When you receive a gift or assistance, really receive it; it is a sign of gratitude and respect to the giver.

The giver wants to give you something. Refusing the gift or assistance denies the giver of the joy of giving.

If you don’t (yet) receive graciously, reflect about it. – Is it possible that you don’t want to feel that you need anyone else in your life, that you are perfectly capable on your own?

• Is it a sense of discomfort that the gift wasn’t given in the exact way that you had expected or anticipated? -Might it be that you are afraid to feel indebted to the other – as if the other will now be expecting something in return. (Do you give so that you will get something in return, or do you give because you truly want to make the other person’s life a bit easier or brighter?)
• Do you feel like you are imposing or inconveniencing them?
• Is it that you think that they have ulterior motives? Or that they think that they are superior to you in some way?
• Do you feel that you are not deserving of their kindness or generosity? That you couldn’t possibly pay them back in the way that they are giving to you?
• Do you have insecurities?

There are a million things that get in our way, and pride is at the root of many of them.