Self-pity parties - managing them?

[razz]

I confess that I do get occasional moments of self-pity or sadness but deal with them and carry on. Yesterday, I had one ( a post-Christmas one) and a friend, coincidently, sent me an email that talked about 'today is the best day of my life' and the reasons why; some of which I will post below.
So basically, how do you manage your own mental self-care?
I usually recognize it for what it is - start counting my blessings and continue until that suggestion of feeling down dissolves or I think of someone to call or ?


"Today, when I awoke, I suddenly realized that this is the best day of my life, ever

There were times when I wondered if I would make it to today; but I did!
And because I did I'm going to celebrate!
Today, I'm going to celebrate what an unbelievable life I have had so far: the accomplishments, the many blessings, and, yes, even the hardships because they have served to make me stronger.

I will go through this day with my head held high and a happy heart..."

[Teacher Terry]

I focus on the many close friendships that I have in addition to my loving sons and DIL.

[happystuff]

I try to get outside for a walk. I am doing "something" and getting away from the house and just looking at the world as I go. It is usually enough to get me feeling better about everything/anything. But... I will admit the hardest part is actually getting up and out!

[catherine]

Perspective.

I'll paraphrase an entry I wrote once in my journal. I felt like I was going through hell. I didn't have enough money by far. I was a working mother of 3 kids. My husband was misbehaving. My stress level was through the roof.

We belonged to a community arts group in a rural area of upstate New York, and one night I went to an event there. One of the members came up to talk to me, and I don't know how the door opened for her to say what she did, but she said, "You are so lucky. You are talented, and you have 3 beautiful children and a husband that loves you."

My take on that bordered on shock and my first thought was, "I'm not feeling lucky."
My second take on it was, maybe I need to put things in perspective.

In truth, she was looking at the cover and not the inside of the book. She didn't know about my stress or any of the details of my life as a working mother and wife. But she was right. I was lucky. Let's start there, and then work out the details--that was how I looked at it.

So, I think that when I'm in a funk, putting things in perspective helps a lot.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Post-modern [sic maybe meant modern] morality is the only morality in which we have an obligation to enjoyment, so was a line I came across yesterday.

Duty and acts based morality has to be easy in comparison.

[catherine]

Post-modern [sic maybe meant modern] morality is the only morality in which we have an obligation to enjoyment, so was a line I came across yesterday.

Duty and acts based morality has to be easy in comparison.

Interesting--can you elaborate? Who said it? What's the meaning?

[ApatheticNoMore]

Interesting--can you elaborate? Who said it? What's the meaning?

here is where I say something even more pretentious like it was some famous thinker. Lol, it was me looking inside this book, for some author called Paul Verhaeghe who seems to be some little known European leftist psychoanalyst writing social commentary books on modern life and neoliberalism, but for all that seems easy reading and so I might, writing that in a book about love and sex.

But what I interpret from that as has been said many times modern life is often performative, and certainly with social media especially, where we are always performing how happy we are. And that maybe all cultures weren't so performative on the happiness thing and didn't feel obliged to be, but just did their duties and social obligations whatever they were, whereever they were, and that was enough and what they were judged on. No obligation to enjoy in love or otherwise.

[pinkytoe]

I have been having a lot of sad moments lately about being the sidelined grandma. When I go there in the middle of the night, I repeat my "mantra" that I can' t always control the situation but I can always change my perspective.

[herbgeek]

I indulged in a pity party over the weekend- I was excluded from some Christmas activities. Not out of any malevolence, but more out of just not thinking about me. My sister moved around the corner from her son/wife/grandkids and her other son was visiting from out of state (yes he did a covid test when he arrived) and they had impromptu visits that didn't include me (I'm 1 1/2 hours away so I understand). It just played into childhood of course, being the 3rd child with a big age gap I was excluded from a lot of things because I was "too little".

Christmas is really the only time where I'm wistful about not having had kids and its more about having a guaranteed tribe around me, and of course, that is never a guarantee. I had to remind myself that the rest of the year I'm ok with all of that, and its actually kind of good to not be in the middle of minor sniping between my sister and her kids, and all of the drama that happens.

It doesn't help that I'm feeling isolated and lonely and envious when I see people on Facebook in restaurants and the like. I've been home for 10 months outside of short visits to stores, and likely at least another 6 months going forward. Texts and the occasional Zoom are not a good substitute for a long winding conversation that goes lots of places. But I remind myself that I, and my family, are healthy. I don't have to worry about money or doing a stressful job being retired, I have things that I /could/ do if I was motivated. I could have it so so so much worse so I give myself a pep talk, take a nap or have a glass of wine and feel better for a while.

[Tammy]

I sit outside after dark and look at the night sky. Then I realize how small everything is in comparison.

I use the StarTrackerLite app. Because I can’t look without needing several questions answered ...