Learning Lessons

Some spiritual thinking suggests that patterns of (unwanted) events keep reoccurring in our lives, until we understand the lesson it is trying to teach (and change the pattern). I can understand how this may be applied to, for example attracting dysfunctional personal relationships with the same type of person, but I am wondering if you can help me understand this:  My mother, who I love deeply, has a metal health illness of 25 years

with periods where she does very well, and then periods that require psychiatric hospital care (bi-polar/ schizophrenia). Each time she gets sick I try to understand what I am supposed to learn, and then maybe if I get it, it won’t happen again. I try very hard to understand, and that maybe it’s about unconditional love for her, patience, letting go, but the thing is, is that year after year she continues in the cycle of wellness, sickness regardless. Am I on the right track to think that I can change the pattern of reoccurrence of mom’s illness if I can just see what I’m supposed to learn? Or is “getting the lesson/changing the outcome” something that is not applicable here? I find it difficult to see the bigger picture from a spiritual perspective.