The Therapy Edit - On how to receive compliments

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

In this Monday, ten minute solo epsiode, Anna supports listeners to work on their worth and to accept and receive compliments confidently.If you want to take the next steps to boost your feelings of self worth and work on how you accept compliments, take a look at Anna's video workshop, Week on Worth or enjoy her second book, Know Your Worth.

Hello and welcome to the Therapy Edit podcast with me, psychotherapist Anna Martha. I'll be bringing you weekly 10 minute episodes to encourage and support your emotional well-being. Hi everyone. Welcome to a little Monday episode of the Therapy Edit. It's just me chatting away for 10 minutes. And whatever you're doing, I hope that you find this podcast and all the other ones are in. just warm comforting and affirming and I hope they just give you a little something to think about to ruminate over in a really healthy way and yeah and don't forget if you find them helpful to like subscribe and share all the other podcasts I listen to they say this all the time and I think I should probably say that because sometimes I don't think to do it until someone says

And I'm like, oh, yeah, does actually make a massive difference to the reach and how many people can benefit. So there's my, I'm a podcaster. I'm going to say the podcast a bit for once done. But I want to talk to you about receiving compliments. Now, I don't know where you sit on the spectrum of, you know, the one end, someone says something nice to you. And literally, it just makes you want to turn yourself inside that. You just can't handle it. And you're just, everything in you is just like, oh, you're.

just want to, you don't even know what to do or say with yourself and it's just awkward and you hate it. And you wish no one would ever say anything nice, but at the same time we like it, people say kind things to us. But it's more uncomfortable than anything else. And that's the overriding feeling. And then you've got on the other hand, you've got this feeling that, you know, you need it. You need the compliments. You welcome compliments. They are like fuel. Somehow they they feed and fuel you, and you need good feedback. You need good feedback. Now, I want to talk to you about how to get a little bit more balanced with receiving compliments. This came out of a chat with a friend the other day, actually, and we were talking about how we felt when receiving compliments.

And I said, when I receive compliments, I don't really feel anything. And a question, and she was saying the same actually we're both in a similar place with it and we question like do we find it hard to receive compliments then are we finding it tough to receive compliments if people are saying kind things and it doesn't really make us feel differently it doesn't make me feel good it doesn't really make me feel anything and i was reflecting back on how when i used to receive any i'm just talking about nice you know anna you've got a nice coat on i'm talking about a compliment at work because i've a good bit of work when I was working advertising and someone says something nice. And I just find it so excruciatingly uncomfortable. So I haven't always felt this way about compliments.

I used to find it so uncomfortable. Oh, just made me want to sink to the ground. I just wanted to throw it back at you. I did not like it. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. God, don't even start me on receiving gifts, presents. As a kid, I know about you at a party is you sit in a circle and open them all. And I just, I found that's so hard. Just the kindness coming up me. And then the feeling that I had to respond a certain way, it was just all a bit much.

So yeah, compliments for me have not been, I've not landed because I think they would feel so starkly, so starkly opposing to how I understood myself. Someone was kind to me. I wasn't kind to myself in my head. If someone was nice to me, treated me nice, I didn't treat myself well in my behaviour. So someone basically saying, I think this about you. I think this nice thing. I want to give you this nice thing. It was just disturbing, disturbing how I understood

myself. And it felt too uncomfortable. I had to compliment other people very often. I thought everyone else is amazing compared to me, the failure that I was. So I found it very easy to compliment other people. So what changed then? How come these days I find it a bit of a, it doesn't really make me feel better, doesn't really make me feel massively uncomfortable. I just tend to say thank you.

I think I used to just come back. Someone says something nice to me. I'd have to like triple it. I'd say like five nice things about them as a response. That was probably what I did is like I found it really awkward to receive it. Then I'd just say a million nice things about them. but these days yeah it's rare that a compliment really lands i can hear kind words and i appreciate them it's really kind it doesn't connect with me as deeply as i once assumed that it would when i started

working on my self-worth and i wrote about this in my book know your worth which could be really a good one for you to grab if this is resonating and i i wrote about how when my first book was out i expected to feel different i thought i'm going to you know i have a book out that's like amazing thing that I've wanted to do and people will hopefully say some nice things about it because if it does the job that I want it to do, it should be helpful. And I remember that day came when my mother was out and I cried because it just, I didn't feel different. And I think I'd hoped that having worked on my self-esteem, I would feel good and fueled by these kind words from other people, but it just didn't. I didn't feel any different. So my friend and I were amusing on

this we're asking how can we still find that kind words don't deeply resonate or feed us even though we've got a far better understanding of our worth and in truth I do have a better understanding of my worth and this has been massively massively impacted by addressing the way that I talk to myself so this would be my number one tip if you find it hard to receive kind words if you are not talking to yourself kindly in the quiet of your mind I encourage you to start counteracting some of this critical internal dialogue with kind words. What would I say to someone else? How would I encourage them? How would I respond compassionately in this moment where I'm actually criticizing myself, bullying myself even? So that would be the starter place that I would

say has had the biggest impact on how I understand my word. So I feel like, I feel like an okay person. I feel like a good enough person. So therefore, why is it, why is it that people kind words don't land. And I realized that kind words are kind words. They don't change or challenge how I feel about myself now. I know how I feel about myself because I know who I am. I see my messy corners. I see my areas for growth. I see my toxic traits. I know that I have blind spots and I know that I have failings and shortfalls. But I also know that in knowledge of this and awareness of this and in spite of this, I am worthy of love and good things. So when people say kind things to me, I think that's nice. It is no longer massively

disturbingly conflicting with how I feel about myself. But compliments are nice to hear, just as constructive criticism can be helpful. But they are just commentary on a small part of what that person sees, I am not all good, just as I am not all messy. So I think work on your worth, work on your sense of worth, work on how you see yourself so that you're moving towards a place of recognising that you are deserving of love and good things, you begin to know that when you start treating yourself as someone worthy of respect, when you start speaking to yourself as someone as worthy of respect. But growth, we can recognize growth as the kind words or the criticism from others.

It just doesn't change so much what we know and understand of ourselves. So if you want to work on Worth, I've got the Week on Worth course on my website. It's just kind of if you like journaling and guided writing, that will help you in a week. And then I've got Know Your Worth, which goes into a lot more depth around people pleasing, confidence and self-esteem. So you might find that really helpful. But I just thought I'd share that little light bulb moment on why compliments and criticisms don't hit as much as they used to. And how when you're working on your self-worth, you're working on your inner dialogue, then those things become the foundation, the anchor points. so it's nice to receive guide words.

It might be hard to receive criticism, but ultimately you know that you are okay. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you have enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe and review for me. Also, if you need any resources at all, I have lots of videos and courses on everything from health anxiety to driving anxiety and people pleasing nail all on my website, anamartha.com. And also don't forget my brand new book, Raising a Happier Mother is out now for you

to enjoy and benefit from. It's all about how to find balance, feel good and see your children flourish as a result. Speak to you soon.