The Power of “Thank You”: Unlocking Love and Acceptance in Relationships

What does it feel like inside of you when your partner says a genuine “Thank you?”

Have you ever had this experience?   Your partner says, “Thank you,” … for dinner, or because you picked up the kids at soccer practice, and you feel yourself get a little bit rigid. Your jaw tightens ever so slightly.

You think to yourself, “I always pick the kids up! I’m forever making meals. You’re thanking me now? How about you thank me for cleaning up the toothpaste you constantly leave in the bathroom sink?”

Why is it that, instead of accepting the thanks offered, you want MORE thanks in this moment?

This rigid and tight feeling in your body is resistance. I don’t know why, but it’s human nature for many of us to resist the very words we also long to hear. I see this all the time in my private coaching practice.

The short answer is we’re afraid. 

 

When appreciation feels insufficient

We’re afraid of the intimacy implied when the person we love so much actually sees us, values us, and takes the time to let us know they value us.

When we crave that very intimacy, why then do we tighten up when it’s offered?

Oh, Dear Listener, I know. I know this feeling so well. I remember, when my husband and I had young children. I said things to him like “You never appreciate all that I’m doing.” But then, when he did, kindly and tenderly, say, “Thank you for this great meal,” I couldn’t let it in.

It was too little, too late. 

It felt prescribed: he was only thanking me today because I’d yelled at him last night.

It wasn’t ENOUGH! He was thanking me for one meal, when I’d cooked hundreds.

I remember the loneliness I felt during that era of my life. I was working so hard. So hard. I was exhausted. And there was so much pressure to continue to work hard. At least, that’s how I felt.

 

It’s hard to receive love when you don’t feel worthy

I can see better now. I see that sweet, overworked mother that I was, and I just want to scoop her up and hold her. I want to rock her back and forth, and back and forth until the tightness in her jaw softens. 

Until she can feel the love I have for her. Until she feels worthy of receiving the love that’s all around her.

I don’t love her because she worked so hard. I don’t think she’s worthy because of all that she accomplished. I think she’s worthy because she wants to be showered in love so much. 

What we want, wants us. My friend and colleague, Allison Evans, is always saying this to me. 

The love I craved, the appreciation I longed for when I was a young mother? All that love and appreciation wanted me as well. I just had to learn to let it in. 

 

The barriers that keep love out

Rumi, the 13th-century poet, has a gorgeous quote, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” 

There are a lot of barriers we build to keep love out. Barriers like:

• I just can’t get ahead of all this work! 
• No one appreciates all that I do
• No matter how much I do, it’s never enough

These thoughts and feelings are like rocks we toss into our life stream, and these rocks dam up the flow of water. The flow of love.

This dam—a dam you built yourself—keeps you thirsty in a world of UNWORTHINESS. 

When you feel unworthy, you make yourself invisible.

Generally speaking, we all feel invisible to one degree or another. Thank you makes us feel seen. This can be frightening. Especially if you feel unworthy of that thank you.

 

The imaginary dangers of love

Many of the great love stories have a theme based around Rumi’s quote and how we each build barriers that keep us safe from the imaginary dangers of love. A great example is a movie I saw when I was in high school called Somewhere in Time. Christopher Reeve starred with Jane Seymour. 

Hollywood is great at capturing this struggle we have with love. 

In this film the struggle to remove these barriers to love is represented by time travel. Christopher Reeve’s character, who is a playwright, is visited by an elderly woman at his premiere. She presses a pocket watch into his hand and says, “Come back to me.” 

He spends the next third of the movie learning about time travel. He struggles. And struggles. And faces one barrier and then another. Until, finally…he’s there. Miraculously in another time, half a century earlier. 

 

Love is vulnerable. We build barriers to keep us safe.

Let’s look at the trick Hollywood plays in this moment: Richard Collier—the character Christopher Reeve plays—struggles and struggles to travel through time. This represents our struggles to remove the barriers we build to keep us safe from the vulnerability of love. 

But once he succeeds at the time travel, it’s like he’s inoculated against all fears concerning love. 

