Podcast Transcript | Ep. 32

Self-pity enables Misery

Self-Pity Enables Misery | Ep. 32

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Order Within Navigating a world of endless chaos and crisis, many of us are experiencing inner turmoil, insecurity, anxiety, fears, and isolation. These feelings are only being amplified by news cycles. Social media and never ending political madness. How do we find our way out of the chaos?

[00:00:24] How do we find strength within ourselves? How do we find meaning in a world driven by materialism? These questions and many more I aim to answer on the show. My goal is to be a trusted guide on your journey to selfhood. May you find what you seek.

[00:00:40] What's up everyone. I'm your host, Brandon Ward back with another episode of order within. Episode number 32. Today.

[00:00:55] Today, we're going to be talking about self-pity and how it can enable misery. If we're not careful. Those two tend to go. Hand in hand. And we're going to talk about how they go hand in hand. We're going to talk about the victim mindset. We're going to talk about misery loving company. We're going to chat about force, forces us, how these things force us to seek.

[00:01:23] Uh, short forms of relief. And we're going to do a few examples in cinema, as we like to do is I like to do here. And then finally talk about. Adopting a champion mindset and what that can do for us as a counter to. Self pity and misery and things of that nature. All right. So getting into it, self pity and misery go together like birds of a feather. It's very much a combination that builds.

[00:01:55] And that's the danger of it. Is if we're not careful.

[00:01:59] This can take over our life. Self pity can take over our life and I've had points in my life. And this is something we all go through where at some points we're feeling a little more sorry for ourselves. I've definitely had some dark places in my life to where that was a big. Theme of where I was, and I was also miserable because of it.

[00:02:21] And. The self pity actually fools our it fuels our misery. And that's why we have to be careful is because it becomes very addictive. To slide down. Down down, down into these negative spaces into these dark places.

[00:02:39] And we enable that by pitying ourselves by looking at. Our lives feeling sorry for who we are feeling sorry for the circumstances that we may face the challenges that we face. Not having the things in life that we want. There are an endless list of things that we can come up with. To feel sorry for ourselves to feel angry or upset.

[00:03:01] It's easy to do. And now they say that gratitude is the counter to all that. And I've found that to be true in some ways. But. It's more than just showing gratitude for certain things or life. It's a, an approach that we take. With life that allows us to counter these things. And so the reason it becomes difficult is because it's so easy.

[00:03:24] To do. It's so easy to get into this place. To where. We.

[00:03:33] Build on the pity and we. Wallow in our misery and we just continue to do that day after day after day after day, we complain about things. We're unhappy with things we're expressing our dissatisfaction and our focus is all around our misery and feeling sorry for ourselves. So it does build and it's super easy to do. And if you have people around you like that, it becomes even more easy.

[00:04:00] To create these habits. And what ends up happening is we create habits of misery. And this process of being miserable of wallowing in our pity of sharing our pity with others. It becomes addictive. It gives us a hit of dopamine to gripe about things. And then someone else affirms that we can celebrate and share in our misery to offer this.

[00:04:23] Tiny sliver of relief. But. What are we doing to actually change anything? What are we doing to. Make our lives different. What are we doing to ensure that we don't feel this way tomorrow or next week or next month? We're going the opposite direction. So understanding that these two things pitting ourselves and being miserable.

[00:04:45] Go hand in hand. And the more we can, the more we can be mindful of that, the more we can counter those things, because it's very easy to slide into a negative cycle of pity and misery like that. And. The underlying component of that is built around the victim mindset. And what we do. When we ascribe to the victim mindset is we believe those things. We believe that.

[00:05:10] We're not capable of having what we want. We believe that we are deserving of where we stand. We believe that.

[00:05:20] The. Life that we have. Is our destiny. And so therefore we own the mindset that I can't get out of this. Bad things happen to me. I have bad luck. I'm not as lucky as other people, I don't have the privilege or benefits or resources or whatever it is. There's always things that we can come up with to compare ourselves to others who seem to have more than what we do.

