Updated 4/14/22
“Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no whenever you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing” – Eve Ensler
It was really interesting in locating a photo for this quote. I looked up woman in solitude, and 90% of the photos showed women who were depressed, some even suicidal with a hangman’s noose besides one woman and suicide by pills in several others. I couldn’t believe that solitude was paired up with depression and suicide.
Solitude is critical to being able to love oneself. This is not being an isolationist, which could become unbalanced when taken to extremes. But rather as a sign of being balanced, because you are happy with your own company. Being alone doesn’t make you lonely. It took much longer than I thought to find a photo that actually displayed that kind of joyous feeling within it.
As a woman you give so much of yourself away. You constantly see to the needs of others. Solitude is how you can balance this out, so that you are not giving too much of yourself away. Solitude is strength.
At various times of the year, it is vital to have some solitude to review the past few months and do some deep thinking for how you want the rest of the year to be for you.
“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul” – Marcus Aurelius
In reading anything that talks about the “crowd mentality”, it talks about how if you feel you must always be with people, it can be a sign of weakness. This is because you may become prone to follow whatever everyone else is doing, just to belong.
I think most everyone would say they are afraid to stand out, not be “normal”, or speak out against a crowd. The real dividing line is do you let that fear stop you?
There is nothing more freeing and empowering to like your own company and be your own person no matter where you are. It is more fun to be considered weird. Be the orange fish in a sea of blue fish. Go your own direction. Be weird.
I love the first quote because it shows great courage to do things like take trains to somewhere you have never been by yourself. To go so far away that you lose the fear of finding your way home. That you will do something that you know in the depths of your soul is yours alone to do, even when everyone you know disagrees.
“Solitude is the soul’s holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves” – Katrina Kenison
I believe that you have that kind of courage, but sometimes you are still letting life hold you back. I believe this is true of all of us.
There are moments of indecision. Of not being sure of your way. In the end, the only way out, really is, to go through. To step past the place of safety on the sand. You need to actually cross over the line into adventure, stepping into the sea.
“True happiness is impossible without solitude…, I need solitude in my life as I need food and drink and the laughter of little children. Extravagant though it may sound, solitude is the filter of my soul. It nourishes me, and rejuvenates me. Left alone, I discovered that I keep myself good company” – Sophia Loren
Only by being alone with yourself can you come to true honesty with who you are, and how you are being reflected in the world. It is in this place of honesty, you are able to authentically release the parts of you that are not you, and own in the real world the parts of you that are crying to be released into life.
Only to the extent that you expose yourself to the changing tides of the sea, can you transform into who you are becoming. I think that we all want to find out what we are doing here, and we can’t do that staying safely on the dry land. You have to step over the line to experience adventure. Here is to smooth sailing!
For an idea of something that you can do with relative ease, try Forest bathing. It is the practice of immersing yourself in nature in a mindful way. It has a whole range of benefits for your physical, mental, emotional, and social health. It comes to us from Japan and is known as Shinrin-yoku. ‘Shinrin’ means forest and ‘Yoku’ stands for bathing.
Forest bathing in nature allows the stressed portions of your brain to relax. Positive hormones are released in the body. You feel less sad, angry and anxious. It helps to avoid stress and burnout, and aids in fighting depression and anxiety. Immersing yourself in the solitude of you and the forest is very healing to the body, mind, and soul.
A forest bath is known to boost immunity and leads to lesser days of illness as well as faster recovery from injury or surgery. Nature has a positive effect on our mind as well as body. It improves heart and lung health, and is known to increases focus, concentration and memory. Certain trees like conifers also emit oils and compounds to safeguard themselves from microbes and pathogens. These molecules known as Phytoncides are good for our immunity too. Breathing in the forest air boosts the level of natural killer (NK) cells in our blood. NK cells are used in our body to fight infections, cancers and tumors. So spending time with these tree is a special form of tree bathing.
Updated 2/01/2020
2020, in the month April it was the 10-year anniversary of my nephew murder. He would have been 29 years old last month. It’s hard to process everything that has happened as a consequence of that happening in our family. My sister has more good days than bad, but she is still and will probably always be stuck in her loss. My life has shifted so much I don’t think I am even in the time zone. The ripples of his death will keep moving as long as someone reads this blog about our loss.
“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…, ” – Terry Pratchett
Out of every great tragedy there comes the hidden blessings. One of the blessings I received after my nephew’s murder was someone who was able to take the grief and loss that I felt and turn it into something beautiful and full of hope. I wrote a poem purging myself of the intense waves of grief. Writing is how I make sense of the senseless, it is how I can remain sane, when the crazy is calling my name. So when my nephew was murdered, I wrote a poem about what I was going through.
