Why is life so unfair?

6th June 2023

Why isn’t life fair?

I have been struggling with this concept lately, as there have been a few recent events in my life where the concept of fairness or to be precise, lack of it, has been a theme.

More specifically, I have felt unfairly treated by some people around me and they have been living rent free in my head ever since!

I have been digging into this idea of fairness as a concept to see what it opens up for me. I am aware that obsessing over someone’s unfair behaviour is so unhelpful and a complete waste of my time and energy, but yet, the obsessive thoughts persist and here we are.

Now, to give some context, I have made some huge leaps on my unfairness appreciation journey during my time on this earth… Where once I would have stewed all day over the driver who cut me up, or the queue jumper in the supermarket, I am now mostly able to let these incidents pass me by, sometimes even with a smile and a wave… how you ask? I’ll get to that soon.

But what stumps me to this day is where I feel the treatment is aimed at me deliberately. Now to be clear, this is my assumption that the treatment is aimed at me, in fact designed to be critical, or unkind with some kind of mean, unjust agenda.

And this is key, injustice or unfairness – I can’t bear it and it turns out I am not alone! What do you do when something unfair or unjust happens to you or someone you care about? In that heated moment do you take a deep breath, consider your response and conclude that people’s behaviour is a reflection of how they feel about themselves? Nope, me either! My body rises up in a stress response which feels like a mixture of panic, rage, helplessness and brimming full of emotion and I struggle to calm myself down. Then the rumination begins, I replay what happened, I create conversations in my head of what I might (but never will!) say in response to the injustice and I rinse and repeat! I will lie in bed at night contemplating the situation over and over, all the while being completely aware of how utterly pointless it is to contemplate the situation in this way! Queue banging my head against the wall!

Now, as I have got older, I have been more inclined to consider that when I feel that something ‘keeps happening’ to me (which also means, my thinking patterns are stuck on a loop) that there is an invitation to delve deeper, figure out what is going on beneath the surface and consider what I might need to explore AND maybe let go of. So here I am, working through this with you right now.

Many years ago, a dear colleague of mine reflected that a sense of justice and fairness was character trait they felt I emanated, and I felt truly proud of that. It is a core value of mine and I have worn it like a badge! And yet, at times it has hindered me in accepting the reality of a situation and the truth that would be way more useful for me to acknowledge and ground in to, is that life at times, just isn’t fair. Now I don’t mean this to sound like the groan of an exhausted parent bemoaning their kid’s whines about the unfairness of life (said in jest of course and I will return to this too…)

I mean really, life doesn’t always go the way we want it too, people behave badly, unfairly towards us and there is no way of controlling that event. So, if we know we have no control then why do we find it so hard to accept?

I did some research into this from a neurological perspective and discovered that when we perceive injustice or unfairness, our bodies go into the same fight, flight or freeze responses as any other stressful situation. It would seem that we are in fact, hardwired to feel such a strong reaction to poor treatment. We will feel the same feelings and emotions as other stressful situations. We can then get stuck in a rumination loop where we replay the event and our belief about it over and over until we are exhausted and anxious and want to shut down.

If you ever find yourself stuck in a loop of anxiety when thinking about a past event and find that you wear yourself out thinking about it and feel shut down, what often then happens is, you berate yourself for not being ‘stronger’ or more ‘easygoing’ and why can’t you just ‘let things go’ and you promise to try harder and be better and so the cycle goes round again – hence why the same things feel like they are happening to you over and over.

Another reason we struggle with unfairness is we have not been taught how to deal with disappointment when we were children. As I alluded to earlier, perhaps your parents chided in with a ‘life isn’t fair’ response to you not having learned this really tricky concept and created an expectation that we must just get on with it without actually being equipped with any emotional tools to really grasp and work through this actually, very tricky concept.

Does this resonate with you so far? So here are my musings on how to move through it all,

Firstly, learning to be present with your feelings and emotions, identifying them and allowing them to be there is a huge first step. If you are in the habit of shutting down stress, negative emotions and feelings and ignoring them then you will find that what you resist, does in fact persist. In practice, this means giving yourself some space to feel what you feel. When you feel stressed, stop, take a deep breath, acknowledge the feeling, name it – “I am feeling _______”  Consider where you feel it in your body – and here is the part you might not like… allow it to be there… Yep, I know you want it to go and you want to be cool as a cucumber in response to life’s stresses but let’s get real – if you continuously shut down your feelings they will continue to explode in overwhelming ways which make you feel out of control.

It is absolutely ok and completely normal to feel stress rising in response to unfairness, feel it and forgive yourself for any self-judgment. Remind yourself that you are learning a new way and that is no such thing as perfection.

Imagine if you had been taught as a child, in a compassionate and understanding way about unfairness, how might you feel as a result of learning that? You can re-parent yourself with this wisdom and compassion.

Even better, create a habit of checking in with yourself daily and contemplate how you feel and what you might need – tend to your basic needs, listen to your body and start to build self-trust that you can take care of yourself.

Next, acknowledge that truly things don’t always go the way you want them to and whilst this isn’t a good feeling, it is the reality and as an adult, you have the option to accept that and CHOOSE how you respond.

Now, here is the part that for me, honestly feels the most challenging and where I often end up looping back round to ‘but it isn’t fair, whaaaaaaaaaaaa!’

Here we go – you have choices as to how you respond. Now that might be that you challenge the unfair treatment or behaviour in some way. (If you choose this as an option – consider describing the impact the behaviour had on you rather than making it a personal direct, finger pointing exercise of you did this, you did that.. check out this link here for more tips on how to handle that.)

Accepting that the way people behave is unkind or unfair is another choice. It’s not an easy one but it is a choice to make and can be a work in progress for you. And the truth is, it truly is a reflection of them and not you. Remind yourself of that fact.

This is the choice I am actively working on right now and to make it tangible for me, I am reminding myself regularly that I am an adult does not have to impacted on by someone else’s behaviour. I get to choose.

If you find yourself getting caught up in a cycle of unfairness, then it’s worth noting that our brains are designed to do this very thing and highlight the injustice. There is a part of our brain that rewards us for being ‘right’ or being the person who acts fairly – because we can reinforce the belief that we are ‘good.’ Noticing these thought patterns at a conscious level can help you unstick your thinking. We like to be right, this is why it’s hard to let go in an argument, it’s hard wired into us! Acknowledge the need to be right and smile at yourself – we all feel it and we can work with it.

So, overall, what does this mean? Well for me, it means that I am learning to understand that our wiring creates the knee jerk reactions that we feel in the moment, and this is the human response, AND by practicing being with myself in these moments, giving myself space and compassion, I can move through these challenging thoughts and not get stuck in stress loops.

How do we know when we have made a leap with something like this in our lives? When we realise that something hasn’t impacted on us in the way it might have once before. Or that those squatters in your head have moved on to pastures new and you are focused on taking care of your needs. So when you notice that you don’t’ want to go chasing after the driver that cut you up on the roundabout next time – this is a leap! Keep going, you are a work in progress.

For more on this topic, check out this article here.

If you would like personalised support to identify your own sabotaging patterns of thoughts and behaviours and work through them. I offer 1:1 coaching support for conundrums like this and many others. Drop me an email at hey@sarahdodsley.com to arrange a free 30 min consultation to talk about me supporting you.