Become More to Receive More

I have realised that everything has its own timing — literally everything.

We might want something badly now, but if we are not ready to receive it, we may not receive it yet. Our vessel has to be spacious enough to encompass the things we wish to welcome into our lives. Our vibrations must match the people, opportunities, and events we hope to attract. There seems to be a perfect moment for everything to happen, even when we cannot understand the delay at the time.

I once heard a simple metaphor about a child and an ice cream. A child is holding one scoop of ice cream, but he drops it. He immediately begins to cry and asks his father to buy him another ice cream, this time with two scoops. The father refuses, so the child cries even more and asks, “Why won’t you buy me two scoops?” His father replies, “Because if you could not hold one scoop, you are not ready to hold two.”

I think life often works in exactly the same way.

We ask for more money, greater opportunities, a loving relationship, a more exciting life, or a complete transformation. We convince ourselves that receiving more would solve our problems, but sometimes we have not yet developed the capacity to hold what we are asking for. Our vessel is simply too small.

Greater wealth often requires a larger capacity to manage responsibility, choice, pressure, and possibility. A bigger life does not only bring more pleasure; it can also bring more decisions, expectations, exposure, commitments, and demands on our time and energy. If we cannot protect our energy in a relatively modest life, how would we cope with a much larger and expansive one? If we are not emotionally ready to receive love, we may sabotage it, mistrust it, or fail to recognise it when it appears.

Sometimes we are asking life for two scoops while we are still learning how to hold one properly.

This does not mean that we are unworthy of more abundance. It means that we may need to grow our vessel. We need to increase our emotional, spiritual, psychological, financial and practical capacity. We need to become stronger, more grounded, more self-aware, more mindful and more open. We need to become the kind of person who can receive something larger without dropping or misusing it.

The delay is not always punishment. Sometimes it is incubation and priming.

Do Not Be Afraid to Ask for More

At the same time, we should not become so preoccupied with readiness that we become afraid to ask for abundance, riches, love, beauty, freedom, and a bigger life.

The Universe is limitless and abundant. Nature does not apologise for producing millions of flowers, countless stars, forests full of trees, and oceans stretching beyond the horizon. Abundance is not unnatural. It surrounds us everywhere. Yet many of us approach it with tiny expectations, apologising before we have even asked.

There is another metaphor I love. Imagine standing in front of the ocean. The ocean is vast, powerful, and seemingly endless. You are allowed to take water from it, but you arrive carrying only a teaspoon. The ocean is not withholding anything from you; your container is simply too small.

The teaspoon represents a scarcity mindset. It whispers that we should not ask for too much, that we must be realistic, that there may not be enough for us, or that wanting more is self-centred and ungrateful. It teaches us to accept the smallest amount possible and call that humility. The bucket represents an abundance mindset. It says that there is enough, that we are allowed to ask, and that we can expand our capacity to receive. It reminds us that we do not have to approach an abundant Universe with the smallest possible container.

Do not go to the ocean with a teaspoon. Bring buckets.

Ask for abundance. Ask for riches. Ask for opportunities, adventure, love, freedom, creativity, and a beautiful, meaningful, extraordinary life. Ask freely and without shame. Ask, and you shall be given. But while you are asking, prepare yourself to receive. Become a larger vessel and develop the strength, wisdom, courage, discipline, self-worth, and emotional capacity needed to carry what you have requested. There is no virtue in making yourself small in front of something limitless.

Was I Ready to Leave Earlier?

I sometimes say that I regret not moving to the UK sooner. I emigrated to England at the ripe age of twenty-nine, and occasionally I imagine how different my life might have been if I had moved when I was twenty-four or twenty-five. But would I really have been ready to leave sooner? Would I have had the courage and maturity to move to a foreign country on my own at twenty-five? Would I have been emotionally prepared to deal with loneliness, uncertainty, cultural differences, and the enormous responsibility of building a completely new life?

Perhaps not.

My negative experiences of being a teacher in Poland gave me a strong nudge to move on and redesign my lifestyle. Sometimes we need to become deeply dissatisfied with our present life before we find the courage to create a different one. Discomfort can become a powerful force of propulsion. We may not initially move because the future is irresistible; sometimes we move because the present has become intolerable.

Perhaps it was also good that I completed my MA diploma. Studying in a larger city made me more street-smart, independent, and confident. It prepared me for the wider world, taught me how to navigate unfamiliar places, and helped me learn how to rely on myself. The negative experience of teaching in a small Polish town gave me the desire to leave and relocate to the UK, while pursuing my MA in one of Poland’s largest cities gave me the confidence to do it. Perhaps I needed both experiences before I was ready for England.

