Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Yeah, I don’t succeed in doing this, so I can’t tell you how. It is so difficult to share the compliments you have received with others without feeling vain about it. But that’s not the point, this Sunscreen Song verse is about compliments… not insults. (The above illustration is a real-life incident, by the way. The bags under my eyes are designers 😉 )
People say things without always thinking about it. Sometimes the words fall kindly and sometimes they are harsh sounds that hurt your ears and smack your heart straight where it shouldn’t. And, if you want an honest opinion, ask a kid.
IÂ am sharing three of my most treasured compliments with you – two from 5-year-olds.
My sister had a handbag with an Audrey Hepburn print on it. When my niece (now a 19-year-old medical student) was about 4 to 5 years old, she asked my sister why she had a picture of me on her handbag 🥰 It may have been the cigarette in her mouth, I dunno. But it is one of the nicest things someone has ever said about me.
When I was still working at The Herald way back in 2010, a colleague one morning suggested I remind him of Natalie Portman. It needs to be said, he did watch Black Swan over the weekend, so I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. But I like her, nonetheless, so I am seeing it as a compliment.
The last one came from a bunch of kids I had a playdate with every Wednesday at church just before I fell pregnant. They were a busy, busy, busy bunch of creatures, but all good and I still think of them all very fondly. On a particular Wednesday as we started to do our art activities, one boy said that they watched a movie and that the teacher in the movie reminded them of me. I asked them which movie it was. “Matilda” responded the boy. Nervously I asked him whether it was Miss Trunchbull! They all giggled and said no. It was Miss Honey. That truly touched my heart since these boys didn’t all come from perfect families and some of them had severe issues – personally and at home. It is one compliment I will never forget.
We should really all get a jar to chuck compliments in to read again when we’re feeling gloomy or look tired to people around us. It is so easy to get distracted by the insults, that we forget that there is some good in all of us too.
Greetings from a warm heart,
