Don’t Worry, Be Happy

“Happiness is not something readymade.  It comes from your own actions” – Dalai Lama

As an adult you might look at all the clean laundry on this bed and sigh, thinking that it all needed to be folded or hung up and put away.

But my two grandsons didn’t see a pile of work to do, they saw fun.  The smiles on their faces make my heart burst with joy.  Can you remember being this age and thinking that everything in and around your house was just waiting for you to figure out a way to have fun with it?

As an adult you need to get back that lens of seeing things as something ready made to make you happy.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do, are in harmony” – Mahatma Gandhi

One of the things that I love about watching small children, is their ability to just be themselves.  They aren’t hiding who they are behind a mask, no fake smiles, no hidden agendas.  If something does happen that makes them sad or mad, their emotions flow straight through them.  The don’t pout in the corner waiting for someone to coax them back into a good mood.  They have their moments when a tantrum hits them, then they immediately get distracted and two minutes later they are on the bed rolling in clean clothes and laughing about nothing.

They don’t have baggage that they carry around with them, that slows down their emotions.  They don’t find themselves trapped in an endless loop of replaying a bad experience over and over again.  They don’t let their emotions send them into an endless spiral of judgment and negativity.  They don’t spend their days getting triggered by something unimportant. They don’t let a single thing cause them to spend the rest of the day in a bad mood.

“The best thing that you can do to this world is to be joyous.  Being joyful, is the greatest offering you can make to the world”  – Jaggi Vasadev

Have you ever been in a terrific mood, driving down the freeway as you go to work?  Then someone cuts you off.  You might mutter under your breath.  Or maybe you yell at the driver shaking you head or hands.  Or maybe you drive right up on their bumper to let them know how angry you are.

A few weeks ago, two drivers were going down the freeway, and I don’t know what started the argument, but they were taking turns cutting each other off, then they pulled their cars over and one man got out with a baseball bat.  Fortunately, there was a highway patrol behind them, and he was able to stop it from escalating even further.

Why do people let someone else’s actions destroy their own good mood?  Why do they feel the need to somehow get back at them for their either unthinking or aggressive driving habits?

“Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy”  – Unknown

It isn’t easy to let things go as fast as they happen to you.  But if you remember these two rascals and a load of clothes just out of the dryer, maybe, just maybe, you can be like a child.  Feel the emotion, and let it flow out of you.  Take back your self respect and don’t allow anyone to push you down the rabbit hole of negative emotions.  Just walk away.  Dance down the sidewalk.  Laugh.

Just because someone invites you to argue and fight,

doesn’t mean you have to accept the invitation.

Self-Awareness allows you the space to check in within you and choose happiness.  To choose not to worry.  To choose the “easy button” in all aspects of living your life in joy and happiness.

When you choose to live your life from the place of gratitude it helps you to shift your energy, to bring in more of what you want in your life.  As you walk down your chosen path, the journey of life brings you many things.  Not all of them are meant to stay.  Everything in your life currently is serving some sort of purpose.  Part of the journey is figuring out why it is in your life.

What it is supposed to be teaching you, and once you know and implement that knowledge, then it is time to let it go.  What an interesting thing it is to recognize that in every moment you have choices laid before you.  You can choose anger and frustration, or you can let the negative emotion roll in a wave over you and past you to the shore.  Watch as it draws all of the negativity back out to sea.

“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong.  The amount of work is the same” – Carol Castenada

Sometimes happiness is a feeling. Sometimes it’s a decision.  Don’t let stupid things break your happiness.  If you really look at life, while you will have tragedy happen in your life, most of your unhappiness from day to day is your being triggered by something stupid.

• What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose?
• Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them?
• Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you?
• Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

Remember, we here at LemonadeMakers are here for you.  Contact us and let us help you choose a million reasons to be happy.

Celebrate The Hero In Each Of Us, That Voice That Is Brave Enough To Say “Enough” And “No More”

“Strength doesn’t come from what you can do.  It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t” – Rikki Rogers

Life in a Jar . . .  a play written by school children in Kansas.  Tells the story of Irena Sendlerowa who saved around 2,500 Jewish babies from Nazi death camps.  Saying that what she did was nothing special, she said “I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality.  The term hero irritates me greatly.  The opposite is true.  I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little.”

She was captured by the Gestapo and beaten, breaking and crushing her legs and feet, and then driven away to be executed.  On the way, she was rescued.  She was never able to walk without crutches afterwards.

I think that most of us wonder if we would have had the strength and courage to do what Irena did.  Risk our lives for children that we didn’t know.  To survive that kind of beating.  To have the attitude of thinking that we could have done more than rescue 2,500 children.  She is a special kind of hero.

As brave as Irena was, think for a moment of being the mother who had to decide if she could give up her child.

What guarantee was there that this would in fact save her child?  Where did such inner strength come from?  Most of the parents who gave up their children did not survive the war and lost their lives in the death camps.

Put yourself in that place for just a moment, could you have given your child to Irena?  Their story is told in the PBS program, “Irena Sandler:  In the Name of Their Mothers”.

Harriet Tubman is another amazing woman.  Born a slave, she ran away leaving her husband and children to escape slavery.  Walking almost 90 miles to Philadelphia with no map, directions or help.  She returned to the South at least 19 times and lead her family and hundreds of other slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad.  She was very intuitive and had dreams that would tell her when to leave the road, or that a particular way was not safe.

A movie about her life was made, called “A Woman Called Moses“.  She is an inspiration again, for standing up for what is right with bravery and courageous action.  After rescuing her family, the fact that she went back again and again, with a large bounty on her head for over 10 years makes her a monument to courage and determination.  She was also involved in helping women get the vote, working with Susan B Anthony.

“Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle” – Christian D. Larson

You could write story after story about amazing people who showed tremendous resilience and courage.  Who dug down deep within themselves to find their inner strength to live through trials and tribulations.  Who fought through the inner and outer darkness of their lives.

In fact, all of us have such stories within our own lives.  You may think that what you have done in your life doesn’t compare to the stories you have heard, the ones that you have labeled as heroes.  I am sure that if you were to talk with Malala Yousufzai, she would insist that what she did standing up in defiance to those who wanted to prevent her being educated, was nothing notable.  We are all Irena’s, and Harriet’s, and Malala’s.