When he sees the young version of the elderly woman who gave him the pocket watch, he knows that this woman—Miss McKenna—will fall so in love with him that she will live out the rest of her days pining for him.

His present vulnerability is erased by her future confidence. He borrows her certainty about the love they share.

 

If you were certain your love story would have a happy ending, how would you receive the “Thank yous” in your life differently?

We all resist love—and thank you is a tool to give love—because we’re afraid. Maybe you’re afraid your partner will abandon you someday, or maybe you’re afraid that your partner is the wrong person for you. Or you’re afraid of death. Whatever your fears, they spin up all kinds of stories about how you will get hurt. 

Miss McKenna says to Richard Collier, “Is it you?” The look in her eyes embodies that part in of each of us that is looking for love. We all wonder at one time or another, is the person I’m with the one who will help me believe in love?

This fear—of truly receiving love—is personified by Miss McKenna’s manipulative manager. That manager told Miss McKenna to expect someone who wanted love. And he also told her that person should be feared. 

 

The inner conflict of receiving love

This represents the inner conflict we all feel, right? We desperately want love to come and wash us in that powerful feeling of belonging, but at the same time, we’ve been told to fear that very love.

OK. It’s time for me to cop to the shmaltzy, over-the-top cheesiness of this movie. It’s true. If you watch this movie based upon my story today: prepare yourself. It’s going to be really sappy. 

And.

Part of each of us yearns for this sappy, innocent, certain version of love. So just stay with me for a moment because I’m going to tell you where Hollywood cheesiness and real-life intermingle. 

 

You WANT love, but it’s TERRIFYING

I remembered a later scene in the movie that showed Miss McKenna about to be kissed by Mr. Collier and she was backing away. She was articulating that inner conflict we all feel between WANTING love that is sappy, innocent, and certain vs being absolutely TERRIFIED of just that kind of love. 

And, in my memory, Richard Collier calms her fear with his certainty as he says, “I think you’ll survive it, Miss McKenna.” I could—and still can—remember these exact words coming out of Christopher Reeve’s mouth. 

Except there is no such scene. 

I had a deep dive into YouTube and a friendly conversation with ChatGPT. Neither the imaginary Richard Collier nor the real Christopher Reeve says this. But I heard it. And remember it profoundly. 

I remember being at my friend Lisa’s house, watching the movie in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and inside of me was that ever-present misty cloud of teenagerness. When I heard him say, “I think you’ll survive it, Miss Rebecca Miss McKenna. I think you’ll survive being loved,” 

I wept. 

I wept like any good high schooler who is hormonal and lost and looking for her place in the world. Miss McKenna is literally facing the love she desperately wants. But it is also the love she fears. 

 

How to tame the fear of receiving love

Do you know what helps Miss McKenna—and me—in moments like this? She gets to borrow from Richard Collier’s confidence in their love. The very confidence she gave to him…though she doesn’t know it. 

He is certain about their love. This certainty allows him to cast out the fear she feels. 

He melts the fear by naming it: You’re afraid you won’t survive being loved. In naming her fear, he tames it. Then, he befriends her fear with his confidence. This is what we all wish would happen every time we face vulnerability. 

 

Doubt is a dam that prevents you from receiving “thank you”

We wish our partner wouldn’t just say, “Thank you for making this nice dinner.” We wish our partner would say, “You are the one that makes my life complete. This dinner is just one example of millions of other reasons that I am certain I will love you forever and ever.” 

A little over-the-top right? Your fearful wish sounds a little goofy when I just say it like that, right? And you’d feel weird if your partner actually said all that. 

So your fear about love and your desire for love get caught in this dam of doubt. 

You hear “Thank you,” and your doubt dams up the flow of love.

 

How foreboding joy keeps you from receiving “thank you”

Even if you can borrow certainty, or get past the doubt, there’s another risk associated with accepting “Thank you.” What if, when you open your heart, you realize that love tastes fabulous and you drink it all up, and then it disappears? Hurricanes and tornados are real after all. 

You don’t want that pain of loss, so you’ll just refuse to accept the love in the first place. 