[00:05:53] And make reasons and excuses on why we don't have them. So instead of taking action to change these things in our lives, we make excuses and we use excuses to validate our position in life. And. Now. A lot of us. Don't want to do this, but we've. We've learned this behavior. We've learned it from people around us. We've learned it from our family, from our friends and we can't get out of those habits because it's all around us.

[00:06:20] It's a part of our environment. So we have to break the habits there. We have to first become aware of it. And then we have to break these habits over time. And. The big piece of doing that is recognizing that victim mindset.

[00:06:32] Seeing where we make excuses. Because it's easy to do. And look around. And identify those excuses and be honest with ourselves. Just start observing. Because what you'll start to notice is that there's a lifestyle built around this. Having a victim mindset very much becomes a lifestyle approach that we have with all that we attack in life. If we can't figure something out for the first time, then naturally.

[00:07:00] We go about making excuse for why that isn't happening or blaming someone else. Or blaming the world or whatever it may be now, again. There are actual victims in the world. I'm not trying to say that. They're. Are not people who are victims of circumstance because there absolutely is. But.

[00:07:20] No matter the circumstances we can overcome it. If we have the proper mindset. If we carry some faith within us and we do small things every day, we can absolutely build and climb out of our own personal hell that we may be experiencing today. And so that's why understanding that this mindset, this victim mindset is a way that we operate. It's a way of life that many people adopt.

[00:07:45] And what it does is it starts to identify means to find excuses for where we are, why and why we are the way that we are without taking any kind of action to make changes. And that's really, the problem is. It allows us to enable. Our current lifestyle and come up with reasons why we don't change or can't change or won't change. And that keeps us stuck and miserable.

[00:08:07] And what that does. It's because many of you have heard this saying. Misery loves company. Misery loves company. And what you'll notice is. That when you are like that, when you're in a pitying state, when you're in a miserable state of existence. You're drawn to other people like that. And if you're not careful,

[00:08:29] If we're not careful because I've done this too at points in my life, we surround ourselves with people who share that mindset. And we don't allow ourselves the ability. To move. To grow to be free from that. So we surround ourselves with people who are stuck in that mindset. And therefore we adopt that mindset and therefore we reflect what everyone is like around us, because that's all we're seeing. That's all we're doing. That's the people that we're interacting with. How can it be any different.

[00:09:01] If we're only surrounding ourselves by people who are also miserable, who love to pity themselves and to come up with excuses and to view themselves as victims and to. Find ways. To validate where they are. From the world around them, we can all come up with endless reasons on why we don't have the life that we want or the things that we don't want, or the fulfillment that we desire.

[00:09:25] Are the relationship that we want. It's easy to come up with excuses for why we don't. And so misery will love company. And if we're not careful, it's going to push away all those people that could actually help us get out of the state that we're in this situation that we're in. Because the people that are growing, the people that want to change the people that are making moves are very turned off by that.

[00:09:47] And I've noticed that in myself too, as I get more adopting the growth mindset, more aligned with challenge, more aligned with making things happen. I am very turned off. By individuals who tend to make excuses or who talk about things who make complaining, this is why I've moved away from politics.

[00:10:06] Because people love to complain, but they take no action. Their action is the complaining. And that's the same concept around misery loving company is that the action is replaced with misery, with pity, with complaining. The act itself is griping about things. And you'll tend to find that. Like to like with that type of stuff.

[00:10:29] And so if we're not careful, we'll push away all the people that could help us get out of the situation that we're in. And that's why. Being mindful of who we're spending our time with. Being mindful of who we may pushing people may be pushing people away that could help us get out of that with. So finding people that we can connect with that may help us rise out of the situation. And beginning to slowly cut out the people that are preventing us from growing and are sharing and are operating out of that victim mindset.

[00:10:58] We have to start identifying them. And moving away from them. It can be a very hard and difficult thing to do. But it's a great way. It's not necessarily an easy way, but it's a powerful way to move forward in our life and to make the changes necessary for us to live the life that we desire, because ultimately at the end of the day, that's what it's about.

