My friend Olivia McIvor, who is publishing a powerful new book on compassion, posted the following quote awhile back:

   "Once someone said something nice about me, untrue though I knew it to be. But I treasured it there on my heart's deepest shelf, until one day I surprised even myself by making an honest effort to be that nice thing someone said about me."

   Olivia's post is a fine reminder of your power to influence another with compliments. 

   You had early experiences with being named as one kind of person or another. In your family of origin, were you called "the caring one" and ended up being that person? Maybe you created a story that matched that label and chose your career accordingly. 

   I hate to hear parents brand their children because of the permanent mark it can leave. Decades ago, I heard a mom say about her then-young boys, "Jimmy is my bright light. Jack, on the other hand, is our brat."

   The boys were six and four at the time. Forty years later that mother's branding has come true. Her older child has always been a model of loving behavior. "The brat" has been in and out of prison for years.

   Was this due to early branding? Maybe not. But, I've wondered if being named a brat at such a young age became a self-fulfilling prophecy for Jack.

   In an interview on "CBS Sunday Morning" famed actor Sydney Poitier, now eighty-six, was asked how he would describe himself. "I think I'm a good person," he said.

   Sometimes shamed as a "bad boy" (above with my dad in 1945) it's taken me a long time to finally think of myself as a good person.

   How do you name yourself? Do you say to your heart's mirror that you are a good person? Or, do you remember being named a trouble maker and find you still can't shake the shame you felt then? 

   What kind of compliment can you hand out to a fellow caregiver that might energize their day – and yours?

-Rev. Erie Chapman