Why Can’t You Just Say Thank You?

Here’s a typical interaction between a friend or acquaintance and me. See if any of this sounds familiar. One morning at a mom group leadership meeting recently, a beautiful, sweet friend complimented me on how pretty I looked that day. What was my response? To cringe internally at the thought of how bad I must look on a daily basis and say a quick thanks and then proceed to explain to her how it was my makeup from the night before that I hadn’t washed off yet because I’m cheap. In the past when people have complimented me on my outfit, my scarf, my shoes, my necklace, I respond with some sort of offhand comment about how I found it at a thrift store or secondhand store or someone’s garage sale for really cheap. When people compliment me on my singing performance, I usually say thanks, and explain that I hadn’t been able to practice enough, or I had a cold, or some other issue, as I silently tear apart my own performance in my mind. Why is it so hard to respond with a sincere, “Thank you,” and leave it at that? And why is it so hard to believe the other person?

Why do we feel the need to negate compliments?

We quote articles, studies, and motivational speakers that talk about how important a positive self-image is and how crucial self-love is, and yet when someone inside or outside of our circle steps in to offer a word of encouragement to us on a personal level, we’re so quick to shoot it down, as if we’re not worthy of positive talk or thought. We subconsciously rationalize how the person must be wrong, why she’s wrong, and then we offer a quick word of thanks out of politeness, before shooting her praise down and self-sabotaging by giving excuses or directly contradicting her statement.

We need to start by doing some internal examining of ourselves and the words and thoughts that we allow ourselves to say in our minds.

Do we critique ourselves and undermine our appearance, skills, ability to make friends, work ethic, ability to handle kids, ability to handle pressure or stress, or a million other hot-button issues? If we do, that’s negative self-talk. Negative self-talk is one of the worst things we can do if we want to have a good self-esteem. You’ve heard the saying that it takes 8 or 10 or 12 compliments to basically undo the damage a mean remark does. Why would that be any different for us personally? We’re dismantling our fragile self-esteem word by word by word.

Do we also transfer this negative “self-talk” subconsciously to others in our minds?

We live in a culture of judgment, where appearance, actions, and words – usually about actors and actresses or politicians –are constantly put out in the media for public consumption, and we’re taught to rank people and do side-by-side comparisons of who wore things better or who has the better hairstyle, or who had the worst look of the night. On the surface, this can seem like a fun pastime and we rationalize that these people know they’re in the public eye, so they should know better, but it is still negative talk. We need to do a gut-check and examine how we talk internally – and out loud – about ourselves and other people.

There’s real damage being done to the other person as well as us when we respond to encouragement and compliments with disparaging remarks or rebuttals.

Not only does it portray to the other person that her words don’t really mean much, which in and of itself is a slight to the other person and means that the next time, that person is going to be a whole lot less likely to say something, but it also leaves us with the shame of implying to ourselves that we aren’t good enough for someone to say something good about us. It is basically a form of negative self-talk that says we are not worthy of someone else’s kind words. And we need to stop. Stop saying bad things about yourself. Stop saying bad things about other people. Now.

And on a side note, if someone makes the effort to give you a compliment on something, odds are they really mean it. I know there are a few people who go around giving empty compliments, but they are fewer and farther between than we want to admit, and the words are usually part of a pattern of behavior that tries to solicit something from the other person that they themselves want. That’s another post for another day.

You are beautiful. You are worthy. You are enough. Just as you are.

My challenge to you is to accept the goodwill someone else offers you. Accept compliments with a gracious response of “Thanks.” And leave it at that. Remind yourself that the person sees something good in you and rejoice in that. Don’t be ashamed or embarrassed. And challenge yourself to seek out good things in other people and to be the one to give compliments when you see an opportunity. A kind word does no good unless it is spoken. Let’s help each other out and build each other up.