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Often when something awful happens to us, we start dwelling on the thought process of why do all bad things happen to good people. In our minds, we begin to imagine ourselves as the most troubled people on earth. Our emotions of self-pity turn into despair and emptiness. Everything seems bleak and we lose interest in everything.

We may not even want to get out of bed as it is. Our days and nights merge into one and we become robots, constantly whining about why is this happening to me.

Self-pity or depression:

There is another mindset that also plays a role in this and that is when we start wondering why all the bad things keep happening to good people. That is also a form of self-pity. However, one thing to keep in mind is that self-pity is very different from depression and most people often confuse the two terms. Depression is a clinical psychological disorder that needs to be treated by licensed mental health professionals.

Meanwhile, self-pity is our internal process of dwelling in our sorrows more than we should. The differentiator between self-pity and depression is that self-pity can be overcome by putting in the work mentally and taking care of ourselves, while depression cannot be self-treated.

Let us list down some of the symptoms of self-pity so that you can recognize them and take corrective measures:

• Living in the past and getting fixated on it
• Having low self-esteem
• Becoming aloof
• Social withdrawal
• Feeling unworthy of love
• Constantly self-absorbed
• Hating yourself
• Feeling of entrapment
• Living becomes difficult
• Constantly feeling guilty about any situation

Naturally, this list is exhaustive and depends on each person’s unique struggles in life. But most of the things mentioned in the list will resonate with you if you are a victim of self-pity.

Life experiences and self-pity:

We all live our separate lives; everyone goes through different life experiences and internalizes them differently. This is where self-pity plays a negative role and turns us into negative people. We have to accept, however, that in life different stressful and dreadful things do happen that can even make us go into depression. But how we fight back is what matters. Dwelling in self-pity constantly will only lead us to more destructive behaviors and that only worsens the whole thing.

So what to do when you are dwelling in self-pity?

Allow us to mention a few behaviors depicted by people dwelling in self-pity and how you can turn them into self-compassion. However, first, let’s look at what does self-compassion means?

Self-Compassion:

Self-compassion is the ability to understand that you are a human and like everyone else in the world you also have bad days and bad experiences. Having one or two bad things happening to you doesn’t mean you are the person who caused them. Instead of pitying yourself, you start to love yourself. You are the master of your life and you decide how you want to proceed in life. You take control of your mind and learn to accept the circumstances, learn from them and move on.

Now that we know what self-compassion means. Let’s look at the self-pitying behaviors that we can turn into self-compassion.

Gratitude:

When we are stuck in the cycle of self-pity, we often forget and neglect all the good things in life that we have. Instead, our mind gets structured to only focus on the negative. This can lead to a very negative mindset that makes us not love ourselves or what and who we are.

In order to combat this feeling, you have to learn to be present at the moment. Some people suggest writing a journal. Write a gratitude journal every day before you go to work or start your day. And be thankful for everything that you do have in your life. This can help your mind begin to take notes of all the things you do have in life and make you focused on enjoying the little things in life.

Mindfulness:

When you are too focused on all your flaws and all the things that are going wrong in your life you start to live in that bubble. You constantly blame yourself for everything wrong and you constantly whine about how everything is wrong for you and why can’t life be easier. However, what you do not know is that you are making life difficult for yourself by not being mindful of your feelings and emotions.

Mindfulness helps you understand that the feelings and emotions you experience are temporary and fleeting and will pass in some time. You can start practicing meditation to hone your skill of mindfulness. The best benefit of mindfulness is, it allows you to look at every emotion and feeling, objectively. Once you can start recognizing the emotions and feelings that you are having are temporary you stop dwelling in them.

Perspective:

When you dwell in self-pity, you become self-centered and forget about other people in your life that may have witnessed such situations and overcome them. Instead, all your efforts are then focused on making yourself feel bad for all the things that are happening to you. Your perspective becomes a tunnel vision and you only see your own problems.

To pass through this tunnel and enter the light you need to broaden your perspective. Look at the people in your life or other people around you, who are constantly struggling in life. Yes not everyone in this world will experience the same kind of struggles as you. But people do go through difficult times in life. And recognizing that you are not the only person on earth with problems will help you realize that similar to the people in your life, you also have the ability to overcome your problems and see the silver lining.

Conclusion:

These are some of the practices that can help you shift the focus of your self-pity and turn it into self-compassion. Once you have a grasp over your emotions you can also lead a healthy happy life. But first and foremost you need to learn to be compassionate towards yourself.

Taking good care of yourself and taking time out to spend some time with yourself will also help you be more compassionate towards yourself. Don’t let yourself be the victim in any situation, in fact, learn to recognize that everyone has problems and you also have them. If other people can move on and overcome their troubles so can you.

It all depends on your mentality and the small changes mentioned above can lead to a massive change in your whole life. So start slow and learn to accept yourself as you are. Experience your life as much as you can because we all have on life to live so why waste it sitting in a corner and crying. Every passing second can be awesome if we just learn to become aware of ourselves and accept ourselves.