“Writing is like breathing, it’s possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what” – Julia Cameron
I encourage anyone going through difficult times to write it out. I think that it releases the poison, that would corrupt our souls. In pain, we hold our breath. Writing helps us to start breathing again. To realize that we can still have a chance for a better and happier life.
“When we focus our energy towards constructing a passionate meaningful life, we are tossing a pebble into the world, creating a beautiful ripple effect of inspiration. When one person follows a dream, tries something new or takes a daring leap, everyone nearby feels that energy and before too long they are making their own daring leaps and inspiring yet another circle” – Christine Mason Miller
I will print my poem at the end of this. While I was able to process my way through the grief, it still felt a little dark. The gift that this stranger was able to give me, was taking this poem and my story, and creating this beautiful song from it. It took away the darkness in my poem and transmuted it into light.
I reached for this poem when someone else I love is having their own dark night of the soul. We all need to remember that even though there are dark nights, they can be transmuted into something beautiful.
“Only in the darkness, can you see the stars” – Martin Luther King Jr.
I think that we all have those days, when the sky turns black, with no sunlight or starlight to shine upon us. We think that God has turned his back on us. We feel the intense emotions that threaten to drown us. As I say in my poem, sometimes the sorrow burns us alive.
“Some days our grief appears as small manageable ripples. Other days it completely crashes over us without any warning. These are the days you need to be able to sit, reflect and remember; and not feel guilty in doing so” – Just Over the Rainbow Bridge
Sometimes it’s okay if the only thing that we can accomplish in a day, is to simply breathe. Breathing in the love, turns the storm into a calmer sea. The sun rises again. As the poem ends, we can breathe again. We can breathe in the love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it back into the world.
I hope you enjoy the song. We had it created especially for LemonadeMakers.
“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will” – Chuck Palahniuk
Carl’s Poem
Yesterday you were so alive riding the oceans waves, yes, life was so simple and innocent
But now your soul has left behind your flesh, and your bones lie there just an empty cage
Help me, I can’t breathe as this news fractures my life, I am so unsafe, I just can’t balance
And grief engulfs me, and anger rages, and I just can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe from hearing the news on T.V or reading the printed pages of your murder
I feel the thunderous storm of emotions pass through me as lightning strikes my heart
The senselessness of your passing, the gunshots of a stranger who tore our lives asunder
And so, I grieve, and the sorrow burns as it drowns me, and I can’t breathe.
The hours pass into days as I stumble down this long road breathing with heavy sighs
The days spent in crying, and the primal screams of the dark nights merge into numbing weeks
Yet storm clouds break up as I begin to see the healing of the rainbow’s blessings
And so, I grieve, and I begin to breathe, I breathe love.
Life carries on with unending support of love that is surrounding me and protecting me
Forgiveness is the answer, so I move past the limitations of grief, rage, and sorrow
To live in limitless love, light and joy, and my heart-lines align to the universal love
And so, I breathe love, and I add grace, I breathe, I breathe grace.
Love from Carl’s heart washes through me, cleansing and healing every part of my body
A warm wave it ignites an inner fire of transformation that love is the ultimate expression of grace
It illuminates the greater vision for my life to emerge from within me, a graceful unfolding,
And so, I breathe love and grace, and I add forgiveness, I breathe, I breathe forgiveness.
I release the need to blame you Carl, myself, or anyone else for your ending,
I release fears grip on my soul, and I choose to walk this path with love
I have experienced a grace inspired event that challenged me, and I have awakened
And so, I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, and I add joy, I breathe, I breathe joy.
Grace has opened a door whose light illuminates my next step as I step out of the darkness
I share this, your gift to the world, that love is the ultimate expression of grace
As I practice this belief, practice will yield to insight, which yields to embodiment, which yields to manifestation.
And so, I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy, and I add hope, I breathe, I breathe hope.
As I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope, life becomes a celebration again
And as I let my light shine, I unconsciously give others the permission to do the same
I will live like there is not tomorrow, I will live like there was no yesterday
I will breathe, I will breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it out into the world.
Updated 12/09/2018
Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts – Albert Einstein
This is so important when you are looking at the big dream, because 99% of people will tell you all the reasons why it can’t be done. What Albert Einstein was really saying, is that the big dreams lay outside of the box of rules on how things are done.
There is a true story about a pilot who was born without arms, and how she learned to fly with her feet at the controls. There is another story about a woman born without legs who surfs and skateboards competitively. These two women have big dreams and accomplish them because they believe they can find a way to make it work. They defy the odds. They don’t let missing arms or legs be a limiting factor to their dreams.
On “America’s Got Talent” there is the wonderful story of a young woman who lost her hearing as a teenager. She was a singer and had big dreams of making it professionally. She writes her own music, plays ukulele and sings beautifully. She spent a few years raging against the world for taking away her dream to be a singer – then she figured out a way to do it anyway.
