How to Overcome Self-Pity and Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself

Moving Beyond Self Pity

How can a person overcome self pity and stop feeling sorry for themselves?

Self pity is a comforting behavior that fills a need for obsessive thinking. Therefore, the key to beating it is to recognize it when it creeps into your thoughts and eliminate it immediately. Because feeling sorry for oneself becomes a pattern over time, you need to retrain your brain not to think so negatively.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Create a zero tolerance policy with yourself - this is what got me “on the road to recovery” when it came to my self pity. I simply made a pact with myself that I would not allow myself to indulge in it any more. This was a re-training of my brain; a new way of thinking for me. In most cases, this “mental policy” worked out really well for me. However, when self-pity persisted, I had to seek other means.

self pity
Photo by Fuseman and ellectric

2. Move your body - Physical exercise is critical for arresting this type of depression. If you force yourself to be physically active and really get your heart rate going, this will have a profound effect on your emotional well being. If you move your body your mind will follow. Physical energy and motivation can empower your whole life. Getting in shape can be a springboard to better emotional health. This can be a huge piece of the puzzle that many people will overlook or simply discount. Get active and you’ll be happier for it!

3. Choose Gratitude - This is a direct attack on self pity: you cannot feel both grateful and sorry for yourself at the same time. The two feelings are completely incompatible. Gratitude is the ticket out of misery and self-absorption. If you have to, sit down and force yourself to write a list of everything you are grateful for. My sponsor tells me to list at least 50 things. Seems a bit simplistic, but getting it all down in writing can work wonders for you.

Choose Gratitude.

It’s so much more empowering than feeling sorry for yourself.

Self pity is my favorite character defect. It is what made me into an addict. When I needed to rationalize my drinking or drug use, my favorite technique was to feel sorry for myself. Sad but true. It always worked so well for me. I loved the feeling that my life was spinning out of control, and that people had done me wrong, and that I was a true victim. This really didn’t happen all that often in my life; people were actually pretty good to me. But when ever I got the chance, I loved to feel sorry for myself, and I used the feeling to justify my drinking.

Because I’m such a shy person, I’ve grown accustomed to using rejection to fuel my pity-parties. My diseased little mind thinks that rejection is the worst thing in the world–even worse than death itself. This irrational belief typically paralyzes me and keeps me from taking healthy risks. In my recovery, I’ve worked on this character defect, and gotten a little better at it. So I take more risks, and usually it pays off. But rejection is a part of life–experiencing rejection on an occasional basis is inevitable. It’s going to happen. So I’ve had to learn how to get over my tendency to throw an “internal pity-party.”

In the beginning of my recovery, I had lots of reasons to feel down on myself. As time went on, my life in recovery got better–in almost every way–and I learned how to stop mentally playing the victim role.

For a more complete guide to overcoming self pity, check this out: Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself and Overcome Self Pity

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20 Comments so far
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i too have alot of self pity in my life, reading your story really made sense to me. It takes to much energy to feel sorry for yourself, i’ll rather use that energy to have fun and help other people. thanks!

Hang in there Anthony….I’m glad to hear that you’re helping others in your recovery….keep it up!

I don’t think a person necessarily needs to be battling addiction in order to profit by your experience and advice. Well done, Patrick. Thanks.

most gratefull for u sharing this experience and “tips” to stop self pity ,
patrick

Thank you for the post. It really helped me to put my petty woes into perspective.

Thank you, so far I have read this page only and it made me think about my self pity addiction, above all your writing about believing that rejection is worst than everything else including death, this produced in me the idea that when I feel sorry for myself I am really trying to cope with my feelings of total worthlessness.
Thanks
Carlos

There is nothing wrong with self-pity, it’s a natural feeling and a growth oriented process.
People who say to “Stop feeling sorry for yourself” are repressive, dysfunctional and destructive towards others Their objective is to invalidate the pain of others and make them fell insecure for experiencing the pain of their lives. It is an attack on people for sharing the pain of their lives.
IT is an attack of repressive people.
Rejoice in self-pity, defend it and tell the attackers to go to hades!
Viva Self-Pity!
People who love themselves fell sorry for themselves, it is only natural and on felling sorry for themselves they take care to identify what has caused them pain and to deal with who and what has caused them pain and nourish themselves to be happy.
I encourage people who have denied themselves self-pity to re-integrate this feeling back into their personality or else you became like the Nazi personality without empathy or warmth.

I also noticed you said:
“Self pity is a comforting behavior”

This is probably the problem in your thinking/ “Behaviour” is not a feeling, it is a set of actions. Self-pity is only a small feeling, there are far greater emotions such as grief , pain and sorrow, all of them perfectly valid and necessary for the healthy human to grow emotionally. Sure change negative behaviour” but the motivation for doing so is from feeling not denying feeling.

Max, I think we might be getting caught up in the words themselves, but I disagree with what you are literally saying.

