Starving for Compliments?

how does the rabbi who was giving lectures for thousands of people almost on a daily basis and you get so many compliments and you get a lot of attention all day how do you stay in tuned with your true self and you don't get caught up in the validation and the accolades and the praise to become dependent on the constant compliments and attention that people give you you want me to hook you up with my therapist you want to hear my life story now i'll just say very briefly this is a struggle that we all have including myself and it's a challenge that i think many of us have to work on and i also have to work on yes compliments feel good validation fails geshmach accolades are always nicer to receive than criticism and uh i do have this the privilege or the host of the challenge of of getting some compliments i also get criticism i also get criticism so i guess i should be thankful for that but it's really it's really it's a daily work daily work for some people it's probably easier than others depending on their childhood and their self-image in general but this is something i have to be aware of you have to be aware of we all have to be aware of and you know what we also can't sit and judge ourselves all day in other words if i give a fantastic speech and i get a lot of compliments right am i supposed to now feel guilty that i feel good about the compliment is that going to help me you just have to have it you have to have perspective you know what happens if i don't get compliments do i get to go into a depression for a month let's say i gave a speech and it failed it failed it did not work the crowd was sleeping they weren't interested and it has happened so what happens now does it feel good it doesn't feel good but i and we have to have perspective and say okay is this life-threatening maybe psychologically it could be life-threatening but it's such a good awareness if i feel that it's it's it's destroying me i have to ask myself tough questions and that is what is this is your entire image based on the other person liking your speech and what happens if they don't so i don't think we should be critical of every time we feel good or we feel bad but it's it's something to point us to a deeper truth yes we all feel good many of us feel good when we get compliments i can't say anybody some people probably doesn't matter much but some people it means a lot and criticism hurts us and i'm one of those people and then i have to look at it and ask myself you know some real questions is it maybe too much what can i learn from this what is this telling me about myself maybe there's something to work on here but don't be critical about the emotions because they're natural human emotions you know what maybe you didn't have love and you do need attention and this attention is filling a void have compassion for that and the more you have compassion for it the more you can get out of it because when you have compassion for it you can actually open up and realize where it's coming from instead of criticizing and saying i'm such a sick traumatized person i need attention and then you know what happens you need more attention because you're more traumatized instead of instead of that you have compassion and say yeah this is who i am i am in a weak place and i need attention and then maybe i can ask myself why do i need so much attention i can open up the wound i could look at it then i could say maybe there's an alternative you know maybe i could learn to really appreciate a deeper self and even though the compliments will still feel good but they won't be so vital and so essential most importantly compliments and criticism are here to teach us what we can do better next time where we can fix things and what people need and what people appreciate so in that sense it's very valuable feedback is incredibly valuable that's why i love getting feedback even the healthiest person in the world you need feedback to know you know maybe this was inappropriate maybe this can be better than when the feedback becomes the essential uh ingredient in determining self-worth then we have a challenge and this is something i work on and i think many of us have to work on thank you for asking that was a good question the yeshiva.net