Do you receive compliments?

Once upon a time I was embarrassed & uncomfortable E V E R Y time someone gave me a compliment. 

My response was automatic: either just smile, say thanks not really intending it.. All at the same time thinking in my head “YEAH SURE! They are just saying that because they feel pressured to do so, it’s not really what they think.. If I was actually what they say I was, I would be this & that.. and I am not, I’m just not”

I see it all the time: people denying, rejecting or ignoring compliments. 

I am sure it happens the other way around to some of you too! Especially those of you who are compliment givers. How annoying is it to say something wholeheartedly and for that to be rejected or not received like if what you said was a mistake altogether !!?? 

Our incapacity for receiving compliments is incredibly harmful for our own souls.. And so it is for those who are out there being vulnerable enough to share their heart with us. 

When responded with sarcasm, a re-direction of the conversation, a fake smile, ignoring, or a cool and distant “thanks”...

The person who gave you the compliment feels confused the first time, frustrated the second time around; and possibly angry in the long run.

By not believing or taking in a compliment you are telling the person who gave it: That’s not true, you are wrong, you are a liar. Ultimately it means: you shouldn’t have bothered in telling me that because I don’t believe it.

I get it though, sometimes it is really hard to believe that is true.

Sometimes you spend a whole life telling yourself that you are a terrible painter.. one day you try it out and someone tells you you are a great artist! That can be like a small drop of encouragement against a whole ocean of decades of self-belief.

We tend to be quite fixed in our own idea of who we are and to reject other people’s opinions. Isn’t that what we have been told since little? “It doesn’t matter what others think, you do you girl!” Well.. yeah.. To an extent. 

We took this advice to an extreme and now everything we receive from the outside world slips on us like if we were covered in baseline. If what other people say about us doesn’t run along our own storyline, we often reject it, without even giving it a thought.

We are forgetting that what other people are mirroring to us is so valuable and it holds so much truth, and it can give us a new clear perspective of who we are to others. What others perceive of us is often tinted with their own personal values and beliefs.. But that doesn’t mean it's full of shet.

It doesn’t mean that by taking the compliment of being a good artist you will now start to believe you are Van Gogh. It means not to rule out that you are a great artist for this other human, and that is a lot. A LOT. Make sure you take it all in.

We tend to polarize everything: either I am a good artist for everyone, or I am not a good artist. If I don’t sell my art then I am not my artist. 

By receiving the compliments people give you, you are opening a door into the unknown.. Into a world of possibilities. Where you are stunning for some, a rather average face for others, a genius for some, and not so bright for others.. 

And that is amazing in itself: Imagine that! 

The possibility of being everything and anything at the same time. Of being seen and reflected in all the possible ways by all these different people: you become multidimensional and the keeper of a thousand stories.

So, if you struggle to believe compliments: ask yourself these questions:

• What if you truly believed all the compliments you get? What if you choose to trust that this people are not getting out of their way to lie, but to express what they cherish in you? 

Next time someone tells you something nice, HEAR IT, PAUSE, TAKE IT IN, and truly thank them for sharing.