Why do we feel sorry for animals? Why do we feel sorry for ourselves Why do we feel sorry for ourselves
Because we don’t expect betrayal?
We are in our noble impulses
For some reason we give them hope
For shelter and friendship until the grave,
Seeing the sparkle of pleading eyes...
After all, such a test hurts them,
Passing pity in us.
Looking at passersby trustingly:
"Maybe someone will take me too,
Maybe this smiling uncle
Behind you, in broad daylight,
He will call, lead, warm,
Will become a friend until the sad day,
And no one will ever dare
Separate me from the person?"
Eh, dogs, nobody's mongrels,
Nobody needs you at all
You will forever remain under the bench
In a dissolute country,
Where people are not each other's brothers,
They will step over when you fall,
Not sparing the dashing curse,
If it doesn't look very good.
Past dirty gateway corners
We walk with indifference and disgust...
Because we don’t expect betrayal.
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Bitter questions...
Probably a person feels more powerful next to the weak creation of nature. Strong animals also recognize the strength of the human spirit.
....We are touched when Americans nurse a baby kangaroo the size of a mouse or a leopard paralyzed from birth... Are Americans darlings? Not really...
It is they who put blinders on other people's eyes and noodles on their ears. Meanwhile, they themselves organize actions to intimidate the community of countries in the eastern hemisphere of the earth, nurturing ISIS and show executions.
Feeding the Maidan, raising non-humans there...
Here they have a different strategy - to prove that they are “true people”.
Do you like Dolsky's songs? This is in response to your poem about rain in St. Petersburg.
Lumiko! In my youth I really loved listening to bards. I still remember many, but I no longer remember who wrote this or that one.
And I consider music the highest of all types of art, there is my poem about it. I'll send it to you.
MUSIC
(Vladimir Korn-Berezovsky)
***************************
I haven't been looking for words for a long time:
No one ever came up with something like this,
My head swells from thoughts,
I'll go crazy on a moonlit night.
And it faded, and that’s it,
At least, it seems, the best in the world,
But still, like an old coat -
It’s not that, and those are not these,
What should a woman say?
When love flows through the heart...
How can I convey the feeling?
And why am I itching?
There's only one music
She is able to speak purely, clearly,
That it was not in vain that it was given to me
And, like love, it is always beautiful.
What a great man
I collected seven notes and wove this,
That a short century lives in us,
Is it flowing light, alive?
Of course, the one who was in love
But I didn’t find an answer in the words,
I was intoxicated by the sound of the flute,
And the gentle singing of the clarinet,
And a whirlwind of a frisky bow,
And play the keys lightly...
Oh how divine the river
Flows with a living melody!
I'm dumb, mad, amazed
This incomprehensibility of comparison,
That he was captivated by the lady music:
Their two sisters are one creation!
I don't wander in the world of words
The sound of one melody
Tell me more about love
What better words than charm.
Lumiko, sorry for the garrulity - one more thing about music!
********************************
GREAT ART
(Vladimir Korn-Berezovsky)
***************************
You are the highest art of magic!
Nothing compares to your strength!
The creation of souls, where feelings triumph
Caresses the heart with a tender right hand,
An inexplicable, fabulous wave...
Instant wave-movement of the conductor,
And the first sound, and into a completely different world
You, dissolving, move quickly.
And everything of the past is somewhere behind,
Rejected, left behind the wall...
Tragedy and joy rage in the chest,
And you came to life and became yourself again.
Feelings returned, love was remembered,
Indignation, the pain of the experience...
And you want to dissolve in it again,
Stay in the sounding kingdom of the saint,
And being is a weave of different notes:
It’s light there, but it’s incredibly sad there,
The concert flows endlessly...
Our whole life is Great art!
Vladimir, your poems are sincere and real. You are lucky to be born and live in the city of arts!
How are musical images that shake the soul born? For me, too, this is a question of divine mystery. But now it has become technically possible to record the field radiation of the planets, the rhythm of the vibrations of the sun, even the rhythm of various human organs - and these rhythms, translated into sound frequencies, give... the sounds of classical music. Here on the Internet you can find the sound of the Earth and other planets... True, the sound of the Earth is alarming, even frightening. But cosmic sounds are a whole range from birdsong to human voices.
If you want, then go to contact - Lyudmila Korchagina-Liu.
Look for who benefits
This ancient principle of Roman law is not just for lawyers. In psychology it works exactly the same way. Of course, it is difficult to believe that all the professional sufferers you have encountered in your life have benefited from their experiences, but it is true.
So, let's try to find out what exactly pushes a person to wail like a Hasid at the Western Wall.
1. It takes us back to childhood
Someone in childhood received support in exchange for whining. Such a person, deep down in his soul, wants to climb onto his mother’s lap again and tell her about all his sorrows, despite the fact that he has long been able to crush his mother with his weight. This desire is fraught with bad consequences for relationships: your loved one is unlikely to like being constantly used as a vest. Still, everyone wants their partner to see themselves in a person, and not a mother or father. Even if he takes on the role of parent at first, he will eventually get tired of it. Your knees will split and you will crash on the floor.
