I would like to ask a couple questions concerning my mother. A little bit of background first—my mother is the type of person to see everything in a very black and white way, she holds very very tighly to her belief systems. I have had the sense for a long time now, that part of my “role” in her life is to challenge these belief systems. When I look back on my life I can find many times, almost too many to count, where I was simply living my life the best way I saw fit, but in doing this I was directly challenging what she saw as the right way or the wrong way to do things. This always seems to cause her much distress, but again it is never intentional, only me just going about my life. (one example is that her belief system says “divorce is evil”, but I got divorced. This was a very amiable divorce, and definitely the right thing for me, yet she was upset for months) But there are also many smaller issues that crop up all the time. So my first question is, am I right in my gut feeling that I am here in this life in this time partly to challenge her belief systems? It seems every time I turn around, I am doing or saying something that challenges her way of thinking, and I am the only one in the family who seems to do this. Is one of my roles with her to be sort of a catalyst who shows her that there are other ways of doing things that are OK? Or is this role that I seem to have with her related to other lives somehow? I’m hoping that understanding my role with her might help me to cope with our very strained relationship!

The second question will hopefully help others who also deal with the issue of when to try to help sick friends and relatives, and when not to. My mom is very sick, it seems at times that there is not a healthy cell in her body. She has something “wrong” with every bodily system from head to toe. I also have struggled with serious health issues, but I have greatly improved my health through holistic methods. I want very badly to share what I have learned with her, but she will not have it. One of her belief systems says “mainstream medicine is good, anything holistic or alternative is bad”, even though I have improved my health so much and she knows that. So again, here I am challenging yet another one of her beliefs. But I would so like to help her! I feel that there is so much she could do to help herself. She complains constantly about how sick she feels, yet when I try to offer suggestions she only argues with me. I don’t feel that I have all the answers for her, but it would be so nice to at least point her in a different direction. Should I give up and not try to help her, or maybe only mention things if it seems to fit into the conversation? I just don’t know what to say when she complains so much, just sort of agree with her and nod my head, or should I keep trying to lead her towards things that might help. I have read Freedom from Judgement twice, it is a wonderful book—most of it speaks to me very strongly. I know you say that people need to come forward and get help when the time is right for them. But how would you suggest handling being around her when she is constantly complaining and bemoaning her situation? It’s hard to just ignore her and watch her suffer and not say anything, but I don’t know what else to do.

Thank you so much Andreas!