That awkward moment: you are going about your business when out of nowhere someone tells you “you look nice today,” or that they admire you, or even worse drop a really BIG word like ‘beautiful,’ ‘sexy,’ or ‘amazing’! You freeze, stammer a compliment back, brush it off and then run away, flustered and feeling like you could crawl under a rock. Does hearing someone speak kindly about you make you cringe? What kinds of feelings does it bring up for you?
If you’re like most people, it’s a wonderful opportunity to turn on yourself, deflect, and allow that inner critic to rear its ugly head. The question is why is it so hard to take a compliment and what can you do to shift that??
First off let me just say that it is very normal to feel uncomfortable when people say kind things to you. Many of us, (especially women) were taught from a very young age to be humble, not to let flattery go to our heads, and that we are no better than the next person. Although that is somewhat true, (we are all human beings at the end of the day, and all deserving of love and belonging) we are also super awesome and wonderful and deserve to be acknowledged for it! The trouble is, the messages we received when we were very young, have somehow been misinterpreted (or in some cases were downright nasty to start) to mess with our heads as adults. Depending on those messages, we also learn to accept certain types of compliments better than others. For example: a child who is often told she is pretty will be able to hear that a little bit easier as an adult than say, a comment on her intelligence, or abilities.
This also takes into consideration whom the compliment is coming from. Since we are also habitual creatures sometimes we can become desensitized to certain language from certain people and it becomes irritating to hear a specific type of compliment over others. Basically, receiving compliments in a psychological sense is a battle between our egos, our conscious and our unconscious minds; interpreting messages we hear now and comparing them to messages we received as children we decide what is true for us and what isn’t. Since we are our own worst enemies, that compliment usually becomes twisted into an ugly truth and if it doesn’t line up with our beliefs about ourselves, we dismiss it. We deflect it, reaffirm our actual belief by minimising the compliment, and even sometimes go so far as to project our negative feelings onto the compliment giver. (“She’s lying”, “he just wants to get in my pants” etc etc)
That’s all fine and dandy but what do you do with that information? You learn to shift your thinking. It’s a bit of a process but it can be done and I’ve broken it down into 3 simple steps.
1. Name Your Beliefs and Thoughts.
This takes some self reflection and honesty. Ask yourself, “what do I believe about myself, and what do I think others believe about me?” I find the best way to get really honest is to get into my body. Take a few deep breaths and sit quietly for a few minutes and see what surfaces. If you’re in your head it’s easy to rationalise your way out of it. I mean you might know in your head that most people think you’re great, and even have evidence to back it up, but if you don’t FEEL that in your heart, it will never fully be real. So get into your body; think of all the limiting beliefs (aka nasty thoughts) you have about yourself and then write them down. By naming these you can really begin to dive into and explore where these feelings come from; reflect on your childhood, when was the first time you felt like this? What behaviours were modeled for you around taking compliments, what were you told as a kid about who you were and how you should behave? Write these down.
2. Shift Your Beliefs
Take stock of your life right now. Of those limiting beliefs you hold, which ones do you think would be easiest to shift and where in your life are you noticing them most? Is someone in your life reaffirming these beliefs or are you choosing not to hear anything to the contrary. Often we can enter into relationship with people who we think are better than we are to compare ourselves to, or worse: we find mirrors of ourselves in others who project their insecurities onto us in the form of verbal or emotional abuse. This can look like you starting every sentence with: “This is stupid, but…” or hearing similar words from others. *cringe* Regardless, if it’s someone else putting that negativity on you, CUT THEM LOOSE! You are worthy of so much more than that!! If it’s just you doing it to yourself, then for each negative belief write down 3-5 ways this isn’t true. For example: “I have no good ideas” becomes “I am insightful,” “I am innovative,” etc. It helps to write the contradicting/new statements as “I am” if possible, as it helps shift neural pathways in your brain and you start to identify as those things.
3. Accept The Compliment
The real challenge. Now that you know where these beliefs come from and you can name them, you can allow a little outside assistance to help shift them. Not all self love needs to come from you, sometimes it’s about surrounding yourself with people who boost you up. The first step in taking compliments is being open to receiving them. Think of them as a gift. If you are a thoughtful person (I assume you are) and give someone a gift, how would you feel if they rejected it? Pretty shitty right? Well that’s how people feel when they compliment you!
A little skill practice I like to do, is to ask for compliments. This sounds counter intuitive because we all know that person who is always fishing for compliments (that usually starts with self deprecating language) and that’s NOT what I mean. I mean genuinely asking people what they think of you, or see as your best qualities. If you don’t want people to see you blush, put a post on Facebook. Something along the lines of “Hey! I’m doing some self love work lately and I need some love. What is one thing you like most about me?” Once the love starts to roll in, the first thing you’ll probably want to do is compliment back. DON’T! For the purpose of this exercise you want to just allow the feelings to land. This will mean getting into your body again so take a few deep breaths, read the comments and see what comes up.
If you feel uncomfortable, (it’s normal) then re-read it, say it out loud to yourself, and remember they chose to tell you something kind because they feel that way! The next step is to say “Thank you” and that’s it. If you feel it land, aka you get the warm fuzzies, then and ONLY then are you allowed to say something kind back. (For the first while I challenge you not to, simply because it’s an easy deflection route and doesn’t have the same effect on the brain). Once you get good at reading compliments the next step is hearing them, but essentially the skill practice is the same. Just hear what they have to say, take a deep breath, feel how it feels and say “Thank you”. If you notice yourself deflecting or self deprecating, stop and repeat the steps. Eventually, you’ll be so used to hearing compliments, you’ll start to believe them!
The most important part of this process is to be gentle with yourself. We’ve all got a lot of programming accumulated over the years and it takes time to shift thoughts, and patterns and beliefs. Remember, compliments are gifts, if at first you can’t take one for your sake, take one for the person offering. You’ll be giving them a gift in return just by being open to receiving.
Much Love!
Kendra
