I know this may sound extremely silly at many levels, but I cant seem to handle compliments very well. They embarrass me (probably because i'm not used to being complimented).
I come from a family(extended and immediate) where everyone is quite good looking. I've always been fat. Fat kid, fat teenager(with one time when I went down till 170 lbs from 200) but i've generally been fat my whole life. My mother has always been a beauty and i'm more used to being told how pretty my mother is (by my friends and other people I know) or even my sister. Now, to be clear, i'm not at all jealous of this, LOL, rather I feel extremely proud when people compliment my mother and my sister (my mother tells me i look like her, but my general disregard for getting dressed up at all, or wearing make up or tidying myself up doesn't let it shine through, hahaha). I went to the UK a year ago and was shopping when the lady behind a cosmetics counter asked me how old I was, I told her I was 26 and she said I had beautiful skin and looked 16 to which I blurted out "No i don't! I've always looked older than i am!" and she just smiled. Now I had two thoughts 1. she just wants to sell me stuff(although she didn't say anything else after that nor did she push me into buying anything) 2. She's just being nice and doesnt really mean it. Why couldn't I just accept it and not over think it??!!! I told my husband all this and he told me that I ALWAYS do this, even when he compliments me. Its like I believe that I can never look good.
Now that i'm losing weight, people are coming up and throwing all sorts of compliments(good ones) and I end up thinking that they don't really mean it and are just doing it to make me feel good. I probably do have low self esteem, I don't know. But I want to change that now and actually want to believe that people mean what they say. Its not only about looks either. Its all sorts of compliments! I didn't even seem to believe my professors when they told me that my assignment was good or that i'd managed to come up with a sound in-depth analysis of any particular problem. Pretty messed up? HAHA! Anyways, I just felt like talking to you guyS about this, and probably one of you can knock some sense into me?
its really hard
whenever someone says "you are looking great" or "wow-you lost weight" I always say "I still have a long way to go"
its hard for me to say "thank you"
Haha, I think a lot of people get where you're coming from, myself included. I've been pretty fat my whole life, so most of the compliments I've gotten are on things other than my looks, which I can accept, but I don't believe it when anyone says something nice about the way I look. I'm told that my eyes and hair are a nice shade of brown (pretty light compared to most people in my country) and my complexion is fair (once again, people in my country are pretty dark), but whenever I'm complimented on it I think that people are just being nice because there's nothing else to compliment. In time, though, I realized that it can come across as rude sometimes when I flatly reject people's compliments, so I taught myself to say thanks, smile and shut up. It works like a charm
I'm in the same boat with compliments. I've started trying to accept them by smiling and saying "thank you", but internally it's a struggle to believe good thoughts about myself, which is rather troubling ... Perhaps one way to challenge this is to work on shifting your beliefs about yourself. In other words, seek out good things about what you do and compliment yourself, this way when you receive compliments from other people they won't seem so off-base -- after all, I'm sure they aren't.
I totally understand! My friends always tell me I'm beautiful, and I've learned to just return the compliment rather than saying "no I'm not" or "thank you" because those are hard to say too...
We really are our worst critiques, and it's interesting, because EVERYONE has a different opinion about what pretty and beautiful means...
One of my close friends once told me in a heart to heart talk that I was one of the prettiest larger people she knew (It sounds like a backhanded compliment, but the conversation was about my weight, so it was justified)
It's all about perspective, we are all beautiful in our own ways!
I have this bizarre thing I do where I turn the compliment back on the person who has given it so I don't feel so much like I'm accepting praise.
For example: Someone says, "You look great! Are you losing weight?" I respond, "Thank you for noticing. Yes, I am." Or my boss says, "You're doing really great work." My response? "Thank you. You're such a wonderful boss that it makes my job easier to do."
I do that same thing! I think it helps diffuse the praise that I really can't seem to handle. And there's nothing wrong with spinning positivity into more positivity, is there?
You're not going to miraculously be able to accept & be grateful for a compliment just because you lose weight. Like any muscle, you gotta take it out for a spin now and again
And just remember - people (friends or strangers) really don't go out of their way for no reason to say something nice to someone unless it was triggered in their brain to do so
I agree with all that's been said already, especially that it may take practice to learn how to accept a compliment. Sometimes we're have the idea that accepting any kind of praise makes us look arrogant or prideful. That isn't so.
Think of the compliment as a little gift - something you wished you had. Maybe there was a pair of earrings you just HAD to have, but didn't buy and a friend bought them for you as a surprise. Nothing expensive. Just a neat little gift. Think about how you'd react to that. You'd most likely say, "Thanks so much! These will go perfectly with the top I just bought!" Or something similar. Think of the compliment in the same way. Add a note of "qualification," perhaps, if you can't simply say thanks. "Thanks for noticing! I'm trying." "Thanks - my mom has great skin, so I guess I'm lucky that way." It will get easier, you come off looking gracious, and the other person was able to actually have their "gift" accepted. Turning down a compliment that is sincere is the same as turning down a sincere gift. If it was insincere, or if you think it's the person trying to sell you more make-up, etc., it doesn't matter - just accept it with eyes wide open and move on. We tend to forget how the other person will feel if we don't accept the gift.
Good luck with losing and with changing the way you see compliments.
Can never believe im being complimented :S
... Perhaps one way to challenge this is to work on shifting your beliefs about yourself. In other words, seek out good things about what you do and compliment yourself, this way when you receive compliments from other people they won't seem so off-base -- after all, I'm sure they aren't. 
