handling a compliment....

[Lady_Hawke]

......anyone know of a good class in accepting a compliment?

I went grocery shopping tonight and when I walked in the shop - the cashier smiles at me and says "Hi Gorgeous" . I wasn't sure what he said so I said "excuse me?" and he smiled and repeated himself.
Now did I, in all the confidence I've been feeling lately, smile back and say Thank you?!
Noooooooooo I laughed and said "Now I know you need glasses" Seriously, thats what I said.
I need to learn to smile and say Thank you.


Does anyone else have a hard time accepting compliments?

[imgonnagethin]

Re: handling a compliment....

Tamariah

Yep, everytime! I think as part of the bashing we get both from ourselves and from the world occasionally it becomes very hard to take any physical compliment seriously.

Even as we loose weight, our body image is such that we still think we're the same size we were (we know we're not, but the brain works in weird ways, or at least mine does!). Now if someone congratulated you on anything but your appearance, I bet you would smile and say thanks, I know I do, but on our appearance.........well thats trickier!

So I'm also learning to smile and say thank you, if only to try and tame the cynic inside me a little, and what the ****, if they didn't mean it, no skin of my nose, right?

Kay

[Curveegrrl]

Re: handling a compliment....

*raises hand*

Me too! Me too!

I'm just certain that compliments about my appearnece are just people taking the mickey. So I'd better laugh at myself before they do.

*runs and hides*

[Lyssie]

Re: handling a compliment....

Me too. I have a really hard time accepting them - half the time I think they're kidding. One of my friends who's really anal about how she dresses (I am too though) was looking at me one day, and I turn to her and I go "Christ, Maria. I know the shoes aren't *exactly* matching the shirt but *why* are you staring at me like that?!?!?" and she, in all her glory, goes "I didn't even notice, those pants look really good on you".

It's a learning curve. The first step is responding in your head, not out loud. The second step is smiling politely, the third step is saying "thanks" while smiling politely. It doesn't matter if you *believe* the words at first... then, after your compliment, go home and look at yourself in a mirror pretty closely.. you can see the compliment too.

[dreamof145]

Re: handling a compliment....

This was one of the biggest changes I had to make. I had never received any compliments before, so to suddenly have people saying nice things about my appearance and/or weight loss was very embarrassing. I fixed it by giving compliments to others and watching their reactions. I found that soon it became a habit to always give people 'word hugs' and accept the ones I received with a smile. It really brightens someones day to be acknowledged in a friendly way. The more I seemed to give, the more I received.