2. This allows you to simply suffer without doing anything.
Self-pity is a feeling that paralyzes any activity. Anna Vladimirskaya, a psychologist at the Sidera meta-center (www.sideta-center.ru), says:“Self-pity is certainly a destructive feeling, as it is closely related to the feeling of hopelessness. It doesn’t matter what a person is worried about. It is important that he does not see a favorable solution to the problem. Feeling sorry for themselves, people place specific emphasis: it doesn’t matter that I courageously fight fate - I’m doomed to lose. Self-pity emphasizes the hopelessness of the situation. Moreover, the more hopeless she looks, the stronger the pity becomes. If the feeling is fleeting, then it will not bring destructive consequences. But if it appears regularly, then the person is captured by it. One who indulges in self-pity cannot act, since action immediately destroys this feeling.”
3. This relieves the person of responsibility for what is happening.
“I’m not like that - life is like that.” A person inclined to feel sorry for himself will blame those around him for all his troubles. This position, of course, can be called childish.
“A person in a state of acute self-pity feels small and weak. Those around you at this moment appear as offenders. Because of this distorted view, self-pity is dangerous not only for the person himself. Pity is very different from self-compassion, which is characteristic of harmonious people in moments of mental fatigue or adversity. It's quite easy to distinguish one from the other. When a person feels sorry for himself, he builds a special image of himself in reality in his head, where his suffering is met with a cold or aggressive response from the environment. The environment can be understood as the human community as a whole or its individual representatives.”
4. This allows you to receive emotional support from others
In his book “People Who Play Games,” psychologist Eric Berne outlined many scenarios in which a person’s communication with the world can take place. According to Berne, we all primarily crave acceptance, so-called emotional stroking. Some people achieve them by bragging about their successes, while others audibly feel sorry for themselves.
Anna Vladimirskaya says:“Psychological games are varied, but the basis of each of them is to obtain emotional benefits. People who whine that everything is bad for them often do not expect practical advice from their loved ones and are even offended when they give it. They need to feed on sympathy. One of the types of energy vampirism is the game “Yes, but...”. It involves people manipulating others' sympathy for themselves to justify their inaction. The game follows simple rules. Your friend Masha complains to you about problems at work. While she is sobbing in three streams, you put forward versions of how to improve the situation. But they all stumble upon the impenetrable Mashino: “Yes, but...”. And now you feel like a squeezed lemon, and Masha, cheerful for some unknown reason, chirps cheerfully. In order to prevent the “Yes, but...” player from gaining emotional support at your expense, you need to unravel the script of his game. Then it’s easy to respond in such a way that his game fails.”
Here's how others do it:
Ivan, 26 years old: “If someone starts to mope because of something that I don’t consider a reason for sadness, I begin to logically analyze the problems of the person who is emotionally upset. As a result, he either finally understands everything from a logical standpoint and calms down, or he goes even deeper into self-digging, considering me an insensitive blockhead.”
Olga, 25 years old: “Frantic self-pity in my presence makes me want to get up and go out. Firstly, I perceive this as a rather intimate process, and secondly, I don’t like it when they try to “trick” me into emotions. If this trick is repeated with me often, I can be rude. I once told a friend who was suffering because of a relationship with a man that she was a doormat, and not the one I know. She was offended, but it helped.”
Natalya, 31 years old: “I’m a fairly active person, so I’m often inclined to understand complaints about life as a hint that some kind of help is expected from me. Sometimes I worry that the person was expecting this “just to be sorry.” But I don’t have the culture of “feeling sorry” for this, so I really don’t understand when to “feel sorry” and when to give money, punch the offender in the face, give the country coal... My friends have already sworn off meddling with me about this.”
Victims of self-pity, according to Anna Vladimirskaya, They walk in a vicious circle: “They perceive any proposal to improve the situation as impossible. If self-pity is sincere, then the person begins to feel hopeless in trying to break out of the circle and becomes depressed from a feeling of weakness. Another version of the vicious circle is endless conflicts with others. In this state, it is not so much the person himself who seems weak, but rather the world around him who sees him as unfair. Of course, the appropriate response to such a state would be retaliatory aggression. Usually, people feel sorry for themselves because of the burden of responsibility, guilt and fear of the negative consequences of their own actions. That is, most often this is a defensive phenomenon: “If I am very weak or the world is very angry, then it is not surprising that I lost.”
Compassionate mine
How to suppress this vile feeling in yourself?
1. Become your own friend
A person’s inner “I” and “You” can communicate very harmoniously, just like people in the outside world. A person who is fortunate enough to grow up with a sense of acceptance and unconditional love is in friendship with himself. Psychologist Erich Fromm argued that those who love themselves can truly love others. How can you love anyone while denying love to yourself? Nowadays they write a lot about the fact that a person must love himself. But it is very difficult to explain how to do this in practice. As a result, the reader slams the magazine shut with the feeling that he has been duped. In order not to produce such materials, we turned to a specialist for advice.
Anna Vladimirskaya recommends the following:“Identify the reason for your pity and, instead of falling into the usual state of hopeless numbness, ask yourself: “Why am I doing this? How does this benefit me?” Often the cause of self-pity is a strong feeling of guilt or pressure of responsibility. If you are constantly suffering, then first of all you need to soften this feeling and increase faith in yourself. You need to try to capture your feeling of strength, ability to act, the state of confident striving for a goal. This is not so easy to do in your head, so it’s worth trying to act in reality. If there is someone who will keep from doubting and look realistically at the results of his work, then self-pity will recede.”