Maya Angelou is another courageous woman, my hero.  Her writing and her wisdom are so inspiring.  One of my favorite quotes of hers, “I can be changed by what happens to me.  But I refuse to be reduced by it”.  We all face in our lives numerous times that test us.  Things can happen that can shatter you, that can pierce your soul.  But nothing that happens can reduce you to something less that you are.

“A strong woman knows she has strength enough for the journey, but a woman of strength knows it is in the journey where she will become strong” – Unknown

Like the water in a lake.  Something can cause large ripples that disturb your peace, that shatters your emotions.  The cause of the disturbance, like a large rock, might sink to the bottom of your lake, your soul.  It might forever change you, but it does not reduce you.

You still have the power to return to your inner and outer peace.  To continue to learn, grow, and transform your life.  To be curious as to what else is possible in your life.  To be an intelligent, courageous, loving woman who teaches others by being her best possible self.

Journal prompts:

• What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose?
• Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them?
• Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you?
• Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

 

Have Faith That Everything Will Work Out For The Best

There is an inner beauty about a girl who believes in herself, who knows she is capable of anything that she puts her mind to.  There is a beauty in the strength and determination of a girl who follows her own path, who isn’t thrown off by obstacles along the way.  There is an inner beauty about a girl whose confidence comes from experiences, who knows she can fall, pick herself up and move on – Unknown

I love the last line.  When we step outside of our comfort zone, when we take a leap of faith, there are times we fall down.  It is part of the process.  When a baby starts crawling, then climbing up and walking along the furniture, they display the perfect attitude.  They take a step or two, with wobbly legs and almost no balance.  They fall on their butts.  They may cry.  But the next thing you know they are back to trying to take another step. 

We tell them “come to moma” and they get the biggest grins on their faces, so excited.  They take a wobbly step after wobbly step into the moms arms.  This is what walking outside the comfort zone is about.  Taking a first step and another, wobbling along the way.  Crashing and burning and getting back up until we can walk with perfect balance and ease.

She was unstoppable. not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them  – Unknown

No matter how many defeats we encounter, we can recover.  We are resilient and we don’t “cry uncle”, we figure out another way around the obstacle and continue on.  Along our life journey we can expect that there will be times when we become lost to our purpose and passion in life.  We may encounter some sort of addiction problem; we may go through the loss of a spouse or child that sends us off the deep end; we may have severe health issues that make us wonder if we want to continue living; we may encounter mental health issues.  What we need to understand is that there isn’t any mistake or issue in our life that we can’t rise up out of.

Strong Woman – you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.  In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it  – Maya Angelou

Recovery from anything goes through a process.  Good days, bad days.  You will sometimes feel all alone and maybe even abandoned by others.  The flip side of that feeling is that you are now empowered to help others who are struggling.  Your friends and family may not understand what you are going through.  Instead of bottling up your struggle or judging them as insensitive, you have the opportunity to try to explain in a million different ways.  Sometimes if they haven’t walked in your shoes, it is like trying to explain the fax machine to a two year old.  You can explain how it works a million different ways, but they won’t understand.  So that has to be ok.  Sometimes we just have to accept, “it is what it is” and move onward.

Whenever we begin to feel as if we can no longer go on, hope whispers in our ear to remind us that we are strong – Robert M Hensel

Your problems won’t magically go away, but as you recover they will become more and more manageable.  The days of overwhelm will get fewer.  As you go through the process of recovery, you will change in many small and large ways.  It is hard to see the changes yourself.  It is like when you have a 12 month old who is learning how to walk, run, and talk.  They are growing like crazy, but we don’t really notice until nothing they have fits.  But if you were to go on a trip for two weeks and come back to that toddler, you would immediately see all of the changes in growth and things that they are doing.  Others notice the changes faster than we do, because they have the space away from us.

Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress.  Working hard for something we love is called passion – Unknown

The important thing to remember when we are going through any kind of recovery, is the end result that we are working towards.  What we are fighting for.  Working out everyday at the gym results in our becoming happier, healthier, stronger, as step by step we are recovering.  There may be times in the fight where we miss guarding ourselves and get punched.  We may fall to the ground, breathing heavy, wondering if we can get back up.  What we have to remember is that as long as we get back up, keep fighting for our wholeness, we have not lost.

Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.  – Unknown

Take the time to breathe.  It seems simple, but have you ever we taken a yoga class and been reminded that you are holding your breath and you need to breathe?  Or maybe doing something on a machine in the gym and the instructor is reminding you to breathe?  There are times were we seem to hold our breath, because something is somewhat painful.  There are times when are so excited or angry that we forget to breathe.  The proverb of taking 10 deep breaths before speaking or acting comes into play here.  When we take really deep full belly breaths it somehow seems to disconnect us from our runaway emotions and allows our brain to reconnect and begin to direct our thoughts. 

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same  – Carlos Castenada

If we take those 10 deep full belly breaths right now, you will see what I mean.  It will allow you to see some patterns, some logical reasoning comes back into your space and you can see how although the recovery was painful, it does have some wonderful jewels buried right alongside of you.  There are some positive things that you have learned about yourself on this journey.  Today is the best day to celebrate with gratitude those gifts.  Believe in yourself again.  Love those around you and most importantly love yourself.  Live, Laugh, Love and celebrate life again.

Destiny Gives Us Fairy Tales

The winds scattered my leaves but my roots remained firm.  They tried to wound me, but I grew stronger in the broken places.  I wondered if I would survive, but then I saw a sparkle . . . My tiara was a little tangled perhaps but it never fell off after all.

  – Jane Lee Logan

When we were children we touched dragonflies and reached for the stars.  We talked to the moon and danced through the forest with the fairies.  We saw wonder and believed in happy endings.  What we may not have realized is that the happy ending, was just that moment in time.  That there was more to the story.  The heroes journey doesn’t end.  There are always more challenges, more growth.  Change, transformation, life continues ever onward.  The end is never really the end.

Love your whole story even if it hasn’t been the perfect fairy tale.

  – Melanie Moushigian Kouloruis

In the ups and downs of life, our story goes by the meaning we put to it.  How many times have you heard of someone being laid off or fired?  They are anxious, panicked, and feel like the world has ended.  But at some point, they start their own business, or get hired at a new company and the next thing you hear is how losing that job was the best thing that ever happened.  What changed?  The meaning they were putting to their own story.

We long for a fairytales in a world full of nightmares.

  N.C.