Brené Brown calls this foreboding joy. We keep ourselves from joy, and love, and happiness because we’re afraid we will lose it one day. Isn’t this a tragedy? To never feel love because we MIGHT lose it?

Our subconscious—like mine that made up an entire line in this movie—also tells us imaginary stories. 

When your partner says “Thank you,” they are loving you. 

Will you risk being loved? Will you let yourself receive that love even though inside your heart you hear the voice, but will I survive being loved?

 

Remove the barriers and welcome love

The ONLY way to feel that deep, sappy, certain yet innocent love is to welcome it. To remove all your barriers of protection. To dig all the rocks out of your dammed river and let the water of love flow freely. To own the love that is all around you.

But how? How do we do this? You need to turn on the faucet of your own agency. This can be challenging. Both to turn ON your agency, and to KEEP it fully turned on.

Here’s why you get tempted to turn OFF your agency: You feel overwhelmed. By dishes. By errands. By emails. It’s all too much and you’ll never get ahead. 

So, it’s tempting to give up. I’ll never get it all done. You say to yourself.

And then…here comes the moment where we put a rock into our dam of love…then we make this leap and we say, BECAUSE I’ll never get it all done, that means I’m not worthy of love.

 

Why we resist receiving “thank you”

When I say it to you like this—plainly and frankly—it seems so obvious. Oh. That’s dumb. You know I’m being ridiculous when I say plainly: you’re not worthy of love UNLESS you do things perfectly in life. 

We don’t take time to question this moment. We don’t pause. 

Instead—and here’s where the real tragedy lies—we confuse the agency we have to receive love with the agency we have to “get it all done.” 

We don’t know how to receive “Thanks for this nice dinner,” because we are thinking about the kitchen that’s now a mess. 

Does this resonate?

Have you ever resisted receiving “Thank you” because you feel incomplete?

We all feel incomplete at one time or another. Or lots of the time. Or ALL the time.

 

What’s the fix for this?

Christopher Reeve knew his love story was complete. He’d already seen the ending. An elderly woman came and put a pocket watch into his hand and said, “Come back to me.” It was proof. 

The Somewhere in Time movie plays a trick on us. It plays with the past and it plays with the future and takes all the uncertainty away. 

We long for this certainty. 

Because we live in the future—I’ll never get it all done—or we live in the past—I’ve been washing dishes all week long—but we don’t let ourselves live in the present moment. And the present moment is the ONLY place love lives.

The relentlessness and ever-presence of tasks you can never complete can drain you. And that drain makes you feel unworthy to the task. Then you take the crazy leap: so I must be unworthy of love. 

 

Clear the path to self-love

Each time you talk to yourself this way you’re tossing another rock into the river of love, plugging up the love that longs to flow your direction. These seemingly innocuous thoughts become insurmountable barriers to receiving love. 

This dam keeps you thirsty in a world of UNWORTHINESS. 

We have a choice in these moments of loneliness and alienation: You can believe the stories—I’ll never be done with this—and keep tossing rocks of despair into your stream of love, or you can take that I-feel-unworthy-feeling as an invitation to thank yourself. 

To allow yourself to live in the present moment. Not the future—I’ll be doing dishes forever. Not in the past—All I’ve ever done is wash dishes. Each of these states of mind—the anxiety of the future and the burden of the past—put rocks into the stream of love. 

 

Cultivate presence and appreciation in everyday life

Do you know the Zen Buddist saying, “Chop wood. Carry water?” Check out this short video by my teacher, Martha Beck. 

The context for “Chop wood. Carry water,” is that everything is about your mindset. Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. The circumstances of your life don’t change. 

What changes is how you perceive those circumstances. What TIME ZONE do you let yourself be in? Are you in the future: I’ll never get it all done? Are you in the past: I’ve been doing this forever!

Bring yourself to the present moment. Notice yourself. Notice what you’re doing. Notice why you’re doing it. 

And take a moment to appreciate yourself. 

