When You Feel Unappreciated

In this episode of the Joyful You Podcast, we’re diving into what to do when you feel unappreciated, especially after pouring your heart into caring for your loved ones. Join me as we explore three things to do that will help you to feel better when you are feeing unappreciated.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why it’s essential to drop your manual for how others should react and focus on how you want to show up
• The power of being grateful for the opportunity to serve, and how it can shift your mindset when your actions aren’t appreciated
• How to appreciate yourself by acknowledging your efforts and validating your worth without needing external approval

If you enjoy these episodes, don’t forget to book a breakthrough call with me for tailored support on your journey to becoming the best version of yourself. 

Book your call HERE

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TRANSCRIPT

This is The Joyful You Podcast, episode 108, Three Things to Do When You’re Feeling Unappreciated.

Welcome to The Joyful You Podcast.

On this show, I talk all about the tools you need to cultivate a healthy relationship with food, your mind, and your life.

I’m your host, Rachael Collins.

As an eating psychology practitioner, a certified life coach, and a weight loss expert, it is my mission to show you how to work with your body, manage your mind, process your emotions, and create supportive habits so you can live well, feel well, and become your strongest, healthiest, happiest, most amazing self, a joyful you.

Hey there, welcome to the podcast.

Sometimes I record podcasts for you with you in mind.

Other times, they are for myself.

And today is one of those days.

I had a very interesting morning this morning.

I woke up early to make a breakfast for my one child, who is the first to leave the house for school, and she left it sitting on the counter.

Then I made breakfast and packed a lunch for my husband who just quickly grabbed it and walked out the door and left for work.

Then I made and packed a lunch for my other daughter along with cooking up a batch of homemade turkey sausages for her to eat for breakfast.

And I got them all ready, put the sausages on a plate, even got out a fork for her, and a side of ketchup for her, which is the way that she likes to eat them.

I was feeling pretty good about it until she came down and she took one look at the sausage and she said, eww, why does it look like that?

And I said, oh, I just didn’t form it perfectly flat, so it just has a hump.

It’s fine.

Then she made a gagging noise, like bleh.

And I said, okay, just go get another one or just don’t eat it.

Well, she chose to not eat it, and she just left it sitting there on the counter and off to school she went.

I felt underappreciated and hurt.

And I know I’m not alone in feeling these things.

I’ve talked to so many of you moms that feel underappreciated as a mom.

I also talked to a lot of you that feel underappreciated as an employee and underappreciated in all sorts of walks of your life.

So let’s talk about this.

What do you do when you are feeling unappreciated?

Now, there are a lot of things that you can do.

Some of them are helpful.

Some of them are not, right?

So this morning, I could have pouted and sworn off ever serving my family ever again, and just like boycotted or gone on strike.

I could have sent everyone a text telling them how rude they were and how they should appreciate me and tell me thank you and take the food that I sacrificed my sleep to prepare for them.

I could cry, which I actually did do a little bit of crying because crying is not a bad thing, y’all.

Crying is actually a way that we can release emotion and get back to home base, like we talked about on the podcast last week.

But today, I want to share three things that you can do when you are feeling unappreciated that are going to help you to feel better.

Before I tell you what they are, I want to tell you that if you like what you’re learning here on the podcast, then you must book a breakthrough call with me.

And here’s why.

On that call, we are going to dive into exactly what is going on for you on your journey to becoming a joyful you because everyone is unique.

You’ll tell me what you’re struggling with, and then you’ll also have the chance to ask me any questions that you have, and I’m going to be there to answer them all for you.

And then I’m going to give you at least one thing that you can do that will make it easier for you to navigate this journey.

I’m also going to tell you how you can get more help for me if you want to go through my extended program that may or may not be for you, but we won’t know that until we get on this call.

Now, if it’s not for you, you will still leave with at least one helpful thing that you can execute.

So what if you have to lose?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Now, if it is for you, I’m going to tell you about my extended program, and then you can decide if it’s a yes or a no for you.

Now, by the way, I only do two of these free calls a week.

So if you don’t get on my calendar right now, you might miss out.

So go get on my calendar.

I’m going to put the link for it in the show notes.

You can also find it on my website, ajoyfulyou.com.

All right.

Now, let’s talk about these three things that you can do when you are feeling unappreciated that will help get you feeling better.

The first thing is to drop the manual.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just make people appreciate us?

If we could make them tell us thank you and how great we are and how much they’re grateful for us and all that we do for them.

But that just isn’t possible.

The only person that we have total control over is ourselves.

Sure, we can try to manipulate others by telling them what they should or shouldn’t do or asking them to even do something.

Or we can be passive aggressive and walk around in this victim mode, hoping that that’s going to get us some attention or an apology.

But here’s the thing.

None of that feels very good, nor is it guaranteed to work.

We cannot control others at all.

But you know what does work?

Dropping our manuals and letting people be how they’re going to be.

And instead, we focus on us.

How do we want to show up?

How do we want to be?

How do we want to act?

What kind of a person do we want to be?

Which leads me to number two.

Number two is to be grateful for the opportunity to serve.

I don’t know about you, but I want to be a mom who serves her family.