It really is about the meaning that you give to what is currently happening in your life.  We seem to feel that life should be all roses, and forget that the roses also have thorns.  Is it a rosebush or a thornbush?  Look at the fairy tales themselves.  Peter Pan had Captain Hook, pirates and the Crocodile.  Snow White had the Evil Queen and her minions.  Ariel had her father, the Sea Witch.  There are always obstacles, failures, dragons and demons.  They help us to grow by overcoming them.

If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy tales and I like them best of all.

  – Audrey Hepburn

From the Genie in the bottle, we learned to form our wishes with a lot of thought and detail, because otherwise they will turn on us.  We find helpers along the way.  We fight through our fears.  We become less judgmental and more compassionate as we see how hard life can be.  We become better people.  The reason why there is a happy ending, is that the characters did not give up.

Love is overcoming obstacles, facing each challenge with integrity.  Love is difficult to define and it begins with learning to truly love ourselves.  Love is realizing that the world or life, doesn’t just happen to us, it happens because of us.  And every single challenge, obstacle, and opportunity that happens is worth it.  It is worth it because when you believe in “YOU”, you can make anything happen.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

  – C.S. Lewis

I loved the Lewis Carroll line, “the best gift you could give her was a lifetime of adventures” because it comes back to the meaning that we give to what is happening in our lives.  If you look at this as a lifetime of adventures, you can be Princess Lea, or Indiana Jones.  If you look at the movies they played in, they had a lot of bad things happen.  They lost loved ones, lost homes, failed in epic battles.  But they also believed that in the end, good wins.  And if your “good” isn’t doing so well right now, then it isn’t the end.  You are still in the middle of your adventure.  Or maybe you’re at the scene right before the end, where everything is dark and tragic and stacked up against you so high, there is no way you can win.  But if you keep moving forward, no matter how hard that step by step is, you are about to get your second wind and turn it all around.

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

  – Walt Disney

We need both courage and imagination to live the life we dream of.  I am a huge Princess Bride fan.  This reminds me of two scenes in the movie – one is when Wesley is on the bed.  He is still not fully recovered from being mostly dead.  He can hardly move, and the prince comes in to finish him off.  Wesley challenges him “to the pain” and describes in great horrific detail what will happen to him should they fight.  The prince ends up giving up without a fight.  The whole time Wesley was completely vulnerable, but he didn’t just give up.  Using his creative imagination he bluffed his way into victory from a place of complete defeat.  The other scene is when Inigo Montoya finds the six fingered man and starts fighting him.  At one point it appears that he is going to die and fail to avenge his father.  But then he gets that second wind and defeats him.  Both stories had that climax when it seemed all was dark and failure was imminent.  But they kept going, one using a bluff, and one using the years of training and preparation to win the battle.

I’m a romantic and I kinda believed in this fairy tale.  And in some ways I think that’s always been to my advantage, because if you can believe in something great, you can achieve something great.

  – Katy Perry

Every night you dream.  In your dreams about your life are these seeds of greatness.  Your heart and soul speak to you in dreams.  They put a little soil around those seeds of greatness.  They water them.  They weed out of your life the things that don’t belong.  They weed out the things that are holding you back.  But at the end of the day, it is up to you to take those small plants and put them out into the world to grow into what they are supposed to be.  We see it happen all around us everyday.  People using their imagination and technology are out there creating products, businesses, services.  They are giving back to their community.  They are making a difference in the world, by doing what others say can’t be done.  Then there are the ones who never transplant their dreams into the world, but hold them tightly in the dark spaces of their souls.  They are so afraid of the dream, that they stunt it into a characticture of what it might have been.

A dream is a wish your heart makes. 

  – Unknown

 Remember Mary Poppins – “Anything can happen if you let it.”  Just because you lose a shoe at midnight, it doesn’t mean that you walk home barefoot.  Maybe it means a new pair of dancing shoes!  And who doesn’t want a new pair of shoes?

Passion Is The Seed Of Genius

Nothing is as important as passion.  No matter what you want to do with your life, be passionate.

  – Jon Bon Jovi

Passion is always calling to us.  It pokes at us in our dreams.  It shows up in the music we listen to, the movies we watch, the books we read.  We see it everywhere and we unconsciously sweep it under the rug.  We don’t have time for it right now.  We have jobs to go to, bills to pay, children to raise.  It becomes our someday mantra.  Someday I will write poetry.  Someday I will write the music that I hear in my head.  Someday I will write down the story I have been telling my children and draw out the illustrations.  Someday I will take that class at the local community college and learn more about that profession that is calling to me.  We will live the life of our dreams someday.  Someday we will listen to our hearts calling.  Someday we will live it, breathe it, begin it.

Passion is living uncomfortably on purpose.

It is choosing to stay up late and wake up early.

It is choosing to forego certain luxuries, and sometimes even some necessities.

It is choosing to look foolish, even when you care what others think.

It is asking for advice and choosing not to take it.

It is being afraid and anxious, but going out of your comfort zone anyway.

Unknown

Even though all of our “reasons” for not following our passion seem to be logical and reasonable, they are in fact killing your soul.  It has this intense yearning to reach out and grow, and we are burying it and telling it we will attend to it later.  Your time is limited.  The cemetery is filled with people who died with their book, their music, their unexplored talents never allowed to grow into the marvelous creations that they could have been.  My grandmother made the worlds best carrot cake.  Her frosting was with cream cheese, but it was different than any frosting I have ever tasted.  It wasn’t too sweet, which is where for my taste buds most cakes are ruined.  It was a secret recipe and one day she had a heart attack and died and no one ever knew what her secret recipe was.  Today decide to share your secret recipes.  Today choose to live uncomfortably on purpose.  Choose to look foolish and walk away from the comfortable life and let the fires of your passion direct you.,  Today choose to take the first step outside of your comfort zone,.

Always go with your passions.  Never ask yourself if it is realistic or not.

  – Deepak Chopra

When you step outside of that comfort zone, it is really scary.  Others will say, “have you gone crazy?”  But secretly in their hearts they are jealous.  As they watch you take not only the first step, but step after step, what you are doing is giving them permission to gather up their own courage and take their own first step.  Like when we try to do anything that is new, there will be failures.  What is so interesting when you look backwards and review your journey, each of those failures are when you grew the most.  For me, it has been learning from a self sabotage failure, expand my comfort zone, live in that space for a while, then another push out of the comfort zone, another failure, grow from the experience and live in the new comfort zone for a while and do it all again.  Your own journey will show you a pattern. Each time we examine the pattern, we can tweak it to change the trajectory to be less failures, or less time in the new comfort zone, or add in anything that we think is missing from the process. The critical thing is just like following the trail of breadcrumbs that we keep following to where our passion is leading us.