I agree that if someone is attacking a grieving person and invalidating their feelings, that they should back off. It is important to process our feelings, including those of sadness. You’re right, it is natural to feel them and to grieve over some things.

But self-pity is never a natural feeling. Emotionally balanced and healthy people do not engage in self pity. This is because self-pity is an unhealthy extension of the grieving process. It is taking sadness to an extreme.

Self pity is to sadness what resentment is to anger. It is never healthy. Ever.

Yes, you can be sad. You might even grieve for a very long time. This might be normal. But creating drama in our lives (or just in our heads) for the sake of feeling sad for ourselves is not healthy.

(I think you probably agree with all these ideas, we might just be mincing words here. What are your thoughts?)

Thanks so much for your comment, Max!

No Patrick, I believe you and many others have completely misunderstood the process and misidentified the problem, It is dysfunctional to attack other people when they are not just feeling grief but even just sad or sorry for themselves. In such dysfunctional families or relationships and even in general society it is part of an everyday abuse process where the abusee is discredited from complaining or finding redress or validation of their experience.
I admit you might see some problem, but it is not the feeling of self-pity, and to deny this feeling is destructive. It is also destructive to deny other feelings such as anger, all are beautiful and all are to be loved and enjoyed. This what I have learned from another source is the foundation of growth, I looked out on the internet to see if there was any sane person that understood this and I am happy to report I did.

Here is something to read:

http://www.pete-walker.com/recoverySelfpity.htm

[quote]
I am often saddened when I hear adult children parrot the “conventional wisdom” that it is bad to feel sorry for yourself. This so-called wisdom shames people out of normal, healthy, self-pity. Everyone needs to occasionally feel sorry for themselves. Tears for the self are some of the most potently healing experiences of recovery. Self-pity, in balance and moderation, is extremely healing. Recovery, in fact, is often very limited until there are profound experiences of feeling sorry for the self.[/quote]

I have seen many people in society invalidate the experience of others with this attack and by doing that you cannot understand the basic experience of others. Self-pity like guilt is a natural, useful feeling and emotion which is a necessary and wonderful part of the human condition.
Turn on to self-pity and it will be part of a natural curative growth process.
Incidentally, the more anyone feels a feeling or emotion I.E.runs to it, the more it runs away. Feel true joy in all emotions and they burn up and are like will of wisps and cannot be held. This applies to all emotion. It’s the denial that gives them prolongation.

I do believe whatever solution you found was not effective to the denial of self-pity, it was probably a solution to some other problem than self-pity.

Self-pity doesn’t have to be grief, it can be about any ordinary thing. If one loves oneself, it is good to feel sorry for oneself , to protect oneself. When i feel self-pity I enjoy my feeling and I regard anyone who attacks me for my having my feeling as an obnoxious enemy.

All feelings are oneself, the things we feel about are external to ourselves but our feelings are in effect ourselves, they are the translation to the outside hurtful world, the inside world the more we accept and love the more an faster we integrate.

No, I can’t see your point of view unless it is you have some definition of self-pity that really you mean some kind of behaviour that you think is wired one to one to the feeling. In that case I might have no idea what self-pity means to you, except that you may have made assumptions and not examined the depth. I think the difference is in perception might be benign to some cases and harmful in others.

I caught this attitude from someone in public and I wondered so I used the net to research popular attitudes. There seems to be a schism in the public consciousness. I have to say that what you seem to take as axiomatic is very strange to me as I was not socialized in the popular culture yet I am sure it may a popular attitude.

I like to research public attitudes that I think might contribute to emotional dysfunction.

Thank you for responding.

(corrected email)

“But self-pity is never a natural feeling. Emotionally balanced and healthy people do not engage in self pity.”
So Okay, here is a question. Where is your supporting evidence or observations for such a conclusion? Most likely you were unable to tolerate your own feelings or emotions or someone attacked you and you participated in your own self-destruction by the process of introjection.
In every case of self-destruction you might present it would be the actual self-destructive behaviour that is to blame and not the human feeling. The destructive behaviors no doubt is an attempt by individuals to escape the feeling,Your solution is to deny the feeling which is no better. Simply feel the feeling and it expires by being used up, there is no need to escape it, pillory it or hate the feeling.
Emotionally healthy and balanced people achieve their balance by accepting their emotions and feeling them to the full extent not by rejecting them.
You have for sure mis-identified the source of the problem which is behaviour and not feeling.
for instance, if I feel sorry for myself for being bullied by co-workers, schoolmates or family it is totally healthy. I will nourish myself to treat myself nicely, I will hate the abusers and resist them to protect myself but if I let them or life experience tell me my self-pity is invalid I will let them kick me into the grave and I will not nourish myself to sustain my essential emotional self-worth and life.
It’s not merely special circumstances, it’s everyday living.
I will treat myself the same as I will others. I will feel sorry for others and attempt to help them and I will not deny this process for myself.

This is an excellent discussion Max, I think you are making some great points. It is sort of a slippery discussion we are having!