[00:11:19] Because when we live in that misery miserable state, we're going to connect with other people. But when we're striving to grow and do more things, we're going to connect with people who are similar. Similarly motivated who are trying to do similar things. So it goes, it works both ways. So finding our tribe, finding people that are also trying to get after it and do things.

[00:11:40] Aligning with people. That's the beautiful thing about the internet today. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever. You can connect with individuals all around the world and build relationships with people who are trying to do things too, that aren't in your local area. And it's very rewarding. Finding your tribe.

[00:11:57] Like building your tribe. And making that happen. And so I encourage you to find your tribe. I encourage you to make those connections to get out there. And make build relationships online. And do everything that you can to establish genuine connection. Through relationship building. And it can be as simple as just DM-ing every now and then with some people that you connect with on Twitter or wherever it may be on your social platforms.

[00:12:22] Just building those relationships. It will pay off in the long run and it will help accelerate your ability to get out of this miserable state, this pity self pity state. Because it's addictive. Like I said earlier. Feeling, sorry for ourselves is a very addictive. Thing, it gives us those initial hits.

[00:12:43] And that's what it does. It forces us to seek short-term relief. And that often ends up being dopamine addictions. And so when we're in that pity state, we seek things. That can help us feel better. And so we're on the search for short term dopamine and pleasure hits. And often that creates addiction cycles.

[00:13:06] If we're not careful, we get addicted to those things that can be scrolling through social media. That could be playing video games. It could be watching porn. It could be doing a lot of things. That do not serve us in the long run, but give us short term. Fulfillment or dopamine hits to feel better to offer us temporary relief, but it's not solving the problem. And that's the challenges. It all offers temporary relief, but it's not getting to the root issue. It's not getting to that underlying component of why we are the way that we are while we're viewing the world, the way that we do and how we break those cycles.

[00:13:42] Uh, pity in misery. Because this only delays the inevitable change that comes like when we do this. It just keeps us in that state. And we become addicted to those activities and we just want more and more and more and more, and we need more of those things. So we never get out of that cycle unless until we make the decision to say enough is enough.

[00:14:04] And start putting in effort to make those changes.

[00:14:07] Life requires effort. Y'all. It does. And if we want to live a life that's special, that's unique. That's our own. It's going to be hard. Because we all have to climb. We all have to make that the world is not encouraging of us being our unique individual, authentic selves. The you, the world encourages molds people that will follow orders.

[00:14:30] Sheep in many ways, right? Like the people that just. Do what they're told and don't think anything outside of that. That's the model that we live within. The powers that be, are encouraging that type of behavior. Because people are much more controlled, much more easily controlled when they're living that way.

[00:14:50] But if you want to live an authentic life, that your own. It's going to be hard. That's a big mountain to climb, but I can promise you it's worth it. It's so worth it.

[00:15:00] But the challenge with this is when we're looking to find relief from our pity, from our misery. Through these external activities. It trains our brain to seek that, to need those things. So it creates those addiction cycles, which is why we have to be mindful of this as well. Our brain gets trained.

[00:15:18] To do these types of activities. And that means complaining. That means watching the news and griping about it. That means sitting around and talking with friends. And gossiping about things. Those are all external activities that we can get addicted to, to offer us the relief that we're seeking. To feel from our pity, from our misery and how that continues to build. And it's.

[00:15:41] It goes down or up. They compound regardless. So that's why the small changes make a big difference over time, making small changes and committing to them over time or what ends up changing us. So that's the key thing to remember. This doesn't happen overnight. The changes don't happen overnight, but we can start to make steps and efforts in that direction to overcome the things that we're feeling.

[00:16:04] All right. I've got a few examples from cinema that I want to share.

[00:16:10] First one is. Scott Pilgrim first, the world. Just watch that recently with my wife. It's one of my, it's a, it's a good film. I like it a lot. I enjoyed it's a. Entertaining light, but also educational. And I think. From a. Pity perspective. Scott Pilgrim is. A prime example. Of the prototypical nice guy.