You can’t do passion halfway.  Living your passion means you’re all in.  You trust your heart and trust your gut wherever that takes you.

  – Joe Plummer

Too many people live an unfulfilled life.  They have a daily existence of doing, but they are not really being.  They wake up, go to a job that doesn’t fulfill them, come home and watch TV or take care of their families needs, but at no time is there time to live the life they dream about in their hearts.  Don’t settle.  Don’t just live in the rut and decorate it, thinking that will make it more bearable.  We think that we are making others happy by denying ourselves.  But you living a half lived life doesn’t benefit anyone.  You are in fact robbing your family of knowing and loving who you really are.  You are stealing from the world what gifts you brought to the world.  You are telling your God, thanks for the seeds of genius that you planted in me, but I am not going to use them.

Respond to every call that excites your spirit.

  – Rumi

Instead be scared of living a life without passion directing it.  Be scared of living an unfulfilled life. Be scared of being dead, while you are still alive.   Don’t put off your dreams one more day.  Life is really pretty simple.  Stop make it more difficult than it is.  Start doing things that you love.  Eat every last bite.  Go our and start creating.  Live your dreams out loud.  Wear your passion in dramatic color.   

Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping . . . waiting . . . and though unwanted . . . unbidden . . . it will stir . . . open it’s jaws and howl.  It speaks to us . . .  guides us . . . passion rules us all, and we obey.  What other choice do we have?  Passion is the source of our finest moments.  The joy of love . . .  the clarity of hatred . .  and the ecstasy of grief.  It hurts sometimes more than we can bear.  If you could live without passion maybe we’d know some kind of peace . . .  but we would be hollow . . . empty rooms shuttered and dark.  Without passion we’d be truly dead.

  – Josh Whedon

 

In Order To Change The World, You Must Be The Change

“Only I can change my life.  No one can do it for me”  –  Carol Burnett

This photo so clearly explains why other people don’t get the transformations that you are being called to make in your life.  There are two different levels of perception here.  And each person can only see their own level of perception.  Both are true.  I can explain what I see with twenty thousand words, and if your level of perception is contained in the world she is pulling away, dark depressing and dreary, you will never see the sunshine that I do.

 “Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands”  – Clint Eastwood

The better you know yourself the better you can embrace change.  Self knowledge is vital, because your subconscious minds run these programs behind the scenes.  Your subconscious like things exactly the way they are.  It will try to keep you in your comfort zone.  You need to let go of the old programs.

Most of the fears that you have, are fears of the unknown.  Those fears feature negative programing.  This programming will keep you stuck in the shadows, in the dark.  It will keep you from perceiving what else is possible.  I know that for myself when I have a medical issue, waiting for test results is the worst.  My mind goes crazy thinking of all of the possible worst case scenarios.  I am definitely in a dark place with wild imagining of brain tumors, cancer, a failing organ, and so on.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”  – Socrates

But once I have a diagnosis, it all changes.  Now I am researching and figuring out how to cure the issue and become healthy again.  Now I have something tangible to work towards.  The unknown has been removed and that fear is dissolved.  I am free again to begin making positive changes for my health and my life.

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears” – Nelson Mandela

That doesn’t mean that fear doesn’t show up again.  It does.  But if you are being honest with yourself, you can identify the unknown piece that is creating the fear and remove it with new knowledge.

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow.  If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living”  – Gail Sheehy

How do you know when fear of the unknown is showing up in your life?

• It shows up whenever you find yourself avoiding something that needs to be done
• It shows up when you find that your progress towards a dream is slowing down
• It shows up when you begin to lose passion and fire towards the dream.
• It shows up when you begin to feel like you are wading through the mud instead of flowing down the stream.

Whenever these feelings start to exist, it is time to get quiet in your mind.  To sit quietly and ask your inner knower

• “What am I not seeing?”
• “What is it that is slowing me down or sidetracking me?”
• “What research can I do to bring light to this area?”

“I am on the hunt for who I’ve not yet become”  – Unknown

Once you identify the fear, then sit with it a while longer.  See what lies beneath that fear.  I can guarantee that there is always another layer.  Fears tend to travel in packs like wild dogs.  Each dog having its own fear.  Once you think you have given each dog a name, now you can make the dog stop its barking by addressing its own particular fear.

You will know if you are successful because you will feel the energy and passion return to your dream.  All of a sudden you will feel flow happening and that progress is being made.  It is like a hose that has a kink in it.  At first it feels like you are not getting any water pressure.  But once you find the kink and straighten it out, the water comes rushing out at full force.

“Change can be beautiful when we are brave enough to evolve with it, and change can be brutal when we fearfully resist”  – Bryant McGill

The key is to pay attention to what is happening in your life.  It is so easy to get lost and sidetracked.  It is so easy for the fears so sneak up on you and gain control.  It is also easy to stop and listen to your heart and soul for guidance.

“It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop”  – Unknown

It takes practice to check in with yourself on a regular basis.  Meditation and journaling are two practices that will help you to keep track of where you are, and wake you up if you start to fall asleep.

I know how much my writing helps me to catch myself when I start to get sidetracked.  It brings my energy back up into the higher vibrations.  These higher vibrations are a vital part of bringing your dreams into reality.  Remind yourself of what you have already transformed in your past.  Take courage that you can transform whatever is currently in front of you now.  Truly, the better you know yourself, the better you can embrace what is now changing in your life.

What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose? Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them? Have you allowed distractions to side track you? Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

If not, contact LemonadeMakers via messenger.  We can talk – asking and thinking about the right questions will open doors for you.

Windwalkers – The Eagles Among Us

Soaring in solitude,
Grandfather Eagle calls to me as he circles high above.
With a few strokes his wings push him higher,
even higher above mother earth.

His razor vision upon me,
he reminds me that I have the gift of inner vision
to see far off in the distance of my own journey.

Just as he sometimes soars on the air currents,
and other times beats his wings to fly against the wind,
I too can adjust my journey to meet what is coming down the road to meet me.

As he circles overhead,
he conserves his energy by gliding with the air currents.
I am reminded of the need for rest,
to not be constantly pushing my body to exhaustion.

