What if,…..?

“Nothing is a coincidence.  Everything you’re experiencing is meant to happen exactly how it’s happening.  Embrace the lessons.  Be grateful” – www.livelifehappy.com

• What if,…. all the answers are deep within my soul, calling to me – but I am not listening?
• What if,… there are no mistakes, and every experience that you have is to your benefit?
• What would happen to the stories that you tell yourself and others about your life, if you reframed them to your benefit?
• What would happen if you had never been a victim, but was instead an adventurer who was experiencing all that life has to offer?
• How would word a reframe, shift and change your life?
• What if,… it was all “good”?

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”  –  Horace Mann

The first thing I thought, was well some pretty bad things have happened – how can I just reframe it, to “it’s all good”?  I can do it if I can construct a framework that reflects a pattern that strings each thing together, like a string of pearls.  Each experience can be examined like an individual pearl.  Remember how a pearl is created?  It is an object that irritates the mussels, so that they begin putting a covering over the irritation, which becomes a pearl.  Mussels do this as part of their defense mechanism.  So what kind of covering can you put over every “bad” experience that turns it into a pearl?  How freeing is it to think, that you have the ability to cover over any bad experience and make it into something priceless?

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live” –  Robert Kennedy

Sometimes you can become so enamored with the tragedy, that you drag it around with you everywhere you go.  You stand up and testify to how life has done you wrong, and just look at what has happened to you.  You proudly present your wounds as though they are medals of honor.  What if instead…, tragedy was a tool of destiny to liberate you from the falsehood of fate, which lets fear determine your choices.

What if, … you have a divine blueprint written down in your soul, and now is the time to wake up and start creating the life you are meant to be living?

“There is a force within which gives you life, seek that.  In your body lies a priceless gem, seek that.  O wandering soul, if you were to find the greatest treasure, don’t look outside.  Look inside, and seek that”  –  Rumi

What if every experience has a purpose and they are all part of the plan?  Can you see a way that every pearl that you have on your long rope of pearls, is required and necessary to who you are becoming?

Most people don’t show up in their own lives.  We are taught at a young age not to express opinions different than the norm.  We are taught that to stick out and be different will just cause us pain and difficulties.  So like the turtle, we withdraw into our shell of protection and don’t venture out.  What if, … we stopped.  What if,… we took off that shell or mask, and stood up as who we truly are?

“A strong woman may remain silent when people talk behind her back.  But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t notice.  It simply means she chooses not to waste her energy on foolishness.  She has more important things to do” – Unknown

What if,… the reason the world seems to be so crazy right now, is that we are not showing up as who we truly are?

So, how do you figure that out?  Who are you really deep down inside?

“In order to experience the truth of things, you must have a clear mind, be brutally honest with yourself, and make innocence and vulnerability continually accessible, because your perception is always changing and there will always be more to learn and understand and experience” –  Amy Larson

One of the most important discoveries I made on my journey with LemonadeMakers is that the vision I saw initially grows and expands as I do.

I think that if you could see what it is really possible for you to become, you would not believe it.  You would not even set out on the journey, because it would seem too impossible for you to become that person.

That is why you are given small visions, that keep growing and expanding.  Each time you catch up to the vision, it steps out of range, so that you have to work and grow and expand yourself again and again.

Imagine that it is possible to discover who you really are capable of becoming and being?  What your purpose is?

To rekindle your passion into a bright steady flame that lights your way.  To understand what transforming your life really means?  To let go of all of the thoughts, judgments and stories that no longer serve you.

As you listen and try to connect to who you are, you get lost.  You hear the criticisms, judgments loud and clear, but you miss the compliments in your inner dialogs

• Would you be interested in discovering what you are truly capable of?
• Would you take the path less traveled?
• Would you have enough courage to undertake a journey that you know would be filled with mistakes, disappointments, as well as being a mind blowing adventure?
• Would you be willing to admit that you are in fact a divine creation; an amazing world leader – that just hasn’t fully shown up yet?
• Would you be willing to take that first step in discovering just how much you are truly capable of being and doing?

