Why Compliments Used To Make Me Uneasy

I'm a young mom, young wife and a business owner. Whenever people meet me and hear about my business or the amount of kids I have OR that I'm a SAHM (stay at home mom) they of course think I'm totally awesome because of my age and flood me with compliments. These compliments have always made me super uncomfortable when they are coming from people who rarely compliment themselves.

I couldn't figure out why they made me so uneasy until recently and it's because, I don't like being put on a pedestal. I don't like people thinking my life is so easy and awesome. I know there are people who love compliments and thrive off of them, I'm not one of those people.

Social media makes everyone seem so perfect, especially if you own a business and even when you don't intend for it to. People project. They project all that they want to be on you and that's very dangerous.

It all made sense when I read a quote by Maya Angelou:

"Maya Angelou: Well, let me speak of the few negatives first. The larger my name becomes, the more I am a target, yes. People sometimes put people on pedestals so they can see them more clearly so they can knock them off. There is that in the human psyche. Sometimes people are at your feet, and as the winds of fortune change, they'll be at your throat. I understand that. What I do is I follow the advice of the West African philosopher, which is, "Don't pick them up, don't lay them down." That is, when someone says, "You're the greatest, you're the absolute, you're a genius," you say, "Thank you so much, thank you, bye-bye, bye-bye." Because if I pick them up, you see, I got to then believe when they say, "You're nothing, you're a charlatan, you're a..." 

Taken from: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/136533

Now I've learned to thank people for their compliments but, to leave it right there. I don't want folks expectations put on me. It's exactly what Ms. Angelou said: " People sometimes put people on pedestals so they can see them more clearly so they can knock them off. There is that in the human psyche. Sometimes people are at your feet, and as the winds of fortune change, they'll be at your throat. I understand that." This is why I am weary of over zealous compliments. I've had personal experience with this and it hurts, a lot. People will put you in a race that you didn't ask to be in and run against you. This makes the friendship a competition that you won't even know about until the friendship is over.

I'm not the perfect parent or business owner. I'm not some unicorn that poops rainbows. What folks think of me has become none of my business, great or bad. I do pay attention to what folks say about themselves and this determines whether or not I'll take their compliment to heart.

Again Maya Angelou explains this perfectly:

“I don't trust people who don't love themselves and tell me, 'I love you.' ... There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”
― Maya Angelou
Being a mom is hard enough without having to live up to what someone else thinks of me. This takes away loads of stress and just lets me be me. Whenever someone lays the compliments extra thick on me all while talking badly about themselves, I tell them the truth and let them know that I'm not perfect. I'm just me and I am not doing anything they can't do. I leave all the compliments there for them to pick up and apply to themselves.

Don't ever lift anyone up more than you lift up yourself. The same flaws you have, someone else has. Remember that...