A person full of self-pity, has feelings of unworthiness. I'm no good, I did this, I did that. Always focusing on the negative in the mind, thinking that I'm not worthy of anything, I'm not worthy of people thanking me, I'm not worthy of people thinking I'm okay, I'm not good and so on.
There's a book. I don't remember the author, a psychology woman or psychiatrist, whatever. She wrote a book called 'The IP Syndrome'. It's a very valuable book to read if you have lots of feelings of self-pity and self-unworthiness. IP stands for Imposter.
A lot of people who are high achievers and actually really do a lot of good, have a sense of unworthiness. It's still not good enough. And they pull themselves down because they are looking at what they can't do, instead of looking at what they can do. The IP Syndrome is very real and affects a lot of people, including famous people.
In fact in the book, she talked about some of her clients. One of the clients was an old United States Actor named Yul Brynner. He is long dead now but he was very famous for his role in the "King and I" in which he played the king of Siam or the king of Thailand. He performed in that play, live on stage over a thousand times. He liked it so much, he just did it, over and over and over. Now this doctor writes in her book that even after one thousand times, Yul Brynner was scared and nervous to go on stage. He was afraid people weren't going to like him. He had this IP syndrome, up to like the highest scale she could ever imagine. And there was no need whatsoever because he was perfect in the play, he knew all the words, it didn't even matter if he stumbled the words, he could always overcome them. Yul Brynner was so good, but he was always nervous, he had this as a syndrome. He couldn't relax around this fact. He always focused on the fear, his unworthiness, what he thought he couldn't do.
What we teach is for you to focus on what you can do. So, that you will then feel worthy. How often is it we or even when we are growing up, that we are taught, don't get a big head about what you can do, don't brag. All this sort of stuff gets kind of weird at times because even then people will thank us very much for doing something and we say, "Oh it's okay, it didn't matter." And we won't even take the thanks. We won't say, "You are very welcome, I'm glad I could help." No, a lot of people will say, "I didn't do much, it wasn't anything." They won't take the praise.
That's a typical example of somebody who will not look at what they just did as something that really was great, something that really was nice. Someone who understands what they just did is very nice, will say, "You are very welcome. I hope maybe you can do the same for someone else." Or they might say, "I'm glad I knew enough to help you." They still appreciate, "I did something that helped people, that's great. I know a little more than that person knew. In that way, I feel worthy to be thanked at that time." They don't have to say, "No, you don't have to thank me, it's okay." It's a whole different concept, a whole different way of looking at things and again it has to be truthful as to what you have actually achieved, and again if you haven't done enough goodness to reflect on - do more.