On Replacing Self-Pity with Self Compassion
By: Shreya Dalela
Tags: Mental Health, Kindness, Self Love, Compassion, Self Care

The pandemic has made us feel isolated, alone, disturbed, anxious among many other feelings. In the last seven months of isolation, I’ve experienced it all.

In difficult times, it’s easy to get trapped in the cycle of self-pity. It’s easy to start feeling sorry for yourself and ruminate endlessly about your problems. It’s easy to start bearing resentment in situations that feel unfair.

Sadly, as easy as this feeling of self-pity comes, it doesn’t help us in any way. In fact, it only leaves us feeling worse.

“I don’t want it to end, and so, as every therapist knows, the ego does not want an end to its “problems” because they are part of its identity. If no one will listen to my sad story, I can tell it to myself in my head, over and over, and feel sorry for myself, and so have an identity as someone who is being treated unfairly by life or other people, fate or God. It gives definition to my self-image, makes me into someone, and that is all that matters to the ego.” - Eckhart Tolle

Self-pity is nothing like self-compassion, which on the other hand, is a superpower that can help us navigate through difficult times.

The more I read about self-compassion, the more I am convinced that each and every person needs to start practicing it. Especially at this time.

There’s so much awareness about mental health but not enough about the tools that can help us navigate through difficult times. Self-compassion is one such tool that can help us change internal dialogue, thereby improving our mental health.

Here are 5 ways to practice better self-compassion —

1. Replace Feeling Sorry For Yourself With Self-Kindness

When the official lockdown ended, almost everyone I knew started moving around and meeting people. I stayed indoors as I didn’t want to put my parents at risk, especially my mother who suffers from Asthma.

It didn’t bother me at first. But after a few months, I started to feel disconnected from the outside world.

Though I stayed indoors by my own choice, I started to feel resentment at my friends and everyone else who was getting to live a more normal life.

But here’s the thing — Resentment is a feeling that only harms the person who is harboring it. And if it manifests in the form of anger towards the other person, it spoils relationships.

Behind all feeling of resentment, lies a belief that something unfair happened to you. In my case, the resentment came from the feeling that it was unfair that I had to be indoors while others were getting to have the fun that I so badly missed.

But that’s how it is many times. Life is unfair and it’ll be unfair to you in some ways.

During such times, your internal dialogue will decide how you deal with the situation. It’ll determine whether you remain stuck or pull through.

Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, try another approach of just being more kind towards yourself.

Start practicing self-care seriously. Track your sleep and plan your meals. Start giving yourself more breaks, more playtime, more treats, more time, and more space to recover from feeling the way you do. Allow yourself to feel sad for all the things that feel unfair to you. And then process the pain and let it go.