What Is Self-pity?

Having low self-esteem, not trusting our abilities, and feeling sorry for ourselves are a destructive combination. It carries what is known as self-pity. Basically it is a tendency that makes us look for a culprit for the problems, failures or bad things that happen to us.

Once we start to feel sorry for ourselves , we lose the ability to find the positive in every situation, we remain unmotivated and do not trust our potential at all. It does not matter what others tell us, if our boss congratulates us on something we did well or if our partner tells us every day how wonderful we are.

Self-pity and how to feel victimized by circumstances

When we blame others, when the person responsible for our misfortune is bad luck, the economy or politics … if all the time we seek to “throw the burden” of our problems on destiny, karma or God, then it is very difficult to change the situation. situation.

Self-comfort does not allow us to recognize and accept what is happening. For many it is simply feeling depressed or sad without knowing why. For others it means being weak or less valuable than others.

In most cases, self-compassion is forged in our childhood or adolescence, someone has told us that we did not have the ability to overcome challenges or many pressures were imposed on us to “be the best”.

Although we usually think that the things that happen in our life are based on external factors, we do not realize that the basis of limitation or misery is ourselves and of course the self-pity we experience.

Do you feel sorry for yourself often?

Perhaps some of the words that we indicate in this article are “making noise” in your head but you still don’t know why. Maybe it’s because you still don’t know that you tend to feel too sorry for yourself. How to realize it? To get started by answering these questions:

• Do you think that the solution to your problems is based on what others do or not do?
• Do you think that you usually look for a justification for your attitudes?
• Do you feel that you have no control over your life or what happens to you?
• Are you looking for advice but you are not to follow them?

If you have answered yes to at least one of these questions, there is a great possibility that you tend to feel like a victim of each situation or that you feel sorry for yourself with some ease. It is true that we have all made mistakes, we were involved in failures of various calibers and of course we have felt depressed.

However, those who watch the half empty glass of what happened or think over and over again about what they could have done have a “self-pitying” personality or tendency. If you believe that you have no control over what happens to you and that the world (from a stranger to a family member) is taking advantage of you to hurt you, you will be unable to cope.

Problem detected: what do I do now?

You’ve taken a big step by accepting that you tend to have self-compassion on many occasions. Now you must follow the path of change and find a solution to your problem. Some of the methods that can help you are:

• Don’t think you’re the victim (don’t forget you’ve survived dozens of painful events before)
• Focus on the good things (taking action can fill your inner feelings of emptiness or poverty)
• Find inspiration in your surroundings (if you look around you will realize that there are many who can help you with their experience)
• Do not tolerate self-pity (if you allow it to remain in your mind, it will be difficult to eliminate this bad habit).
• Use your energy for positive things (instead of spending time thinking about the bad things of the past, focus on improving what you want to achieve in the future).
• Allow negative emotions (accept who you are and what happens to you).

A 180 degree turn

From Buddhism, self-compassion takes on a totally different meaning. Feeling compassion for oneself consists of abandoning suffering and the causes that generate suffering. Instead of spending much of our life lamenting over everything and being “victims” of circumstances, Buddhism tells us that we are active agents. Being an active agent means that it is up to us what we do or do not do.

In this way, if we will look for what makes us suffer and we will try to remedy it. In the vast majority of cases, what causes us suffering is our mind, our way of seeing the world. Therefore, the next step will be to start working with ourselves. Thus, this transformation of self-compassion into an inner work mechanism is a 180-degree change that can help us to start an exciting journey with ourselves.