He appears to be drifting,
but one pump of his wings reminds me that action
is always needed to remain in forward motion and go the full distance.

At all times he is connected to mother earth,
staying grounded with his vision.
He always remembers where home is. I see he flies with purpose.

If I am to remain strong in my vision,
I too must be grounded into our mother’s soul,
so that I am not blown off course by the winds of distraction.

He flexes his talons and cries out again
reminding me that I must listen to my intuition
in order to know when to take flight,
and when to stand strong and fight for the vision within me.

I must be strong enough to not only give birth to it,
but to also grow it into maturity.
I must know when it is time to leave the nest,
stretch out my wings and take flight.

He shows me visions of his long journey,
I see high above the ground the hundreds of miles he has flown,
from new moon to new moon,
over the mountains, the desert, hills, valleys, lakes, and rivers he has seen.

He speaks to me of his great courage
in his willingness to explore the unknown,
to not just look in the light,
but to peer into the dark shadowed places.

He is not terrified of the emptiness of the unknown.
I see the great lesson from the creator that he is teaching,
to not be afraid to journey into places and experiences that are unknown.

Even the dark places have important lessons to be learned.
He plummets out of the sky dropping without sound,
and with perfect accuracy catches his prey unaware.

As he climbs back into the heights,
he calls out to see if I understand the import of yet another lesson,
that of being here now.

The prey was not aware of the danger approaching.
The prey was living in either the past which can’t be changed,
or the future which hasn’t yet happened.

I nod my head grateful for the reminder
to be alert to what is happening around me,
so that I don’t miss the messages that the great creator sends me.

The Windwalker alone of all birds’
flies above the rain instead of landing until storms ends.

He reflects that those with the Windwalkers gifts
must never allow circumstances to deflect us from our purpose,
but instead gather our courage and stretch our limits.

By flying higher,
we gain a greater perspective,
we can see that while others might be shortsighted
and think we are in retreat,
we are in fact advancing high above the clouds.

We do not let hardships bring us down into hiding,
but we continue onwards in our journey.

His sharp beak and strong jaw muscles
reflect the importance of knowing when to speak,
how much to say,
and how strong the words need to be
in order to impart the lessons of the past
and those visions yet to happen.

The Windwalkers,
like many of our earth’s brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom,
have many lessons to teach us
reminding us of what we already know but have forgotten.

We must have the eyes to see,
the ears to listen,
and the wisdom into our heart,
to them implement it in our lives.

When you hear the cry of the eagle,
Stop,
and contemplate what his reminder to you might be.

Curiosity Is The First Step In Awakening The Soul

“Many of us step foot on to the path to spiritual enlightenment expecting it to lead us onward and upward, hoping to become something better than we are, and ready to gather all of the important things we need along the way.  What a surprise it is when we eventually realize that this path isn’t taking us onward but inward, that we’re not gather things so much as letting them go, and that there was never anything more to aspire to than the truth of what we already are” – Cristen Rodgers

Something will occur in your life when the soul is ready to wake up.  It could be a health scare or near-death experience that you have.  It could be losing a parent, spouse or child.  Loss of identity when you lose your job.  A divorce.  Then come the signs of feeling that your life is empty, devoid of real meaning and purpose.

It is as though you are lost in the woods, and you keep trying to find a trail back to your car.  You keep wandering and you’re starting to panic.  You feel as though something is lost or missing in your life.  Like there is this giant hole that you keep walking around.  You don’t know what it means, except that you have to find something to make your life meaningful.

You start questioning everything you have been taught.  Either you have abandoned God, or you feel he has abandoned you.  There is a sense of injustice.  You feel like a blind person groping about in the darkness in a strange place.  Loved ones may be trying to help you, and you just want everyone to leave you alone.  In fact it seems to be a necessity if you are to figure this out – you must be alone.

“Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning.  They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers.  Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others at oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening.  Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance” – Henri Bergson

It is the being alone that allows you to go within.  Solitude is important when you start on this path to enlightenment.  You need for space for just sitting and going within.  To connect, to see what is crying out to be released as not being part of your authentic self.  To regenerate and renew the pieces of you that were killed off as part of social conditioning.  The parts you buried because you were told it wasn’t safe to be who you really are.  It takes a great deal of courage to go within and choose to be your true self.

When you start down this path, you will think you are missing something.  Think back to the Wizard of Oz and the journey down the yellow brick road.  Toto was a catalyst for Dorothy always running off when Dorothy was needing to wake up and become conscious about something.  The first thing she found on the journey was the ruby slippers.  She had no idea of the power of the slippers and they remained dormant until she was enlightened enough to correctly use them.

The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, they all had what they were looking for.  The journey for them, was to look inside and expand their boundaries and eliminate their limitations.  To realize their full potential.  They weren’t missing anything.  They just needed to awaken to who they already were.  To choose to be better.  To let go of doubts and stories.  You tell yourself similar stories about not being capable of doing something.  The Wizard of Oz cast of characters needed to gather enough experience, to have the confidence that they were more than enough.

As you walk down your own yellow brick road of self-discovery, you will uncover the enlightenment that you’re seeking.  You will discover who you are deep within your heart and soul.  You will grow and transform into who you are destined to become.  Your life experiences have been designed specifically, to help you learn the skills required to fulfill your destiny.

Instead of continuing to conform to others ideas of who you should be, you choose to listen to the guidance of your own soul’s voice.  To travel the unexplored path, to think outside of the box, to be curious and question everything you have been taught.  To discover the impossible journey.

Curiosity is the beginning of awakening.  It is the first step on the path to discover who you are, what your purpose is, what feeds your soul.  When you get curious you start exploring the world around you with different eyes.  You get clarity about what to release and leave behind, as you see what no longer fits who you are becoming.  You open up to new things; new truths, new understandings, new awakenings.  You create the magic of uncovering who you are.

The treasures of gifts you never acknowledged.  You let go of fear after fear.  You start honoring and valuing who you are deep down inside.  Self love and self trust grow and expand with each fear that you release.  You realize that each fear was designed to hold you captive.  You were caged by fear, so that you couldn’t discover your divine self.

