Stop Minimizing Your Life And Take The Compliment

July 19. Today is Day 7 of the #75HardChallenge. And thankfully we had a major temperature drop which I believe had a big impact on my 45 minute jog this am.

I took our beloved Samson with me for his first jog. Samson is our seven month old Irish Setter puppy and the just the best. He is a fuzzy, snuggly teddy bear. And he did great. He isn’t allowed to run to far just yet so I circled back to drop him off and continued on.

My head is in a much better place. My body however, is SORE. I feel like I have been through the wringer.  Things are improving though. The insides of my body feel clean. Now its just a matter of keeping up the healthy eating and letting the muscles get used to all the work.

I was ruminating on something I said last night when Nora’s two guy friends were over one of which is new to me. He was a polite young man with great hair.

He said “your house is really nice”. Nice thing for a teenage boy to even notice let alone say out loud. I responded with “thank you. It’s just a regular house, nothing special”. This felt like old behavior.

I remember my younger days, and then many years into sobriety when I absolutely could not accept a compliment. Just couldn’t do it. Always had a come back, a minimization, something.

I learned through recovery work and my own emotional maturity to have the confidence to say thank you. No matter what I was thinking at the time or what diversion came to mind I simple said thank you. Until I arrived in the place where I really meant it. I could feel the compliment on the inside and the thank you wasn’t fake anymore. My esteem had grown.

So this was a rare occurrence.

I’m not sure why I added the second part or minimized our home. But I am grateful I recognized it. Perhaps that young guy lives in an apartment, or an older home that could use some TLC. Nothing wrong with either of those at all but maybe to him our space felt luxurious where to us it is normal. Maybe he doesn’t have a yard or outdoor seating to enjoy.

I really don’t know, but my minimization of our space no matter what it looks like could have really hurts his feelings.

A simple thank you when someone pays us a compliment builds confidence and rewrites the pathways in our brain that hold limiting beliefs. When we do this over and over it becomes our new reality and you will feel that joy that comes from being more present with yourself and open hearted to others.

Accept whatever compliments come your way today. If you don’t want to just do it anyway. You can fake it til you make it in this area.

XO,

Shelby