Choosing Perspective

    Last summer my mother tried to commit suicide....for the seventh time. While in the hospital (this time) she was officially diagnosed with Narcissistic Behavioral Disorder. My childhood makes so much more sense now! 
    Looking at this from an outsider's view (which I cannot), I have tried to understand what it would feel like to have a mother who actually cared about MY life. No one can tell me that her "loving" actions were anything but selfish. Everything she did, everything she taught me was geared toward how others would view her parenting. She said as much....every time she corrected any of my actions....which was for everything! It's not possible to make a narcissist satisfied. If it seems they are happy, it will last for a short time and then they will find something you need to fix. Usually something for which they had previously praised you. All that aside, and after having spent much of my adult life recovering from being the child of a narcissist, and not knowing that's what I was doing, (still have things to work through) I find one of the biggest "solutions" is perspective.
    Let me make this clear. I believe we can only have a perspective that coordinates with our personal experiences. With that said, when we look for, and pursue a "positive" perspective we tend to find reasons to be fulfilled instead of "not good enough." It's not an easy road for anyone but especially those of us who grew up without that "angel" mother who would do anything to keep her baby safe, loved and fulfilled. I never liked Mother's Days. Now I understand why.
    At this point, I can choose. I can believe that the world is not going to provide what I need or that there may be things that the world has to offer of which I am totally unaware and I can choose to be open to the blessings that are coming to me everyday. Since I've lived on the other side my entire life, I now choose to live in this new perspective space.
    I'm not talking about being unrealistically optimistic. My upbringing won't let me move into that space. No, I'm speaking of finding the good and the positive while still acknowledging the negative that exists all around me, especially in my past. I just no longer have to dwell in it and be dragged down by the hopelessness of it all. It's a perspective that, a while ago, I didn't understand even existed. 

    Reality has always been my goto. I couldn't get past the "truths" that I was a messed up individual who couldn't seem to make my life work. Now, I can see myself as an individual who is learning to say, "Yeah, I messed up there. Well, how can I change my actions to do a little bit better next time?" (key words being little bit) I'm also ok with doing a lot better, I just no longer die inside when it's only a little bit better.

Enlightenment.....or something

     My father is a buddhist. My mother spent much of my life telling me that God doesn't exist because too many bad things happen to good people and God (as she believes he should be) would never allow bad things to happen so, he must not exist. 

    When I was 5, my mother remarried my stepfather who is a non-attending Catholic. The rest of my family, as far back as I can remember, are Methodist and that is the religion I grew up attending. The church building was big...I mean really huge!! We only attended that one because my mother had a degree in music and the church which we attended had the best music program around. This program was led, I was told, by someone who was considered to be one of the best choir directors anywhere. Every Christmas Eve we would sing songs from Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, ending with a lighted candle for everyone. Then we would go home and open one present.

    There are so many ideas about how religion should or should not exist. So many people decide that if you don't believe the way they do, you must be evil. I can't imagine a God that would see any of his children as evil. When my kids were young, I would go out of my way to correct their actions and be ridiculously careful not to tell them that they were bad but that the actions that caused whatever incident were poorly chosen. I, however, got the "normal" raising that clearly stated I was bad if I chose something for which my parents disapproved or especially the community.
    I do believe there are "right and wrong" choices. I don't believe there are right and wrong people. In my current personal belief system, I feel we are spirit children of a Heavenly being that watches over us always. Bad things do happen, because that same loving parent who lets us make choices, gives everyone that same freedom to make choices. 

    We don't always make decisions beneficial for other's lives...in fact I think it is impossible to do that for everyone all the time. The time when a choice becomes "poor" is when that particular choice is permanently harmful or detrimental to ourselves or another person.

    I'm going to forgo my deeper thoughts on this (like when is a good time to go to war, for example) and stick with the surface issues like day in and day out simple choices. These can be detrimental enough.
    Religion can help us with boundaries. Some are more strict than others but they all provide something for someone. I have always believed in the existence of a God, a supreme being, if you will, who watches over us and guides us if we will simply listen. The multiple, daily choices we make are the foundation of our entire lives....like a gauge, they measure our progress. 

    Depending on the choices WE make, we lean toward happiness or misery. If we compare our choices to our current religious belief's dictates, we have a gauge of our chosen happiness. Let me clarify here....whatever we believe in is "our religion." Or another way to see it would be, wherever we spend most of our energy, what we give most of our money to or what we spend the majority of our daily hours thinking about IS OUR RELIGION. For some, these things change many times throughout each day and those are some of the most unhappy people I have ever met!
    I do not believe we are in this life to find the one right religion but to find the path that will lead us to happiness and joy. That looks different for everyone of us. For some, a specific religious belief is a foundation for that joy. When we can find happiness in someone else's happiness, it says something about our foundational belief, that we know we are part of the human team. And, I believe, we are all part of a human team....in one form or another.