Janine Shepherd is a public speaker and author of several books including “Defiant: A Memoir”. Shepherd had been an aspiring Olympic cross-country skier. She was nearly killed when she was hit by a truck during a training bike ride. Paralyzed and immobile for six months, she was given a grim picture for recovery. Not only did she teach herself to walk again — she learned to fly — becoming an aerobatics pilot. Her TED Talk is: Janine Shepherd: How Can We Redefine Ourselves After a Tragedy? Her story is amazing because she took her story and reformed it to continue to push the edges of her potential, not settling for the Janine Shepherd, disabled story.
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company . . . a church . . . a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past . . . we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you . . . we are in charge of our Attitudes – Charles R. Swindell
So, what are some tools you can use to lasso those big dreams into the barn? One suggestion is to have either a half day or full day block of time to write and brainstorm about the ideas on how to accomplish your dreams.
Another suggestion I read recently was to have what they called “implementation intentions”. We have all heard of intentions being set to bring something into your sphere of influence to assist you with a goal in your life. This is setting an intention with steps to implement the intention into reality. I have done this in my life without realizing what I was doing.
Years ago, one of my sons got engaged in the month of February. The wedding date was set for August and my goal was to save enough money to be able to pay for their honeymoon for them. I had it budgeted out and while it was a little tight, I knew that I could stretch and make it happen. Then in March they decided to move the wedding to the end of May. I looked at the numbers and I had no idea how I was going to be able to pay for it in less than 60 days.
I sat down and started writing out how happy I was that I had come up with a way to pay for their honeymoon. I wrote about how wonderful the wedding was and how much they enjoyed their honeymoon. I put every ounce of energy into the writing, with the words emoting all five senses as I wrote out how they loved Mexico – the sound of the surf, the smell of the flowers, the tastes of the spicy food. I expressed thankfulness and gratitude with every sentence.
After I finished the letter, I still didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I had my intentions pulling in all possibilities. About a week later I received a phone call out of the blue about a property that we have in Upstate New York. We owned a 10-acre parcel next door to our second home free and clear and the neighbors across the street wanted to purchase it for $17,000 and do a fast cash closing. With that money and what I had in savings; the honeymoon was paid for.
Set your intentions, be open to miracles, let go and let God take guided action. Let your dreams unfold like a beautiful flower – Anna Taylor
That was a big dream that scared me, because I had no idea when the date changed that I could make it happen. I still am amazed at the timing of how it all worked out. I think that this is how all of the really big dreams happen.
You start out with the idea; which becomes a goal; which becomes an implemented intention. You get really specific in your mind as to what happened and leave the how’s to the universe, while at the same time, using all of your tools to bring your dreams into reality.
The goal is to die with memories, not just dreams of what could have been.
When we are clear in heart and mind…, only then shall we find courage to surmount the fear which haunts our world – Albert Einstein
I tend to get an idea of something I need to work on/with. Then it percolates in my brain, and I start attracting thoughts and ideas. The things I read in books or emails, from dreams, and the conversations I have with others. Then one day the brain has gathered enough material to put together a post.
Recently I was reading an email from “Tanya – Sistership Circle” on being a Warrioress (Wonder Woman) Archetype. She talked about how the word Warrioress is given an incorrect meaning for most of us, in that we think of a warrior as being in battle in a war. Not necessarily so.
It is about being courageous enough to welcome failure on the trail of success.
It is about having the strength to blaze the trail, instead of following behind others.
It is about living a life of conviction and,
being able to bounce back with resilience when it doesn’t work out the way you wanted.
It is about cleaning up our vision so that we have clarity, instead of chaos…
It is about taking action and breaking down the patterns of self-sabotage,
that keep you from your brilliant potential.
It is about being humble in the truest sense of the word
(That does not mean disparaging your gifts/talents).
It is about living a life of P’s – Purpose, Passion, Persistence,
and persevering even when the road gets rough.
It is about being independent, AND living with community,
because it takes a village to raise us up (even when we are adults).
There are actual studies that prove when you stand with your feet spread out and your hands on the hips (Wonder Woman Pose) that it actually makes you confident. In June 2012 Amy Cuddy gave one of the most watched Ted talks of all time, “Your body language may shape who you are” in which she states that simply holding this pose for one minute causes your body chemistry and your behavior to change.
Now there is some controversy over her study, but I am of the belief that I can make statistics say whatever I want them to. How many times have you seen studies which contradict each other? Such as bacon (or any other food) is bad for and then another that states it is good for you?
There is no accounting for the belief of the mind healing the body of diseases. So, think positive and get up and stand like a superhero!