In particularly advanced cases, it is worth contacting a specialist. Among the various psychotherapies today, the Carl Rogers method is presented - a client-centered approach aimed at teaching the client to treat himself with friendly acceptance. The effect of therapy is achieved by the fact that the therapist does not give you direct advice. Through his attitude and desire to understand the client’s coordinate system, the therapist gradually teaches him to treat himself in the same way.
In society, it is customary to equate pity with a noble and “high” feeling, thanks to which a person recognizes his problems and grumbles about the injustice of fate. A rude and stupid lie! In fact, pity is associated with weakness, a person’s dependence on other people’s opinions and circumstances. Based on the above words, grooming and nurturing this “high” feeling is highly discouraged. How to stop feeling sorry for yourself, you will learn in this article after explaining this problem in society.
The main reasons why you start to feel sorry for yourself
- Although many deliberately try to arouse pity in order to obtain gratuitous benefits. Convenient isn't it. And the funny thing is that the slaves of approval simply run to the aid of pathetic little people who ooh, groan and moan about their pitiful and difficult existence.
- Of course, there are people who sometimes feel sorry for themselves, but in general lead an active life. They even bring benefits, or at least they are completely independent and do not burden anyone with their problems. At the same time, there is a risk of being depressed for long periods of life.
- Sometimes self-pity translates into strong motivation. This will be a motivation from worthlessness to a worthy life and actions. But these are rare cases, especially when the person feeling sorry for himself comes to this himself.
- Most often, there are those who are always sick and offended by fate. Although on oneself it is a reluctance to overcome life’s difficulties and set goals in life. It’s easier to whine and make everything seem as if all the circumstances around you don’t allow you to live fully. In addition, inducing self-pity is a great way to manipulate people.
As we can understand, society greatly encourages self-pity under certain conditions. There are hordes. It is always easier to look for the extreme and engage in accusations and gossip. After all, finding a purpose in life and minding your own business is not so easy.
So maybe it’s easier not to indulge the “unfortunate”, but to alleviate their suffering forever?
How to stop feeling sorry for yourself and start living
- To truly overcome self-pity, acknowledge it. Of course, admitting regret towards your loved one is very difficult, but necessary. Don't be afraid to reveal your weak and not-so-pleasant sides.
- After identifying the feeling of self-pity, remember in what cases it sounded in your heart. When have you ever wanted to feel sorry for yourself, poor thing? Perhaps this happened during quarrels with superiors, a loved one or friends. In such situations, it makes no sense to consider everyone a scoundrel and yourself a saint, since the blame is also on your shoulders.
- Try to find a replacement for it with other feelings. Don’t try to give up your pity right away, it won’t leave you that easily. Let's say you always felt sorry for yourself when your family forgot to appreciate your efforts and efforts for them. From now on, look at this situation from the other side. Relatives are not obligated to say “thank you” to you for your help. You do this out of love, not for the sake of empty words of praise, right? Try to do at least one thing from the bottom of your heart, without expecting applause or praise, and you will see how pleasant it is to make people happy without self-interest or specific intentions.
- Write down your complaints about the world when you feel sorry for yourself. This is an easier way to get rid of pity. As soon as you want to feel sorry for yourself and be offended by the whole world, take a pen and paper and write down your “complaints to the world” on a piece of paper. Imagine this complaint from a stranger. Now read your complaint. What feelings are you experiencing? What would you say to a stranger about his pity? This method will allow you to see yourself from the outside and feel the meaninglessness of self-pity.
- Take control of your life. We ourselves create almost everything that happens to us. Even if you suffered some kind of damage by force (injury, theft), it means you have created the conditions for this. Receive it and sign it.
Don't be afraid to see your mistakes. They are completely solvable. Throw away all grievances and start life with a clean slate. You will succeed. Good luck!
Emily Brontë
We are all very familiar with such a feeling as pity, which, on the one hand, seems to be a very good and in some cases even necessary quality for a person, and at the same time it often betrays us, forcing us to feel sorry for people who absolutely do not deserve any pity . Or there are even worse situations when a person feels sorry for himself and thus indulges his weakness, seeks excuses for his failures and shifts responsibility for them to other people. Such pity, without a doubt, is harmful to a person. And here the question arises - how, in fact, to distinguish useful pity from harmful, and how to suppress this harmful pity in yourself? So, in this article, let’s answer this and some other, also very important questions related to the feeling of pity, and at the same time find out what pity is.
First of all, I will give a brief definition of pity so that we all understand perfectly what we are dealing with. Pity is a feeling of discomfort, which manifests itself in the form of condescending compassion, condolences, mercy, sadness, regret. We can experience this feeling both in relation to ourselves and in relation to other people. I would also say that pity is one of the forms of a person’s dependence on society, this is when it comes to pity for other people. Because, pitying other people, a person partly feels sorry for himself, because at this moment he treats other people the way he would like them to treat him when he finds himself in the same situation as them. And the fact that we or other people need precisely pity in certain situations, and nothing else, we not only and not so much understand as we feel. After all, where did we get the idea that people need to be pitied? We feel it, right? We not only know about this, but we feel that people in a given situation need to be pitied, since from time to time we ourselves feel the need for self-pity. Is it good or bad? Let's figure it out.
