Don’t accept that invitation

Human being especially the feminine gender love parties ranging from birthdays, bridal showers, baby showers, anniversaries, all kind of parties. But there is one party that tends to attract most people in the world regardless of gender. It is called ladies/men pity party. Stella Fowewe, our guest inspiration writer, who is also Dean of Students and Head of Community Development at Blantyre International University (BIU), writes:

Self pity is a silent killer. It w ill never allow you to maximise destiny. It is true that life is not always fair. Where you find yourself is not a function of what you did or did not do; rather, you just discover that things are simply terrible.

It’s not always easy but the good news is that you and I have a choice each day to choose whether to wallow in self-pity or never to accept the invitation.

Self-pity is marked by the habit of concentrating one’s inner thoughts and attention on one’s own troubles, or on one particular cause for sorrow. It is an imaginary crying towel offered to the kind of person who chronically complains about ill fortune, minor defeats, or other adversities in life.

Self pity is a comforting behaviour that fills a need for obsessive thinking. Therefore, the key to beating it is to recognise it and eliminate it immediately. If not eliminated, it becomes a pattern over time and hinders its victim from reaching their full potential in life. Apparently, it moves from a foot hole to a strong hole, so watch out.

This means that the general direction of a person’s innermost thoughts is toward the circumstances in his or her life that make for sadness. Some people see only gloom in everything within them and around them. Others succumb to self pity because of one incident in their lives. Thus, a person who has lost a beloved relative or friend by death can make the memory of that loss connected with it the focal point and refuse to snap out of the sadness.

Self pity blocks motivating emotions such as enthusiasm, happiness and excitement. Without these three it becomes almost impossible to progress. Plus it is unlikely when you are feeling self-pity that you will be able to visualise a future goal to work towards.

How do you free yourself from this deadly enemy?

Consider

Sit down and think long and hard about the effect feeling sorry for yourself is having on you. Is it helping you enjoy life? Is it getting you closer to reaching your goals? Or is it simply giving you a way out? Perhaps you’ve realized it was caused from a negative event. Are you going to let this event control the rest of your life? You are more important than that – decide to stand up for yourself NOW. Free yourself from the bondage of self pity.

Let go of it

The best thing to do is to just completely forget about it all. Your mind is naturally obsessive and will keep you in a never ending cycle of misery until you find a way to break it! Throw yourself into something else, get extremely involved in anything else or find something new to obsess about. This way you change your mental state completely. When your mind tries to go back to feeling sorry – picture a large STOP sign.

Cultivate gratitude attitude

Gratitude is your best friend during a rough time – or anytime really. There is always one thing to be grateful for. Gratitude attitude is a good therapy for self pity. You need to be grateful in life and never allow self pity to weigh down your spirit.

Talk to someone; a mentor, a confidant or a friend and pray about it.

Self pity is an enemy; please never accept its invitation, not today, not ever.