Receiving compliments can be a challenge. How can you make it easier to accept compliments? A lot of people, especially women, are taught not to receive them very well. We’re taught that if we say “Oh, thank you,” that that will be kind of prideful or selfish – that we should not receive compliments. But it does hurt when you say something genuine to someone and they reject it.
Join relationship expert Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com as they share tips on how to receive compliments better.
Cathy: Receiving compliments can be a challenge. We had someone write in and say that she listened to some our videos about love languages. Her husband is a words of appreciation person and she realized she’d been shaming him all this time by not accepting his words of appreciation as compliments. This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com.
Cathy: How can you make it easier to accept compliments? A lot of people, especially women, are taught not to receive them very well. We’re taught to say “Oh no … ,” like if someone says “I like that shirt,” “Oh no, it’s just something I threw on. It’s cheap.” We’re taught that if we say “Oh, thank you,” that that will be kind of prideful or selfish – that we should not receive compliments. But it does hurt when you say something genuine to someone and they’re like “Oh no,” they reject it. Do you have any tips or suggestions?
Reid: Yeah, practicing thank you. The cultural thing is at this point-
Cathy: Practice receiving it?
Reid: Yeah, at this point the cultural thing is bs; it’s bull. If somebody really is thanking you or appreciating you for something, let them have that moment, as long as it’s not creepy or inappropriate. Don’t deny somebody else’s experience. This was actually taught to me by an actor friend of mine who’s quite well known. He was giving me a compliment about something and I didn’t receive it. He’s like “Dude,” he goes “You know, like you need to receive compliments because if somebody’s complimenting you on your talent and it’s because you have a hangup about thinking you’re actually good,” and he’s quite an amazing actor. He’s like, “You’re being a jackass” by denying them their experience of your talent or of you shirt or beauty or how you kicked ass in the boardroom or something like that, whatever that is.
That’s not a gender thing, because I’m just as bad at receiving compliments, too. Take a moment; breathe it in; go take a workshop; do whatever you need to do to get over being great and deserving, and just tell them thank you and how much you appreciate their appreciation. The jujitsu here is I got better at receiving by realizing I was being an asshole to them.
Cathy: We’re denying their realty when we say “Oh no, that’s not true.”
Reid: Yeah. For me as an educator, I needed to be more gracious at receiving other people’s praise or compliments or even just their thank yous for stuff. I needed to say “You are welcome, ” rather than me taking a dump on myself and – this is a bad analogy – using them as the toilet paper, basically. Don’t do that; that’s crappy. No pun intended.
Cathy: Oh geez. One thing that really helped me was to realize that when someone is offering a compliment to someone who’s a words of appreciation person, that’s like offering you a gift. It would be really rude if someone said “Here’s this beautiful gift to let you know I care about you,” and you said “Oh, that’s horrible. That’s wrong. Don’t give me that.”
Reid: I don’t deserve it. It’s the same thing. Again, practice it and also turn the tables on yourself and feel into what is it like when you are trying to genuinely compliment somebody …
Cathy: And they reject it.
Reid: And they use your speaking up about something that you liked about them or their greatness or however they inspired you – they’re using your moment to kick the shit out of themselves more. When you get really clear about that you’re like “Oh wow, that’s not cool.”
Cathy: One thing to do is, ask your partner or a trusted friend or your sister to practice with you. Say “Hey, I realized I’m not good at taking compliments and I noticed that sometimes you don’t take them so well, too. Would you like to practice with me? I think it would be really lovely if we would let nice things in.”
Reid: You can also pick somebody who’s good at taking compliments and just be like “You’re really good at this. Would you show me how did you get good at this?” and then “Would you …
Cathy: Practice with me.
Reid: “Would you compliment me and let me squirm a little bit and get better at this?”
Cathy: Yeah, it can actually build a lot of relationship intimacy with someone when you do that practice. You’re sharing something that you’re vulnerable about and then you start receiving their compliments, it can build a really beautiful connection between …
Reid: This is a great game to play with your kids to get them to learn that it’s okay to receive compliments, and for them to get better at appreciating complimenting people, too – especially the adults in the room. Wouldn’t that be nice? Because by the time they go teenagers, they’re not going to compliment you worth a damn so get in now, folks.
Cathy: Let us know what you think. We’d love to hear what … This is just really important. Life gets a lot more delicious when we’re letting the good things in and when we’re letting people connect with us with appreciation rather than just criticism. Let us know how this lands, what works for you, or if you have any other tips yourself.
Reid: If you’d like to compliment these videos, we’ll say thank you.