“You reach a point where you feel yourself going through an awakening.  You look at what you used to do and who you used to be.  It hurts because you realize you believed in and promoted nonsense.  You grow; you evolve and you stop because you no longer operate at that frequency.  As a result, there’s certain people that you have to walk away from.  As a result, you start to realize just how messed up the world is.  You want to help; you want to heal; you want to make it a better world.  This is how you know you’re awakening a higher level of consciousness . . .  “ – Sylvester McNutt

When you start living from that authentic place deep inside of you, you will be truly seen.  In order to be who you are at the soul level, you have to let go of the stories you have been defined by your whole life.  It is like a puzzle where the pieces were jammed into place because they didn’t quite fit.  When you are living life from the authentic place at the soul level you begin, piece by piece, to rearrange all of those jammed pieces of the puzzle.

You realize who you are at your deepest level.  When that happens, all the pieces will fit together with no gaps.  That is when you will experience a whole new level of love, grace, peace and serenity in your life.

You will still have road blocks on your path.  You will still continue to grow through success and failures.  The difference is that you begin to recover faster.  The difference is that as you embrace what is true, you keep being curious about your life purpose.  You ask better questions that when you started.  The difference is measured by real progress on our life’s journey.

Never Be Defined By Your Past

Fear is like the Wizard of Oz, projecting itself onto the screen, frightening you with how powerful it is.  When in reality, it is a small man behind the curtain. Don’t be afraid to move the curtain and expose the fear. Finding the blessing in the fear, is the opportunity to open your heart and mind to the idea of change and reinvention.

“Sometimes painful things can teach us lessons that we didn’t think we needed to know” – Unknown

Lessons show up in painful situations.  Sometimes you consciously choose to change, because you have taken the time to realize something isn’t working and why. Other times you stumble upon ( notice the word stumble) an opportunity.

Sometimes you trip over something and you catch yourself before the fall, hopping across the floor as you try to regain your balance. Other times you can trip over something that face plants you on the ground, and has you digging rocks off your skin. Either way there are still choices to make.

“One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change”  – Unknown

“No matter who tries to teach you lessons about life, you won’t understand it until you go through it on your own”  – Unknown

The classic opportunities for reinvention tend to come from two things. With a heartbreak such as; losing a job, ending a relationship, the death of a close friend or family member.

The classic “good but scary” opportunities for reinvention are you go away to college, you move to a new town with a new job, you get the really big promotion such as those COO, CEO, CFO types of promotions or the best of all, you decide to be an entrepreneur and your own boss.

In today’s world, your fill in the blank might be related to the changing world from Covid-19.  It might be you are living in a war zone.  It might be that you are reaching out to help with refugees in your town.  It might be a medical problem with yourself or a family member.  It might be trying to figure out what’s next in your career or family life.

“There are things in life we don’t want to happen, but have to accept; things we don’t want to know but have to learn; and people we can’t live without, but have to let go”  – Unknown

In today’s world lots of businesses are rethinking how they do business.  They are trying to see the gaps and create opportunities to bridge them. Bringing an idea to life is hard work. You can expect it to cost you more personally, financially, and maybe even reputational than you thought it would. There are sleepless nights. You become a master of second guessing your choice to make this move.

“Disney taught me to never stop 

believing in my dreams

Harry Potter taught me that love and friendship

dominates all kind of evil

Narnia taught me that we must all grown up 

& leave our childhood behind,

but must never forget it

Percy Jackson taught me that there’s

a hero in every one of us

Glee taught me that no matter how different we are,

there’s always that one thing we have in common”  – Unknown

But to be truly committed you need to “burn the boats”.  This expression is a “point of no return”, where you have destroyed all other choices, and you are left with no options but the intention you started with.  It comes from a famous incident when a Spanish Explorer landing in Mexico ordered their ships to be burned.  They either would conquer the country or be killed, because they had no way to return home.

So take away plan b, eliminate the lifeline.  Go all out for what you are passionate about. Follow your bliss. Look at what is working and not working. What you love to do and hate to do. The key is to get immersed in what you are passionate about and hire help for the rest.

“Each day I am thankful for nights that turned into mornings, friends that turned into family, dreams that turned into reality, and likes that turned into loves”  – Unknown

• Surround yourself with people who love to learn, share and build.
• Join or create a mastermind group with people who are putting their ideas into action.
• Seek out those in your community who solve problems and ask for suggestions.
• Create that special group of people who will be your cheerleaders, helping you to remain positive and take the risks that need to be taken, instead of holding yourself back.
  

And remember the three most important words in your fear busting vocabulary: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

Transformation Is A Coin, One Side Painful, The Other Side Beautiful. Just Flip The Coin Until You Get To The Beautiful

“Life is like a roller coaster.  You can either scream every time there is a bump or you can throw your hands up and enjoy the ride” – Unknown

A roller coaster is an interesting ride.  I grew up in Santa Cruz which is home to one of the oldest wooden roller coasters in the United States.  I went on it all of the time.  It is a ride that jerks you around, makes your stomach do flip flops.  Then there is the thrill of adrenaline coursing through your veins when you have both hands up in the air, and can you feel yourself lift off your seat, thighs riding against the bar across your lap.

It can make you frightened, scared, sick, excited and thrilled all in the same moment.  True change and transformation do the same thing.

“And suddenly you know…  It’s time to start something new and trust in the magic of beginnings” – Unknown

There are differences between change and transformation, there is a process to change.  You determine that you have something that you want to remove from your life, and something you want to introduce to your life.  So, you make a change.

I use losing weight as an example because it is something that is common to wrestle with.  A diet is something that you can change to lose weight.  You restrict yourself in your food intake and you might also introduce more exercise.   The problem with this way of doing things is that for 90% of us, it is a temporary change.

For a short while you run every day and eliminate carbs as an example.  You could lose 10, 20, 30 lbs. – but at some point, the willpower that you are exerting for this change dies out and you return to your normal habits.

Transformation isn’t about adding temporary measures to achieve a goal.  It is all about changing the lifestyle. It starts in the chaos.

For myself as an example, there is a reason why I gained weight, and now it needs to be released.  If the pain of wanting to release it doesn’t outweigh the pain of why I gained the weight, then anything I do won’t last.  I know this to be true, because I have been on this roller coaster of losing weight only to regain it all back.

You have to unravel the untruths in your body that the weight was formed from.  You created your own set of demons that put on every pound.  You have to uproot the entire plant and root system, or like a weed it just comes back.  Letting go of the demons you created is an acknowledgement that the “truth” they promised to be for you was a lie.

“One of the most courageous decisions you’ll ever make is to finally let go of what is hurting your heart and soul” – Brigitte Nicole

I have always loved the saying that life is a riddle, wrapped up in a mystery. inside an enigma.  It came from a radio broadcast and is attributed to Winston Churchill.  That is what it is like when you run up against the fear of change.

