Article

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare meticulously for the interview, but somehow, it doesn’t go well. The interviewers don’t seem to warm to you, and you know in your heart that you will not be chosen: a gut feeling confirmed a week later by a polite rejection letter. What is your reaction? More specifically, how willing are you to extend compassion to yourself for having failed in this, the most important of goals to you?

And what if that same job candidate is not you, but your partner? Let’s say you really need him or her to get the job because the time in unemployment has been biting your household, causing financial and relational difficulties. Yet you know your partner suffers from self-esteem issues and tends not to present well at interviews, thus losing out on many jobs that he or she could do; you are at your wit’s end with frustration. Now what is your reaction? Are you willing to extend compassion to your partner for this failure?

If you have been ruminating over the outcome of the interview and beating up either yourself or your partner, you will not be alone, but you do not have to suffer in this way. You can practice the fine art of compassion instead. Let’s focus first on self-compassion and then look at having it for others.

Click here for the full article at AIPC.