Self-care vs self-pity

Bonus post: because reading about mindsets really got me thinking!

With thoughts about growth vs fixed mindsets whirling about in my head (See my August Letter, below) it took me back to May 2013 when I did The Hoffman Process. In short (very), this eight-day residential development programme interrogates patterns of behaviour learnt from your primary caregivers that no longer serve you, allowing you to address the way you approach life and its challenges.

Bob Hoffman, who founded the process in 1967, believed that many of our adult struggles are due to the disconnect between these intuitively learnt behaviours and our true nature. As he taught, we’re not born impatient, angry, anxious or judgemental or with an inability to love; we are born ‘pure’ until someone teaches us to behave, or believe, otherwise.

It’s intense. Tagline: “Everyone is guilty, but no-one is to blame.” The goal: to become the creator of your own change. (It echoes a lot of what Tony Robbins espouses too but comes at it from a different direction).

It was certainly pivotal for me. Six months earlier I’d suffered my first miscarriage and endured a painful break-up. I’d thrown myself into my job with all the resultant flags of success, but I felt like a personal failure. In the pre-course work, asked to describe my life at that time I’d written: “I work. I eat. I sleep. I love my dog. I worry that life will just continue like this. That this is as good as it gets. That I don’t evolve. It’s all ok, but I know it can be better. Richer. More joyful. More emotionally fulfilled.”

I was desperate for a re-boot. To rediscover who I was, and what I wanted. But here’s the thing. Having right royally felt like I’d hit the bottom of the self-pity curve, now I wanted up and out of the mire. Now I was ready for self-care.

Here’s the distinction. Self-pity means seeking validation for your negative feelings and handing over responsibility for your pain to anyone who’ll take it. It’s the friend who moans on about something without doing anything to change her situation. It’s the ‘poor me’ school of thought, where you’re the victim waiting for someone to come and rescue you. It often features blame and can spring from feelings of fear, envy, hatred, or anger. Getting sympathy encourages us to feel our rage and hurt is justified.

Self-care on the other hand means taking positive steps to look after yourself, emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually (what Hoffman called the Quadrinity framework — the four aspects of self). Self-care is about paying attention to your needs; rescuing yourself by digging into your inner resources of creativity.

But goodness, I can hear you sighing, surely after a terrible break up or a loss, we can be justified in a little wallowing? And yes, I absolutely believe we can, and should take the time to recognise that we are hurt, tired, lonely etc and therefore our view on life is somewhat askew because of that. It recalls something similar to the seven stages of grief — shock, denial, blame others (anger), blame self (guilt), wallowing or depression, acceptance, moving on — giving ourself a chance to process our emotions (and not necessarily in a nice neat order) is the only healthy way through those emotions and therefore out the other side.  

However, key is knowing that the potential of life itself is not fundamentally altered. Just our perception of it in that moment. This is where something like the Hoffman course is interesting because it says that a tendency towards self-pity (prolonged wallowing) can be learnt behaviour. In other words, if you had a parent whose default setting was ‘poor me’, you’re much more likely to behave the same way.

So what to do? Replacing self-pity with self-care begins with understanding that we have the capacity to make ourselves feel better. I don’t mean putting on a brave face while inwardly you crumble, but taking action to care for yourself in order to be strong enough to cope. Also understanding that while you may not be able to do anything about the circumstances in which you find yourself, you do have agency over how much you allow them to impact you, and how you choose to react.

It’s asking yourself what do I need right now to feel better (meaning positive processing things like food, sleep, exercise, or a furious bout of clutter clearing rather than alcohol, drugs or sex which usually serve only to block emotions — understandable, but ultimately not helpful if evolution is the goal)?

It ties into the mindset concept. Do you believe you can hoist yourself out of your current situation or not? It’s all a question of mindset? Or your beliefs. In fact, wasn’t it Gandhi who said…

“Your beliefs become your thoughts.

Your thoughts become your words.

Your words become your actions.

Your actions become your habits.

Your habits become your values.

Your values become your destiny.”