Words of Affirmation

God has been teaching me a lot lately about the power of words. Things that are both said and left unsaid have a tremendous amount of power. More often than not we never stop to realize the power our words have to hurt and to heal. Even when we began to understand, we don't know what to do about it.

I dislike compliments. Sure, sometimes they're kind of nice to get. It's nice to know that people notice you, and compliments do sort of come with a warm fuzzy feeling. But in all honesty, I really don't like them. It took me a very long time to figure out why I don't like them. It started with a revelation from God about myself.

Words of affirmation are very important to me, I like to be verbally affirmed. It is a part of who I am. Words of affirmation are one of the most powerful ways for people to express love and affection to me. It seems strange for me to say on one side that I hate compliments and on the other side to say I love to receive affirming words. For the longest time I felt that I must be crazy, or at the very least extremely confused. I craved verbal affirmation, and shunned compliments. What was wrong with me?

Compliments twist my truth. They sound pretty, and sound like they should mean something, but they don't say anything of value. When someone walks up to me and tells me I have gorgeous hair or pretty eyes I feel obligated to thank them, they think they're doing me a favor, but I walk away empty inside. I got into the habit of wearing run down ill-fitted clothes and refusing to wear my hair in any sort of pretty fashion, just to avoid the compliments.

When people give me a compliment, they're pretending to be giving something of value. But things are not of value if they don't cost the person who is giving. Most compliments are throw away words, social pleasantries, their cheap and ultimately meaningless. They don't cost the giver anything. They don't say anything about how you feel about the person, what they are instead are empty words about the person or the person's appearance.

"Your hair is so long!"
"You have very pretty eyes, they're so blue."

Even when people say "I love your hair!" it is just as meaningless. Love is an empty word these days, people love their shoes. These compliments don't say anything of value about the person. And that is what is missing. Our society throws compliments around willy-nilly and yet how many people do you know, including yourself that struggle with feeling like they're not good enough, not smart enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough. When we hear compliments, we laugh them off, we think to ourselves "those people don't know me, if those people only knew...". Words have so much power! And yet we live in a world of empty words! This should not be so. The emptiness of compliments is sucking the life out of people, and very few people notice.

See if you can hear a difference.

"I like the way your eyes look, the blue in them reminds me of the sky."
"I like your hair."

What's different? When you say to someone, "your hair is so pretty" you're making a judgment about them. Sure, it sounds like a harmless enough thing to say. But you are labeling them and it is just as wrong to label someone pretty as it is to call them ugly. Our society says its fine, but think about it, who are we to tell someone whether they are pretty or not? Listen to the other compliment, "I like your hair." doesn't that sound different? You're not saying something about them, you're saying something about yourself. I like your hair. It's harder to say something about yourself than it is to label someone else.

Saying that someone is pretty is easy. It doesn't cost anything, but saying something about ourselves is hard. We have to open ourselves up in a way that makes us vulnerable. But in that vulnerability we have so much power. If people see that we are willing to sacrifice some of our own safety in order to give them a compliment, then all of a sudden that compliment has power. They feel affirmed, and are more willing to accept the compliment. Sometimes it's hard to accept compliments because we have to put ourselves in a vulnerable position in order to accept a compliment, if the person giving compliments isn't in a vulnerable position when they give the compliment, why would I put myself in a vulnerable position to receive it?

Words have power, we live in a world dying to know that people love them, that people care. We are starving for people to show us love, and we are tired of people offering empty words that sound so close to the words we want to hear, but aren't. I'm learning to watch what I say, and what I don't say. It is so easy to take advantage of the people around me, and to never tell them how much I appreciate them. But so many people are in desperate need of affirmation, real affirmation. I am choosing to let myself be vulnerable to tell people how much they mean to me and how much I like them. Because I know those words have power, and when words are spoken that cost something, it is amazing to see how much healing power is released.

Final thoughts, I've used compliments as such as "I like your hair" as an example for words of affirmation. Which as things go, are ok sorts of things to say, but I think personally, what has more power are things like, "I love it when you offer to help me", "I really appreciate you doing that for me", or "thank you for being willing to show so much understanding in this situation". Even in simply writing those out I can feel the difference in power in them. So much different than saying things like, "you're such a good helper", "you're always so kind", or "you're a really understanding person". Those last sorts of compliment are terrible, they often leave me feeling guilty for not being thankful for the compliment, and burdened, because now I feel like I have to live up to their expectations, their label of who they've told me I am.

Words have so much power, I never used to realize how much. We know they have power to hurt. Now I began to see, how much power they have to heal.