9/12/24 How a change of perspective can transform your life for good
Have you ever had a change of perspective that transformed your life forever? I’ve had dozens, both good and bad, and once that rubber band is stretched, it never goes back to the form it had before it was stretched, and today we’re going to talk about how to deal with those perspective changes and how to let them transform your life for good.
Hello my lovelies! Welcome to the Moving Toward Better Podcast. I’m your host, Karen Bemmes, and today we’re talking about how a change of perspective can transform your life for good even when the change of perspective sometimes seems like a negative thing.
Before we dive in, I want to make clear that what I am about to share are experiences from my life and what I learned along the way. Your situation may be different, and this is no substitute for medical or mental health intervention if your situation warrants it. This podcast is designed to help people understand themselves and others better based on their personalities. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any mental or physical condition. If you suspect you or a loved one is at risk of physical or mental harm, please seek proper medical help immediately.
For those who are new to the podcast, when I talk about personalities, communication and relationships, I use the DISC personality model of behavior and refer to people as D or Driven, I or Inspired, S or Supportive, and C or Cautious. You can find links to take your own Personality Assessment in the Show Notes
There are so many perspective changing moments in everyone’s life. Some seem to be universal and others are quite personal. But there is something magical about having a perspective change and then finding out that someone had the very same perspective shift even if the circumstances are different. Occasionally, we have similar experiences, and the perspective shift is different too, and we’ll talk about that a bit as well today, but in most cases, when we have a perspective shift, we get to choose if we use that knowledge to make ourselves and the world better, and that’s a very big discussion indeed.
Early in my life, I remember the first time we visited one set of my grandparents after my younger brother was born. Up until that point I was the only grandchild on that side of the family, and that day, everyone paid attention to my brother, and no one even noticed me. Even at age four, it was a perspective change that sometimes our level of importance changes, and we find out we’re not as important as we thought we were.
In the case of my grandparents, whenever we walked through the door, my grandpa would say, “There’s my favorite grandson!” and my brother would answer, “Grandpa, I’m your only grandson.” By this time, I had a baby girl cousin, but I knew what he meant. He meant he had a favorite grandchild, and it wasn’t me.
I’ve thought about those moments a lot since I’ve had grandchildren of my own, and I cannot imagine loving one more than another, although I’ve seen the same scenario play out in my mom’s family over and over, and it’s so sad that by picking a favorite, so many have missed out on the joy of getting to know the others. In this case, learning how unimportant people can make you feel, especially your own relatives, made me determined to show my own children how important they are, and that now extends to my grandchildren as well.
Another huge, perspective changing moment came in my first marriage, when my husband told me he no longer found me physically attractive because of my weight. At that time, I was not even considered overweight for someone of my height, but as a younger, not as confident as I should be version of myself, I went on a diet and lost 7 pounds in 7 days.
That weekend, my husband and I had a party with mostly his friends and some of mine. The men probably outnumbered the women 7 to 1, and even though I was dressed simply in a pair of black pants, 3 inch black heels and a pink shirt with a Peter Pan collar (look it up if you don’t know what that is), I got so many compliments about how nice I looked. It was really a nice ego boost after the effort I put in the previous week.
The next morning, my then husband started talking about one of my friends and how amazing she looked, and then he said the thing that really changed everything. He mentioned how she looked like she had lost weight and how good that made her look. I turned off the breakfast I was cooking, walked into the bedroom and cried. When he finally walked in to see what was going on, I told him I had lost 7 pounds and he hadn’t even noticed, and he congratulated me, but the damage was done.
Now, before you come at me about how small and insignificant this seems, let me tell you, my weight and body shape has been an issue for me my entire life. When I was a child I was always told I was too skinny, but by the time I was 14 I was five feet tall and 100 pounds, and I thought I was fat because I couldn't fit into teen clothes. My measurements at that time were 36-22-35, and I thought I was fat. In a skirt, I wore a size 5, but I needed a size 9 pants to fit my hips which meant the waist was about 4 inches too big. Sadly, instead of my mom railing against the clothing manufacturers, she helped perpetuate a stereotype that if we don’t fit into clothing, there must be something wrong with us rather than the clothing.
If you’re of a certain age, like me, the advent of Gloria Vanderbuilt jeans was life changing because until they came into vogue, I had a very difficult time wearing jeans. I look back at pictures of myself at that age and wish someone had told me I was at least ok. I look at that young woman, and I wish I could tell her she was beautiful because she was, and lordy, lordy, she was anything but fat.
So, when my then husband, who had also complained that I drank too much caffeine (one can of diet Coke per day) when he drank two cups of coffee before he left the house and nothing but iced tea all evening, who complained that I smoked too much ( yes, I smoked at that time) when he smoked as much as I did, who criticized my cleaning, the way I did laundry and the way I cooked his dinner, didn’t even notice when I lost 7 pounds, I had a huge change of perspective, because before that I always thought he was sincere when he said he was just trying to help me be a better person.
