Letting go of “Admiration”

Hello, my friends — check out the statements below:

“Good job!”

“You look so pretty!”

“You nailed it.”

“You are the smartest guy in the room!”

“You must have graduated first in your class.”

“You get promotion after promotion!”

“You have the best figure, so slender and muscular!”

“You sure know how to talk to people.”

“You have helped me so much.”

Whether we’re being complimented on our physical bodies, our sharp minds, or our sweet personalities, we sure do love admiration, don’t we? It feels great to be seen, appreciated, and valued. Here’s the catch, though. (Why does there always have to be a catch?) We are all addicted to praise. Addicted, I say. Addicted, I mean.

An addiction is something we get a little of and then develop an insatiable appetite for. If we are not getting a steady diet of praise and adulation, we get anxious: What am I doing wrong? We get depressed: What’s wrong with me? And we get angry: why are people so withholding and stingy with compliments. Or we get angry at ourselves: I am such a screwup. Or we get angry at the traumatic events and people in our past and decide that since we are trauma survivors we don’t deserve praise — those people or events have ruined our lives.

Something else really tragic happens, too. We have elevated our faith in the praise from others and ignored our own voices. We know if we’ve done something well, whether it’s make the bed or be a good friend. We know when we’ve done something poorly, whether its road rage or a snarky comment to the clerk at Aldi’s. But, we’ve stopped looking inside, if we ever did, for our own validation and affirmation. We’ve come to only trust the judgment of others. This is another way in which we desert ourselves, diminish ourselves and slowly destroy our SELF-esteem in preference for the esteem of others.

We’ve stopped paying attention to our internal feedback. Much of the feedback happens on a cellular level. When we behave admirably, our bodies hum. We feel a sense of peace and well-being. We tend to feel energized and upbeat. We are more likely to sing, whistle or smile. We feel generous. We have just filled our own “pot,” as Virginia Satir, the Mother of Marriage and Family Therapy, called it. She saw low self-esteem as the biggest problem in the world.

When we behave poorly, our bodies reveal our self-condemnation. We get defensive, bitchy, irritable, cranky, and often develop somatic issues: stomach aches, headaches, heartburn, and body aches of all kinds caused by the tension we’re trying to hide from ourselves. A quick admission, like, “Wow. I need to do that better next time,” can cure a ton of ills.

A word to trauma survivors in particular. Self-editing, taking responsibility for our own behaviors and self-forgiveness come very hard to those who were abused as children. That segment of the population tend to feel shame — I AM WRONG — instead of guilt — I DID SOMETHING WRONG. Shame is a heavy burden to bear. It’s so sad because children who are being abused are usually dependent on the abuser. Because they can’t blame someone on whom they are dependent, (the abuser or the silent parent who allows the abuse,) they learn early to blame themselves. Abusers are only too happy to support this innocent acceptance of childhood shame.

All of which is to say: learning to free ourselves from the praise of others and depend on our own self-knowledge is difficult enough for those of us who feel guilty when we act inappropriately. It is extremely difficult for those who were raised on shame. BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELVES.

One final word on how to handle praise without “letting it go to our heads.” For me, the formula is in the Christmas story in the Bible. “Mary held these things in her heart.” We can hold the validation and kind words lightly in our hearts. Who wouldn’t? But we don’t need to let ourselves be inflated or deflated by the opinions of others. We need to let go of our need for admiration and trust our own self-monitoring.

AND, when you do get a compliment, be sure to return a compliment: “How kind of you. Thank you.”

Peace and harmony as we travel more lightly, together. Love, Susan