It’s been 1 week since the end of the 21-day Compliment Experiment. You may be wondering how things have been going since then. After all, it takes 21 days for a new good habit to stick. Did it stick?
I discovered that it takes more than the behavioral change of speaking the compliments. What needs to happen in conjunction is a deeper level of awareness & change of any root issues that make it consistently difficult to speak the compliment. For instance, I seemed to have slid backwards in complimenting my household. In fact, I have said negative things to my children and hubby within this past week. Does this mean the experiment backfired?
After a few more days of searching and identifying my root issues with this, I realized something profound. The behavioral changes of complimenting need to be accompanied by changes in the root system. What do I mean by that? The negative words I spoke were symptoms of a root issue I had with my hubby and children. As I asked my God about it, I traced it to a resentment I had for years that I didn’t know I had. I had complied with what I thought my husband wanted in terms of good cooking. I worked hard on my behavior to achieve what I thought a good wife & mom would do for her husband & children. The root issue was doing things for their approval. The anger & resentment surfaced in the form of negative words that on the surface seemed like regression from the positive experiment. But guess what? The experiment served as a much-needed catalyst to show me what was in my root system that hindered healthier relationships with my household. It was a positive forward movement toward lasting change because it is happening at the root where all our beliefs that drive behavior are formed. What a huge and profound discovery!
