Confessions of a Whiner

     With a title like that aren't you just amazingly excited to read this post?  Well, you should be.
     Life continues on.  Up and down and in and out.  Some days are good and some...not so much.  There are times when I get really frustrated.  I'm sure there are some wives/mothers out there who can relate but there are times when I think I'm invisible.  People don't listen to what I say or what I need or care what I want.  I'm there to clean and work and be an emotional support to everyone at all times and I don't really feel like I get a whole lot back.
     I had a frustrating weekend.  I won't go into details but it happened to be my birthday on Saturday and the whole weekend I felt like I was being ignored and that nobody really cared about me.  I felt like I was sitting there doing everything and helping other people and was completely overlooked.  Well, for those of you who know me you can imagine that didn't go over very well.  I'm not exactly the most humble person.  When there's something I'm not getting that I need, shamefully I can be pretty loud.  And I was.
     I get into this trap, thinking that all I ever do are nice things for everybody else and yet nobody cares about me. There's the first red flag: thinking about myself.  I get so wound up thinking how unfair my life is and how I never seem to be able to get the emotional care I think I need.  Red flag two: thinking that everything is unfair.  Technically, I guess I'm right.  Life isn't fair.  But the mistake is thinking that everybody else's life is fair when mine isn't; and therefore mine should be.   But the thing I feel the worst about is the thought I sometimes have that my whole life is made to be lived completely taking care of other people when nobody cares for me.
     What an untrue thought!  People do care for me.  But they're imperfect.  Sometimes I want people to make me the most important priority in their life, and secretly I resent that they don't always do that.  That doesn't mean that they don't care about me or what I want.  What really hits me about this incorrect thinking pattern is a little voice in the back of my head that says: 'So what?  So what if people don't put you first?  Is that really the most important thing?
     'Let's say, just for a second, that nobody really does make your concerns the first thing they think about.  Let's say that you do spend your life thinking about and acting to help other people and no one ever does the same for you.  Is that really such a bad thing?  To spend your life in service to other people?  If you truly spent your life doing everything you could for others, you'd be in good company.  That's exactly how the Savior spent his life.  Would it really be so bad to live your life like He lived His?'  Ouch!  There's that prick of shame!
      Something I've always struggled with is a sense of my own worth.  I seem to have the need to have my value validated by others, and when they don't make me feel special enough, I tend to wonder if I'm really worth much.  So at times like that, I tend to express my doubt through anger.  I also many times feel the need to earn people's love, whether others, God's or my own.  I suppose that I feel if I do things for others that makes me a good and worthwhile person.
     Sadly, I need to find a way to realize that I don't need to and can't earn my worth.  Because I'm a daughter of God, I already have it, and there's nothing I can do that would change who I am and therefore my inherent value.  I'm the child of the being who created the whole universe and because I am his daughter, I am like him.  Why is that so hard to grasp sometimes?  I don't need other people to make me feel special, because I already AM special.
     Instead of needing others to make me feel valued, I should be feeling my worth inside and spreading that around to other people who struggle the same way and really don't know who they are or that they're special.  That's what Jesus did.  And he didn't waste his time whining about it either.  I can learn something in that: to find the joy in giving my time, efforts and love to others without expecting them to reciprocate.  How better can I follow the Leader than that?
    So here's to some new efforts in recognizing my own divine nature and learning to feel happy in the service of others!  After all I may be a selfish windbag who wastes time complaining, but at least I'm a royal, selfish windbag with incomparable value!  That makes me feel a little better.