accepting compliments Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

On Repeat

Yesterday, I wrote about being a gracious compliment receiver. I knew that I had written about this topic before, but I certainly don’t expect all of you to remember my past posts. Well, you caught me. I had to laugh this morning, when I looked at my stats and I saw that my previous post on accepting compliments, from at least two years ago, was trending. I am guessing that some of you were thinking, didn’t she write about this before?? Here is the older post. I do love the meme.

Just Say Thank You

I am one who repeats myself often. My kids call me on this fact, all of the time. When I was young and older people did this, I just assumed that they were forgetful. However, now that I am an older person, I realize that a lot of my repeating of things, is just a reminder to myself, as to what to keep imprinted on my heart. My repeating is part of the beating of my heart. My “repeating” is keeping my life beating to the important stuff – the lessons, the stories, the ideas, the verses, the experiences which have come together to form the current version of “me”. My repeating of what is meaningful to me, is just a way to keep that “life gift”, as a relevant part of myself.

I am waiting for the Progressive Insurance’s “You Are Turning Into Your Parents” advertisement campaign, to do a segment on all of the stuff that we parents say, again and again and again. They have already burned me with my love for throw pillows, and cutesy signs, and being way too obvious when looking at people with aqua blue hair. I am sure that repeating the “same old stories” will be part of the next Progressive TV commercials. And I honestly look forward to any advertisement from this “turning into your parents” series. I like to laugh, and I don’t have any problem with laughing at myself. I give myself a lot of material to laugh about.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Receive

I read a story in Real Simple magazine last night that made me think. It was written by Hoda Kotb. She talks about having a young twenty-something page at NBC, working for her, whom Hoda was really impressed with. One day, Hoda complimented the page about her work ethic and her calm nature. She said that the page smiled and replied, “I received that.”

“I received that.” Koda complimented the page, once again, for her serious response. They talked about the fact that compliments are such a gift. Koda thinks that if you respond to a compliment with “I received that,” you are saying, “What you’ve said to me is inside of me now. I’m not deflecting it, I’m receiving it. I accept your kind gift.”

I wonder if I would feel weird saying “I received that,” to someone who complimented me. Probably. But, I could think it, after I smiled and warmly said, “Thank you.” I could decide to receive the compliment, instead of thinking, “oh they’re just trying to butter me up,” or “How could they possibly see that attribute in me? They are totally mistaken.”

Genuine compliments are rare, unfortunately. For some strange reason, it takes guts to tell someone what you think is particularly interesting or special or unique or positive about their persona. When someone has mustered up the courage to give us a genuine compliment and we deflect it, it is almost like throwing a sweet, thoughtful gift, down to the ground, right in front of their faces. Ouch.

Readers, I think that you are incredibly kind, thoughtful, insightful, loyal people who have made a major difference in my life for almost three years, now. I am incredibly grateful for you. Your gift of attention has meant the world to me. I consider you to be a major, meaningful gift in my life.

Please receive my compliment and my thankfulness.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Just Say Thank You

Why is it so hard for us to accept compliments? My friends and I got into a discussion about this the other day. The topic came up because an electrician was at my home doing some work for us and he complimented a few things in our home. Every time that he paid me a compliment, I rolled my eyes, made up some stupid quip about the item that he was complimenting, or I laughed. Now, I know my etiquette. I know that the proper thing is to just say “thank you,” but I didn’t do that and I didn’t even realize that I didn’t do it until he would respond to me like this, “Oh, so you don’t really like it?” That response jolted me into some self-awareness of just how lousy I am at accepting compliments sometimes.

My friend said that when we don’t accept compliments we are actually insulting the person who paid the compliment. When we put down what someone else says is nice, we are dissing their tastes. We think that we are being kind or humble by not accepting compliments, but in reality we are rejecting their gift of kindness. Another knee-jerk response to a compliment is to compliment the other person back. But those “gotcha back” compliments seem kind of hollow, as a true compliment comes spontaneously from the heart, not as a “payback.”

Compliments are great. We should bask in them. Mark Twain said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” Robert Orben said, “A compliment is verbal sunshine.” Why not give the person who compliments a little “verbal sunshine” back with a big, bright smile and a, “Thank you. You just made my day!” What is a better way to make both of you feel good???

We are unfortunately quick to accept criticism. Even if we think we haven’t accepted the criticism, we ruminate on it all day long. We stew in anger at the audacity of whomever criticized us or we sulk in shame as if making one mistake dooms us to the depths of hell. If we are willing to put ourselves through all of that for criticism, constructive or not, why would we not allow ourselves to soak in the light of a kind compliment? I think the cartoon character Happy Bunny says it best:

“Please put all criticisms in the form of a compliment.”