Are you interested in talking about your challenges, to encourage  others, to find/provide inspiration to continue on your individual journey? When you share the lessons of your journey, resilience is grown for everyone.

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 you’re interested in forming a weekly or biweekly zoom call, message me on LemonadeMakers.

Are You Ready To Be A Hero For Your Own Life?

Having Courage Is One Of The Six Impossible Things

“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second”

 – Lewis Carroll

Life seems like that sometimes. I remember years ago that we were driving north on I-5 in Oregon and we had just crested the top of a hill around Roseberg. You could see quite a way in front of you as the road sloped down into a valley. Ahead of us was a semi-tractor trailer and he ran over something that looked like shiny metal in the road. Immediately his tires blew and he started swerving and then the whole rig tipped onto its side.

For a moment it was like slow motion.  I could see so many small details as the whole scene played out like a movie. Then whoosh, time sped back up and my husband was pulling off the road and running back to make sure the driver was ok. The driver was just shocked by what had happened. But for me, it was the weirdest experience of time I have ever had. It was like the rabbit said, forever came in just one second.

“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then”  – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love.  To postpone my dream no longer.  But do at last what I came here for and waste my heart on fear no more” – John O’Donohue

Courage is being in love with the anticipation of what comes next, even when we have no idea what that might be.

Can Life Be A Daring Adventure?

I have had on my desk for several years a large rock on which is inscribed, “It is not the destination, It is the journey”.  We think that accomplishing our big dreams or goals in life is the point.  But really that isn’t true.  There will always be a new destination, dream or goal.  It is who you become on the way to the destination. Every daring adventure is really all about the transformation.

Our brains will try to convince us not to go on the daring adventures.  It will insist that we have limitations.  It will try to close us off from transforming our life.  It tries to convince us that transformation will affect our very survival, that we can’t exceed the boundaries that it deems by logic to be safe and secure for us.

Getting our brain and heart to effectively communicate is a difficult process for most of us.  Take the analogy of the  shoreline here in the photo.  The sand is the logic of the brain.  The waves the emotions of the heart.  There is a point when the waves come up against the sand and they blend together.  That is the space that we are looking for, in having this internal conversation between the logical brain and the emotional heart..  That moment of overlap in which the different perspectives can be viewed.  A unity of understanding can be achieved in that moment of overlap, when the two meet energetically – the influence of chaos from the emotions with the logical rigid mind, which is demanding that we stick to the known rules and do not go exploring.

This is one of the things that we will be exploring in our upcoming seminar on “Living A Transformational Life”.  There is a wide difference of meaning between change and transformation.  When we change our lives, the majority of times it just doesn’t last.  We go on a diet, lose the 20 lbs and then less than a year later, the 20 lbs has crept back on.  Change is primarily achieved with willpower.  The problem with will power is that it is short lived.  At some point the rubber band that we have stretched out snaps back or breaks.  Then we are back to square one in the changes we had made. 

Transformation on the other hand, alters us to the point that we no longer have the option to return back to what we were before.  Once the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis it can’t return to the caterpillar’s body, no matter how much it might want to.  The transformation process has altered the DNA and physical form.  There is no way to return to that old body.

Some of the concepts that we will be exploring with the webinar are the acronym of FACES, being:  Flexible, Adaptable, Coherent (resilient), Energized and Stable.  It is about creating opportunities in the sea of potential, and seeing the potentialities on the plains of possibility.  About movement, about flow, and the charge of being truly alive.  It is about collaboration through creating harmonies out of differences.  Like the waves upon the sand, we will come together honoring the differences in our lives.  We will be linking the brain and heart together to create something new and different for each of us.

Is your life a daring adventure?  Come to our webinar and learn how to disolve the boundaries that have imprisioned you off from your heart and souls desires.  Listen to the words of William Ward:

“The adventure of life is to learn. 

