The power of accepting a compliment is something that many people believe they know how to do but in fact, they do not. It is a power that has more meaning behind it than we realize. I think we all know one person who simply CANNOT take a compliment.
People believe that they are being humble if they reject, decline, or negate a compliment but actually, they are just being straight up rude. As someone who likes to toss out “yaaaas queens” and “slaaay my life bish” to my friends in real life or on social media, I lately have been having a hard time trying to stomach people rejecting kind words and decided to write about it.
My freshman year of college I went to this guest speaker Marian Jordan Ellis’s event “Girls Night Out”. I didn’t really know what to expect when going to this event I knew she was a Christian author and speaker who has written several books as well as hosts a conference every summer.
So, knowing at least that much I went and was excited to hear what she had to say. Marian brought up this very important topic of self love and she specifically used the example of rejecting compliments to emphasize our lack of self love. She talked about how rejecting, negating or even ignoring compliments does more damage than just accepting it.
This intrigued me as I had done this so many times in the past and had friends who did it as well.
During Marian’s event, she brought up the snowball effect of self deprecation bringing attention to the behavior girls engage in when one starts talking badly about themselves. You know exactly the situation, where one girl says something negative about herself and her friends will say “omg no you’re perf I wish I was as (compliment) as you are instead I’m just (degrading comment about self). Then in response to that the original friend does the same thing until you literally have an avalanche of self doubt and negativity.
We all know the feeding frenzy we get on when we start talking bad about ourselves and when we do it with others it just gets worse.
Once she recognized this behavior with her own friends, Marian decided to change things. When her friends would say horrible self-deprecating comments about themselves she would make them say three nice things to undo the bad they had just done.
While it seems a little extra, I really appreciated her going out on a limb for her friends because she eventually had them in a routine where they would stop their negativity because they knew what her response would be. This led to some just going straight into three nice things after their negative speech before she could even ask them to.
Incredible, right!
I think it is important not only to accept the compliment for yourself and really treasure the kind things people want to say to your face about you but also consider the other person.
It takes a lot for some people to step out of their comfort zone to compliment another person especially a stranger. When someone does step up to compliment and you reject for their kindness then you’ve not only hurt yourself by denying it but also hurt them by rejecting it.
Don’t come at somebody for trying to be nice to you. This excludes catcalls because those are not done with intentions of kindness that is just a form of harassment. However, a genuine compliment deserves a genuine thank you.
Also don’t feel like you have to hit the person up with another compliment they are prompting you for it they just wanted to say something nice. Exchanging another compliment or negating the given compliment is not protocol, just say THANK YOU.
A simple thank you is all you need to do.