I see where you are coming from: feelings are natural and need to be felt fully by the person, never to be denied and repressed (that is unhealthy). But I think we are disagreeing merely on definitions, I should really clarify my statements and say that self-pity the feeling is OK, but self-pity the recurring behavior (or mindset) is defeating.

I think you are right Max, that if someone does you wrong, feeling sad, even for yourself, is a natural response. But do you draw the line when you continue to hang on to that sad feeling, day after day, and repeatedly replaying the scene in your mind, focusing on how you are the victim and how people have done you wrong? The longer you hang on to something like this, the more it qualifies as resentment or self-pity (in my opinion).

Grief or sadness, even for the self, is acceptable. But a pattern of obsessive feelings like that are not healthy. I still stand by this, because I use to live that way, amplifying situations in my mind where I had been geniunely mistreated, and dwelling on them for longer than necessary in order to “comfort” myself. To me, that is the essence of self pity, and I can look back now and see how it was limiting my growth and my energy to move forward and create a better life for myself.

Thank you so much for your insight, I really appreciate it and hope you are getting something out of this as well.

I understand what Max is saying. There is nothing that hurts so much as when I am already hurting and for my mother tell me stop feeling sorry for myself. When I just want someone to validate that my emotions are ok to feel.

I also understand you Patrick because it’s when you find self-pity to be a constant in your life is when it’s not natural and it doesn’t go away. I am full of feelings. Very much so and I don’t like to express them to others so they are all to myself and I feel every one of them. I let myself feel every one of them like Max said… but I am sorry to say Max… they don’t go away and poof I am fine again. They actually rule my life unconciously. It comes to the point where I just want to stop feeling and that’s where I think alot of people (myself included) get into addictions.

Now after 15 years of being sobor these feelings are much alive in me. I found this site because I want to be more in control of my feelings and the way they rule my life.

I am much a recluse because of my fears of rejection!!! The worst feeling in the world. The feelings never go away.. The tears never dry up.

Staying sobor and trying to control my feelings, I only managed to harden my heart. This is not what I want to achieve so I will continue to pray, give God my heartscry and search for healthier ways to allow myself to manage my feelings.

Thanks for the very insteresting and intellegent subject.

I am thinking my life would be better if I was addicted to drugs/alcohol, then I could see the changes when pulling my self up form the wrath of addiction. However, after reading this website, I realize I do have an addiction; Laziness. Self pity, helps keep me lazy! I love being lazy but I feel tremendous guilt, so I wallow in self pity to have an excuse to be lazy. I don’t like self pity, so I am going to have to force myself to move and be more productive while changing my thoughts.

Hi there Teri

Sounds more like depression to me, because what you describe sounds like a cycle. I am no psychologist though, but be grateful you don’t have to contend with addiction (might want to stay on gaurd against the possibility though, couldn’t hurt!)

Thanks for your comment and good luck to you.

I lost my father 4 months back. Now on every small problem also i get very upset and insecure. Help me. to become carefree of this world.

Ahh, you will help other so that you feel better, that is so selfish.
I will continue pitty myself, and I won’t help no one.

Prayers for you, Upma. I hope you can find a way to become carefree again and find the joy in life. I’m afraid I don’t have any profound wisdom for you. Just get out there and move your body and interact with others, try to help people. These are the basic principles that bring me joy. Exercise and helping other addicts to recover and interacting with people. Good luck to you and God bless.

Thank Heavens for people like Max -for understanding. It’s not like we want to feel this self pity - it just seems to occur, or to think us.I don’t think it serves anyone to be told that it’s intolerable to feel self pity. It just makes us feel worse. I also remember the hurt and invalidation I felt when my mom told me to stop feeling sorry for myself. It would have been so great if she could just have asked, what hurt so much - just listened and heard. Then it could be easier to just let go.
We all come to this site in search of help. None of us want to feel this ache in our hearts. And we need to find ways out, so it doesn’t just perpetuate, as it seems to- for years and years, because we reject it and scorn it. Hiding there till our pain bodies get activated again- so we can feel guilty and bad and wrong for feeling this inner sadness.
Thank you Max, for saying it’s okay, so we can just feel it out, knowing it’s normal, and this too will pass, in it’s own time. And I’ve also found that acceptance of this human emotion does lead us out - into the light.

Rene, you thank Max for understanding your plight with self-pity, but then in your comment you talk about “feeling it out, knowing it’s normal, and that it will pass.”

I agree with that statement and I would never deny anyone those feelings. That stuff has nothing to do with self-pity. Real self-pity is not a feeling, it is an obsessive mechanism of the mind; a mental game we play with ourselves in order to play the victim and eventually justify outlandish behavior.

I agree that it is right to feel our feelings and process them naturally. There is nothing wrong with being sad. But self pity goes far beyond what you describe in your comment.

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Moving Beyond Self Pity

How can a person overcome self pity and stop feeling sorry for themselves?

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