their fellow prisoners even as they were beaten, starved, and tortured on a daily basis. Commander Denton was often placed in solitary confinement for urging other prisoners to resist the North Vietnamese attempts to gain information from them. But that didn’t stop Commander Denton. He devised strategies to communicate with the other prisoners by using signs, tapping on walls, and coughing in sequence.
Ten months after his capture, he was chosen to participate in a televised interview that was used as propaganda. While answering questions, he pretended as though the bright lights from the cameras were bothering his eyes as he began blinking T-O-R-T-U-R-E in Morse code to secretly send the message that he and his fellow prisoners were being mistreated by their captors. Throughout the interview, he continued to express his support for the U.S. government.
He was released in 1973 after seven years in captivity. When he stepped off the plane as a free man, he said, “We are honored to have had the opportunity to serve our country under difficult circumstances. We are profoundly grateful to our commander in chief and to our nation for this day. God bless America.” After retiring from the military in 1977, he was elected to serve as senator for Alabama.
Despite being placed in the worst circumstances imaginable, Jeremiah Denton didn’t waste time feeling sorry for himself. Instead, he maintained his composure and focused on doing whatever he could to manage the situation. Even when he was released, he chose to feel grateful that he was able to serve his country, rather than pity himself for the time he’d lost.
Researchers studied the differences that occur when people focus on their burdens versus focusing on what they’re grateful for. Simply acknowledging a few things you feel grateful for each day is a powerful way to create change. In fact, gratitude not only impacts your psychological health, it can also affect your physical health. A 2003 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found:
• People who feel gratitude don’t get sick as often as others. They have better immune systems and report fewer aches and pains. They have lower blood pressure and they exercise more often than the general population. They take better care of their health, sleep longer, and even report feeling more refreshed upon waking.
• Gratitude leads to more positive emotions. People who feel grateful experience more happiness, joy, and pleasure on a daily basis. They even feel more awake and energetic.
• Gratitude improves social lives. Grateful people are more willing to forgive others. They behave in a more outgoing fashion and feel less lonely and isolated. They are also more likely to help other people and to behave in a generous and compassionate manner.
Troubleshooting and Common Traps
If you allow self-pity to take hold when you’re dealing with stress, you’ll put off working on a solution. Watch out for red flags that you’re allowing yourself to feel self-pity and take a proactive approach to change your attitude at the first sign of feeling sorry for yourself.
What’s Helpful
Giving yourself a reality check so you don’t exaggerate how bad the situation really is
Replacing overly negative thoughts about your situation with more realistic thoughts
Choosing to actively problem-solve and work on improving your situation
Getting active and behaving in a way that makes you less likely to feel sorry for yourself, even when you don’t feel like it
Practicing gratitude every day
What’s Not Helpful
Allowing yourself to believe that your life is worse than most other people’s lives
Indulging in exaggeratedly negative thoughts about how difficult your life is
Remaining passive about the situation and focusing only on how you feel, rather than what you can do
Declining to participate in experiences and activities that could help you feel better
Staying focused on what you don’t have rather than what you do have
They Don’t Give away their Power
When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. —DALE CARNEGIE
Lauren was convinced her overbearing, meddling mother-in-law was going to ruin her marriage, if not her entire life. Although she had thought her mother-in-law, Jackie, was annoying in the past, it wasn’t until she and her husband had two children together that she found her to be unbearable.
Jackie usually made several unannounced visits each week, and she often stayed for several hours at a time. Lauren found those visits to be intrusive on their family time because she only had so much time with her girls between the time she came home from work and the time they went to bed.
But what really bothered Lauren was the way Jackie always tried to undermine her authority with the girls. Jackie would often say things to the children like “You know, a little TV won’t hurt you. I don’t know why your mother always says you can’t watch it” or “I’d let you have dessert but your mother’s convinced sugar is bad for your health.” She sometimes lectured Lauren about her “new age parenting” and reminded her that she allowed her children to watch TV and eat sweets and they seemed to turn out just fine.
Lauren always responded to Jackie’s comments with a polite nod and a smile, but on the inside, she was seething. She grew resentful toward Jackie and she often took it out on her husband. But whenever Lauren complained to her husband about his mother, he’d say something like “Well, you know how she is,” or “Just ignore her comments. She means well.” Lauren found comfort in complaining to her girlfriends who had affectionately named Jackie the “monster-in-law.”
But one week, everything seemed to come to a head when Jackie suggested Lauren should start exercising more because she looked like she had gained a little weight. That comment pushed Lauren over the edge. She stormed out of the house and spent the night at her sister’s. The next day, she still didn’t feel ready to go home. She was afraid she’d have to hear a lecture from Jackie about how she shouldn’t have left. It was at that point Lauren knew she had to get help or her marriage might be in jeopardy.
Lauren initially sought counseling to learn anger management skills to help her respond less angrily to her mother-in-law’s comments. However, after a few therapy sessions, she was able to see that she needed to work on being more proactive in preventing problems, not just less reactive toward Jackie’s comments.
I asked Lauren to complete a pie chart that showed how much time and energy she focused on various areas of her life, such as work, sleep, leisure, family, and time with her mother-in-law. I then asked her to complete a second pie chart that showed how many hours she physically spent doing each activity. When she was done with the second pie chart, she was surprised to see how much her time and energy were out of proportion. Although she only physically spent about five hours