Pity for others
First, let's look at pity for other people in order to understand when and why we feel sorry for someone and where this pity leads us. Usually we proceed from certain ideas about good and evil, good and bad, right or wrong, when we do something, in this case, we feel sorry for someone. Also, we impose the situation in which the other person finds himself on ourselves and thus, by feeling sorry for him, we seem to feel sorry for ourselves. That is, we proceed from the fact that in a certain situation a person needs to be pitied, precisely to be pitied, not to cheer him up, not to be ignored, not to do anything else with him, but to be pitied. Consequently, if we find ourselves in exactly the same situation, we expect that we will also be pitied. And what happens to us in the end? What happens is that in some situations, our pity actually benefits both ourselves and the people we pity, while in others it harms them, us, or only us. Well, for example, you felt sorry for your child who fell, say, from a swing and hit himself painfully. He is hurt, offended, he needs support from you, which you can give him in the form of pity. He wants to be pitied, and you do it. And when you feel sorry for him, you show him your love and care in this way, which strengthens his trust in you and plants in him the seed of love for other people, primarily for you. That is, when we feel sorry for someone, we show this person that we care about him, and in some cases we let him know that we love him, that we sympathize with him, that we share with him his pain, suffering, resentment and etc. In situations like these, pity is very useful. Kindness itself is very useful - it makes us human.
So we need to be able to feel sorry for people, even if not all of them and not always, but in general we should be able to do this, because this is a very useful skill. After all, many people need pity, especially children, who expect it primarily from their parents. But many adults also love it when people feel sorry for them. People expect pity from others, they often count on it, they look for it. And if you can give them this pity when it is required, you will gain trust in them, which sometimes, you will agree, is very important for establishing useful connections. If you are a ruthless, cold, indifferent person who does nothing good for other people, then you are unlikely to be able to enlist their support when you need it. Few people are eager to help those who never help anyone themselves. So pity, as one of the manifestations of kindness, has its price in this world. Although people often take advantage of our pity in the most ruthless and immoral way. They can manipulate us with its help or simply be ungrateful that we took pity on them. It is what it is. I'm sure you've encountered people who spat in your soul in response to your pity and kindness. However, because of people like this, we shouldn’t think that our pity is our enemy. This is wrong. Our pity can also be our ally, helping us establish warm and friendly relationships with many people, especially with those who are commonly called normal people. Therefore, you should not worry too much about the problems that arise due to the manifestation of this feeling. You just need to start controlling it in order to understand who and in what situation you should feel sorry for, and who you should treat coldly and with indifference. Now let’s turn our attention to this.
What is important to consider here? It is important to always take into account your benefit, primarily in the medium and long term, in order to understand where your action, that is, your expression of pity in a given situation, will ultimately lead you. Let's say you took pity on a person and did something good for him. And it seems like it didn’t give you anything. The person disappeared from your life or continues to live as he lived, without considering it necessary to somehow thank you for your help, for your kindness. And so you think that you took pity on the person, but there’s no point in doing so. And you may begin to regret your actions. Still, what can I say, we are not always ready to do everything completely unselfishly. But don't rush to conclusions. It's not all that obvious here. Firstly, as you know, they don’t seek goodness from goodness, and if you took pity on someone and helped someone, then you shouldn’t think that this person now owes you. Pity and kindness are not things that need to be traded, although people manage to do this too. And secondly, if we talk about benefits, how do you know when and in what form you will receive it? That is, how do you know in what form your goodness will return to you?
Understand that the effect of one or another of our actions is always much larger than what we can see and understand, and therefore much more difficult to evaluate. In addition, this effect is extended over time and you never know where your action will ultimately lead you in the long term. When you feel sorry for another person, even an ungrateful one, you show yourself as a person, as a person, not only to him, but also to other people who form their opinion about you based on your actions and according to their beliefs and values. That is, by your actions you tell other people what kind of person you are. And when a certain opinion is formed about you, as a rule, positive, because kind people are loved, even if they are not always respected and appreciated, but they are loved, then all normal people know that you are the kind of person whom it makes sense to help, suggest, and whom one can feel sorry for. , if you need it. Therefore, even if it is not the person whom you took pity on and whom you helped, he will help you in return, but many other people, knowing about your good deed, can do it for him. In addition, some people do not thank immediately, but after some time, when they have such an opportunity. You, I repeat, by taking pity on the person, showed yourself to him, you showed that you can be humane, and this, no matter what you say, inspires trust. Thus, by helping other people, including pitying them, you can earn yourself a good reputation - a reputation as a normal, sympathetic, kind person. That is, with your good deeds you make a name for yourself, which, as you know, can work for a person all his life.
Of course, any name, even the kindest and most honest one, can be spoiled, denigrated, and discredited. But, you know, friends, when you personally know well a person with whom you have dealt many times and who has never let you down, deceived you, or used you, but on the contrary, helped you, you will never believe in any nasty thing that his ill-wishers will spread things about him. Therefore, if you felt sorry for someone, someone who really needed it and deserved it, then rest assured that he will most likely begin to think very well of you and will never believe anyone who speaks badly about you. So from this point of view, showing pity in those situations when you need to help a person, support him, restore his faith in the best, faith in himself, and not think about how beneficial it is for you right now, can be very beneficial. Your past actions can serve you very well in the future. People, no matter what they are, for the most part, still try to reach out to good, kind, normal people who can be trusted and relied on.
