(from a Facebook post of one of my Friends)
My friend Heather has been writing 30 lessons from her life to commemorate her 30th birthday and to pass them on to her daughter. I love all of them but this one about taking compliment touched my heart today.
Lesson 27: Learn how to take a compliment – This has been a difficult one for me to do and I am definitely still working on it. I’m not sure what flaw it is that exists inside me that makes my inner voice question the motives of someone giving me a compliment. It has always made me uncomfortable, though. I blush, get shy, turn away and sometimes outright deny, deny, deny. I’ve been known to take sarcastic ownership, like, I can turn “I love your shirt” into a snarky “Thanks, it’s because I have amazing taste.” Or worse, instead of just saying thank you, I might create a caveat to the compliment like, when someone compliments my cooking I might say something like, “yeah, it could probably use more/less (fill in the blank), but it’s pretty good.” It’s silly really. It drives Ryan crazy. I married a man who is fantastic at giving sincere compliments in expression of his love and/or gratitude and I sincerely struggle with accepting them and moving on. The lesson? When someone compliments you stop analyzing their motives – just smile and say thank you! It doesn’t make you look self-aggrandizing or egocentric. Take ownership of how awesome you are, because everyone deserves to be complimented, especially for their hard work. When you refuse the compliment you are both displaying a low sense of self-worth and insulting the sincerity and taste of the person complimenting you.
