Hello my dear readers,

remember my post A compliment? WordPress prompted me to answer to the question „what has been the nicest compliment you received?“  The thing about compliments is that we do not always believe them. Sometimes they even make us uncomfortable. 

In my latest post Once upon a time there was no hero i talked about the fact that if you do not believe you are likable person and someone tells you he/she likes you – doesn’t that make one of you a liar automatically? 

Today i would like to dig deeper into this topic but i would like to warn you before i start, as this post comes with a little task for you. More about that later on as now I like to welcome you to 

About your reflection in the mirror and caper berries

Have you noticed that we are actually vampires? We do not suck blood (well, at least i do not if you do…. as long as it makes you happy and harms no one without their consent…). But as legend tells that vampires do not have a reflection in the mirror, we are not able to see ourselves in  a mirror as well. 

Obviously we can see something but this is not us – it is our reflection. And it is literally mirrored.

And it is not the same way, other people see us. 

By the way – i blame this effect for the fact that most people do not like how they look in pictures. As a picture shows us the way others see us, not like we see ourselves.

It is the same outcome when it comes to your voice. When i am working i spend a lot of time on the phone and since i can remember people compliment me on my voice. They say things like „oh, i could listen to you talk all day… you could read the phone book to me and i would listen for hours…“ This is one of the compliments i find hard to accept. Because whenever i listen to my own voice in recordings i am not the biggest fan of it to phrase is diplomatically. 

Taking those two examples of us not being able to really „see“ or „hear“ ourselves and the fact that we do not always believe compliments given to us are enough evidenced to render the judgement that there is a huge difference of how others recognize us to how we think about us ourselves. 

Time for a little anecdote – once upon a time the following conversation took place:
Patient: I do not understand why people like me, as i do not think i am very likable.
Doctor: Well, let me ask you a question. Do you like caper berries?
Patient: Yes, the big ones. 
Doctor: Why?
Patient: I do not know, i just like them.
Doctor: See! You are a caper berry. Some people like you and some do not. 

Obviously the patient in this anecdote has been me. To this day i am astonished by this simple question about those caper berries. It has influenced the way that i think that much, that one day, i get a caper berry tattoo (just need to save enough money first. So if you wanna donate, let me know 😉 )

What i did not know that day decades ago, there is a simple way to find out why others like you. And even what they like about you. Any idea how this could work? 

I hope you figured it out way quicker than i did. The answer is very simple: go ahead and ask your friends and family and people around you.

Yes, i know – sound easier than done – but believe me – once you got over the very german angst of being accused of fishing for compliments you will like this. 

Actually this has been one of the tasks set upon me during my ongoing healing process. The task has been to draw yourself (even as a stick figure) on a piece of paper and then pass this drawing to those around you with the the goal to let them write positive attributes they connect without you next to the drawing. 

Back then the exercise hat a very surprising outcome for me as it spread light on some expects of my personality that i wasn’t aware of myself. 

Since then i frequently ask friends and people around me why they like me and what they like about me – especially in times when i do not understand how anyone could like capper berries. 

And here is my task for you: i would like to ask three people around you (friends, family, co-workers, me) what they like about you.

If you like tell me about the outcome via email to ally@allys-adventures.com or in the comments.

Hope you enjoyed todays post

Yours

A.