What Are You Looking For?

I
love my grandmother. My grandma Catherine is quite the mysterious and
unpredictable lady. She reminds me of a little forest fairy always making mischief
wherever she goes. She’s a total delight. A complete ham. And thinking of her when I am having a bad
week gives me so much strength. Why? Well, for starters, she hasn’t
exactly had an easy life. Yet she’s still standing. For everything she
is and she isn’t – I can honestly say she’s authentic. You know, I just
think she’s awesome.

Wild Heart
But not everyone else always thought she was “awesome”. In fact, some people thought she was awful…
different, strange, eccentric, and just not a very “good” person at
times. She was a wild heart. She was a rebel. Heck, she was human.
She had a mind of her own and the will of an ox. And… she was a
redhead after all – which is only to say that it wasn’t too easy to fit
in for most of her life right from the get go.

And what a
character… this is not to say that my grandmother was a some kind of
saint or one of those super loving and doting grandmothers or mothers;
honestly- I didn’t have much of a relationship with her for most of my
young life because she kept her distance from nearly everyone she was
related to in order to pursue a life path in another direction. It
wasn’t exactly Leave it to Beaver from what I gather. The world was a
shaky place in the 1960s and there was a lot of crazy stuff going on in
the world and a lot of crazy stuff going on in my grandmother’s life.

It
wasn’t until later in life, when my own mother began caring for my
grandmother that I really had a chance to get to know her. Turns out
after all these years that my grandmother’s perceptions were just that-
hers. The way she viewed the world was not necessarily the way the world was- but it was the way her
world was. She felt isolated and alone. She felt hurt and
misunderstood; all the while, everyone else felt the same things and
nobody could understand why she alienated herself from their lives, why
she moved so far away (both figuratively and literally)… Ahhh humans.
Beautiful, complicated creatures are we. Misunderstandings,
mis-communications, different perceptions… what a frazzling time for
my grandmother and her family.

Full Circle
It’s
all water under the bridge now, a witchy brew of time, forgiveness,
forgetfulness, and a pinch of old age is enough to cure most family
relationships that have found a wayward path. Everything comes full
circle eventually, the parents care for their children, the children
grow up, get married, and they have children, the parents age, the
children care for the parents and the cycle continues…

Time
has a way of course correcting that which needs it most… if you let
it. If you open your heart. For the short time that I do have my
grandmother left on this planet, I am so grateful that we’ve become
better friends. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. There’s
nothing that means more to me than building authentic
relationships. Not the ones that simple chit-chat and “hello, how are
yous” are built on. The real deal. The kind of relationships that bring
you peace when you feel ….. frazzled. Can
I even begin to tell you how frazzled I am this week? Do you ever feel
like you’re just having a bad week? I mean really. It’s just hilarious.

Is It Really That Bad? Count your blessings!
Life is unpredictable. Life is fleeting. Sometimes you need to put things in perspective. The best way to do that? Count your blessings! You know what else helps me to get perspective? It
helps to take a look at world events to really get a glimpse of the big
picture…

Believe me I know my past week is nothing compared
to the life of the women being raped on a daily basis by the military
in Congo or the millions of men, women, and children who suffer with
HIV related illnesses around the world. Sometimes you just need to put
things in perspective… Webster’s defines perspective as: to look through, to see clearly, the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one.

But It’s Not Fair!
Going
along this line of thinking my friend Maureen (who works in HR) shared
a story with me awhile ago about some employees who were complaining
about a focus group at work and how unfair it was that they had certain
privileges etc, that the other employees did not. What the employees
didn’t realize is that while the focus group did have certain
privileges that the other employees did not, they also had more
responsibilities than the other employees had. Which required the focus
group to work longer hours, weekends, and to be accountable for other
duties that the other employees had no idea about.

The moral of the story is that it was the perception of the other employees that made it seem “not fair”. “Perception is reality” is what Maureen said, and it’s so true.

A person’s perception truly is their reality. It may not be actual reality, or your reality, but it is in fact their own reality.
So what is your perception? What are you currently perceiving when you
look at the world, at others, at yourself? Is what you are perceiving
peaceful, loving, warm, intelligent, creative?

Is what you are
perceiving another opportunity for growth, another opportunity to
evolve, another opportunity to begin a new friendship, another
opportunity to stretch yourself in ways you never knew you could?

Or
is what you are perceiving another wasted occasion to give rise to
resentment, jealousy, mistrust, self-pity? Do you perceive problems and
challenges as disappointments, as discouraging, and as if the world is
against you?

We must be mindful
of what our perceptions are… because not one of us can truly know
what another is experiencing. All we know is what we perceive… For
what we see… depends mainly on what we look for.

What we see
depends mainly
on what we
look
for.

What are you looking for in others? In yourself? In life? In your challenges? In your bad week? Are you looking
for the things that irk you? Are you looking for irritation, unrest,
discomfort? Are you looking for another hurtful item to add to the
laundry list of things going wrong? If you are, you’ve got a long,
painful journey ahead of you.

When we seek out and keep track of the hurtful, stupid, ugly things that we perceive
life to be throwing our way – we are reminded that these very things
are shown to us through the mirror of the Universe. What we perceive of
others is what is reflected back unto us. It is us.

Kindness and Wisdom
Growing up I had a lot of perceptions about my grandmother, I didn’t always
think she was so wonderful you know. Ironically, it was my own mother,
who helped me to change my perception of who my grandmother was. It was
my mother who found forgiveness in her own heart for my grandmother and
helped me to find it in mine. My mother is so many things to so many
people… and she continues to be an inspiration of true kindness to me.

When you look at others, what are you looking for?
Are you looking for love, acceptance,
kindness, friendship… truth?
If you look for these things…
you will find them…
even in the most unlikely of places…
even
in the most
unlikely
of
people.

Dina PIepoli Udomsak is a writer, actor, and self-proclaimed medatative foodie. For more Udo visit her lifestyle blog: www.udoumami.blogspot.com