But not everything is as simple and beautiful as we would like. If our goodness always returned to us like a boomerang, we would all be very kind and would constantly help each other and feel sorry for each other. However, in real life, a good deed, a good deed, is not only not always rewarded, but sometimes even punished, but is not always a good deed or a good deed. You may be mistaken in believing that by feeling sorry for this or that person, in one way or another, you have done a good deed. Our pity can turn out to be very harmful, and therefore, as I said at the very beginning, we need to be able to distinguish it from useful pity. Let's give another example of pity. Suppose you feel sorry for someone, for example, the same child, while trying to protect him from pain, not letting him on the same swing from which he might fall, trying to protect him from difficulties, saving him from hard work, for example, during study, protecting him from fear, protecting him from unpleasant information, from suffering, and also protecting him from meeting bad people, from your point of view, and so on. So, with all these prohibitions and excessive care for your child, you prevent him from fully developing, gaining useful life experience, you prevent him from overcoming difficulties, and you prevent him from learning to get up after a fall. That is, such excessive, inappropriate, wrong pity prevents a person from becoming stronger. This, of course, harms him, and it is especially harmful for the child, who needs to learn to live in the real world, and not hide in the “greenhouse” you created for him. Do you understand what the problem is here? We must be able to fall and we must be able to rise, on our own, without outside help, in order to be as adapted to life as possible. And this needs to be learned. And in order to learn this, you cannot avoid difficulties, you cannot avoid pain, you cannot protect yourself from everything that you do not like and that you are afraid of. And even more so, you cannot protect other people from this, in particular children, especially children for whom it is important to learn to be strong. Therefore, a child and any person in general must suffer. You see, I should. And if someone’s pity prevents him from doing this, then it simply harms him. After all, when we get used to this pity, we only look for it everywhere, instead of struggling with difficulties, overcoming them and always relying primarily on our own strengths.
Besides, our pity often lets us down, as I’m sure you know very well. It happens that you feel sorry for a person, help him, and then he will do something bad to you in return. Let him not do this on purpose, but by inertia, for example, climb onto your neck and constantly ask you to help him. In the end, it will turn out like in the parable about the donkey and the bull, in which the simple-minded donkey, wanting to help the bull, began to do hard work for him, that is, he took on his burden, to his own detriment. Such pity on your part will simply leave you in the cold. In addition, some people, as you know, perceive other people's pity as weakness and take advantage of it - putting pressure on this feeling in order to gain some benefit. This is a very ugly and even disgusting manipulation, which is used, for example, by the same beggars who do not want to work. And we, it seems, have all our hearts for the person, we feel sorry for him, we want to help him, but he craps into our souls. A familiar situation, That's it. That’s why it’s important to understand who deserves our pity and in what situations, and who doesn’t. Let's return to this issue a little later, below I will tell you how to get rid of the feeling of pity, and there we will raise it again. In the meantime, let's talk a little about an equally harmful form of pity - self-pity.
Self pity
Self-pity is a very harmful habit for a person, developed as a result of his inability to cope with difficulties, his inability to solve problems and his lack of self-confidence. It may be due to the fact that in childhood a person was pitied too much and too often, as a result of which the line between his parents showing love for him and that very excessive care for him that I wrote about above was simply erased. That is, excessive care for a person is detrimental to him. In such cases they say: “If you want to destroy a person, start feeling sorry for him.” And I would clarify: if you want to destroy a person, pinch or squeeze him. This will be more correct. And in the end, what happens is that a person is accustomed to pity, he does not perceive his weakness as something wrong, abnormal, unnecessary for him, which he needs to get rid of, but instead he can even enjoy it. So, from a seemingly noble act, pity can turn into one of the forms of a person’s dependence on external circumstances and other people, with which a person can live his whole life. After all, it is always easier to justify your weakness, laziness, stupidity, your mistakes than to correct them. And in order to do this, you need to feel sorry for yourself, make yourself a victim of circumstances in your own eyes, and, if possible, in the eyes of other people, so that they pat you on the head and wipe your nose. All this, of course, is very touching, but not useful.
Some people like to suffer, cry, complain about their lives, pour out their souls to someone to calm themselves down. And you know that, sometimes, I emphasize, sometimes, they really need it in order to unload, to cleanse themselves of bad thoughts, to get rid of pain, to get rid of that unnecessary burden that has accumulated in their soul as a result of an unfavorable combination of circumstances and their own mistakes. But such cleansing should not become an end in itself. You can’t constantly feel sorry for yourself just to do nothing and blame everything on circumstances and other people, and even on yourself, just to, I repeat, do nothing. Pity - it’s like a sting - stings right in the heart, and we do it to ourselves, we pity ourselves, we ourselves suppress our will when we feel sorry for ourselves. So you need to get rid of harmful pity, and below we will talk about how to do this.