I want to be a person who serves others and tries to bless their lives by doing things for them that I think might be a blessing to them.

But here’s the deal.

I can’t make others think anything about me.

What I do for them, the service that I perform for them, it goes into the circumstance line of their model.

They get to choose how they want to think about it.

Just the exact same way that I do.

And we might have totally different thoughts.

Same circumstance, different thoughts.

So let me give you an example.

One time, and this is a true story, one time I lent some cake pans to one of my friends.

And she was trying to do something nice in return for me.

And so she brought back my pans washed in the dishwasher.

Now, if you are a baker, you know that this is a no-no.

It ruins the pans and makes it so that they’re no longer seasoned, and your cake is going to stick to the pan every single time.

Now, my friend had thoughts like, I’m doing something nice.

Rachael’s going to love this.

But my thoughts about the exact same circumstance was, she ruined my pans.

Now, I can’t use them.

Do you see how same circumstance?

Totally different thoughts.

That’s because we get to choose how we interpret, perceive, think about the facts in our life.

Now, my daughter, she perceived my sausage service as gross food.

Why was I serving this to her?

Those are her thoughts, right?

Where my thoughts about the exact same thing was, oh, I am being such a good mom.

She’s going to be so glad that she has a filling breakfast before she has to spend all day at school.

Same circumstance, completely different thoughts.

And when she didn’t perceive my intentions, the way that I perceived my intentions, I made that mean it was something against me.

I took it personally.

I had thoughts about not being appreciated, not being able to do anything right, and what a crappy mom I am.

Now luckily, I have had enough practice in this that as soon as I started to fill myself, going down that slippery slope, right?

I knew that I needed to stop, take a deep breath, and choose my next thoughts wisely.

Now sometimes I find it helpful to write out my painful thoughts.

So I will just do like a brain dump, or I’ll just write out everything that I’m thinking.

I don’t hold back.

It’s just really ugly.

I write everything out, and it feels really cathartic to do this.

Once I get them all out, then I’m able to go in and replace them with what I want to think instead.

Now one of my go-to thoughts, and this is the thought that I thought this morning, is I am so grateful that I have children I can serve.

A lot of people, they don’t have children they can serve.

So I am really grateful that I do.

I have children I can serve.

I am grateful that I have a body that allows me to serve.

My legs work, my hands work, my eyes work.

I am able to cook.

All of this allows me to serve, and I am really grateful for all of it.

So we can choose to be grateful instead of hateful.

Now, number three, this is the last thing that you can do when you’re feeling unappreciated, is to appreciate yourself.

The whole reason that we want people to validate us and to tell us thank you and how awesome and amazing we are is because it then allows us to give ourselves permission to think those things about ourselves.

So remember, it’s your thoughts, your thoughts that create your feelings.

Other people’s thoughts create their feelings, not yours.

So when they have thoughts about you, that does not create your feelings.

That creates their feelings.

So here’s the thing.

If you want to feel appreciated, if you want to feel valued, if you want to feel loved, you have to think those thoughts for yourself that create those feelings for you.

You don’t need other people to say those things to you.

You say them to yourself.

So what I like to do is I like to write myself a letter.

And this is exactly what I did this morning.

So I brain dumped.

Then, well, first of all, I let go of my manual and I was like, okay, my husband and my kids can show up however they want to.

Then I did a brain dump where I got out all those ugly thoughts that were making me feel unappreciated and hurt.

Then I decided, okay, I want to think thoughts that make me feel gratitude.

So then I replaced those ugly thoughts with the thoughts about how grateful I was.

And then the last thing that I did was I appreciated myself.

And the way that I did this was by writing myself a letter.

And this is how it went.

It says, Dear Rachael slash mom, thank you for showing up for me every day.

You get up early when you could be sleeping.

You put lots of effort into making me food that is healthy and good for me so that I can have a good day and feel my best.

Thank you for caring about me so much.

You’re the best ever.

I love you so much.

Love me.

So essentially, what we’re doing by writing ourselves this letter is we are validating and appreciating ourselves.

Did you know that you could do that?

You can.

That is the only thing that’s going to work.

Okay.

You have to think those same thoughts about yourself for yourself.

That’s what creates the feelings of being appreciated and valued and just feeling really good about yourself.

It does not need to come from outside sources.

It can come directly from you.

You appreciate you.

You validate you.

Praise yourself for showing up as the best wife, mom, friend, neighbor, daughter, employee, whatever it is that you are choosing to be.

So, the next time that you are feeling unappreciated, try one of these things or all three of these things, and just see how much better you feel.

All right, that’s all I have for you today.

Hopefully, I will see you on a breakthrough call this week, but if not, I’ll see you next week right back here.

Have a great week.

Bye-bye.

Thank you for listening to The Joyful You Podcast.

If you’d like additional support, click the link in the show notes, and let’s chat about how we can work together to get you to your goal.

If this episode was helpful to you, make sure to subscribe and please share it.

The most helpful thing you can do in return is to go leave a review.

If you want to hang out on social media, you can find me on Instagram, at A Joyful You, or on my website, ajoyfulyou.com.

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