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.

Women & Shame

Shame has the power to oppress, silence and shape the way we live, love, work and parent.
“Shame is a social epidemic,” says Brené Brown, a shame and empathy researcher at the University of Huston Graduate College of Social Work. “We are shamed into thinking we are too fat, bad moms, not sexual enough. In our culture, the fear of not belonging and not being acceptable is so insidious that it changes our relationships, families and communities without us even knowing.”

Brown, a qualitative researcher, has written a book, “I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame.” She has discovered that shame manifests itself in many ways including addiction, perfectionism, fear and blame. She spent six years interviewing approximately 400 women about their most personal moments of shame – from the woman who was criticized by the gas station clerk when her credit card was declined (she later raged at her unsuspecting toddler as part of the vicious shame cycle), to the high school teacher who was labeled as a rabble-rouser when she spoke out at a faculty meeting (she later quit teaching).

“Shame lurks in all of the familiar places like body image, motherhood, family, parenting, money and work, mental and physical health, addiction, sex, aging and religion,” Brown said. “When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight, and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling. We think to ourselves, ‘I’m the only one. Something is wrong with me. I am alone.’ The less we understand shame and how it affects our feelings, thoughts and behaviors, the more power it exerts over our lives.”

While Brown explains that we cannot be completely resistant to shame, we can develop the resilience we need to recognize shame, move through it constructively and grow from the experiences. Across the interviews, women with high levels of shame resilience shared four things in common, which Brown refers to as “The Four Elements of Shame Resilience.”

“These include the ability to recognize shame and understand what triggers it and developing critical awareness about the messages and expectations that drive shame,” Brown said. “In addition, those with high levels of shame resilience can reach out and share their stories. They have connection networks and are able to ’speak shame.’ They can use the word. They can be honest about their feelings and ask for what they need, rather than acting out or shutting down.”

One of Brown’s goals with this research is to create a national dialogue on the issue of shame, so the feelings of pain and isolation can be transformed into compassion and connection.