[00:16:36] I did an episode last week on this. And a lot of that comes. So initially that episode was about the nice guy playing and getting friend zoned and not being honest about what they want. There's also the other side of the nice guy and this movie reflects that deeply where men are in relationships.

[00:16:55] But they're not communicating what they want. They're not being truthful to people. To the people that they are in relationships with. They're not being truthful to the people that they like, what they want from them. They're not being truthful about how they really feel. And in this movie, he gets himself into a lot of situations. The whole movie is around, based around his.

[00:17:17] Arc of dishonesty until the very end. He finally communicates truthfully what he's been feeling and has a chance to make amends which is great, but throughout that whole movie, Scott is a miserable. Woe is me. Pity me person. And like all of his drama, he brings his friends through his drama, with his ex-girlfriends and in that he leaves a wake of pain and suffering. He hurts a lot of women along the way as well, because he's not being honest. And he's doing the woe is me card. He's playing the victim in all of these scenarios.

[00:17:53] Until he finally realizes at the end, he has this moment. Where he gets a chance to reflect on things that he's learned, and then he gets a chance to go back and then do it over again and make right. And what solves all of it. He's honest. He's real. He's authentic. He's no longer doing the woe is me trying to avoid the pain.

[00:18:14] The misery that he feels, he's honest about it. He communicate what's he needs, and he shares that with his companions in the movie. And they end up reconciling and everyone ends up being better because of it, because he finally decides to be honest and truthful and authentic with his feelings. Instead of withholding and hiding them.

[00:18:34] And playing the victim game. The woe is me game. And pretending like he's the only one that's getting hurt in these scenarios where the reality was is a lot of people were hurt by his. Behaviors and his decisions. And he was just not being honest about it and denying it because it was easier for him to play that victim card to be in that.

[00:18:54] Miserable self-pity state. All right, the next one.

[00:19:00] One of my all time. Favorite movies.

[00:19:03] The old breakfast club. And John Bender. So John Hughes love him, brilliant guy. And he reflected so much, I think. Growing up, particularly in the eighties still resonates today, but teenage life, adolescent life, that awkward stage of going from a kid to a teenager, to an adult. Adolescence is weird.

[00:19:25] It's a very weird period of time for pretty much all of us. We're figuring out who we are. We're leaving our childhood things behind. We're becoming adults. And John Bender in this movie is the quintessential bad boy. He's the. He's edgy he's honestly mean he's, he bullies a lot of the people like the whole group, the girls and the guys.

[00:19:48] But in that movie, it comes out. He comes from a very rough home. His father's physical and abusive to him. Very verbally abusive. And so he's perpetuating those same. Behaviors though. That's the challenge of this. If we don't become aware of our own behaviors and we don't observe ourselves. We just go on to create the same pain that we've experienced. That's a tragic thing that happens a lot. And John Bender, I think exemplifies that. So hugely because he's very deeply, wounded has been abused and suffering.

[00:20:21] And instead of acknowledging that he goes about taking it out on the world, which is what a lot of us do. That again, self-pity that he feels about himself his state how he has nothing. He's nothing, he has no value. And that's the things that he's internalized from his father and what he's learned. He's internalized these things. That's not true.

[00:20:40] Because he has the ability to speak truthfully without being a jerk. And he helps some of them throughout it and they connect throughout it because of that raw honesty. But it's wrapped up in a lot of toxicity because of his inability to see how he's doing the same thing. He's not reflecting on himself, he's playing the pity card. He's accepting that truth and he's operating as it as if it is true. It doesn't have to be though.

[00:21:07] Because that's not his truth unless he accepts it. That's not his way of being, unless he accepts that's the way he's going to be. And so he doesn't have to be that way. But his self pitter pity, his misery is a part of his image, his character he's attached himself to it. And so he recreates it. And forces that discomfort throughout the movie because of how he identifies with these concepts of pity and misery.

