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582 Market Street
Financial District, CA, 94104

415.734.1969

San Francisco psychologist and psychotherapist, Dr. Laura Kasper, provides providing individual psychotherapy, couples counseling, and marriage counseling and relationship counseling in her private practice in SoMa/Financial District San Francisco.

Dr. Kasper provides therapy and couples therapy to adults in San Francisco, Mill Valley, and Silicon Valley.

 

Offer A Genuine Compliment

offer a genuine compliment EXERCISE

Offering genuine praise and appreciation to others is an act that communicates warmth, and warmth is something that relationships need to grow, similar to how plants need the warmth of the sun to grow.

We hold ourselves back from expressing warmth to others for many reasons. Some have to do with how we were loved and cared for growing up by friends, family, and our community. If we didn’t receive a lot of warmth and genuine praise, and in fact sometimes received quite the opposite, it’s difficult to give it to others.

You might find you need to attend to giving yourself warmth and care before you can do this for others, and that’s completely normal. You might want to go back to the Self-Value and Self-Compassion exercises, or experiment with the Resentment as a Barrier to Connection exercise for working with your own hurt and suffering and come back to try this one when you feel more ready.

How Do You Feel?

To offer a genuine compliment or praise to someone, it’s helpful to start with your feelings:

  • Do they leave you feeling seen, heard, loved after you talk to them?

  • Did they do something nice for you and you feel appreciation or gratitude?

  • Is there something about them you admire and notice that you want to be more like or have more of in your life?

Identify a Specific Behavior

Now identify the behavior they engaged in that left you feeling that way.

  • The way they listened and didn’t judge you when you shared something difficult.

  • The way they followed up to check on you with a text after they knew you weren’t feeling well.

  • They way they are able to stand up for themselves with their boss, which is something that’s hard for you.

Put the Feelings + Behavior into Words

Now that you have the feeling this person evokes in you, and the behavior that evokes it, put them together into your praise or compliment.

  • I want to tell you the way you listened to me last night (behavior) made me feel so seen and cared for (feeling).

  • I really appreciate (feeling) that you sent me a text to check on me (behavior) after I told you I wasn’t feeling well.

  • I admire (feeling) how you stand up for yourself with your boss and set boundaries about your work schedule (behavior). I need to do that and hearing you do it helps me see how I might be able to say that.

Check Your Motivations

Before you share this compliment or praise with someone, check your intentions. Ask yourself if you are offering this out of sincere desire to connect more with this person or are you doing this to get something from them or to manipulate the situation in some way.

If you are doing it to get something, I want to acknowledge that needing things from others is absolutely valid and important, but I’d encourage you to consider working on developing the skill of asking for what you need directly instead of indirectly trying to get it this way. This will preserve the integrity of the relationship and connection and you’re more likely to get what you need than if you are indirect about it. Knowing what we need and asking for it is a very challenging relational skill and you might want to practice some of the feeling-based feedback exercises to work on developing that muscle more.

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