Somewhere inside of you is the riddle of what has triggered the fear.  Inside the fear is a mystery or story about the fear. Inside the story is the enigma of something subconscious that you can’t remember or recognize.

It is what makes the change temporary and why sometimes such extreme chaos is triggered in order for the transformation to happen.

In my own case with weight, I can feel something different this time.  It’s been three months of change for me so far.  I have released about 25 lbs.  The chaos that has triggered the change is health related.  I can feel a difference in the motivation this time.  It doesn’t feel like short-term thinking for the first time.  Time will of course tell me in the end if this is true transformation.

Whatever the transformation is, it is something that impacts all areas of your life.  It is so drastic a change that you can’t go back to what you were.

For Cat Stevens his transformation was around his spirituality.  He changed his name, he stopped singing and gave up a successful music career, he changed his religion. – and that changed everything.  He had a brush with death and almost drowned in the Pacific Ocean.  He promised God he would work for him, if he could make it back to shore.  Then a wave came that carried him back to shore.

It would be 25 years before he performed publicly again.  It wasn’t a short-term change using willpower. It was a lifestyle transformation.

“Life is filled with so many exciting twists and turns.  Hop off the straight and narrow whenever you can and take the winding paths.  Experience the exhilaration of the view from the edge. Because the moments spent there, that take your breath away, are what make you feel truly alive” – Stacey Charter

• When the winds of change blow, what is your reaction?
• Do you build a wall to keep it out?
• Do you build a windmill to harness the energy to facilitate a true transformation?

All great transformation is preceded by chaos.  Chaos is what sends you on the journey.  For Cat Stevens it would appear that he built a wall to keep things out.

Later in life, he returned to the music world, although he hasn’t had the same success as when he left it.  He released a new album, and it appears that he has torn down the wall, to instead use the energy of the windmill.  He has become very involved with various charity organizations.

Like a roller coaster, his transformation took him to the edge of cutting himself off from the world, and now is taking him to the edge of incorporating his life back into the world, but with a focus of helping child refugees and his charitable foundation, “Small Kindness”.

“You have to stop thinking you’ll be stuck in your situation forever.  We feel like our heart will never heal or we’ll never get out of this impossible struggle.  Don’t confuse a season for a lifetime.  Even your trials have an expiration date.  You will grow, life will change, things will work out” – Brittney Moses

The difference when undergoing transformation,

• You are making the changes from an energetic space, not a willpower space.
• You are making them out of Love not fear.
• You are making them from a place of courage not fear.

Life or death choices are one thread, a single coin.  It is all about which side we are viewing them from.  Lack or abundance?  Love or fear?  Life or death?  Are you screaming at life or throwing your hands up in the air and enjoying it?

Don’t Lose Yourself In The Hatred Of Others

Stay away from people who gossip and spread rumors.  They are choosing the path of emotional bullying and negativity.

  –  Dr Steve Maraboli

This is a really profound quote. It really struck a chord in my heart because I so resonated with the underlying truth. Really sit with the words, “tell me why they were so comfortable to say what they were saying to you”. It is really a hard thing to sit with.  I think that we have all been told gossip.  Some has been quite mean and spiteful.  It can be painful even to hear, especially if is about someone we care about.  What did that person really tell you what they had heard?  

Be careful who you trust, if someone will discuss others with you, they will certainly discuss you with others.

  – Unknown

So what does it say about me, that someone might come to me with some “juicy” gossip that they are spreading about someone I know. What signals am I broadcasting that they think I want to join in and be a part of something like that? How am I telling them that I love the drama of someone else’s downfall?

It’s not your job to stop them from talking behind you, but it’s your job not to let it affect you.

  – Unknown

People for the most part will not say to you a mean or hurtful thing about someone that you really care about. People for the most part will not gossip with someone that they know won’t put up with it.

A lot of problems in the world would disappear if we talk to each other instead of about each other.

  – Unknown

There are some minor exceptions to this rule, like my father in-law. Years ago we were staying with my in-laws waiting for the closing on our home. I had went up to the kitchen to get something and he was there. He went off on a tear down of his son, about how he was a disappointment , that all of my father in-laws failures could be traced back to his children. He said mean, hurtful cruel things about his son. Finally he ran out of steam, and I just looked at him and said, “so what kind of response are you looking for here? Why are you telling me these things? I love my husband and he isn’t anything like the son that you are describing”, and walked away. He is the exception to the rule because he is so unhappy in his life, and he doesn’t want to take responsibility for how it has turned out, so he goes around trying to tear you down to his level. The only thing you can do with someone who has a toxic personality is limit the exposure to them.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

  – Unknown

Years ago I adopted the saying, “not my movie, not my drama”, for when people that I work with start down the road of tearing down someone in their life. My sister says, “not my circus, not my monkeys”. I try very hard not to join in or be around those kinds of conversations. If they won’t let the conversation be turned to something positive, then I excuse myself and walk away.

Someone who hates you normally hates you for one of three reasons.  They either see you are a threat.  They hate themselves.  Or they want to be you.

  – Unknown

What we need in our lives is more positive conversations; more love shown in both our words and out actions. More up building and less tearing down. More compassion and less drama. More celebrating of the positive accomplishments of people and less glorification of the tragedy that takes someone out.

I’m not going to tear you down . . .  if you’re bad-mouthing me, you’re already down.

  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

This even plays out in the feedback we provide around customer service. How fast are we to complain to someone in charge when we are not treated the way we want, but do we have the same rate of speed to ask for someone in charge to praise a persons excellent customer service in taking care of you?

Talking badly about someone else while they aren’t there to defend themselves says more about you than the person you’re talking about.

  – Unknown

This quote takes it a little deeper for me that just avoiding the “drama queens”. It says that the quality of the conversations that I am part of is due in some part (large or small) to what I am attracting – knowingly or unknowingly. Gives me a slice of a shadow that I didn’t realize might still be there to work on rooting out.

I know this will seem a bit crazy, but if you want to know something about me, the best person to ask, is me.

