How to Dispel Self-Pity

Self-pity is an absolutely useless emotion. Period. Useless. There is nothing wrong with recognizing that one is in difficult circumstances, and allowing oneself to feel sad and angry at times is necessary and healthy; but wallowing in it never did anyone any good. Here is how to get rid of it, at least what works for me:

1. Identify the emotion: I am almost never able to sit back and declare, "I am feeling sorry for myself." More often, I will find myself crying more easily, feeling more irritable, sleeping more, and randomly getting angry at people. I know that even if I think I have reason to be angry at someone, I am usually actually indulging in self-pity, because I don't get angry easily.

2. Figure out what one is missing: Tonight, I was feeling trapped. I haven't felt good enough to leav emy room for anything fun in days; I'm tired of being trapped here. Spend enough time in any room, no matter how lovely, and you start to feel claustrophobic; and I'm not exactly the neatest person on Earth to begin with, so my room is far from lovely.

3. Experience/Replace what one is missing: I did in fact leave my room for about five minutes and take a very short walk, but it wasn't enough. Now the question came: What to do to make myself happier in current circumstances? You see, fighting a situation only makes it worse. I needed to accept and make the most of being stuck in my room.
I really enjoy sewing, so that's what I decided to do. I would make something. And, to make it even more fun, I would watch the 1939 version of "The Little Princess" with Shirley Temple (I found it in fourteen clips on Youtube an dsaved them all) while I did it.

4. Schedule the chosen activity: I find it best to do what will make me happy as soon as possible; the self-pity doesn't tend to go away on its own. I had planned to study for two finals today, but I had already spent the day reading for Jewish History and my brain was pretty much dead anyway. So I quickly finished my book, went on Youtube and found my movie, and started sewing.

5. Keep going with your projec tuntil you feel better: This is most important. It took me at least an hour before I stopped feeling trapped.

Am I still feeling confined? Sure. Do I want to be able to hang out with friends? Of course. Did I want to tonight, and did I miss being able to? You better believe it. But at least now I can fall asleep with a nice memory of something rpoductive, rather than being left with memories of killing time and growing more and more irritable.