So Hard for High-Achieving Women

You work hard. You show up for everyone around you. You give your time, your energy, your care, and your expertise without hesitation.

But when someone offers you help...

When you receive a compliment...

When success finally arrives...

Why does it feel so uncomfortable?

In this episode of Live Lighter, Jessica explores one of the most overlooked patterns among high-achieving women: our difficulty receiving. From childhood conditioning to nervous system responses, she unpacks why receiving often feels vulnerable, even when it's exactly what we need.

You'll learn:

• Why so many women are exceptional at giving but struggle to receive
• How childhood conditioning shapes our relationship with worthiness
• Where this pattern quietly shows up in work, money, relationships, and rest
• Why receiving isn't selfish, it's a skill
• Five simple practices to begin expanding your capacity to receive

Because living lighter isn't about doing more.

Sometimes it's about allowing yourself to receive what's already trying to find you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Let's face it, you can have a life that looks successful and still feel like you're caring way too much. The pressure, the overthinking, the constant weight of holding it all together. This is Live Lighter. I'm Jessica Berg, and this show is for women who are done living like that. Each week, we'll be breaking down what's actually keeping you stuck in that pressure and how to start letting it go so that your life doesn't just look good, it actually feels good. Hello and welcome to the Live Lighter Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Berg, and today we are going to talk about something that touches almost every woman I know in one way or another. And it's something that I have worked through myself and something that comes up in nearly every woman I support, and that is our relationship with receiving. Now, I know when I say that just blatantly like that, it might sound a little abstract at first. So I want to bring it down to earth a little bit. I want you to think about the last time you got a compliment, or just even think in general how you tend to receive compliments. Do you receive them? Or do you do what most women do, myself previously included, where someone gives us a compliment? Oh, I really like your shirt. And our immediate response is to minimize it. Thanks, but yeah, this is really old. Or we deflect it back to them. We feel like we have to give them a compliment right back. Oh, thank you. I love your shirt too. So, how do you tend to let yourself receive compliments? Do you minimize it, brush it off, or do you deflect it and hand it right back? Or do you actually say thank you? And that's it. Just those two words. So think about that and just sit with that as we move through this episode. And the other scenario I want you to think about is the last time someone offered to help you with something. Maybe you were just clearly drowny, you were hanging by a thread, stretched super thin, and someone reached out and said, Oh, let me take that off your plate. Let me do that for you. And your instinctive response is, no, no, no, no, I've got it. I got it. It's okay. And you just plow forward. This is what I mean when I talk about receiving. It is this quiet, often invisible pattern where the good things come toward us, help, compliments. People are being kind and generous. And instead of letting them land, we deflect them, we minimize them, and we hand them right back. We don't let ourselves receive. And most of us learned how to give somewhere very early in our lives. We, we as women are so good at giving. We are so good at being of service, thinking about others, putting others before us. We are really, really good at giving. What almost none of us were ever taught is how to receive, how to actually let ourselves receive without feeling that there needs to be something in return, where we are worthy enough and deserving enough to just take it, let it land, receive it, take in the gifts. And today, what I want to talk about is why is it so hard for us to receive, where it shows up, and most importantly, what I really want to hone in on is how we can gently start to shift this because we deserve to receive. You, my friend, my lovely listener, deserve to receive. So let's go ahead and dive in. And where I want to start is why this is so hard for so many of us. Because I really do believe that when you understand where a pattern comes from, when you start to build this awareness, you can hold yourself with so much more compassion around it. And when you have the awareness, then you can take action. Then you can be prescriptive on what it is that you need to do to move forward to better serve yourself. And a lot of this traces back to how we were raised as girls. From a very, very young age. Most of us, many of us, were rewarded for being helpful, for being sweet, for being the good girl, for being accommodating and easy and not causing a stir. That's what your brothers were for. You were the good girl, the one that mom and dad could count on. You were the one who followed the rules. You were the good girl. You were the one that people could count on. And researchers who study how gender shapes us have found that when little girls are praised and reinforced for nurturing and giving, they tend to carry those behaviors straight into adulthood throughout the rest of their lives until they hold up a mirror and