  – Unknown

When I was in high school, I was invited to a slumber party.  I didn’t know the girl well.  I was new to the school, and desperate to fit in.  There was another new girl at school that was also invited.  I am really embarrassed about what happened next.  The girls had a game where as each person would fall asleep they would start gossiping about that person.  I joined in, even though I didn’t really know any of them.  I can remember saying stuff about the other new girl, Denise.  Then feeling guilty I pretended to fall asleep so that I didn’t feel like I had to participate.  Of course, you know what happened next.  They started in our me.  As soon as I could leave without anyone noticing I did.  I walked several miles home, at 3 AM crying the entire way.  I felt horrible for what I did and how they made me feel when they started in on me.  The next day I called Denise and apologized for what I had said.  Denise and I ended up becoming best friends.  It was a life changing moment for me.  I never wanted to feel like that again, and I certainly never wanted to hurt someone like that again.

Let them judge you.  Let them misunderstand you.  Their opinions aren’t your problems.  You stay kind, committed to love and free in your authenticity.  No matter what they do or say, don’t you doubt your worth or the beauty of your truth.  Just keep shining like you always do.

  – Unknown

So remember your life purpose.  Tell your story, your voice matters, yes it is important.  You were born to make an impact.  Pursue your dreams.  Negative people need drama like oxygen.  Stay positive.  It will take their breath away.  Remember what the grandmothers used to say, “Birds peck at the best fruit”.

Some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end.  Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.  Delicious ambiguity . . .

  – Gilda Radner

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New Day, New Chapter

“Not everything has a happy ending, but that’s life.  Just pick up the pieces and move on to the next chapter”  – Unknown

Something tragic happened here.  A bridge was destroyed or a chasm opened up where there used to be solid ground.  Seems to be a great graphic for what the world looks like at the moment.

All kinds of stories and possibilities.  Sounds like some relationships doesn’t it? You meet someone, get to know them.  Start loving and trusting them.  Years may go by with you both the best of friends.  Maybe it is even a sibling or a parent.  Something breaks down in the relationship and everything ends.  It could be gradual or suddenly without warning.  The father cuts off the child because the child isn’t doing what the father wants.  The brother and sister get into an ugly fight, saying unspeakable things as only those who truly know us can.  Years go by without them speaking to each other.  Your best friend cheated with your spouse.

“The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it . . .  some stories just don’t have a happy ending”  – Jodi Picoult

Or this could be the job that you thought you were indispensable at.  You worked long hours – days, nights and weekends spent away from your family.  You poured your heart and soul and even your identity into the job and they fired you or laid you off, or the company shut its doors.  No warning, no idea it was going to happen.  You are devastated.  You feel you are a failure.  You feel like you were used up and then thrown out with the trash.

“There are moments which mark your life.  Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts – before this, and after this”  – Fallen

Or maybe something terrible happens.  Like my sister, your only child is murdered.  The loss of the child ends your marriage and you find yourself lost and alone.  Or maybe it is tragic news for your personal health.  So many possibilities of tragic things that can happen in your life, that leaves you lost, alone, afraid and thinking that your life is over.

“Anyone who tells you to get over it and stop living in the past clearly doesn’t understand the concept of time.  If you’re feeling it now – it’s the present”  – Ranata Suzuki

The thing that all these stories have in common, is that you need to grieve what the loss to you is.  You need to go through the stages of grief for the loss.  You need to work through and let go of the guilt, anger, lost love, loss or betrayal.  It seems that when these things come into your life you get into a fighting mode.  You fight to hold on to what is falling off the edge of the tracks.  Then you fight to let it go before it drags you down into the chasm.

“Grief never ends . . .   But it changes.  It’s a passage, not a place to stay.  Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith . . . It is the price of love” – Unknown

There always comes the day when you feel like you’re actually going to start to live again.  It starts gradually.  You find yourself smiling or laughing.  It might shock you at first.  But gradually the grief lessens, and the joys start coming back into your life.   You become less scared.   You are less terrified that you are so broken that you won’t be whole again.

You start grabbing onto scraps of courage.  You realize that there is a sacredness to tears.  They cleanse your soul.  They speak not only of the grief you are going through, but also of the love you had.  You know that you are turning a corner, when you can hold the grief in one hand and the love in the other.  You realize that you don’t have to pick one.  You realize that when you put your hands together, they are just opposite sides of the same coin.

“The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on.  When you’re faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking” – James Patterson

You realize that you are stumbling through a “dark night of the soul”.  It’s like a natural disaster has hit you.  It tore everything you have built off the foundations.  The wood, the windows, the roof, is in pieces, and they are lying around like someone smashed a popsicle fort.  Like Humpty Dumpty, you feel like you can’t be put back together again.  You realize when the pity party has broken up and all of the revelers have left you alone, is that this is also something wonderful.

Instead of being unhappy with your floor plan; instead of just repainting the same walls and ceilings trying to dress up something you were already unhappy with – you get to rebuild from the foundation up.  You get to build from rock bottom a new solid foundation with the floor plan of your dreams and the best paint colors you can dream up.  You get a “do over” and get to rebuild your life.  You decide, you choose to be the Queen of your own specially designed life.

“One day she finally grasped that unexpected things were always going to happen in life.  And with that, she realized the only control she had was how she chose to handle them.  so, she made the decision to survive using courage, humor, and grace.  She was the Queen of her own life and the choice was hers”  – Kathy Kennet

 A new pattern of thoughts

You are using the brain in your head, heart, and root chakra – You listen to you soul’s voice of intuition and seek fulfillment of your life purpose.  You realize that you don’t have to have it all figured out, in order to move forward towards your dreams – just the next step.

A new way of using the emotional vibrational scale 

Stay in positive emotions.  When the negative emotions come up, like a wave riding into the shore, you allow them to dissipate into the sand and be released.  You don’t hold on to them, rather like the foam left behind as the wave withdraws, the negative emotions simply fade away.

A new spiritual connection to the world 

You face yourself and fully accept who you are, a perfectly imperfect person.  A divine child of God.  With a divine commission to fulfill.

A new belief system 

It’s ok to be daring and different, not afraid to live out loud who you really are.  You are a person of integrity towards your life purpose and with imaginative vision you seek to walk your own path in love, trust, and grace.

“Your life will consist of a series of times when you must reinvent yourself.  We desperately cling to the idea that things should stay the same, but life and growth are about change.  Don’t mistake the end of a chapter for the end of the story.  Lean into the plot changes, and follow your character arc.  If you are in a dark part of your tale, know that this night will not last forever, but you must be brave enough to see it through.  This is not the end, oh no my friend.  Take courage, better things await you” – John Mark Green