Do not wait to find courage, it will find you when you take your first steps forward – Mari Huertas
Confidence will help you to break out of the fears that are holding you back. Every single person reading this post has told someone about something that they want to accomplish.
Speaking for myself, I have had a goal that I have been working towards now for a few years. In fear I keep telling myself that I am not yet ready to do it. I procrastinate, thinking that there is something else I have to learn how to do. Fear of failure keeps me running the never-ending hamster wheel of something I am still missing.
It is like building a bridge across a chasm. You need supports to come up from the bottom of the valley, or from the sides of the ravines. You need wood or stone materials to build with. You need a way to nail, screw or cement the structure together. You might need plans from an engineer. Then people to help you build it. All of this comes together before you even start the structure.
Then there are the financial components that need to be in place to pay for the land you are building on, the materials and the labor to do it. Now with all of these moving parts it can be overwhelming as fear sets in.
Fear of failure or success. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of starting and not being able to complete the structure because of lack of money, materials, or manpower. So many fears creep into you, that you keep making lists and looking for what else you might need.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading – Lao Tzu
Have you ever noticed that if you look at something more than a second when you are driving down the road, that your vehicle starts to go in that direction? If what you are looking at in life, is not what you want in your life, you need to change direction.
You will end up where you are putting your focus. This is how fear becomes the self-fulfilling prophecy. We are attracting the bad we don’t want to happen, because it is what is filling up our thoughts.
Part of being human is accepting that you are imperfect, you do have flaws, you do have dysfunction in your life. You can, however, take responsibility to do better and be better. You do better when you accept your failures and work on changing those dysfunctions. You do have rough edges in your personality. You can rub others the wrong way.
My family has a habit of teasing everyone, especially friends and family. We tease everyone. And I have taken that teasing a bridge too far. So, it is my responsibility to realize when I have, apologize and make it right. It is my responsibility to be more aware of who and how I tease others. To make sure it never ever crosses over from love to malice (which can happen in a moment of being triggered).
It is your responsibility to determine if your own rough edges need to be sanded down, and if so, to make those changes. It isn’t your responsibility to help someone else sand down their own rough edges.
May your heart be brave, and your soul have courage, while you travel your path to greatness – Amara Honeck
If you have a door that sticks for example, you can do several things: You can push and shove it to open and close it. You can let it warp, bend the hinges, damage the door handle and just let it deteriorate until it no longer functions or falls apart. Or you can fix it.
Maybe it just needs a little planning on the top, bottom or sides where it is rubbing. Maybe it needs a new door handle, or the hinges replaced? Maybe you just need to repair the frame itself. Bottom line is that you can fix it, or let it get worse. Change it or let it be.
Whenever you think that you are in fear, then it is time to awaken your heart.
Whenever you think that you are all alone, it is time to awaken your heart.
When you are in the space of love, it widens out your awareness of life around you. Love helps you to connect every aspect of your life and your purpose. Love awakens and kindles anew your passion for life. For why you are here now in this space and time.
Acting out of love in any situation takes your intentions to the highest heights. You discover in that space of love, the peace and acceptance of what is. You can see clearly the way to act upon your good intentions.
Love roots out fear. Living with a heart, soul, spirit of love you can fully encompass your highest potential. You can be fabulous!
For many people, authentic life starts at the time of death – not our own, but someone else’s – Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
This is so true for me. It was the murder of my nephew that changed my whole life. Up until that time my lived was lived by following what others had either taught me or expected of me.
The lesson I learned from my mother that drove me, was to have a career that earned a great income so that I would not be like her and end up homeless with her children. In her mind her only option was to return to a marriage that she had left behind because it would provide support for her children.
At first after my nephew died, it was all about helping my sister survive the storm of grief that ripped her world into tiny pieces that we couldn’t put back together again. Then once we all knew that she while she wasn’t fully recovered, she was surviving and learning what her new life would be, it was time to deal with my own grief.
I knew that I wanted to bring something positive out of his death and so I started writing my way through my own changing and evolving world. I had wanted to be a writer since I was a small child. But I didn’t have any confidence to begin the journey.
Each time my heart and soul drew me into that space I had a ready excuse as to why I couldn’t do it. I have four children to raise, a fulltime career and husband to take care of. So, I would lie to myself about the reason why I didn’t have the time to write.
People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny harmless phrases like “Be Realistic” – Dylan Moran
First it was when the kids were all in school, then I would have time to write. Then it was when they all graduated high school, then I would have time to write. Then it was taking care of my dad who had retired early with disabilities, so now I had a new obligation to put off this dream of writing my own stories.
Always there was something more important to be done. Besides I told myself, be realistic, “no one will want to read what you write”. As I wrote my way through changing myself and posted it on my personal page, I kept being told by others to do more.
