Compliments should feel like a gift, yet for so many high-achieving women they feel like a threat.

We have watched it happen again and again: put accomplished, capable women in a circle and invite them to say something lovely about each other, and confidence suddenly turns into squirming, deflection, and self-deprecating humour. If you’ve ever struggled to simply say “thank you” and let the moment land, you’re not alone, and you’re not broken.

We unpack what’s really going on beneath the surface: how receiving praise challenges the identity built around being useful, competent, and in control. We talk about why some compliments are easier to tolerate than others, especially when they touch parts of you that you have not learned to see as valuable, like being a good mum, being a steady presence, or being deeply caring. We also explore workplace recognition and the fear of owning your leadership, even when two things can be true at once: the team is brilliant and you led them bloody well.

From there, we widen the lens to receiving help and support. We dig into the “invisible ledger” many of us carry, where generosity becomes a transaction in our heads, and support is contaminated by guilt, apologising, or the frantic need to repay. We also speak to money mindset and the discomfort that shows up when good things arrive with more ease than our old programming says they should. The big takeaway: receiving is a capacity you can build, like a muscle, by practising staying present long enough for something good to actually land.

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Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for women who've outgrown the old model of success. The ones who look fine on the outside but know the way they've been living no longer fits. If you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming, this is for you. Honour the space you've created today. Let's dive in. 

Put a group of incredibly accomplished women together in a circle and ask them to say lovely things about each other. And you will see some of the most successful women you know physically squirm. I've watched women shrink into their chairs, look at the floor, deflect, argue, basically do anything other than let somebody say something lovely about them. And compliments are just one place I've noticed how uncomfortable many of us are with receiving. If you ever join me on retreat, a very common activity that we do is what's called a compliment circle. And it is so fascinating to see these women who could get up and ask for a hundred million dollars from a board who can talk to shareholders, who can organize staff, restructures, and then you say to them, I admire the way that you hold yourself, or I really love the way that you care about others. And oh, it is just so, so, so fascinating to watch. And the reason I can almost laugh and cry at this is because this has also been my experience. On our retreats, we spend the weekend pouring into all our clients. However, at the end, we have this beautiful final ritual that reverses that. And that is where clients pour into myself and my coaching team as facilitators to ensure that we don't go home completely depleted. The first time I did this, I balled my eyes out. I lost it. I must say the clients quite enjoyed it because they were ones crying on the weekend and they felt a little bit like, yay, we can make her cry too. But that whole receiving was so unfamiliar and felt so awkward. Giving and supporting others was very much in my wheelhouse. But now I'm pleased to say that I've built that muscle. And what I found fascinating to watch and to feel in myself and in others is that now I can onboard what is being said. The compliment can land rather than necessarily being battered away or deflected or making a self-deprecating comment about things. It can be lovely to have someone reflect back a part of me I already know about. And the beautiful thing is when you believe the compliment, you can receive it. But sometimes there can be this experience where someone pays you a compliment or pours back into you, and it's a part of myself that I hadn't ever really seen, or probably more correctly, hadn't ever really seen as valuable, that it might benefit someone else. We saw this happen with a beautiful client on one of our retreats, and you watched as we went around this circle and everyone was pouring compliments into her, you could watch her physical reaction. When somebody was saying something about her being good at her job or being really intelligent, you could see she wasn't comfortable, but she was like, okay, it was a part of like, yep, I I I got that. And then when we got to the pieces about her being a good mum and her being really beautiful in that way, she lost it. She absolutely lost it. Because her evidence of what being a good mum is didn't include the way that she loves for her kids, the way she fights for them. Sometimes other people can have a view of us that's bigger than the one we're carrying. I see this happen all the time with people at work. They find that they'll receive praise and immediately they share credit. It was a team effort. They can't own any of it. Hiding behind the team, worrying about what does it mean about me if I put my hand up and say, yes, I did it. The crazy thing is, two things can be true. You can have a brilliant team who came together, who did a great job. And you can take the credit that you led that team bloody well. It was your leadership that led to that outcome. And yet we seem to think that one recognizing one actually threatens the other.

Receiving compliments is a really beautiful litmus test for how well you receive in general. Because how we do one thing is more often than not how we do everything. I have noticed this same level of discomfort around receiving help or support. There are so many women who are desperate for more support, but ironically, make themselves very difficult to actually give it to. We feel like we're contributing. We're usually using our capability as part of that. And guess what? We're also the ones in control. Receiving completely changes the dynamic. Someone else gets to do something for me, but I can't control it. I can't control the time. I can't control how it happens. And there's also potentially no immediate way for me to prove I deserved it doesn't that end. And so you create an invisible ledger. Somebody helps me, and then almost immediately, okay, what can I do back? I owe them. Have I taken too much? And so anytime someone helps you, this generosity becomes a transaction in our own heads, even when the other person never actually made it one. The interesting contradiction we have to sit with is wanting support versus being able to actually experience it. If somebody helps you, but you spend the whole time feeling guilty, worrying about the inconvenience, working out how to repay them, have you actually let yourself be supported? When you're receiving, there's this really intense level of vulnerability because you aren't performing your usual uselessness. You aren't performing your usual level of usefulness. You don't have to do anything. There's no competence or intelligence required to receive a meal when life goes to shit. You don't have to reach or achieve any gold star if a friend says, Hey, I've got the kids, you're having a tough time. And if someone simply wants to do something kind for you, well, what if you don't have to demonstrate that you've earned it or proved it? That makes us so uncomfortable. What I love looking at when it comes to this receiving is as women, we have a very complicated relationship with it. It is often easier for us to accept when we have a really clean story about why we earned it. I worked really, really hard for that promotion. I, God, I worked my butt off for that project. And so, therefore, when the recognition comes, I'm like, yeah, I really put my everything into that. We led through struggle. So now, for some reason, because the ledger is clean, we did lots of work, we were very useful, we were very competent, and therefore now we have earned the praise. But it becomes more confronting when something good arrives, whether that's praise, help, money, support, with greater ease than your internal model says it should.

I know I've had to do a lot of work around money because I have some very old programming that you have to work really hard for money. But what happens if you don't? How do I quell that urge to justify why I'm allowed to have something? There's an important distinction before you go, oh yeah, but Joe, receiving does not mean you are entitled. It does not mean you are spoilt, and it doesn't mean that you expect everyone else to carry you, and then you're going to become that douche that takes credit from everyone that belongs elsewhere. This is what we're usually afraid of becoming. We've all seen that person who stands in front of the team when there is prey is being passed in a direction, and they just basically push everybody else over and stand up and go, Yep, it was on me. You are likely nowhere near that end of the spectrum. Anywhere near it. And the discomfort you have about receiving help, receiving praise, compliments, even money, that discomfort will appear long before, so far before there is ever any danger of you becoming selfish or that egotistical twat that you don't want to be. This is why all the advice about just ask for help misses half of the problem. Asking for help is one skill, and one skill we absolutely need to get better at. But letting help arrive without taking control of it, without apologizing for it, or immediately wanting to pay it back is another.

Think of receiving as a muscle, as capacity rather than a personality trait. My personal experience with compliments proves that it can change. My old common escape route of self-deprecating humor was the way that I used to try to deflect it. But now I can simply sit there and I can say thank you. That's lovely. Thank you. It can feel really uncomfortable, especially when you begin. But if you would like to receive more joy, help, support, praise, compliments be poured into. This, my friend, is the work you need to do, to practice staying there long enough for something good to actually land.