Greetings from the beautiful Lake Gaston!!!  My amazing bosses offered us their home away from home this weekend for my mom’s birthday!!!  This will be my writing home for the weekend….what a view!

This theme has been popping up all over the place in my life lately so I took it as a sign to write.  Sorry this post is a little late, Jenny has the living worst migraine and I hadn’t found the password for the wifi at the lake!!!!  Sawwwy!  Back to the blog…have you ever noticed that people don’t accept your compliments?  Or that you yourself automatically bat them away???  This is a little thing that I think has a huge impact on the way you see yourself and the way you interact with others and not to be dramatic, but your overall well being!  I read somewhere that a compliment you hold inside is wasted, so at every turn I like to take the opportunity to tell someone what an amazing job they are doing, how grateful I am for their help and support, how much I love them!  With my clients I love oohing and ahhing over their clothes, makeup, hair, new bag, etc and since my job is beauty based I love to explore all of the ways to enhance peoples natural beauty…with this comes lots of compliments.  But what I’ve noticed is this; compliments make people feel very self conscious and embarrassed,

people feel a need to deny what you’ve said

or to offer a counter point i.e.: “you have such beautiful skin”, “except for my adult acne, rosacea and all these lines…I look so old!” or just flat out…you’re crazy!

Why!?  Why are we so afraid for people to tell us the truth?  A long time ago I adopted the theory of simply saying Thank You, when someone compliments me instead of devaluing what the complimenters words.  I’ll admit, it was hard at first.  We don’t feel comfortable being talked about, thought about or being the center of attention.  We don’t feel worthy of the kind words or we simply are so hard on ourselves and bodies that we abhorrently disagree.  Or maybe it feels too self indulgent or too exposed…there are so many reasons why this is a thing and I think it all boils down to self esteem.  Saying Thank You is incredibly powerful. Denying a compliment isn’t so kind to the giver of the compliment…we are criticizing the other persons opinion.  Overtime you go on the counter point defensive from someone else’s kind words, you are really saying, “You have no taste.  Your opinion is wrong.”  I think that it is certainly not the intention of the receiver to disrespect the opinions of the  complimenter, but that is precisely what we are doing.

What do we have to lose by saying a simple thank you to a lovely and heartfelt compliment?  And what do we have to gain if we believe the kind words that someone else has to say about us!?  I think we have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  Start slow, try to catch yourself from making a rebuttal.

And after all…You are beautiful, You are lovely, You are a wonderful person and You deserve to hear it every single day.

Embrace the power and simplicity in a thank you.  Then over time, my hope is that you will believe their words and feel them for yourself.  Embrace the compliments people!!!  They are true and they feel sooooooo nice and warm and snuggly.  A compliment is the best hug.  You would always say thank you to the giver of a gift and what better gift is there than a compliment?!  Here are some closing inspirations!  Love you all and thank you for being you.

Take the love and give the love…it can only make the world brighter.  Xoxo