Self-confidence is something that Walt Disney had to have had. He had businesses that failed and ended bankruptcy. He lost most of his employees and a big contract to a film producer that had been working with him.
What he discovered and what I discovered was that when one door closes another opens. For him that lead to the creation of Mickey Mouse, who actually has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
For me, it was discovering that this dream that I had buried as not being worthy of was in fact possible. The writing on my personal page, created the self-confidence to create the LemonadeMakers page here on Facebook and a website that we are slowly expanding to create even more material for our followers.
In the words of Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu: “When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be.”
As I walk this journey of following my dreams, I get ideas of where it might be taking me, but I don’t really know what I am becoming. I still feel constantly as though I am in the chrysalis and becoming something new. I am still being stretched into unknown realms. I am constantly learning, adapting and regrouping.
I fall down on my face, but I keep getting back up. I brush off the dirt and dust and look in the mirror. It is the act of constantly letting go of the life I thought I should have, that I am able to embrace the life that is waiting for me. It is the constant asking of these three questions that keeps opening new doors of discovery for me.
When you ask those questions, sit with them in silence a few moments and see what bubbles up to the top for you. When you boil some sort of vegetable, a lot of times there is this film of stuff that spreads across the water. A sort of scum that I always ladle out of the boiling water.
This is what happens when we sit in silence with a question. Our minds float up a denial. It floats up a distraction. If floats up fears. Just look at them without judgement and scoop them out and let them settle into the earth.
Now return to the silence and contemplation and see what bubbles up next. Write it down and see what else floats up to the top. Keep writing until you have a list of things that you would do next.
Dreamer (n) A person who visions their ambitions to plant the seeds of their future
/ Dreams are realities in waiting/
Now take that list and put the items into two columns, column A and column B. So that if you had 10 items, you would now have 5 lines with an answer under column A and B for each line. Now ask yourself which draws me more – item A or item B and circle that answer for each of the five lines. Now you should have 5 circled items left. Do the same process, only now taking the first circle item to the next circled item and keep picking between the choices until you have only one circled item. You now have the winning thing you would do next.
So, let’s say just for sake of example it was to learn to fly a plane.
Now google local flying instructions and make appointments to interview them.
Pick one and take your first lesson.
It’s really that simple to let go of who you are, a dreamer with no action taken to accomplish his/her dreams, and a dreamer who makes a phone call and gets into a plane and takes their first lesson. If it turns out that you discover flying isn’t something that “rings your souls bell” then go back to your list and go through the items again to see what else might be the next dream to accomplish.
In order to save myself, I must destroy first the me I was told to be – The Dreamer
When you were this girls age, you had dreams about who you wanted to be when you grew up. You may already have been singing, or dancing, or wanting to be a doctor or lawyer. Between this and that statement they let you know that you should choose a less challenging career than a doctor or lawyer, because you really aren’t that smart.
Or it could be more subtle where you are being directed by your parents into the career that they want for you. That career your mom or dad wanted; or everyone in your family has this career (our family is all in the legal or medical field); or the one you want won’t be able to support you – all valid reasons by their way of thinking.
Along the way you learn to hide who you are. You learn that others will judge you or belittle you. So, you put on masks to conform to what friends and family expect – who they want you to dress like, look like, act like. You hide your dreams so that no one can destroy them any further.
You learn not to trust your heart to be in others hands. You give up on what is possible and settle for what is conforming to the needs and desires of others. You forget who you are and what you are here for. You no longer take part in the dance of life, but instead settle back against the wall and watch those with more courage or talent dance it in front of you.
Ten years from now, make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it – Unknown
There is only one way to truly know who you are deep down inside. You have to get in touch with your own soul. You need to be by yourself, and sit with yourself, and just listen.
Looking back at your life, find the places where you were really happy. Find the things that are so easy for you to do, that others find hard or impossible. Trace back all of the threads that have your name engraved upon them. Start picking out and removing all of the threads that are not you. Look for the gold and silver pieces and toss out the dross.
Now look for the patterns that are left. The amazing thing is that it usually takes you back to this age. The age when you acted out who you really were, before society broke you like a young colt and told you who to be. The threads of genius that are all you, can now be taken up and made into whatever pattern you want. It is never too late to be who you were meant to be.
Sometimes when you make this journey deep into our soul, you discover that your life has to be completely shaken up.
A close friend of mine relocated from Los Angeles to Italy and she loves it. The best thing to do is to remove what doesn’t belong and then figure out how to rearrange what does. It is an individual journey that defines who you are in a totally new way. You discover your truth by looking for it down deep within and then integrating it into your life. You are on a life adventure. This journey is for you alone. Embrace it and life it fully.