At that moment, though, I realized I would never be good enough for him, and I would spend the rest of my life trying to live up to an impossible standard that he couldn’t and wouldn’t try to live up to himself. I sought counseling, and I left 6 weeks later. My suspicions were confirmed on the day I moved out when he told me that if I came back, things would be very different, and that made the decision to leave and stay gone that much easier.
That perspective shift changed nearly everything about my life. Ironically, I lost so much weight that my counselor threatened me with anti-depressants if I didn't start eating so I did. Before I walked away from my marriage, I was of the opinion that people who got divorced didn’t try hard enough. After my own situation, I realized that most people who get divorced, especially when cheating was not involved, had merely reached their emotional limit.
In my case, a dear friend, the only one who helped me move out, possibly because she had been divorced too, told me I would know if I had done the right thing by the way I slept that evening. She said if I tossed and turned, I might want to rethink my decision to leave. If I slept well, I would know I made the right decision, and that night, I slept better than I had in months, and I kept sleeping well, so I knew it was the best decision for me. To this day, I know it was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done because with my weight now, the amount of ridicule I would suffer would be way beyond anything I could handle, and it makes me appreciate my husband now, who loves me in every incarnation. Without that perspective shift, I might not have that gratitude and appreciation for the incredibly good and decent man I’m married to now.
Speaking of good men, lest you think all change of perspective is bad or sobering, it wasn’t long after that I played in a volleyball tournament with some of the best men I’d ever met, and all of them were single at the time. One was already a friend. One became a friend that weekend, and one, who I had met at a different volleyball tournament, left immediately after we finished playing to drive home so he could golf with his father and brothers in the morning. We had a great time that weekend, and before I knew it, I was playing in leagues and tournaments with these guys all the time.
One night, a friend of mine wanted to grab a bite and invited the guy who had left the tournament to join us. As we finished eating, she gasped and said she had to run and asked the guy to drive me back to my car, so he did. We sat and chatted for a long time, and as I got out of the car, I asked him if he would like to go out with me and my friend the following weekend. He said yes, so I picked him up the following weekend and we went to a bar where I worked at the time for extra cash.
Unbeknownst to me, my friends at the bar decided to slip me extra alcohol, and I was completely smashed by the end of the evening, and my date had to drive me home. In the 1990s that was not often a safe thing to have happen. This guy made sure I got into my apartment safely, and then drove himself home in my car.
This was in the days before Uber and even texting, so I had to wait until the next afternoon when he got back from his standing golf appointment with his dad and brothers for him to call me on a landline and offer to bring my car back. He was kind and understanding, and there was no awkwardness at all when he dropped the car off, and it was at that moment that I realized there are some fantastic men in this world who don’t want to take advantage of a woman even in an inebriated state, and I nearly cried.
I probably should add that in college, I didn’t have such a lovely experience and was assaulted by someone I really liked, and between that and my marriage, I didn’t have a lot of faith in the male species at the time. Since then, I’ve met so many decent men who would never take advantage of a woman, and it gives me hope for humanity.
To give you a rundown of a few of the other perspective changes in my life here they are with a quick rundown of the perspective change too.
March 1994 - Looking into the eyes of my first child and knowing I was born to be his mother. Before that, I thought of being a mom as something you do rather than something that you are.
A few months later on a random Monday, watching my best friend try to get her children to sit down at the table because they had a day off of preschool and struggling mightily because this woman was obviously made to use her bad-assery in her company rather than be a full time stay at home mom, and that didn’t mean she didn’t love her children. She did and does love them fiercely, but she needed to work to be a good mom. That day I learned that some moms are truly better moms when they work either part time or full time outside the house. It actually makes them a better mom. I believe this so much that I literally wrote a book about motherhood, and I’ll share the link in the show notes and description.
March 1997 - After worrying about whether I could love another child as much as my first, I fell in love a second time as a mom when my second son grabbed my finger and immediately stopped crying. I learned that day that humans have a deeper well of love than I ever knew possible, and loving more people means more love in the world.
A few weeks later I learned how people can celebrate and mourn at the same time when my father passed away from kidney cancer. We were still celebrating the birth of my son and mourning the passing of one of his namesakes. The other namesake, his other grandpa, passed four months later, also of cancer. Having that baby during times of mourning was a gift of joy we all needed. Finding out that cancer is a gift for those left behind because you have the time to say goodbye was a game changer, and seeing the circle of life play out in our own family was exactly what we needed to help us move on and stay present in our own lives.
April 1999 - I watched in horror as two young men shot up a school, killing their classmates, and to this day I wonder what the signs are of predominantly angry, young white men who shoot up schools and kill children and how in the world to prevent them from getting to that point. In the middle of writing this, it happened again with 4 people dead and 9 wounded before the resource officer got the gun from the perpetrator and arrested him. Why? I ask myself, do these young white men think this is the answer to anything? In 1999, I asked because I was raising two young boys. In 2024, I have three grown sons, and I’m sick of thoughts and prayers and angry that this is a regular occurrence in my country.
