I Don’t Know How to Take a Compliment

On finally letting kindness land

Hey friends,

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. I have felt loved and supported. I have also felt intense internal pressure that has been completely self-imposed.

For a minute I thought those two things were tied together. That the pressure was the cost of the love. That when something you made finally lands, you brace.

That’s not what was happening.

The pressure was old bad habits rearing their ugly head. The voice that says you have to be doing more, faster, better, now. The devil on my shoulder running his own little timeline that has nothing to do with mine.

I figured it out the way I figure most things out lately — not at a desk, not in a journal. Out in the yard, playing with Nugget. One afternoon last week, it all just fell into place. I was calm. I was clear. I knew my exact next steps and I had my OWN timing.

Not his.

Mine.

And once the pressure quieted down, I could finally see what was actually here. The love. And I was so unpracticed at receiving it I had been mistaking it for noise.

One of my daughters said it best:

“Momma, you have always given, loved, and supported everyone. Let us do the same for you. Let us show you how much we love you.”

Read that again.

That is not a sentence I knew how to absorb. That is a sentence I have spent twenty years making sure my kids could one day say to me — and when she finally said it, I almost didn’t know what to do with my hands.

So here is what I did with it. And with the others.

Josh sat down to read the book a few days before launch. About an hour in, he looked up and said, “This is really good. I even forgot I’m a character in it.”

Me: “You have to say that. You’re married to me.”

My friend Kary, out in the wild, spots me. She’s literally holding the book. Highlights. Tabs. The whole thing. She says, “Heather, I’m reading your book right now and it is REALLY good. You make it so easy to understand.”

Me: “Oh my gosh. You are so sweet.”

Another friend finishes the book and texts me: “Heather, it is sooooo good. I love how honest you were in it. The good and the bad.”

Me: “That is so sweet.”

Y’all. Why did I keep saying sweet?

She wasn’t being sweet. She was telling me the book was good. Kary wasn’t being sweet — she was holding up evidence. Josh wasn’t being sweet — he was telling me he forgot he was IN it, which is the highest compliment a husband can give a wife who wrote about him.

Sweet is what I said because sweet moves the spotlight. It makes the moment about them being kind instead of me being good at something. It’s a tiny little verbal sleight of hand and I did it three times in two weeks without noticing.

None of those responses are a thank you. They’re contracts I’m signing in the middle of a hug. You’re being too generous. You don’t really mean it. Let’s agree this didn’t quite land the way you said it did.

Accepting a thank you means letting the thing be true. And if it’s true — if Josh really did forget he was a character, if Kary really is tabbing the pages, if my own daughter really wants to love me back — then I have to live with the size of that. I have to carry it.

Easier to call her sweet. Easier to tell my husband he’s contractually obligated. Easier to swallow it whole and pretend nothing happened.

And then last week I walked into yoga.

My instructor — also my friend — looked at me and said, “Your book changed my life. I’m going to start the business I’ve wanted to do for years.”

I didn’t say sweet. I don’t know what shifted. Maybe I’d been called out by my own pattern one too many times. Maybe the afternoon with Nugget was still in my bones.

What came out was: “Thank you. My hope in writing this book was that one person would benefit from it. Now I know it was you.”

I walked into yoga and walked out a woman who had received a compliment.

I am not all the way there. I’ll probably say sweet again this week to somebody.

But here’s what I’m learning, slowly, badly:

The pressure was never the cost of the love. The pressure was the old me trying to outrun the new thing.

And the love? The love was my daughter saying let us show you. The love was Kary’s highlights. The love was Josh forgetting. The love was a yoga instructor standing at the door of her own next chapter.

All I had to do was stop calling it sweet and let it be what it was.

If you’re better at this than I am, teach me.

If you’re not — pull up a chair.

xx, Heather