A person I respect recently gave me some feedback and advice that was hard to swallow. I didn’t like it. At all. I spent a couple of days trying to figure out how I’d teach myself to love cleaning out trash cans and mopping floors because obviously these are the only things I could possibly be equipped to do with my life.
Then I shook myself and remembered that I’ve been here before. These icky “I suck” funks always mean the same thing: I’ve allowed myself to be duped into throwing myself a Pity Party. Usually, the Pity Party begins after I get some advice or feedback from a well-meaning (or sometimes not so well-meaning) person.
On a bad day, good advice or accurate feedback might make me mad, defensive, or even belligerent. These are my social reactions to feedback that is hard to swallow but helpful. But sadness just isn’t my “essential” self’s way of saying, “yep, this is true”. It is actually my warped brain’s way of latching on to something that helps me avoid what I am meant to do. It is a big, fat avoidance technique.
So, here is the 5 step process I’ve devised to handle my Pity Parties:
- I allow myself to wallow in self pity for a while (a couple hours, max). I sample the punch and dance to a few sad, slow songs by myself.
- I start to think about what made me decide to throw the Pity Party in the first place.
- I feel around for things that I can learn from the experience (e.g. advice, feedback) – things that ring true that I can use to help me grow.
- I laugh at the stupidity of the advice and feedback that is not helpful and that doesn’t feel true. I know which these are because they make my brain feel fuzzy, and I can always think of examples that prove this information to be wrong.
- I eliminate any people, situations, events, etc. from my life that caused me to throw the Pity Party rather than helping me grow. This is hard, but probably the most important step.
Your process may be totally different. But the moral of the story is that if something makes you feel bad about yourself, makes you think things that are obviously untrue (e.g. “I’m stupid”, “I’m a loser”, “I’m incompetent”, “No one loves me”), try to step back and figure out what put you in that funk. Then grab the good stuff from the buffet table, turn around, and run out the door as fast as you can.
Filed under: Coaching, Decision Making Tagged: | essential self, pity party, social self