The Woman I Became in England

It has been fourteen years since I came to the UK, and the way I have grown here is simply beyond words. Living in the UK has made me wiser, more emotionally intelligent, more self-aware, more adventurous, more confident, better organised, and more financially successful. I have become a teacher, an online tutor, a translator, a blogger, a nutritionist, a yogini, a traveller, and an avid runner. I have made international friendships and experienced many different cultures whilst living in the UK. I have travelled through Asia, studied yoga in India, and built a life that is wider, richer, and more colourful than the life I could once imagine.

Of course, this transformation did not happen overnight. It happened slowly through thousands of various experiences, challenges, decisions, mistakes, and discoveries. I grew into a different woman because I finally had enough space to become one. England gave me that space. It gave me space for growth, self-discovery, introspection, self-direction and experimentaiton. It allowed me to redesign myself, experiment with different identities, and discover what kind of life truly suited me. I am deeply grateful for all the amazing things this country has given me. I did not simply move to another country. I moved towards a larger version of myself.

The Exams Society Creates for Us

One day, whilst walking in the New Forest during my lunch break, I realised that I had passed many different tests society had created for me: GCSE exams, BA exams, MA exams, TEFL diploma assignments, a Community Interpreting exam, a Yoga Teacher Training exam, and numerous job interviews. For most of our lives, we are preparing for artificial examinations designed by someone else. We are told what to learn, how to behave, what knowledge matters, and which answers will be rewarded. From an early age, we are conditioned to meet external standards of success and happiness and satisfy somebody else’s marking criteria.

We learn how to pass school exams, university exams, job interviews, professional qualifications, and workplace assessments. But nobody teaches us how to create our own exams and success criteria. Nobody tells us that there comes a time when we must stop living according to somebody else’s definition of success and begin deciding what success truly means to us.

Now it is time for me to start passing the exams I create for myself: an exam for abundance, an exam for happiness, an exam for adventure, an exam for a happy and fulfilling life, an exam for a loving relationship, and an exam for a unique and extraordinary existence. I also want to pass my own exams in courage, creativity, freedom, and self-respect. These exams are far more complex than traditional ones. There is no textbook, teacher, or official answer sheet. Nobody tells us exactly what to do because we must design the questions ourselves.

Can I create abundance without becoming frightened by it? Can I receive more without feeling guilty? Can I build a larger life without shrinking myself to make other people comfortable? Can I choose happiness without believing that I must suffer first? Can I create a loving relationship without abandoning my freedom?

Whose Standards Are You Following?

We are taught from an early age how to follow someone else’s standards of success and happiness. We are told that success means obtaining qualifications, finding a respectable job, buying a home, getting married, having children, and behaving in a socially acceptable way. Very few people are taught to ask what actually makes them happy, what kind of life makes them feel alive, or what kind of relationship allows them to remain fully themselves. We are not encouraged to question what abundance means to us, what freedom feels like, or what kind of ordinary day would make us feel deeply satisfied.

This is one reason so many people feel empty, confused, lost, unhappy, and tired. They live according to societal standards and expectations, and they do not have enough time, energy and space in their heads to design their own. Their minds are full of instructions, duties, expectations, comparisons, and inherited ideas. They are busy trying to pass exams they never consciously agreed to take. Many people are successful on paper but deeply unhappy inside. They may have passed every social exam and still failed to create a life that feels like their own.

Perhaps the most important exam is the one that asks: Does this life truly belong to me?

Creating our own examinations requires courage because nobody else may understand the questions. For one person, the exam may be learning how to stay, while for another it may be learning how to leave. For one person, success may mean building a family; for another, it may mean living alone and protecting their peace. For one person, abundance may mean earning more money, while for another it may mean owning less and having greater freedom.

There is no universal answer. That is precisely why we must create our own standards.

Becoming the Person Who Can Receive

Perhaps divine timing is connected to these personal exams. Before life gives us something larger, it may quietly ask whether we are ready to hold it, whether our vessel is large enough, and whether we have developed the emotional strength, wisdom, confidence, integrity, resilience and practical ability required. Can we hold one scoop before asking for two?

An opportunity may already exist, but we must grow into the person who can recognise and sustain it. Abundance may already be available, but we must enlarge our capacity to access it and then manage it wisely. A loving relationship may already be possible, but our self-worth must become strong enough to receive love without mistrusting or sabotaging it. An adventure may already be calling, but our courage must become stronger than our fear.

When I look back at my move to England, I no longer think I arrived late. I arrived when I was ready. My vessel was finally large enough, and I had gathered enough courage, experience, maturity, education, confidence, and determination to hold the life I was asking for. The right moment is not always the earliest moment. It is the moment when we are finally capable of receiving, holding, and honouring what arrives.

Sometimes life is not refusing to give us more.

Sometimes it is waiting for us to become more.