Day 265: Accept Compliments

On Day 37, I suggested we give meaningful compliments.

On Day 265, I am suggesting we openly accept compliments. Accept them and carry them with us. 

This is not a 'showoff-y, narcissistic, ego-laden' type of thing.

This is a 'self-love, acknowledging-your-skills,-hard-work,-talent,-traits-or-qualities' type of thing. 

This is a 'seeing-myself-as-I-really-am, is-this-really-true? whoa - I'm-awesome, why-does-my-brain-always-try-to-hide-this-from-me?' type of thing.

Does any of this seem familiar?
Because I experience it a lot - especially the last one.

Having my best qualities, skills, and talents acknowledged or praised by another always feels a bit uncomfortable. Instantly, I feel myself going on the defensive, 'they're just saying that to be nice.' For some reason, my brain won't allow me to believe that what they said is true.

I won't let myself believe it, because I don't think it's true.

Which, too often in my experience, results in me shrugging off whatever I've just been told and missing an opportunity to receive love and kindness from someone else. And likewise, missing an opportunity to deliver love and kindness to myself.

How many people can relate to that?
I certainly can. (Obviously, because I'm the one sharing! 😜)

As the saying goes, "we are our own worst critic."
And as the saying forgot to finish, "but we don't have to be."

We don't have to be our own worst critic.

We don't have to be a critic at all! Worst, least - the comparative doesn't matter!

What matters is kindness to ourselves.

If you're like me, and/or grew up in a westernized culture, being kind to yourself is probably a pretty big struggle. And, if you're even more like me, you don't even realize that you're being unkind in the first place!

Compliments give us a way to practice this missing kindness.

They give us an opportunity to challenge the biased way we view ourselves.
They give us an opportunity to take a look at ourselves with fresh eyes, from a new perspective, from someone else's truth.

When I was going through my coach training in 2020 one of the exercises we went through was on the topic of 'rules that we live by.' We explored how most of us have a lot of rules for ourselves, both recognized and unaware, that impact how we live and experience life. We were then encouraged to write up some new, empowering 'rules' for ourselves.

I recall that one of mine was, "I speak the beauty I see."

To me, that is what a compliment is.

If something moves you enough to comment on it - there is beauty [and truth] there.

Of course, different people have different tastes, and not all people will like all things. But they don't need to.

Ultimately, all that matters is what we think about ourselves. But, until we have the right lens to see ourselves as we really are - AWESOME - we can use the compliments of others to help us along the way.