The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated. It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path. Listen to your own truth – Ram Dass
There are some that will say that living your life purpose, is being selfish. That you are ignoring the wishes of others. But actually, the reverse is true.
Each one of us was given as part of our life journey a divine destiny. You were born into the place and the family that would give you the tools to accomplish this purpose. Some of those life lessons come through adversity, some come as part of the journey of rediscovering who you are really meant to be.
If you don’t take the risks, make the changes and transform your life, then your destiny will not be fulfilled. And you will not be living the life that God sent you here to live.
So, it is actually selfish to not live up to your full potential. To not find out who you are supposed to be. To not utilize your power to its full capability. To not live out loud and up front your God given destiny.
“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.
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.
Remember, we here at LemonadeMakers are here for you. Contact us and let us help you choose a million reasons to be happy.
“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:
“How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable” – Seth Godin – Author and Speaker
Your dreams are calling you. Are you answering them? Are you putting them through to voice mail because you don’t recognize the number? If you recognize the number, are you putting it through to voice mail because you don’t want to have that inner conversation with yourself?
You know that one where you argue with yourself about what you are doing versus what you are telling everyone you want to do.
I know that if someone compliments me, the first thought in my mind is discounting what they said. When I was growing up my sister closest in age to me was always the pretty one, the beautiful one. She is 18 months younger, and her body matured faster than mine. She is several inches taller than my 5’3″. I was the smart one. This comparison ran through our childhood. To this day she carries that role of not being smart, even though it isn’t true. I carry the role of not being pretty and discount anyone who says that it isn’t true.
Isn’t it sad how you prove that those family comparisons are true, simply out of habit? You were told all of your life that this “story” created when you were tiny child is who you are and so you go around making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“What I know for sure is this: You are built not to shrink down to less, but to blossom into more. To be more splendid. To be more extraordinary” – Oprah
There are days when I get a lot of Facebook friend requests on my personal FB page. I am part of several large groups and whenever they have an influx of new people on their fan page, a number of people will friend request everyone in the group. It might also be that people figure out I am the founder of LemonadeMakers and request my personal Facebook friend page too.
Then there are some requests from men who think Facebook is a dating app. I try to screen them out but once in a while one makes it through. When they say they like my smile – which is the usual first comment they make, I immediately think something negative like that’s because you don’t see the rest of me.
Do you do that? What is it that causes you to turn away from a compliment about your looks, the quality of your work – anything that seems personal? People could compliment you about your children or grandchildren and you wouldn’t turn away from the compliment. Only if it is personal about you do the alarm bells go off.
“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start” – Nido Qubein
There was a commercial video I saw a few months back talking about the phrase “sorry” when we mean “excuse me”. It was about how often you apologize when you didn’t do anything wrong. It was by Pantene the shampoo company and it really reflected how many times you use it when you really mean something else. A turnaround of this commercial is great. Showing scene after scene of women who did not require validation from anyone else in the room. Women who walked in and owned the room, like the leaders that they in truth are. You don’t have to be the main character in “The Devil Wears Prada” to be successful, but you can take charge without apology.
You open an office door to talk to someone and say “sorry”. You brush by someone and say “sorry”. The list goes on. Share this with someone to help you keep track of how many times you do this for the next few weeks or watch to see how many times you see it happen. See how many times you or another woman says “sorry” when what should be said is “excuse me”. The suggestion is that we feel undeserving, and so say “I’m Sorry” for taking up your time, for taking up space, for thinking that you might have something to contribute.
“Take charge, and don’t apologize for it” – Elite Daily
Sheryl Sandberg was really talking about this when she said, “we’ve got to get women to sit at the table.” She talked about how she went to a conference room for a meeting and the women were not sitting at the conference table, they were sitting around the table in the extra chairs against the wall. They were doing this even though there were empty seats at the conference table.
You need to stop letting other people who lack courage or determination to follow through on their dreams, stop you from doing so with yours. You need to live your truth, and trust that you are more than worthy to sit at the table. You need to live your truth and honor what you have to contribute.
“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud” – Emile Zola
She felt that a big piece of why we don’t take a seat at the table is because we don’t want the label of “bossy” and the other “B” word when we take the lead. You shouldn’t be afraid to be as ambitious as a man. You should ask for what you want – the raise, the promotion, to take the lead. You shouldn’t be afraid to be told you have a beautiful smile.
So, I am ending this with my most favorite quote by Marianne Williamson because – How dare any of us settle for less when the world is waiting for us to be remarkable!
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others” – Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”
“When you look away from a homeless person, you diminish their humanity and your own” – Father Murray, as quoted by Brene Brown in her book “Rising Strong”
This simple sentence really speaks volumes. What is it that would make someone turn away from a homeless person? Have you ever pretended to not see someone? Are you afraid connect to that person? Why is it so hard for some to make eye contact with anyone?