When you feel overwhelmed by the dishes—I can never keep up!—pause and appreciate yourself—I am constantly feeding my family. One of the ways I show my family love is to cook for them. I am tired in this moment, so I want to notice why my efforts are important to me: I value what my family eats, so I cook a lot and that makes a mess of my kitchen. Right now, I want to see how each dirty dish is a detail of love I’ve planted into the hearts of my family members.

Whoa! What would happen if you cultivated this sort of internal dialogue? See how this removes rocks from your dam of love? 

 

Let’s look at how changing this internal voice impacts the flow of love you’re able to feel

Later that evening, as your partner says, “Thank you for making dinner,” it’s an invitation to live in the present moment that’s unfolding. Your partner is tasting the food you made. Feeling the nourishment you have cultivated. 

It’s a moment of flow. The river of love is connecting you. You made food. Your partner is feeling nourished by the food you made. 

“Thank you” brings an invitation to live in the present moment. Allow yourself to notice: Doing dishes is one of the ways I tend to myself and my family. We are constantly tempted to resist this truth because we don’t feel DONE. We don’t feel complete. And we link our worthiness of receiving love to that feeling of completion.

But when you change the script in your own head from—I’ll never keep up, to I always try to nourish my family–you’ve appreciated yourself first. You’ve owned your agency.

You pulled rocks out of that dam. You welcomed the flow of love.

Then, when your partner thanks you, you don’t resist. You bask in the flow of love you’re co-creating together. 

Here’s a couple examples I did for myself: 

• I am tempted to think I’m not enough when it comes to marketing my entrepreneurial business. But that just puts rocks in my river of self-love. Instead, I’ve decided to appreciate that I carefully choose a sustainable amount of outreach because I value consistency, authenticity, and sustainable goals. 
• Second example: Sometimes, I get critical with myself about the way I eat. I know that I feel healthier when I eat cleaner, but this quickly denigrates into I’m a loser if I eat poorly. When I ask myself, “What do you appreciate about the way you eat, Rebecca?” The answer is quick: I appreciate the times I eat purely for the sake of pleasure. I’m a happier person when I live generally within my guidelines, but I also make room for treats and celebrate special occasions. 
• Third example: There’s a voice in my head that says, “You should call X…and that blank is filled in by any number of people.” That voice is there because I value staying in touch with others, but instead of thinking I’m not enough if I don’t call, I ask myself to appreciate myself as I am. I quickly get a message that sounds just as true. It says, “You connect with a lot of people, Rebecca. When you let yourself be quiet, you get a chance to remain connected to yourself.” 

What are the ways your internal voice tells you “You’re not enough,” and puts a rock into your dam of love?

This week, notice those thoughts, and turn them around so that, instead, you’re noticing how, each moment, in the moment, you’re living into your values.

Use this to help:

What do you notice when I offer you this invitation? Are you eager to have this discussion? Good for you!

Is it possible the idea of this discussion frightens you? Let me help you out. You can use a preamble if that helps. Here’s an example:

I’m trying to cultivate gratitude in my life and in our relationship. Rebecca challenged me today, saying that gratitude for others will grow as I also am grateful for myself. Would it be OK if I practice by saying it out loud to you?

 

Here’s a couple examples from my world:

• I’m grateful I got up early. That allowed me to have a few minutes over coffee with you. 
• I’m grateful I asked you to pick up the groceries. That allowed me to put my feet up for a moment. I notice how much kinder I am—both to you and to myself—when I give myself time to rest.
• I’m grateful I work so hard at my job. I get a lot of satisfaction from my work.

Wow! These examples—both here and in the habit section—were really impactful for me! I felt my skin soften when I really took time to think about what I’m appreciating in myself right now. It was sort of a magic trick when I turned my critical inner voice around. 

This is one reason I really love having a chance to have these conversations with you: I grow every time I talk to you. 

Another reason I love to have these conversations with you is that I love being included in your relationship. Today, I’d love to be included in your thoughts as you experiment with receiving gratitude. What is that like for you? If it’s easy, I want to hear how and why. If you find it a little challenging, I’d love to hear the specifics of what you notice about yourself and that voice inside your head. Text me at 970-210-4480 and let me know.