There is often confusion around what self-pity actually is, and how it can affect your life.
First of all:
🚫 Self-pity is NOT the same as being depressed.
Self-pity is feeling excessively sorry for yourself and discouraged about your current situation in life to the point that you are self-absorbed in it. It springs from a feeling of entitlement to happiness and from the inability to be ok with temporarily experiencing all of life’s emotions, including unhappiness. 🌧️
It may cause you to seek sympathy from others, to the point that they start to avoid you.
If you have an intolerance of negative emotions or thoughts, you might find yourself engaging in acts of self-sabotage anytime you start to feel unhappy.
These acts can include anything from making unhealthy food choices to relying on drugs or alcohol to give you a boost, or any kind of behavior that keeps you from living your best life. 🍟
Engaging in self-destructive behavior every time you have a negative feeling keeps you from learning healthy coping skills and leads to dependency as a coping mechanism.
Self-pity can rob you of your dreams by keeping you from taking the kinds of action that will transform your life. It keeps you in the trap of feeling bad about feeling bad, which leads to more self-destructive behavior, which serves as evidence of why you should continue to feel bad. And, the familiarity of self-pity is much more comfortable than the discomfort of pushing yourself to work through it, which makes it a vicious cycle.
How to know if you’re feeling self-pity:
🔹 Are you making constant excuses for yourself?
🔹 Do you set goals, not follow through and then blame outside factors?
🔹 Do you find yourself saying that there is a lot of drama in your life?
🔹 Are you exaggerating the negative things that happen to you?
🔹 Do you seek empathy from others to validate your “injustices” and commiserate with you?
🔹 Do you indulge and perseverate in feeling bad about feeling bad?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then congratulations!
Self-awareness is the first step toward shifting out of a self-pitying mindset and into an EMPOWERING mindset. I know it doesn’t feel good, but you did it.
And an empowering mindset is where all positive change begins.
Let’s start your journey to change with me today. 🦋
