The Mental Emotional Health Blog

A previous post here at MentalEmotionalHealth.com was entitled, “How To Accept Compliments” . That was mainly intended for people who might need to think of themselves more positively.

Today, I’ll take that a step further. In a relationship or friendship when one person compliments the other, there is an under-appreciated need to accept the compliment. This isn’t for the receiver, it’s for the giver.

Typically, when a person says something nice about someone else (especially someone close), the giving of the compliment is either ignored, minimized, dismissed, or reinforced. If the pattern is established that the receiver will almost always use the first three, and usually won’t reinforce the giving of the compliment, then the giver will tend to give less compliments over time. That and the giver gets more frustrated.

Compliments really are free most of the time. But even if there is some ulterior motive like you’re being set up or manipulated into feeling good about yourself, what’s wrong with that? If you suspect manipulation, accept the compliment first anyway.

If you want to feel better about yourself, acknowledge and accept nice things people say to you. You are not bragging because you are not making anything up or drawing attention to yourself. Someone else is paying positive attention towards you. That’s nice!

If you want to see your relationship/friendship improve quickly and feel more comfortable, acknowledge and accept compliments more. By offering a little positive reinforcement, you’ll both feel better.

In a previous post ( http://mentalemotionalhealth.com/2009/05/27/toxic-personalities/ ), I offered a couple brief thoughts and a link to an article about toxic personalities and I wanted to follow up on the subject today. 

One of my loyal readers is Cyndi, and she had a great comment on the post: “Ah, but what if they are unavoidable, like your spouse or your child? Learn to set good boundaries, I guess!” (It might also be a sibling, co-worker, or boss.)

That is exactly what to do when you deal with someone who is manipulative, overly dependent, or just emotionally draining and you can’t figure out why. Set boundaries. Be assertive. If someone is pushy and you set a polite boundary such as “Please don’t talk to me that way”, it might feel like you are being uncaring, rude, or maybe even mean. (Actually that would be another sign someone is having a toxic effect on you, if you ask politely and their reaction causes you to feel that you were wrong to set an appropriate boundary.)

Every person deserves to be treated respectfully, and it’s too bad some people don’t practice it often enough. But by setting good boundaries and drawing an appropriate emotional line, you can protect your feelings, energy, and relationships. Hey, it’s good to feel empowered!

I would estimate in my practice that at least 50% of my overall time working with adults as therapist has been offering advice on how to deal with, or helping “clean up” the emotional messes inflicted on my clients by, toxic personalities. Some people are just chronically not nice.

So in my almost-daily skimming of a few sites for good articles, I ran across this one from Shine (Yahoo): 8 Toxic Personalities to Avoid by Brett Blumenthal (I also recommend her blog at Brett’s Blog ). She does a nice job of being specific and explaining why each personality is toxic.

Knowing what to avoid successfully in life is as important as finding your direction and purpose.

Have a great day everyone!

Devin

Enjoy and ponder these quotes from John Gray, Ph.D, who is the author of 16 best-selling books including Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus:

• We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain ways - the ways we react and behave when we love someone.
  
• When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.
  
• To grow in our ability to love ourselves we need to receive love as well.
  
• A man’s sense of self is defined through his ability to achieve results.
  
• A woman’s sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.
  
• Just as a man is fulfilled through working out the intricate details of solving a problem, a woman is fulfilled through talking about the details of her problems.
  
• When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer.
  

Sometimes it is just difficult to talk face-to-face, whether it’s a romantic relationship or a parent-child relationship. When tensions are up in a conversation, some feel more defensive, some take on an aggressive mood, and others just shut down or withdraw. 

At these times, it helps to change the way you are communicating.  You may be thinking changing communication means “I need to do a better job of listening” or “I should be more clear in how I say things“. These ideas are definitely important. There is also more you can do. 

Try changing the form of communication for a while if the in-person strategies aren’t working. Emailing or hand-writing a note allows a person to read at a pace that is comfortable, and allows time to respond rationally instead of “in the moment”. This can work with romantic relationships (just in time for Valentine’s Day!), and in parent-child communication. Once in a while, even friendships can benefit from switching things up.