How to get rid of feelings of pity
Well, now let's look at what is probably the most important question for some of you - the question of how to get rid of feelings of pity. From the very pity that harms you and prevents you from achieving your goals. I, of course, understand perfectly well that sometimes we need to make this difficult choice for many of us - between other people’s interests, other people’s well-being and personal gain, and it needs to be done in such a way as not to be left in the cold, so as not to lose, so to speak. At the same time, your conscience may tell you one thing, and your mind another. On the one hand, you will feel sorry for the person if you don’t feel sorry for him, but on the other hand, you need to take care of yourself, solve your problems and tasks. So, sometimes, yes, you need to forget about pity, even when people really need it, and act in a way that benefits you. Therefore, this choice can be called a choice between conscience and profit. How to do it?
Friends, let’s use logic and think about whether our and in particular your help to those people who, from your point of view, need it, is really what they really need? Now, suppose you felt sorry for a person, so what? Has the world changed for the better? Has this person changed for the better? Or maybe you have become better? Hardly. Or rather, our pity does not always lead to something good. And often no one needs our pity at all. Do you know why? Because people should be independent, responsible and strong, and not rely on the pity of others. In addition, do not forget that you owe yourself no less than others. I'm talking about those cases when you feel sorry for someone to the detriment of your interests. We are, of course, taught to be altruists, taught to help other people, taught to be kind and good, so that the lives of all people as a whole would be better. And indeed, it is impossible without this - the world cannot and should not consist of only heartless and ruthless egoists, otherwise it will be impossible to live in it. Nevertheless, no one will deny that the same evil, no matter how anyone understands it, was, is and will be, which means that such actions that, let’s say, will go against our conscience, are not only inevitable, but they must be in our lives. In other words, no matter how much you feel sorry for other people, the world will not change much because there was good and evil in it, so they will be, because they must be. And you, as a person, will always remain a sinner, both from the point of view of “original sin” and from the point of view of common sense. Because you cannot always do good and right, always and everywhere do good, no matter how much you want to. Because life cannot consist only of good, there must also be evil in it, otherwise we will not understand what good is. In that case, why don't you do what your mind tells you to do instead of trying to be what you think you should be? Why would you feel sorry for people in situations where it makes no sense? If you do not feel sorry for a person in a situation where it is not beneficial for you, you will not become worse because of this, you will simply do something for yourself, and not for this person. And, as I already said, you owe yourself no less than others, and perhaps even more.
Besides this, as I already said, your pity, like your help, may actually not be needed by anyone in most cases. In some situations, you will think that by pitying a person you are doing good, but in fact you can harm him by indulging his weakness, laziness, stupidity, irresponsibility, and so on. Do you know what I mean? For example, the same beggars do not always need to give, because by doing this you only help them remain poor, because they do not need to work, they do not need to do anything useful for society or themselves, because good people will still give bread. Why does this world need people who don’t want to do anything? Think about it, think about the meaning of your pity and excessive kindness. After all, all your decisions and actions depend on the attitudes that are in your head, and believe me, they are not always correct. To understand that pity, whether for yourself or for others, is not always appropriate - do not put yourself before a choice between good and evil, put yourself before a choice between two or more evils. Do you feel the difference? Our good deeds are not always truly good and correct. So I repeat - choose between two or more evils, and not between good and evil, choose between your different right actions, and not between right and wrong. This makes it easier to ignore the voice of conscience, which makes you feel sorry for others, including to the detriment of yourself, and including to the detriment of those whom you feel sorry for.
Now let's move on to heavier artillery in our fight against unnecessary, unnecessary and harmful pity. And to do this, let's ask ourselves a more fundamental question - do people deserve pity at all? In your life, what kind of people were there more, those who, if you pitied them, became better, kinder, more honest, more decent, or those who perceived your pity as your weakness and climbed on your neck or other people who pitied them? As you can see, I am not asserting anything, but I suggest you think about your attitude towards other people, about your opinion about them. It is quite obvious that many, or maybe only some people, you know better, whom you feel sorry for, felt sorry for, or may feel sorry for in the future, may not deserve this very pity. When you show pity for other people, you base your decisions on the understanding that these people, for the most part, are good, kind, honest and decent, so you need to feel sorry for them, you need to help them. But I know that there are people who, in their decisions, proceed from the fact that all people are bad, evil, vicious and they do not deserve any pity. And these people who think so have no problems with feelings of pity and conscience. Therefore, for you, friends, it is advisable, if the feeling of pity really bothers you, excuse the expression, to proceed, first of all, from the understanding that all, well, almost all people are bad and evil, and therefore it is not just unprofitable to feel sorry for them , but even harmful. Because they don't deserve pity. I understand that this may not sound entirely objective, not quite beautiful and not entirely correct. But if you constantly feel sorry for everyone and do it to your own detriment, then you need such an attitude in order to simply change your attitude towards other people for the worse on an emotional level, and then you will lose the desire to feel sorry for them and help them. But I warn you that you under no circumstances need to become a ruthless misanthrope and misanthrope. And it’s not even that it’s just not good – it’s unprofitable. Bad, angry, cruel people who hate everyone and never help anyone often receive the same bad attitude towards themselves. Fierce hatred of people, as well as excessive love for them, is simply the other extreme, which also must be avoided.