“Be grateful for every compliment you receive – don’t shrug it off. When you are open to receiving, you will receive more from the universe” – Unknown
I was once at a seminar where one of the group things we did was to move around the room and hug. No words were allowed. Just a real, heart-felt hug and move on to another person. Most of us connected after the hug, looking into the other person’s eyes before moving on to the next person. Some people had a really hard time with this. Their eyes darted around and they could not maintain the steady looking into the eyes of the other person.
“When you give cheerfully and accept gratefully, everyone is blessed” – Maya Angelou
One woman in particular really connected with me. When I look deeply into another person’s eyes, it feels like I fall into their soul. I see them. I see their stories. Their triumphs and failures. So much joy and pain. I saw all of those things and she felt it. We had a heart to heart connection. She came up later and handed me a card and quickly walked away. When I looked at the card, it was a drawing with the heart in the middle. I realized that she wanted to acknowledge the connection, but she wasn’t ready to talk about it. It was a beautiful moment.
“Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it” – Rabindranath Tagore
We had both been moved, because we saw and acknowledged that we had both been through hard times and it was ok. We were ok, because of the love and kindness of others.
I invite you to join us on April 4th for a purposeful gathering. Our intention is to create moments of life-changing conversation on how to make 2020 the year of achievement.
Chances are that what you’re struggling with, others are too. What life questions you have been asking yourself, others are asking themselves too. Get clear on what you want and how to obtain it. If your 2020 dreams and goals are already stalling, get recharged and refocused. Learn how to pivot to success. Join us for a gathering that no one will forget.
“Always show more kindness than seems necessary, because the person receiving it needs it more than you will ever know” – Colin Powell
Do you think that when you look away, that you are trying to avoid connecting on purpose? Have you put them into a “this person is not like me” bucket? You might mentally label them as “street people”, “homeless”, “bums”, “addicts”, etc. Putting them into some “other” category that says “not me”? It might be that you are afraid that you might be in their shoes someday? Like it is somehow catching? Are you judging them for somehow failing in life?
For myself, I find that usually if I am looking away it is because I feel inadequate to know how to help, or at that moment I don’t have any cash on me which is what they are asking for. So I avoid eye connection out of my own inadequacy.
“It’s really important to be able to receive love and receive compassion. It is as important as being able to give it” – Pema Chodron
Brene Brown in her book, “Rising Strong” relates it to not wanting to admit that you need others in your lives. That you can’t do it all alone. That you are afraid to receive, and so when others are asking for what they need in order to survive, it throws you for a loop. Because you don’t want to imagine having to depend on the kindness of others in order to survive.
“Sometimes people have a hard time receiving what they want. Why? Because they feel they don’t deserve it” – Notes from Nora
I can identify with the difficulty of having the capacity to receive. In some areas of my life, I have no problem. I grew up as a hand me down family, so I have no problem with second hand furniture or clothes. However, if my needs are more personal, then it is another matter. Like if I can’t do it all myself, I am somehow a failure. I’m supposed to be the strong one, the giver – not the receiver.
“You are important enough to ask and you are blessed enough to receive back” – Wayne Dyer
Someone once talked about this, and it really helped me adjust some of my attitude around this. They talked about hiring someone to clean your home. The way they looked at it, by hiring someone to come and clean your home, you were helping another woman help support her family, and why wouldn’t we want to do that? It really changed the thought from feeling guilty that I wasn’t super woman and doing everything myself, to I can help another person to support their family by hiring them to do my house cleaning or yard work.
“Many people love to give. It’s a great feeling, and they do so with no expectation. But they often are awful at receiving, and really deprive others of that joy of giving. If given a gift, they say, “You shouldn’t have”, “It’s too much”, or the worst, “I feel bad that you got me this”. Ouch. This creates bad feelings during what should be a nice moment, and though their intent was to be selfless and polite, it is actually ungrateful. When a gift is given, “thank you” says that they appreciate the time, consideration, and effort that person has already put forth. Giving is virtuous, but so is accepting gifts gratefully” – Doe Zantamata
You are not meant to “do it all by yourself”. You are driven by your need of community. The phrase, “it takes a village to raise a child” says it all. Open up your capacity to receive. Connect to others. Really see everyone you meet. That connection you make could be just what they need to get through to another day.
I invite you to join us on April 4th for a purposeful gathering. Our intention is to create moments of life-changing conversation on how to make 2020 the year of achievement.
Chances are that what you’re struggling with, others are too. What life questions you have been asking yourself, others are asking themselves too. Get clear on what you want and how to obtain it. If your 2020 dreams and goals are already stalling, get recharged and refocused. Learn how to pivot to success. Join us for a gathering that no one will forget.
