Mentee Project Reflection Paper

This semester I participated in the Mentee Project to explore the ways I incorporate compassion into my work as a leader. Overall the experience both deepened my compassion practice and taught me about group mentee projects. This paper examines what I learned, discusses how I changed, and provides additional reflections on the project.
There were three projects to choose from in our Spirituality of Leadership class. One option was to be a mentor with the intention of deepening the spiritual lives and practices of both the mentee and mentor. When we chose assignments, I did not feel that I was read to mentor anyone. A second option was to engage a difficult other. This project had a lot of appeal. There are a few individuals both at my work …show more content…
For roughly seven years, I participated in a therapy group founded on listening and mirroring members of the group. After each person spoke, the rest of the group would mirror back to the speaker what they heard. I have been able to incorporate that experience into my compassion practice. The Mentee Project provided the additional experience I needed to take those listening skills a step further. Our coaching sessions allowed me the opportunity to reflect and receive feedback on the compassion I was applying as a leader.
As a result of our bi-weekly coaching sessions I was practicing compassion more regularly. Since incorporating compassion in my leadership was just discussed with my group or was about to be discussed, when an opportunity was made available I was more open to embracing the chance to practice compassion. I found myself offing compassion more during difficult conversations than other times but that may have been because the volume of difficult conversations out weighed other types of conversations. Regardless, I felt as if I was more open to providing compassion in all