![]() ![]() It’s always easier to offer someone compassion if you try to understand where they’re coming from. ![]() You never know when you might be pleasantly surprised. Try coming at them with the positive mindset you wish they had. ![]() Someone prone to negativity may feel all too tempted to mirror that. When you think negative thoughts, it comes out in your body language. Even if it seems unlikely someone will wake up one day and act differently, we have to remember it is possible. It’s hard to offer someone compassion when you assume you have them pegged. When someone repeatedly drains everyone around them, how do you maintain a sense of compassion without getting sucked into their doom? And how do you act in a way that doesn’t reinforce their negativity–and maybe even helps them? People who seem chronically critical, belligerent, indignant, angry, or just plain rude. So today I started thinking about how we interact with negative or difficult people. He sounds a lot more hateful than my friend, who is, sadly, just terribly depressed.īut these people have one thing in common: boundless negative energy that ends up affecting everyone around them. She went on to describe her offensive, sexist, racist boss who emotionally exhausts everyone around him. While I believe everyone deserves compassion, I understand what she meant after reading more. I thought about this the other day when a reader wrote to me with an interesting question: “How do you offer compassion to someone who doesn’t seem to deserve it?” Even if that something is just to feel needed. I’m no saint, and if there’s one thing I know well, it’s that we only do things repeatedly if we believe there’s something in it for us. I tell myself I call because I care, but sometimes I wonder if I have ulterior motives–to pump up my ego offering good advice or even to feel better about my own reality. She never calls to see how I’m doing, and she rarely listens to what’s going on in my life for more than a minute before shifting the focus back to herself. Sometimes she focuses on the people she feels have wronged her, and other times she explores the general hopelessness of life. I love her to death, but it’s draining to talk to her.Įvery time I call this friend of mine, I know what I’m in for: a half-hour rant about everything that’s difficult, miserable, or unfair. “Dwelling on the negative simply contributes to its power.” ~Shirley MacLaine ![]()
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