heal through that and relearn and rewire. So this is something that was truly woven into all of us before we were even old enough to notice it happening. We learned somewhere along the way that our value came from what we gave to others, from how we served, from how we showed up for other people in our lives. And there is another layer to this that I find really helpful to name, and I'm going to name it because I will, I will always say the thing. And that's the idea of this masculine and feminine energy. And I've talked about this before in past episodes, and it carries in this conversation as well. We as human beings all have a masculine and a feminine side. Every single one. Men have a feminine side and a masculine side. Women have a feminine side and a masculine side. The key, the ideal, is to be operating throughout our days in balance between the two because we need the two to really, really be present and regulated. Now, the masculine energy, that's the doing. That is the action, the building, the producing. That's the part of us that goes out and makes things happen. The feminine energy is the part of us that allows, that softens, that opens up and lets things come in. And what I've noticed, both in myself and in the women I work with, is that we've been heavily, heavily rewarded for living in that masculine energy, for the doing, for the achieving, for the action, for the productivity, especially in the world today and the pace at which we're moving in. We've quietly been taught that the receiving, the allowing, the feminine energy is somehow less valuable. So we just really never developed it, or we never put enough energy into it because it wasn't something that was appreciated in our culture. And I want to share a personal example here because this really did crack it open for me. I could not not see this. When I first started building my coaching business, I noticed something. All the parts that involved doing and building, those were things that came so naturally to me. Strategizing, looking at the data, building out the offers, mapping out the systems, creating the content. I could do all of that all day long and feel completely in my element. That was my comfort zone, no question. I could build it and I could take action on it. Loved it. So I've got I've gone in, I've ideated and strategized on the offer that I was creating. I put it together, I built it, I had something tangible for me to look at. I was so excited. And then I would get to this part where I actually had to put my offer out into the world. I had to announce it and say, okay, here you go, world. It's ready for you. Here's what I've created. Here's how much it's going to cost. And I'd love for you to say yes to this. And every single time, I'm not kidding, every single time I got to this point in my business where I was putting my offer out into the world, where I wasn't building, and I just had to take a step back and receive people coming in or not, there would be this wave of panic moving through my body. It was, it was such an uncomfortable place for me to be in my business. And for a long time, I thought the panic was about the offer itself. And maybe the offer's not right. Maybe I need to, I need to build more. I need to do more. But that that was not it at all. What I eventually realized was that putting my offer out there meant I had to receive. I was now moving from masculine energy of building and doing, and I was stepping into the feminine energy where I had to receive. I was not building. I was more in my being. And that was wildly uncomfortable for me because I did not have control over it. I didn't have control over who was going to say yes. I didn't have control over whether my offer was going to be well received by people or not and whether they were going to sign up. I had to just let myself receive the yes or the no and be incredibly vulnerable in that moment. That's when I really started to understand that for me in my business, I needed to get a hell of a lot more comfortable with receiving, or else I was not going to have a business at the end of the day. I was just going to continue to build things and I wasn't going to have money coming in to support the thing that I was trying to build. And once I had this awareness, then I started to see, oh, this isn't just happening in my work and my career. This is happening in all areas of my life because that's just how it is, right? It's not compartmentalized. How we show up in one area is usually how we're showing up in another. And once you start to see this pattern in yourself, once I started to see it in myself, you start to notice it everywhere. So let's talk about where it tends to show up because I think naming it really specifically is going to help us help you catch it in your own life, right? So let's start with our careers. Okay. Let's let's take a look at our professional side of our life, because this is a very, very common place for it to live. And it can look like working incredibly hard on something and then completely deflecting the credit. Have you ever done that? Have you ever been a part of something and you busted your ass off? You were a part of a team and it was super successful. And when the praise and the recognition was coming in, you felt very uncomfortable. You all of a sudden started wondering, ooh, do I deserve this? I think they're making a bigger deal out of this than it is. I feel like this isn't the type of attention I deserve. Or you're an entrepreneur and