“Ahh you look so pretty in that dress.”
“You really make me laugh.”
“I’m proud of you.”
I would shake my head, spin my fingers around my necklace and softly exhale.
I could never really take a compliment.
They made me writhe in my skin.
Half-turned smiles starved of oxygen, subtly frantic hands cracking each knuckle — for so long, that was my automatic reflex to any form of praise or acclaim.
My response to a compliment came in the form of pressing against my bathtub’s surface, my feet yielding to its white glare and knees clutched just beneath my chin so I could feel the tears mold to my jawline before they dropped to my kneecaps below. I just liked being suspended there, water tracing my outline. I didn’t have to think. Not about my day. Not about any of the misconceptions people had of me. Not about the silver drain in front of me.
And I did this all because someone said they thought I was kind hours before.
So why did praise for everyone else flow out of me, but praise for myself seemed to stutter and turn to drought?
If there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few years, it’s that you have to shower yourself with compliments first, not wash them away with lukewarm water and tightly scrunched eyelids.
And, here’s the tough part: you have to actually accept them. With conviction.
Not as lies, polite niceties or pity points.
But as the truth — the genuine love you deserve to receive.
As weird as it may sound, compliments don’t come easy. Modesty was a quality always stressed to me, the British stiff upper lip and my own self-consciousness translated into a humility that made virtually every positive thing said about me feel like an attack on my entire being.
I wasn’t able to mirror my self-worth in the words that spilled out of my friends’ and families’ mouths so freely, and so I felt this river of praise pertained to just about everyone else in the room but me.
I’d reduced myself to the metal that coated their private mirrors, only there to reflect the kind words they said back to them. That was the only thing that made sense to me. Why else would they want to say those things? No matter how sincere they were and how much they should have meant to me.
Countless encounters like this made me decide to make a change. I was going to actively try and take what caring things people said about me as gospel. Something to genuinely believe in, and not brush off in the subtle self-loathing that traced my lips.
Immediately, I ran straight into another problem: arrogance.
It made self-love that much harder to grapple with. The road to me actually believing I was worth what people said I was was filled with the usual red lights of self-doubt and was now also littered with egotistic-shaped potholes.
I was at war with myself.
I would fluster and redden over remarks as simple as “good job.” The delicate balance between trusting my peers’ words and soothing concerns over my self-conceit seemed like it was out of my reach.
I would still stumble my way through “thank you’s” and hugs, desperately looking for a way to communicate their beauties without instinctively dimming mine.
I still do that from time to time.
But embracing the fact that you are beautiful, strong, kind, intelligent and funny — anything you want to be, really — is nothing to ever be ashamed of. Owning that pride in who you are is such a radiant thing, and speaks to how lovely and bright your character truly is.
It definitely takes work, but small steps outside of compliments make a big difference.
Dedicated mornings that transform the mirrors you once reflexively glanced away from into an anchor of self-assurance, or gentle affirmations when you act out of frustration or embarrass yourself that little slip-ups are human and certainly don’t define you. Even if it means doing something as simple as hanging sticky notes on your door to remind you that you’re enough and people can tell you just as much.
Though this process can be daunting, and it won’t fix itself overnight, just know that these small steps are one day going to be those big leaps you look back on and smile at.
I’m still learning how to unapologetically take a compliment, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’ve already grown from that girl in the shower, and I’m excited to see who she grows into next.
Accepting and enjoying compliments isn’t an act of self-servance. It’s an act of self-liberation.
Sophie McNally is an assistant sports editor and can be reached at sophie.mcnally@ubspectrum.com
Sophie McNally is an assistant sports editor at The Spectrum. She is a history major studying abroad for a year from Newcastle University in the UK. In her spare time, she can be found blasting The 1975 or Taylor Swift and rowing on a random river at 5 a.m.
