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Believe It Or Not: Feeling Sorry for Your Self is a Good Thing

“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself.” I so often hear clients tell me, when they are sad, discouraged or hurt. If they have sorrow for themselves, they will often next feel guilt or shame. Sometimes they will go on to have absolute contempt for themselves and call their sorrow for themselves having a “pity-party.”

When I ask them how they would feel if the same thing happened to a friend or a child who was hurt, sad, discouraged or distressed, there are two general responses.  Some people would feel compassion for the friend or child, but would feel guilty for feeling compassion for themselves. Anything ’selfish’ is bad for themselves. They apply kinder rules to others.

Other people would condemn the friend or child for feeling sorry. They judge the friend as selfish and negative. They also believe that acknowledging feelings “doesn’t do any good.” These people apply the same harsh rule to others that they apply to themselves.

So many limiting beliefs are embedded in the desire not to feel sorrow for oneself. Some of the beliefs may be:
1. It is “weak” to accept or have kind feelings towards a person not in a “powerful” state or feeling. “Vulnerability” is bad.
2. If one doesn’t condemn the vulnerable feelings, they will grow and grow. (The “Spare the rod, spoil the child” mentality.)
3. One may get “stuck” in the shameful feelings.
4. One will not be able to feel powerful again.
5. One is being “negative” and therefore “bad.”

But the irony is that anytime we condemn ourselves for how we are feeling, that is when we are weakening ourselves. The way to ’strength’ is to validate ourselves for how we are feeling. The root of the word ‘validate’ means to strengthen. To in-validate is to weaken.

To validate ourselves, we need to let ourselves know that it makes sense to feel however we feel. We need to let ourselves know that we can understand ourselves. This may take as little as a few seconds.

THEN, and only then, can we work at shifting and improving our state of mind.

There are so many ways we can work at regulating and adjusting our feelings. But shaming ourselves for how we feel only makes it take longer. So I say, have compassion for yourself. By all means work towards joy and zest.

I believe that in the words of the song, “There’s A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” So when you are feeling sad, first feel sorry for yourself.

Using Voice Recognition Software: Challenging Panic Inducing Voices

Peace At Last

A client I will call “Joanne” * described how recognizing her inner voices has helped rid herself of panic attacks. Perhaps her recognition will inspire others to separate themselves from the shaming and suppressing voices that we all experience from time to time.

“When something GOOD happened, I used to get panicky. I used to think- or again- hear the voice that would say, ‘Something bad is going to happen now!’ Then I would freak out.

“Once I recognized that voice and could see it was not really ME, I could ask it, ‘What makes you say that?’ Or ‘What do you think is going to happen? Death, famine? What?’ The voice was then stumped and I could see that it didn’t really know about something awful about to happen. it was not an omniscient being.  It didn’t even make any sense. What a relief. I feel so grateful.”

So my hope is that we all continue to upgrade our voice recognition software.

* Therapists change the name and other identifying information so that a client’s confidentiality can be maintained

How Well Is Your Voice Recognition Software Working–Your Personal, Internal, Kind?

I just finished a session with a client I will call “Joanne.”* She has upgraded her internal voice recognition software and that has changed her life.

She wants to start her own business, and previously has felt too scared to leave her day job. Her work on herself is an example of what we can all do when we gain awareness and understanding of the internal voices that we all have.

Joanne says, “I am so happy about how I have changed. I don’t succumb to the voice in my head that says, whenever I think about starting my business, ‘Who do you think you are.’ I now see that the voice is my mother’s– NOT MINE. I even see her expressionless face as she says it. I can also hear my father’s kinder, but still suppressive voice, ‘You’re getting a little bit too big for your britches.’

“Before, I would get panicky when I heard those voices. I thought that I was the one thinking those thoughts- and I believed them. Now I can hear one of them say, “You need to go sit in the corner now.” I was panicking then because I knew on some level that I was being abandoned when I was excited and hopeful and feeling powerful. And I was being asked to not be who I was. I was also panicking recently because I soooo much want to start my business, and I know now that when I sit in a corner metaphorically, I am killing my spirit. But now that I know those voices are not ME I know that I can just notice them and go on doing what I think is right.

“ Wow. I feel so real and I feel so much power. I don’t think I’m crazy anymore for what I want. I can go for it!”

Recognizing and managing our self-diminishing inner voices makes so much possible for us. I wish that for everyone!

*therapists hide the names & other identifying characteristics of clients to protect their confidentiality

Doubt and Shame

I just saw the movie “Doubt” yesterday and it has me thinking about how we respond to our own emotional states of uncertainty.

Doubt is defined as the state of being unsure of something; to lack confidence in. When they are feeling doubt, sometimes people then feel shame as a secondary response to their own lack of certainty. They think they are “weak” if they are not certain.

The secondary shame reaction comes partly from the belief that we “should” be certain. But to paraphrase (because I don’t remember completely; I’m uncertain), “Certainty is only a feeling. It’s not a fact.”

In contemporary psychology, being able to tolerate uncertainty, to handle ambiguity is an important developmental step. We can then handle the “gray”s, and not devolve to black or white thinking.