I wanted to express thanks for something recently and it appears that my communication was taken in an entirely different way than as gratitude. I am not sure what specific motives people read into it, but they seem to think I had strings attached that I absolutely did not. I hate strings.
I think my gratitude inviting such a suspicious criticism is perhaps a reflection of things going on that do not even relate to me. Maybe the same is true for you. If you are just trying to be honest and give recognition where it is due and your intentions are falling completely flat, don’t worry about it. You do the best that you can do and then let people receive it how they receive it.
There have been similar circumstances where I saw the best in people and they just could not receive it. Sometimes people cannot own that they are doing so much so right. Many of us seem to have such a big inclination to exaggerate our shames and our fears and the crap people have told us that we do not know how to handle that something positive we have worked to build up within ourselves actually accomplished what we hoped for.
Maybe you feel like you are just faking it until you make it, but no, you are validly awesome! When someone finally recognizes these good things we have legitimately established within ourselves, it feels like a prank and we do not trust such a positive assessment of ourselves. It is okay for people to be thankful for you. It is okay to be thankful for people who don’t accept your thanks very well. We are all just trying to pause to figure things out and yet continually move forward at the same time. It’s not easy, but you’ve got this!
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Shutterstock
