Self-pity is the "Poor me, I have so much Dukkha" reaction to life experiences. It is usually just focusing on "My Dukkha," and not seeing it's universality, feeling overwhelmed by our problems and what is happening to ourselves. There is often a rejection of the fact that Dukkha does exist and that not everything goes as we would like it to. We're normally not content with our life, not able to see the benefits that we have in our life, so that often times there's a jealousy of others that brings about self-pity. "People have a lot more good fortune than I do. Poor me. I wish I had that good fortune. I just get all suffering", etc. And we don't see the good aspects of our life and the opportunities we do have in our life. So normally when self-pity is there, there's a rejection of the changing nature of experience and the Dukkha in normal everyday existence. Sometimes with self-pity, the smallest problem can seem huge. We make a big deal about small things when it's really not that big.
So how do we balance this? Well, the most powerful method we teach for balancing self-pity is the universalizing or D/D method, what we call the Diffusing/Defusing technique. Learning how to defuse the bomb, defuse that feeling of pain within ourselves and diffuse, spread our awareness out to others' suffering so that we see other beings more clearly and see that we're not the only ones with suffering or Dukkha. Other beings are in similar situations.
As we open out to the human condition, then instead of feeling pity, we open our Compassion. When Compassion is there, it comes from a much bigger mind. Self-pity is a very small mind that is just focused around me. Compassion is a much bigger mind that opens out to others and includes ourselves with the rest of humanity, it sees more of humanity and opens to the human condition. We see that Dukkha is part of the human condition and that with this bigger mind of Compassion then our problems become smaller.
This is because we are able to see that we are not the only one with this Dukkha, that other people often have much more Dukkha than we do, and that compared to others our Dukkha is quite small. We don't need to grieve so much about our suffering because we realize that all humans will have to have loss, all humans will have to have Dukkha, it's part of the human condition. And then there may come the realization that we have to make ourselves strong in order to accept Dukkha.
How can we react more from this place of a bigger mind? When we get lost in that small mind, how can we transform it to a bigger mind so we are not overwhelmed by the suffering of existence? How can we see the good fortune in our own life and see that this Dukkha that comes to us is an opportunity to grow? How can we see it as an opportunity to develop beneficial qualities that enable us to deal with the inevitable suffering of existence – aging, disease, old age, death, loss, blame, pain, obscurity, loneliness? All these things naturally arise from time to time and if we can see this as a natural part of human existence, then we can learn ways to transform our view so that we can react to them more wisely.
It all depends on Right View because when we are in a wrong view, we are on the path to suffering. When we can open up and see a different view, a Right View, we are on the path leading out of suffering. When we can get to the compassionate unselfish mind we're on the path walking out of suffering and we see that we have the capacity and human potential to not get overwhelmed by Dukkha; but that doesn't mean that it's easy.
Developing the mind to accept that Dukkha exists and to be able to recognize our human potential is not so easy and that's why we have the path leading out of Dukkha. That's why the Buddha gave us a way to recognize our strengths, to recognize our potential, to recognize our courage, so that we can deal with the inevitable suffering of existence, and understand that we are not in it alone with it. All human beings will meet with this, all human beings will meet with loss, blame, obscurity and pain. It's just natural because of the truth of impermanence and the truth that impermanent things are basically unsatisfactory.
If we get used to recognizing this "poor me" reaction to life experiences, and learn a way to let them go, then we are very fortunate. The Buddha has given us methods to let go of getting caught up in thoughts of just me, my suffering, and open out to the universal suffering of human existence. As we do this, compassion can arise, understanding can arise about the universality of Dukkha. Sure it would be terrible if it were only us who suffers, it wouldn't be fair and we could justify thinking, "Yeah, why does everybody else not have Dukkha and why do I. It's not fair." But, no one is immune from Dukkha, it can happen to anybody at any time. Suffering, Dukkha, can happen to anyone at anytime. And by using this universalizing technique and by spreading our compassion out to others, to others in similar difficult situations which are similar to ones we experience, helps us to accept this.