THREE TIPS FOR GETTING OFF YOUR PITY POT

In pain?  Feeling sorry for yourself? We all do when hurt. However,  hugging the hurt around you like a feather comforter keeps you stuck in the pain. Not good.

WHAT TO DO?  TRY THESE TIPS

Emotional fitness tip one:  Rate the hurt on a ten to one scale:  Physically hurt or illness threatening death or a life of difficult to manage pain or disability is a ten.  Bad.You are entitled to some moments of self pity, but be careful those moments do not erode the better moments.

A past pain even severe physical pain or emotional abuse  rate a 5 or below. The longer ago, the lower the rating.    Often self pity means holding on to past pains? Not at all helpful.  Forgive or forget and go on.

Emotional fitness tip two: Replace “poor-me” self-talk with positive slogans. “Now matters most” or “Moving on” or “Alive and well” are some that might work.

Emotional fitness tip three: Practice EFTI’s Daily Easy Exercises.  The most important ones? Gratitude, Remember What Matters and Practicing Kindness.

parenting tip

Starting young, the most helpful thing a parent can do is teaching children to rate pain.  

Say “Big hurt” as you comfort a child crying uncontrollably.

A fall and a scrunched up face getting ready to cry, ask the child to rate the hurt – big, medium or small? Use a hand gesture to measure Big, Medium or Small. 

Getting the child to rate the hurt instantly weakens the pain.

DEEPER THOUGHTS

Once pain fades recalling it reinforces it and that  why self-pity is destruction it creates the bad feelings over and over again.

Sadly often we don’t know we are caught in its web, because we feel entitled, get pleasure, and can more easily shrug off responsibility. Those three things increase the livelihood of more pain.

DAILY PROMPT: Local Flavor: Write a piece about a typically “local” experience from where you come from as though it’s an entry in a travel guide.

Self-pity is always a local journey into the negative part of our brain.  The post is all about that.  If I were writing a travel quide about this it would say “Taking the road called self pity only leads to the town called pain, avoid it.” 

LINKS OF INTEREST

• Self pity  (en.wikipedia.org)
• Letting go of pain (dbtselfhelp.coma)
• Self-soothing skills (Amazon.com)
• Emotional Intelligence (danielgoleman.info)
• Daily Post  (wordpress.com)

BE KIND TO ME

Please rate this material. Doing so helps my social media ratings, but also lets me know what interests you most. Comments do the same. All on the social media need the kindness of likes and they really take little time.

Thank you and work at staying strong until next time,. I work hard to do the same as life is often difficult but staying strong lets me find some good every day.

Katherine