[00:21:35] But there's so much force and power in there at the very end as he starts to learn, he develops a great relationship. With Claire and one of the girls in there. And so he does change. He evolves a bit, right? But. It's easy to get into that. Miserable self-pity state. And then to go out and create it in the world. His was very aggressive.

[00:21:59] And active. It was a very aggressive and active. Misery and pity self-pity way of operating. And he went out and recreated that. So that's like two contrast Scott Pilgrim versus John Bender. One's very passive. The other is very aggressive in their approach, but still misery and self-pity is at the.

[00:22:19] Essence of all that. And when we pity ourselves, we enable that story of misery. We enable that path of misery to continue on. And we only fuel it. Our self pity fuels that misery and the path that we're on, unless we break. The chain. The last one. This might be a little bit of a.

[00:22:40] A surprise, but. Daniel LaRusso from karate kid in Cobra, Kai. It's funny, like when you watch the movies, Daniel is very negative. He's. A baby a lot. Kind of whines a lot. He doesn't really have a good mindset until the very end of the karate kid. And he like starts to learn all this stuff, but none the first one anyway, but then even in the second the sequels.

[00:23:09] He's still very woe is me. Honestly, kind of like a wet mop and a lot of ways, like, even though he's the hero. The. The main character in the story.

[00:23:22] But he's, it's just, he's not enjoyable. And he, he. For me personally, it carries into Cobra, Kai. Even though he's taken all those lessons. In Cobra Kai or from the first movies. He's become a very successful person. He has a lovely family. He has kids. He has a wife that loves him. He has a successful business.

[00:23:46] He has all these things that you'd think would be enough, but they're not. And he's still obsessed with Johnny, his childhood rivalry. And instead of recognizing what he has. Being grateful for what he is. He stays in that self pity. I'm the victim in this scenario, even though Johnny has nothing compared to what.

[00:24:07] Daniel does. And he continues to attack him and pursue him and do things. That are cruel to another human. Who's not doing nearly as good as you are in your life, but he falls into that mindset. That woe is me. I'm the victim here. You're wrong. I'm right. Like that very self-righteous kind of component. I think that's what interest is interesting about Daniel LaRusso's character is how self-righteousness can tie into our pity to create more misery. We feel self-righteous in our pity or in our victim hood. And so from there, we're justified in our way of behaving.

[00:24:44] We're justified in our response. Like these things are very dangerous. And can create toxic. Behaviors and relationships and can create a lot of pain and misery in the world. And so what he does in the show, particularly in Cobra, Kai, As he takes all those resources that he has. And he starts to apply them in like a negative way. And he makes it about his personal rivalry with Johnny and his family ends up getting hurt. His kids, his wife, kids in the community, in the neighborhood are getting hurt from this behavior all because of a guy.

[00:25:18] Who. Thinks he's a victim in a scenario and is feeling sorry for himself. And continues on this victim mindset, even though it's very obvious that he has made a huge change and is doing extremely well in his life.

[00:25:36] So you this mindset, this self-pity can create misery through this victim mindset and a variety of ways, and it can be expressed in a variety of ways. So being mindful of it as. What allows us to counter that. And that's where we roll into the last section here, which is about adopting a champion mindset.

[00:25:55] And the champion understands a few things. Is that mistakes are part of the growth. Process. No matter what we're, if we're learning something new, if we're trying to do something great. If we have a vision that we're trying to build in the world, There's going to be mistakes. There's going to be mix ups. There's going to be learnings.

[00:26:12] There's going to be all those things. It's a part of the growth process. So we embrace that head on. We understand first and foremost, mistakes are proof that we are learning that we are growing. We are expanding. So we embrace them. We lean into them. We anticipate mistakes to happen. So we're not discouraged by them. We're not resisting them. We're not pushing them away, but we're embracing them. We're expecting them to happen. So we're leaning into it.

[00:26:39] Those hard, hard things are a sign that we're growing. Hard things. Show us we're doing stuff that's different. We're making moves. We're making changes. They're big things that happen when we do this. So when we're experiencing hard things, we have to understand that that's a component of growth. And even if we're in hard situations or circumstances that may be out of our control.