I know this is controversial to some, but it’s time to get sensible about guns, not to take them away from everyone, but to hold those accountable who sell them and own them to follow the laws we already have in place and to register guns, including those purchased at gun shows. Every sensible gun owner I know, our home included, supports that.
April 2000 - The day I learned the phrase, “it doesn't matter as long as it’s healthy” is utter and total bs because my youngest child wasn’t born healthy, and I loved him from the moment he was born with a fierceness I never knew existed in me. We have a lot of weirdness around babies and birth in our culture. We act like it’s this mystical, magical thing that only a few understand.
We don’t tell people what can happen, and it’s such a shock for people when things don’t go as planned. It takes courage to raise a child with extraordinary needs of any kind, and for those who have multiple challenges, you cannot imagine the stress unless you’ve been there, but after spending 5 weeks in the NICU, the most amazing place you never want to visit, I will forever have a special place in my heart for nurses, especially special care nurses and the parents of any child with extraordinary needs.
If you see a child acting out, and you don’t know what the life circumstances of that child are, mind your business, and if you see that child’s mom struggling, offer her a smile rather than your judgy face because, you know what? That mama has enough on her plate in this moment of dysregulation. The last thing she needs is your judgment.
September 11, 2001 - As I turned on the news after my husband called to let me know a plane had flown into the twin towers and I saw the shadow of the second plane, I knew we were under attack, and that life would never be the same, and I was right.
I got a second lesson that day because I left my oldest at school in case we all needed to head for a fallout shelter, but when I picked him up, my four year old who never saw the news that I turned off every time he walked into the kitchen said to my oldest that some bad men flew some planes into some buildings. I learned that even when we think our children aren’t listening, they definitely are. More about that day in a minute.
December 2022 - That hard work and dedication as a parent sometimes pays off big because I could look at my husband as our youngest son moved his tassel and became our third college graduate that we did it. We accomplished most of the goals we had raising our children, and it felt amazingly good.
January 2019 - That being a Nana is almost as wonderful as being a mom. I know some would argue and say it’s better, but not for me. I absolutely adore my granddaughter, but in so many situations, I still focus on my son and watching him grow into a great husband and father.
July 2023 - Watching my son with his son and wife and daughter complete their family and seeing the cycle start again, knowing that we had a part in that, and that my son and his wife will take the ceiling of their parents’ abilities and use it as their floor to build on, and I truly hope they build a masterpiece.
There are many other moments I could share, but some of them are too personal for this platform or involve people that I’m sure see certain situations differently than I do, but I do have one more to share because it’s so fresh in my mind.
Last month, one of my brothers in law passed away. He had been sick for quite some time, and while we knew it was only a matter of time, it was unexpected that it was this soon. For a good portion of my brother in law’s life, he lived exactly how he wanted to live, and I guarantee that he had no regrets about that. Did he make mistakes? Absolutely, but my husband’s family has a knack for seeing the best in nearly every situation, and they taught me that over the past 30+ years.
On Sunday, we had his memorial service, something he didn’t necessarily want, but it turned out to be so good for the people who showed up. Family differences were put aside. We reminisced and told stories and laughed and ate and enjoyed each other's company. I think my brother in law would have liked that, knowing that he was the inspiration for people to laugh and enjoy each other’s company.
It kind of reminded me of September 12, 2001. On that day, around the world, it didn’t matter what our differences were the day before, we all just wanted peace and were grateful to be alive.
Life looks different when you’ve faced a death that is personal, and on September 11th, 2001 it was personal for nearly the entire world.
It was a day when we realized that life was too short for anything but love and being grateful, and that’s what I’m feeling after my brother in law passing too, so you’re going to see a few changes in the content on the podcast, the coaching offers on the website and the posts on social media, and I would love to get your input on that as well.
The best way to do that is to sign up for our email list on the homepage of Moving Toward Better dot com and to subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast app. Until next time, keep moving toward better, whatever that means for you.
Show notes
One of the great blessings of living is gaining a new perspective. Whether you are 8 or 80, you’ve never too young or too old to gain a new perspective on your own life and the world at large. In this episode we’ll talk about some personal perspective shifts and some we as a nation and a global community share.
Get your copy of Everyday Heroes of Motherhood on Amazon by clicking this link - https://geni.us/Zvm6v
I participate in the Amazon Associate and Influencer programs which means if you make a purchase, I may earn a commission at no additional cost to you.
Thanks for listening, and if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share so others can benefit from it too.
* Purchase your Assessment here https://www.personalityservice.com/portal/YDBS/store
* Purchase and schedule your Personalized Personality Strategy Session here https://www.movingtowardbetter.com/offers/x9VFGxdq
* Moving Toward Better Amazon Shop www.amazon.com/shop/movingtowardbetter
Intro and Outro music licensed from Melody Loops.