you are constantly undercharging for your work because you feel bad for people paying for your service. And you have this inner critic that's questioning your worth and your credibility. Or maybe it's sitting in a review where your boss is looking at your progress and you're hearing genuine feedback. And somehow the only thing that you're absorbing is the one small piece of constructive criticism and all the other praise is rolling off your shoulders. But you're just you're hanging on to that one piece of opportunity for you to improve. It can also look like refusing to delegate, refusing to let your team carry something for you because somewhere deep down you believe that you have to be the one holding it, you have to be the one driving it because that's where your value is coming from, that's where your worth is coming from. And if you're not, is the company really going to value you? Another area is money. Money is one of the clearest places this whole thing plays out. And I want to spend a moment here because it is so common where our capacity to receive money can be a blocker for us to bring more abundance in. There is this pattern that's actually been studied called under earning. And the way it's been described is that the nervous system starts to limit how much financial success it will allow in. Isn't that crazy? Our actual nervous system is saying that amount of money does not feel safe to me. So I am going to move into deregulation and guide us away from that amount of money. And maybe this has happened to you, where you took a pay cut because you wanted to have more work-life balance, where you felt like if they're gonna pay me that much money, I got to sacrifice a lot. When in actuality, that's just your nervous system saying, I don't feel safe with making that much money. I don't feel safe with receiving that much money without having to give something back. And then even when we are making a good amount of money, there's still scarcity. We're still not letting it land in our system. I have worked with women who are earning more than anyone in their entire family ever has. And they still lie awake, worried that it's going to disappear, that it's not real, because they're not letting it land in their system. They're not letting themselves actually receive the financial abundance that is sitting in their bank account. It has everything to do with the fact that they have not built the capacity to receive and hold that level of goodness yet. So reflect a little bit when you look at your professional side of the house. Where are you not letting yourself receive? Whether it's receive praise, recognition, receive support from your teen, receive financial abundance that you deserve, that you don't have to sacrifice to get and justify. So sit with that for a little bit. So that's the professional side of the house. And I also want to talk about the personal side of the house because it shows up here too. We talked about receiving compliments, and that's that's definitely an area where we can let ourselves receive on the personal side and the delegation piece. Where can we let our partner take on more household responsibilities or more day-to-day responsibilities with our kids? And that's something that I really struggled with when I first left Adobe because all of a sudden my husband was taking on all the financial responsibility and the things that we were splitting 50-50 in the house, I all of a sudden felt that that wasn't deserving enough for me to ask that of him. So I stopped. I actually went backwards in my delegation because I didn't feel like I deserved it. I've since reciprocated that. But this is something that I experienced when I first went through that transition. So, where can you lighten the load and ask for support and not feel like you have to earn it or give something back for it? The other area in the personal life, and it also weaves into the professional, is where can you let yourself receive rest? And I will have a whole nother episode that talks about why rest sometimes feels like torture. But for the sake of this episode where we're talking about receiving, this is another area where you can receive that. Where can you let yourself receive rest? Maybe it's taking a warm bath while the kids are watching TV and your husband is making dinner. Or where can you let yourself receive prioritizing yourself first? Maybe it's going to that in-person exercise class in the evening and choosing me time over family time just a few times a week. Give yourself that recharge. Where are you not letting yourself receive that? And this receiving rest comes up a lot with the women I support because they're high achievers. And for them, they feel they have to check off every single box on the to-do list before they can sit on the couch and rest. Or they feel they have to earn it. So they have to do something productive and achieving in order for them to sit down and relax. When actually you just being a human being means you deserve to rest. You allowing yourself to receive that rest is actually sending ripples and waves into the future activities and engagements and connections that you're gonna have down the line. So, how do we actually start to shift this? How do we start to allow ourselves to receive in all areas of our lives? And I want to be honest with you, this isn't something that is going to change overnight. Nothing is, right? It is something that takes practice. It is something that takes, you know, incremental