Consider this... If someone told you looked amazing how would you feel?
Embarrassed?
Chuffed?
Proud?
Angry?
Disbelieving?
Bashful?
I used to tell people they looked beautiful/amazing/fantastic. I'd compliment them on their clothes, shoes, and jewellery choices because I love to give compliments where they're due. I like people to feel good about themselves, to feel noticed. Then, someone quite aggressively told me I shouldn't. Complimenting people on their looks and appearance was wrong, and it was attitudes like mine that were bringing women down.
I was confused, why was it so wrong? Why do we have tailors, hairdressers, fitness instructors, and meditation teachers if it's wrong for people to want to look and feel good? If feeling good is such a sin, why don't we all walk around in black bin bags with long hair and wellingtons?
I was a people pleaser, so I stopped complimenting and encouraging people because it was supposed to be wrong. But after a lot of thought, here's why (in the right circumstances) I believe it is right to give compliments where they're due.
In the past, I hated how I looked; nobody would ever compliment me because I intentionally made myself look unattractive. I wanted to disappear, to be invisible. I'm not the only one; thousands of people feel the same. The diet and social media industry has a lot to do with it, but it's more than that.
There are also people who were worthy of compliments on their appearance but feel they've lost it somehow. They've grown older and heavier, have wrinkles, and suffer from ageing processes such as menopause. They believe their feel-good factor has been lost forever, and they think they'll never get it back. Their personality changes; they become a shadow of who they were.
But when we, those people who make a massive effort to feel better about ourselves, finally start to feel sexy again (or for the first time) to overcome body hate, ageing and ideas about how we SHOULD look, we deserve to receive compliments where they're due. We deserve to feel good to.
We deserve to feel proud of what we've achieved, how we've overcome demons in our heads who tell us we're not good enough. We deserve to feel alive and happy, to be noticed, not invisible. That's what happens if we stop giving compliments, people become invisible.
All this time I've felt I SHOULDN'T even talk about this subject because I was a little ashamed of saying the wrong thing (I'm working on my people pleasing, I am Almost Perfect after all). Then a few days ago I had a call with a lovely lady and I knew I was finally going to post this post.
Andrea suffered from a stroke at 32. She spent six months in hospital and had to learn to walk again, it took 14 years. How can you ever come back from that and feel beautiful and sexy again? But she fought, and last week she posted a picture of herself at a ball in a long white dress on a staircase with her husband. She was stunning, she looked like a film star. Her friends commented....."you're back, you look amazing", and quite rightly so, she was glowing. I've no doubt people also made the same comments at the event, or thought it anyway.
So please, don't be afraid to give compliments where they're due because you might just make someone's day and that costs nothing.
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