[00:27:02] There are lessons in there. There are strength in there. There are things that we can gain from these experiences that we can carry with us in life. And so understanding if you're in a hard situation right now, what can you learn from it? What is hidden in there that you can take from this. Maybe it's simply the capacity to suffer because suffering and doing it nobly is an incredible skill and it can help us go a long way in life if we're willing to do it. And so by doing that,

[00:27:30] We can lift ourselves up out of these situations and embrace that struggle. So understanding that hard things is as. As part of this and that, if we're in tough situations, by leaning into those moments and embracing the learning, the champion mindset, the growth mindset we can gain from those situations.

[00:27:47] Move forward and then do the things that are needed to make change.

[00:27:52] Discomfort is normal. When we're doing new things, when we're learning, when we're growing, when we're building, we're going to be uncomfortable. So anything new, anything that challenges is going to make us feel uncomfortable, anxious, scared, all of those things. That's good. Those are indicators that we're doing something different that we're growing, that we're expanding ourselves and that we're learning. So that is fantastic.

[00:28:16] It's a good signal there. Is some discomfort. And then the last piece is about. Bringing awareness to our behaviors, observing ourselves, looking at what we're doing. Just observe, observe how our mind works, observe our thoughts. How negative are they? How pity oriented are they? How miserable do we feel on a daily basis?

[00:28:44] Take note, take inventory of where we are. This is our starting place. This is how observation starts to make changes because we can't make changes on things that we're not tracking. And so the awareness side. Allows us to begin the process of understanding who we are and what we need. And getting a sense of where we are today.

[00:29:04] The misery that we may feel today, the pity that we may feel today, it allows us to take an inventory on it. And simply the process of observing will change us. It changes things. I promise you this. I can't even explain how it happens, but the moment we start observing our behavior and becoming aware of things.

[00:29:22] We simply begin to change. That may mean that something happens. And because we're observing ourselves and we're making an effort to observe ourselves in a moment instead of getting angry or upset or jumping into the pity party. We pause and simply don't participate. We recognize what it is. We see that impulse to participate.

[00:29:44] To fill that initial hit that initial high for complaining that we get from it. That simple awareness can sometimes allow us to stop and say, you know what, I'm actually not going to participate. I'm just going to sit here. I'm just going to absorb. I'm going to listen. I'm going to see how I feel. I'm going to note the difference in the way I feel normally from when I do this.

[00:30:02] That process. Is transformative. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a habit that we absolutely have to build, but that process will change our lives. If we commit to it and doing that allows us by being observant, it allows us to do this. It allows us to expand and grow and change. So observing ourselves, observing our behavior, becoming aware of it and being honest about it. If we're in this state and we're pitying ourselves and we're feeling miserable.

[00:30:32] That's okay. First recognize where we are. So we can begin. We have to have a starting place wherever it is. Whether it's a hundred percent negative or 5% negative. We have to know where we're beginning. And where we go from there. And so allowing us to observe ourselves and our behaviors. And how we are around certain people in certain situations.

[00:30:54] We can begin to make changes slowly and steadily.

[00:30:59] All right, y'all that's all I got for today's episode. Stay tuned for next week's episode. I'm in the mix of deep SEO work that I'm doing with my wife, for her blog, which has been incredible. Been focusing on that. So I'll have some learnings on that side eventually on what we're doing over there. That I think will be hopefully practical for some of you who are interested in doing something similar.

[00:31:22] But anyway, I hope you are having. A great week so far. Today is Thanksgiving. So hope you're having a great day with your family. The day that it released here, at least in America is Thanksgiving. So hope you have a great day with your family and a lot of things to be thankful for. And I will catch you on the flip side.

[00:31:40] Until next time y'all.

[00:31:41] Thank you for listening to Order Within. If you found the episode helpful, please consider sharing, rating and subscribing. New episodes will be released every Thursday at 11:00 AM Eastern Standard time. Until next time y'all.