Now let's draw your attention to another very important reason why people feel pity for others. To do this, I will ask you a provocative question - isn’t your pity for other people connected with self-pity? Wait, don’t rush to answer it, think a little about it. You need to understand the motive behind your actions. The fact is that many people who feel pity for others subconsciously expect the same pity for themselves. And she, too, as we found out, is very harmful to humans. And if you want to be pitied, so you yourself feel sorry for others, then you need to solve the problem with your weakness, since self-pity is associated with it. You need to hate this weakness, roughly speaking, in order to want to get rid of it. A strong person does not need other people's pity; moreover, for him it is very suspicious, since it makes him think that someone is trying to gain his trust in this way. Weak people, on the contrary, ask for pity for themselves and for this they can feel sorry for others. That is, the problem of pity in this case is largely related to a person’s weakness, which he needs to get rid of. In addition, if we proceed from the idea I indicated above that many people are evil, bad, vicious, then you can rest assured that most of those whom you have pitied will not regret you. Think about it. After all, the less you begin to see good in other people, the less you will count on them and the less you will feel sorry for them. So don’t expect pity from people, even if some of them can give it to you, and without any self-interest, still don’t expect it, because many of them will not feel sorry for you.
And of course, you need to learn to rely more on yourself, so as not to seek consolation in pity, but in strength, your own strength, in your own capabilities. You need self-confidence, not pity. When you are confident enough in yourself, you will begin to rely less on other people and therefore the need to help them, subconsciously or consciously counting on reciprocity, that is, that they will also help you when you need their help, you will no longer be there. And if you also begin to clearly understand that your help and your pity for another person will result in not just a loss of some benefit for you, but also certain problems, then you will no longer have either the desire or any reason to feel sorry help someone and someone. So, in order not to count on other people - on their pity and help, just get into your head the idea that all people, with rare exceptions, are evil and bad, and that they not only don’t need your help, but it is also harmful, both for you and for them. I won’t say that this is an entirely correct attitude, that feeling sorry for other people and counting on their pity yourself, and also believing that all people are bad and evil is correct, but I repeat, in cases where a feeling of pity prevents you from living and you If you can’t consciously control it, you can fight it this way.
In general, we need pity. Without it, life in our society will become much more difficult. I believe that people need to feel sorry for each other, but only in special cases when it is really necessary. Pity helps to get rid of mental pain, and with its help you can provide the necessary support to a person in trouble. This feeling in itself humanizes people, it helps them trust each other more, helps them get through difficult times, and allows them to show love for each other. But we should not forget that we must always look at life from different sides, including from the side that shows us its dark side, on which any, even the most sacred feelings, are used by some very cynical, immoral and in a ruthless manner. Therefore, pity can be both a holy and at the same time a cruel feeling, causing harm to the one who pities someone, the one who is pitied and the one who feels sorry for himself. Do not paint this feeling with one brush, do not think that it can always be only harmful or only useful, or be solely a manifestation of weakness. Your task is to rid yourself of the extremes to which you can fall because of this feeling, so as not to be too kind or too evil. Then you will be able to use pity for your own benefit, rather than being led by it.
Psychologist Yulia Pirumova:
– The biggest discovery for me at one time was the feeling of pity. I suddenly realized that deep inside I had a ban on pity. I didn’t know how to feel sorry for myself or accept pity from others. Moreover, I used to think that I didn’t need pity, that it humiliated and made a person weak. I saw that similar people lived around me: instead of feeling sorry for a person in a difficult situation, there was a desire to encourage him: “Come on! Hold on! Get it together!” But now I know that pity can be healing. Another thing is that not everyone is ready to accept it.
Right to pity
My clients quite often say: “I’m in a difficult situation, but no one sees it.” In the conversation, it turns out that a person, sometimes in a very difficult life situation, does not tell anyone about his problems and does not ask for support. It doesn't even occur to him.
The answer to the question: “Can I feel sorry for you? will you accept pity? often predictable: “No! I’d rather grit my teeth, endure and endure everything.” Question: “Do you feel sorry for yourself?” usually leaves the client stupefied. A person does not know what to do with pity, does not know what “feeling sorry for oneself” means, he does not know how to feel sorry for himself and does not give anyone the opportunity to feel sorry for himself.
But pity, as it may not seem, can be a healing feeling. It’s not for nothing that they used to say in the villages: “he takes pity on her” in the sense of loving her, treating her attentively, and not burdening her with hard work. The word “pity” in our everyday life has a pejorative connotation, but there is a word “pity”, which means a process unknown to most of us. “Regret” is an admission that a person is in trouble, that it is difficult for him, that it is difficult for him to endure the situation and the feelings that he encounters. To see a person in his life means to “pity”. Pity is attention to the feelings of another, acceptance, support.
They say: “I’m sorry.” But only those who feel sorry for themselves can feel sorry. It is pointless to feel sorry for someone who does not have the opportunity to receive and accept your pity.
Therefore, the first and very important part of the process is to admit that it’s hard for me, that I feel sorry for myself. If self-pity is not a bottomless abyss into which you plunge with pleasure from time to time, but a moment of recognition and acceptance of yourself in this situation, then it is constructive. Pity is the fixation of a certain point in the inner world where we feel bad and hurt. We felt sorry for ourselves and moved on. I think that there is “adult pity” - this is mental work, this is the ability to discover oneself or another in difficult experiences and feelings.