“If you are resisting something, you are feeding it. Any energy you fight, you are feeding. If you are pushing something away, you are inviting it to stay” – Michael Singer
Every day in life, you will experience fear in some way. Some days it feels like the wolf is at the door. As he claws at the door you can see it starting to splinter apart. He is fiercely growling, as he is threatening your life. Your heart is pounding so loudly it almost drowns out the wolf’s noises.
Other times, you can hear the wolf in the distance, howling and teasing you that he is coming. You can hear his claws as he paces around and around the house. But he doesn’t try to come in. He is content to pace outside and torment you that he might try to come in.
Some of these fears are false events, that you think might be coming true in your life. You worry at them, like the dog at a bone. You think about them constantly circling round them over and over. You feel the non-ending stress with headaches and stomach aches. You can’t sleep without nightmares.
Other fears are things that have happened to you, that you are afraid will happen again. Traumatic events that replay in your mind. Some of these events will take professional counseling to get over, others are something that you need to work through and release.
I have a process that I use when the event has too much pain contained within it. I review the trauma and deal with releasing as much as I can. Then I mentally pack the rest of it into a box and put it on a shelf. I label the box with a date to reopen it.
“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same” – Carlos Castaneda
On that date, I again work with the trauma and release another portion of it. Then I repack it into a smaller box, labeled with a new date. I continue the process until the last of the trauma has been released.
I know that I have reached that stage for two reasons. (1) I can touch the trauma, and there is no longer a triggered reaction to it. Like touching a tooth ache, I touch it and it no longer causes pain. (2) There is nothing left to put into a smaller box. I can then give thanks that I had the strength, will, and courage to come through this trauma with the grace of God.
Part of releasing the pain, is finding one small thing that was a positive life lesson. I look at it through a strangers eye. I look for something that I would say as a stranger, to someone who had experienced that trauma.
I stop being the victim. I stop being in the trauma. I step outside the drama.
I look for how it strengthened the person’s character. How they would be able to show more compassion and empathy for others now that they understand this experience. I keep looking for some nugget of gold.
When I find it, I can release that much pain from the box. Eventually the box is empty of pain, and instead of pain, I now have a room filled with priceless experiences.
“Opportunities to find deep powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging” – Joseph Campbell
Some of your fears are not worrying about something bad happening to you. Some of your fears are about how you are judging yourself.
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine” – Bruce Lee
So what do you do with your world of fears?
By transplanting this fear out in the warm sunshine, you have faced the worst that the fear has to offer. You came out of the battle victorious.
Not because you killed the fear, but because you transformed it into something even more powerful. You transformed it into the treasures of dreams fulfilled. Of achievements accomplished. Of courage maintained. Of emotions generated such as gratitude and happiness. Of having the best adventures, the best stories to share with others. The best gift of all, is to truly know yourself.
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear” – Jack Canfield
Can you imagine the conversation that might take place between a butterfly and a caterpillar that is about to build their chrysalis? It might sound like that.
How would you explain this overwhelming need to your non-caterpillar friends that you have to get so totally wrapped up in your need to change and transform? The birds are not going to understand. The bees are not going to get it. None of the other kinds of insects and animals go through this type of change.
But you know that you just have to do it. There really is no other way to answer your soul’s calling. You have to completely transform. You have to let go of what is no longer serving you.
You are not a climber of leaves and branches any longer. You have this overwhelming desire to fly. To soar. You can’t put a name to this yet, because you haven’t experienced it. But you can feel this constant calling to shift and change. You don’t understand it, yet at a deeper level you know that this is why you were born and you have to go for it.
Nothing happens until the pain of remaining the same outweighs the pain of change.
– Arthur Burt
I believe that the change doesn’t have to feel painful. I think that the emotion that we feel is fear. But if you really analyze this feeling that we get, isn’t it an awful lot like when you are riding in a roller coaster? You are nearing the top of the climb and about to go speeding down the other side, isn’t it that feeling?
What if this feeling, this fear, is really anticipation? I know that I love this feeling of riding a roller coaster. The screaming, laughter, and excitement. Not everyone does. But a lot of us do.
What if this is the feeling of fear of change, and we change our definition from fear to anticipation? If we can change the meaning of this kind of feeling then, when we enter the chrysalis, we are anticipating the feeling of spreading our wings. We are anticipating the feeling of the wind beneath our wings.
If we are anticipating these feelings, then transformation is exciting. It is something to be desired. We enter into a wonderful relationship with it.
Sound interesting? Want to explore this together in greater detail? Continue your journey to transformation with us. We are having a free online event “A Conscious Conversation” where we will explore how to courageously transform our lives to fully live into our divine destiny.