Change Your Perspective; Change Your Attitude

Figuring out how to change your attitude can be a hellish kind of soul search. After all, your attitude is largely based on past experiences, and if you have had mostly bad ones – or mostly bad ones in a particular area of life – getting a new attitude is a kin to ripping out an old maple tree by its roots.

But the answer, though not necessarily easy, is simple: change your perspective.

I recently made a comment on a blog that provoked someone else – not the blogger herself, another reader – to respond back.

Rile back, in my opinion. Without going into details, I will simply say that I felt she was attacking my motherhood. My ability to be a good mother. The underlying message was, “You haven’t thought this all out, or else you’re just a complete idiot. Even though I don’t know your child at all, let me tell you what your problem is and how to solve it…”

If you’re a mother, you know how I reacted. I – well, I reacted. My husband heard about it when he came home from work that day. We mothers get defensive when it comes to our kids, and you better not imply we are doing less than our best.

Moreover, I didn’t want to change my attitude. I felt I had a right to my attitude.

Then I read another blog post. The blogger, another mother, started the post talking about how she had struggled with previous pregnancies, having had several miscarriages and health problems with the ones that did finally come to fruition.

Then she talked about her most recent pregnancy.

The one that no longer existed.

She hadn’t had another miscarriage. She had a horrible choice to make.

The baby in her womb had a tumor growing out of her mouth that was bigger than her head. And it would only get bigger, the doctors said. That she would survive the entire pregnancy, let alone the first few days out of the womb, was a slim-to-none chance.

The blogger and her husband had a choice to make. And their little baby girl is now in heaven.

The story stopped me dead in my tracks. I was so concerned about what another woman thought about my mothering ability, and here was someone just struggling to become a mother.

I had a change in perspective that day. And a 180-degree change in attitude.

Really want to change your attitude? Look outside of your own little world, and change your perspective.