Share or devalue?
The need for pity and support means that a person needs an outside view. You need someone else to confirm: “Yes, this is really bad. It's difficult for you. You have a reason to worry."
But when we hear about the problems of others, instead of saying: “I understand how hard it is for you,” we often wave our hand contemptuously: “Did you get fired from your job? Just think! I once...” “Did mom go to the hospital? This is nothing yet! But my grandfather in 2000..."
Why are we doing this? Why do we devalue other people's experiences? I think this is due to the fact that people cannot tolerate other people's emotions well. We try not to notice them until the last moment. But when it is no longer possible not to notice, we begin to save. We are used to the fact that “a little bit pitiful” doesn’t count; it must be very pitiful. But those whom we feel very, very sorry for, they are obviously not like us, but much worse, weaker, otherwise we would not feel sorry for them, otherwise they would cope on their own. This is probably where the myth comes from that pity humiliates.
Devaluation is a way of coping with other people's experiences. Otherwise, you will have to “harness yourself” to the situation. For some reason, it’s like this with us - either we ignore a person in his difficult situation, or we save, forcefully pull him out of the experiences in which he finds himself. There is no middle ground. I think that approximately 90% of our compatriots are rescuers. Codependent rescuers.
“Okay, I'll feel sorry for him. But then I’ll have to do something!” - my clients say. It was a revelation to me that many people think this way. Are you sure you have to? As a rule, no feats are expected of you. If we are told about sadness and bitterness, we are not obligated to “do something about it.” Most often, just listening is enough. Many people simply need someone to “stay” with them during difficult times.
I'll save you, but I won't regret it
Codependent pity is a strange but very common feeling. The one who feels sorry feels like a rescuer and a hero, and the one who is pitied feels like a powerless, wretched person. I don’t know how it happened that we end up in such a bunch all the time. If one talks about his sadness and pain, the second immediately makes a stand: “They are telling me about problems. I must alleviate the suffering!” Or vice versa: “They share their troubles with me. But I’m not a mommy, I won’t save you! Come on, don’t become limp!”
Another paradox: all “rescuers” have a broken relationship with pity. It would seem that where there is help, there should be pity for the one you are helping. But this feeling is prohibited among “rescuers” because it is “shameful.” And they run away from him into a frenzy of rescue activity or leave contact: “I’m not going to feel sorry for you! This makes no sense. Stay calm and carry on. I'll show you how."
We learned from childhood: you can’t feel sorry for yourself. Complaining won't help. Need to do something! Otherwise, they will not be accepted as pioneers.
In general, everything is very confused with pity. After all, it also depends on gender; you can still feel sorry for a woman. But to feel sorry for a man means to humiliate him. “If they feel sorry for you, it means you are not a man,” and men themselves have an ironclad ban on this feeling: “Don’t feel sorry for me!” Is it only women who find themselves in difficult situations? It turns out that men should not be pitied at all, so as not to offend them with suspicion of unmasculinity.
We are very fond of saying: “I don’t feel sorry for anyone,” “I only feel sorry for children,” “I don’t feel sorry for people at all, only dogs, because they are defenseless.” Sound familiar?
Perhaps all this is due to the fact that for several generations we have been on the brink of survival. When it comes to survival, relying on feelings is dangerous. Life got better, but the habit of not complaining and not regretting remained.
Packaged emotions and what to do with them
We won’t save all of humanity, but we can try to understand our emotions. First you need to see them and call them by name. Many discoveries await those who begin to work with their feelings. A person who evaluates himself as “unemotional” has often simply pushed his feelings deep inside.
The girls remember how dad said: “You have to cope on your own,” and mom said: “You can’t rely on men.” Can you imagine what happens when these two programs work together? But we don’t have two programs, but much more; a huge amount of emotions remains “unpacked”, “frozen”, “petrified” with us. This is a whole layer of work. Anyone who decides to do it can discover their real self under these rubble.
What to do if you are faced with depreciation? Set boundaries. Talk to your interlocutor about the feelings that his words evoke: “You don’t need to talk to me like that,” “It’s unpleasant for me when you talk like that. It seems to me that you don’t see me,” “No need for advice, please, just listen to me.” Each of us can say “No” to compulsive rescue or devaluation, but most have never tried. But before you do this, you need to understand what you want from the person and from the situation.
With regret, an even more subtle question: it is very important to see what kind of support I need now and be able to ask for it. Believe me, this will not make it any less valuable. Perhaps I expect a gentle hug from a person, and he rushes to buy flowers to please me. As a result, no one will benefit or benefit from such support.
Now I can already admit that deep inside I always really wanted to be pitied, to see my sadness, not to “harness” for me, not to save me, but just to see my feelings. While going through therapy, I gained a new experience: you can feel sorry for me, but not deprive me of my value. Feel sorry, but not humiliate. See my feelings, accept and appreciate them, because my value is in my feelings too.
In therapy, I learned to see how skillfully we do not feel sorry for ourselves. How we deny ourselves the right to pity. How we block the possibility of being discovered in our sadness, how we skillfully imitate strength, how we are ashamed of our feelings, how we put on masks.
It is important for me to talk about this because pity and acceptance of the other is what I feel when working with clients. This is how they gain their experience and regain lost parts of their soul, regain integrity.
