Self-Pity Defined: Self-pity is self indulgent dwelling on one’s own sorrows or misfortunes because you believe that you’ve suffered more than is fair or reasonable…excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one’s troubles that doesn’t lead to action.
Self-Compassion Defined: The meaning of compassion is to recognize the suffering of others (or self) and then take action to help.
- self-pity is sneaky
- self-compassion is intentional
Self-Pity
- You feel pity for yourself instead of changing what is changeable
- It creates distance and separation. You become an object to yourself to be pitied, which generates helplessness
- Self-pity does not lead to change. It leads only to dwelling.
- Feels terrible and important, but not useful.
- Self-pity operates from resentment; a kind of resentment toward life which comes from resistance to what is.
- It is resistant, closed to help, new perceptions, lessons and growth
- It is cold, disconnected– A separator, a moving away from
- It is stalling, stagnant (I don’t know what to do!)
- Fighting reality
- Judgment with self
- Hard internal tone
- Feeling bad about feeling bad
- Amplifying of our negative emotions
- We feel like a victim of our circumstances
Common thoughts that create self-pity:
- Why was I so stupid to think I could ____?
- Why do these kinds of things always happen to me?
- This isn’t fair
- This is all my fault.
- Of course I’d have bad luck like this
- Everyone else has it easier
- I’m a loser and I’ll always be a loser.
- I never get a break
- Everything is my fault.
- I’m not good enough.
Distortions:
- All or nothing thinking: black and white. No shades of gray or considering other variables.
- Magnification: Blow things out of proportion; perceive events having more meaning than is realistic.
- Overgeneralization: View one event as reflecting the larger scope (ie. “my life sucks.”)
- Mental Filter: Filtering out any contracting evidence and over-focusing on negative.
(Re: David Burns, MD Cognitive Distortions)
When we are in self-pity we think relief is found in giving up, but it doesn’t offer us the relief we’re looking for. Instead, throwing our hands up in exasperation with life or ourselves not only doesn’t alleviate our self-sorrow, it makes it worse by giving our brain more evidence to feel sad for ourselves.
Think about how terrible it feels when someone feels sorry for you. We hate it when people pity us, yet we will often drop into this stance with ourselves without realizing it.
Self-Compassion
- Gentle internal tone
- Self-compassion operates from curiosity
- It is open and receptive
- It is warmth toward self and intention to soothe and calm
- Progressing, movement, flow (I can learn to figure out what to do)
- Acknowledging reality
- Empathic with self
- Forgiveness and generous assumptions with self
- Emotional flexibility
Thoughts that create self-compassion:
- This is so very hard for me.
- I’ll just take this one step at a time
- I know I’m not alone in feeling this kind of suffering.
- This is human pain and everyone feels this sometimes
- These challenges are so painful.
- This sucks, what can I do to take care of myself?
- It’s so hard to be human
- This feels awful, but I know others hurt like this too
- Even if I don’t know how right now, I can learn to take care of myself
- No matter how bad I feel, I can get through this
The antidote is activating self-compassion:
- Step #1 is acknowledging that there may be other ways to see your situation; that what your brain is offering you may not be an accurate reflection of reality.
- Step #2 is acknowledging your feelings instead of judging yourself for having them or making yourself wrong for feeling them.
- Step #3 becoming aware of your inner dialogue and intentionally activating new self-compassionate language towards yourself.
Resource: Kristin Neff selfcompassion.org/test
Her book and website
Until next time,
Julie 