actions, bit by bit, small, big, whatever size. But over time, it is a brick-by-brick movement. And with practice and with consistency, we start to rewire what feels safe in our system. And we actually start to allow ourselves to receive. So here's the first thing I want you to start with. If this is something that you want to start bringing into your life, here's here's my high-level guidance, right? First thing is simple. I want you to just start noticing. I want you to track yourself and just start noticing where you are resisting, receiving. And it can be one of the things that we have just discussed in this episode: a compliment, uh recognition, support, any of it, right? I just want you to be aware of it because from the awareness, that's where you can take action. If you're not even noticing where it's showing up in your life, then you're not going to be able to change anything and make any shifts. So I want you to catch yourself in the moment you deflect a compliment or wave off some help or feel that little flicker of discomfort when something good starts coming into your life. You don't have to change anything yet. Nothing. I don't want you to in this first step. I just want you to build awareness because awareness is always where real change begins. That is a tongue twister. Awareness is always where real change begins. The second thing is to practice the pause. Before you have that knee-jerk reaction, I want you to just start intentionally pausing and letting yourself respond versus react. So the next time someone offers you something good, whether it's a kind word or an opportunity or hand with something, I want you to pause and resist that instinct to immediately deflect it. Let there be a beat of silence. You can even count to three if that's helpful. I want the goodness that is coming to you to actually reach you. And then instead of all the ways we usually hand it back, I want you to just try to say two words. Thank you. That's it. You don't have to justify it. You don't have to explain why you're receiving it. I want you to just practice saying those two words and that is it. Thank you, period. You'd be amazed at how hard that is at first and how much it does start to shift over time. When I first started this, saying thank you after a compliment, I felt so guilty. I felt so conceited and full of myself. And now it's just, it's just, you know, thank you. It's sincere. I let it land in my body. And actually the other person feels that too. So instead of me deflecting it, their intention to do something nice for me is actually felt in their body tenfold because I'm letting it land in mine. I'm receiving it. Now the third thing is as good things start to come into your world, I want you to just start to be aware of what's going on in your body when this is happening. When good things are coming in, whether it be money or compliments or help or love, what do you feel in your body? Do you feel tense? Do you feel uh like hollow, like heavy? Are you bracing for something bad to happen? Or are you putting up armor so that it doesn't even come in? Because that means that you then have to give. So just notice in your body. I want you to really bring that awareness into your body because the body is where everything happens. This is the recipe for breakthroughs. And the last thing is to just remember that this is a practice, it's not a one-time thing. You're not going to listen to this episode and suddenly become a master at receiving. That's just, that's just not how it works. And that is okay. It's not how it's supposed to work. What matters is that every single time you let something good land without pushing it away, you are teaching your body little by little that receiving is safe. That's that's literally what it comes down to. You're teaching yourself that you are safe to receive. And that adds up in ways you will start to feel everywhere. So as we wrap up this episode, one of the things I want to leave you with is this receiving and giving, they are two halves of the same whole. And they're meant to flow together back and forth in a way that actually sustains us. You as a human being are meant to be able to give and you are meant to be able to receive. Many of us, though, have only mastered the giving, and we are running completely empty on the receiving side of the equation. And a life that only flows in one direction will eventually wear you down, no matter how strong you are, no matter how able you are at doing just about everything. So this week, after listening to this episode, my invitation to you is super simple. Just pick one place where you can let yourself receive a little more fully. Maybe it's compliments, maybe it's rest, maybe it's help, maybe it's space, whatever it might be professionally or personally. Just pick one area where you want to start letting yourself receive a little more. Because you don't have to earn the good things in your life. You just have to let yourself have them and experience them and feel them fully. Thank you so much for being here with me today. If this episode spoke to you, I'd love for you to share it with a woman in your life who needs to hear it. You can subscribe, you can like, and until next time, be well. All right, so that's today's podcast. Thank you for listening. If you would like to learn more about the services that I provide to women, you can check out my website at Jessbergcoaching.com. That's J E S S B E R G C O A C H I N G dot com. Until next time, be well.