Self-care versus self-pity. Self-pity is certainly a topic that every mental coach has heard about in many different forms. So what about self-pity, a word that contains the word “sorrow”? Is it helpful, or is self-pity a barrier to solution-oriented thinking and proactive action?
Let’s take a closer look at these questions from the perspective of the past. We will also examine whether self-pity is often just an excuse. Is self-pity even important in some cases? What virtues are necessary to overcome self-pity? Here are some statements that make overcoming self-pity extremely difficult:
Why does life play such a cruel joke on me, why am I always the loser? No matter what I do, it always goes wrong! I am the victim for everyone. Others always seem to be better off than me. I am too fat, unattractive, and immobile; it is hopeless.
Life is unfair and hard, I don’t deserve this. I’ll always be the one who gets left behind, nobody loves me. I have no self-confidence at all. I always have to do everything on my own. I can’t do that, I’ll never get out of this. I can’t change it. Nobody liked me at school either. I’m under too much stress…
Self-flagellation through inner dialogue sends the wrong signal
I simply don’t have time because I have to work so damn hard. My partner cheats on me and treats me like I’m his property. Everything always hurts. I have so many allergies. Many people have hurt my soul. Back then, many years ago, when it was the other person’s fault. I’ve borrowed, gambled away, and lost so much money. My business partners, neighbors, friends are always unreliable, devious, and dishonest with me.
And, and, and… these typical generalized statements, begging for sympathy, often sound like this or similar. In the truest sense of the word, some people literally drive themselves crazy in the long run!
Self-pity, grief work, and self-care are very different concepts!
Who hasn’t had to overcome difficult phases or crises in their life? The death of a loved one, which requires grief work and is different from chronic self-pity. A threatening illness, loss through separation, loss of a job, or serious abuse of trust by someone close to you. Even the often-postulated difficult childhood or a problematic, toxic partnership are things that make self-care essential in the healing process.
How can we move away from self-pity and look to the future with optimism? Can we decide for ourselves how long we suffer from such things, which very often lie in the past? But even problems in the present are rarely solved by self-pity.
Crises are opportunities offered by life to change. You don’t need to know what will be new, you just need to be ready and confident. Luise Rinser
The past is a cage whose bars can be bent but not broken, said the poet Tennessee Williams. Yes, we cannot escape the past, but we can decide from what perspective we view it, what framework we want to give it. In any case, dwelling on the past prevents happiness in the present! Unhappy moments are very likely in everyone’s life, they are painful and produce corresponding feelings.
These feelings need to be experienced, not suppressed and ignored. This takes time, far removed from the platitude that “time heals all wounds.” It doesn’t, if we don’t approach healing as an active process. In addition to our own “condolences,” it is also good to receive the compassionate understanding of others. If we were to immediately switch from our current inner experience to the much-cited positive thinking, it would be highly unnatural, even harmful. No, we sometimes have the right to be “sad.”
Our self-care is good for looking at these wounds first and providing first aid, just like we would with external wounds using a band-aid. We owe it to ourselves to take experiences that cause such injuries seriously. This is the first step toward overcoming painful phases of life and “healing” wounds. This has a lot to do with self-love, honest self-reflection, and personal responsibility, and much less to do with selfishness, a key characteristic of self-pity. The second step is a little more difficult but still feasible: accepting what has happened and looking positively toward the future.
How long does it take to turn self-pity into self-care?
Recognizing that it is self-pity is the most important step in self-awareness. The “duration” of self-pity plays a significant role in whether it has a healing or destructive effect. In the long run, lamenting, whining, and constantly accusing and demanding things from the outside world will not change anything! It only poisons the psyche in the long term, because no improvement in the situation can be achieved; on the contrary, it will become more pronounced. Only we ourselves can change something, especially our thoughts and actions.
Two virtues are the most important: the “will” to overcome self-pity and the “belief” that you can do it. As with physical training, an analysis of the current situation and the desired outcome is important in mental training. What do you want to achieve, what is the intention behind a new way of thinking? I must allow others to notice that I am stuck in self-pity and that change is necessary! Belief, and here I don’t mean religious belief, helps us to stay strong and overcome things that weigh us down.
Will and faith go hand in hand
If faith and will are not in harmony, will always prevail and every endeavor will fail. A helpful question to ask is: Have the situations I have had to overcome ultimately strengthened my personality? Many people answer this question with a yes, which initiates a new way of looking at things. Hope is another essential virtue. Hope is a confident inner orientation, combined with a positive expectation that what we desire will come to pass in the future. Hope, and thus optimism-generating thinking as the antithesis of pessimism, is indispensable for overcoming self-pity. And:
Laughter is the best medicine
Goethe said: “Tell me who you associate with, and I will tell you who you are; tell me what you do, and I will tell you what you can become.” These thoughts give rise to important impulses to stop feeding self-pity by choosing a new environment. We decide whether we surround ourselves predominantly with life-affirming, compassionate, and future-oriented people, or with pitying individuals who always reinforce our self-pity! And: what other things do we occupy ourselves with? If “special leisure activities” reinforce destructiveness, changes must also be made here.
The environment, interactions with people, and their attitudes have a strong positive or negative influence on self-pity.
Incidentally, it should not go unmentioned that severe traumas that are very difficult to overcome alone belong in the hands of specialists with experience in “trauma management.” This article is about effective mental techniques for people who have been spared the serious traumas mentioned above. In any case, life goes on, with or without self-pity, and we determine its quality through proactive action. The earth continues to revolve around the sun, which will rise again every day. And we decide whether we want to learn to laugh in the rain, because it will rain anyway. soulboxer🥊🙏❤️