The goal of life is to grow. 

The nature of life is to change. 

The challenge of life is to overcome. 

The essence of life is to care. 

The secret of life is to dare. 

The beauty of life is to give. 

The joy of life is to love.” 

 Ask yourself some great questions:  Where are you now?  How do you feel about it?  Where do you want to go?  How would you like to get there?  In what manner are you now traveling there?  What steps can I take?

Events

The Best Is Yet To Come, In New Beginnings

“Always believe something wonderful is about to happen . . . ” – Unknown

“When the world says give up, hope whispers try one more time”  – Unknown

“A woman’s strength isn’t just about how much she can handle before she breaks.  It’s also about how much she must handle after she’s broken”  – Unknown

• Your first step, was because you wanted to get something or somewhere. 
• Your first word was because you wanted to communicate. 
• Your first day of school opened up a whole new world for you. 
• Going from grade school to junior high school to high school to college, each step opened a new door.  It also closed a door behind you. 
• Your first relationship, your saying “I do” and I will love you forever. 
• Seeing your newborn child for the first time, that beautiful baby that had been making its presence known for months being in your arms for the first time. 

Each first time, held a new promise, a hope of a dream coming true.  Each first was what you chose to make of it, to trust in the magic of a new beginning.

“A wise girl knows her limits.  A smart girl knows she has none”  – @getlanded

Make Your Life Extraordinary

“Refuse to be an extraordinary person trapped in an ordinary life” – Zaro Dean

A little step can be the first step in the beginning of a great journey. Live a life that is a story worth telling.  I heard one of those kinds of stories recently.  The storyteller had me laughing so hard throughout his story.  It was the story of how one day when he was having a bath, he wondered if anyone had ever rowed a bathtub across the English Channel.  Now you might think that this kind of dream is very silly, I know I did.  But as he told it I was simply amazed.

They say that in an average lifetime we spend six years dreaming.  How many of those dreams have you brought into reality?  How many have you made even a small effort to bring into reality?  Tim Fitzhigham and his story is remarkable, because he made a really crazy dream come into reality.  Just think what you could accomplish if you put in half of the effort that he did?

It helps that as part of his career he is a comedian.  So, he didn’t take himself too seriously.  Now as you may or may not know, a man by the name of Thomas Crapper was an inventor of the toilet.  Hence the reason why his last name is very famous.  Tim first went searching for someone to donate an appropriate bathtub to row across the channel and the company Thomas Crapper and Co Ltd donated a copper Victorian style bathtub to which he attached a kind of pedestal.

Next he had to learn to row a boat.  Then he had to request permission to sail across the channel from both Britain and France.  The British thought it was a fine idea, the French not so much. They actually made an amendment to their law to prohibit sailing bathtubs across the channel.  Tim was successful in getting the British Navy to make his bathtub a registered boat, so that he was now in compliance with French law.

Now what is really amazing is that in getting all of this accomplished Tim talked to British Rear Admirals and even the Queen of England to make sure that he could in fact sail his bathtub across.  He tells his story on the British equivalent of a TED talk and it is really, really funny.

The French tried to remove him from his boat partway across the channel and to blow it up.  He told them that since his bathtub was a registered boat, and he was the captain of said boat, that doing so without his permission would constitute an act of war.  Since it was true, they had to leave him with his boat.

He didn’t make it due to an injury on his first try, but he did make it upon the second try.  He raised 20,000 pounds for a charity, and you can hear him tell his story on The Moth Radio Hour on NPR entitled, “All At Sea”.

What I loved about his story is that he is making his life extraordinary.  He received a Royal Navy Commission, he met the Queen, he has written a book about his journey and received international stardom.  All because he came up with a crazy idea and then made it happen.

Probably over 95% of you would never have set out to do something so crazy.  You would have never believed that any government official would give you the permission.  You wouldn’t have reached out to the Navy or the Queen of England.  You would have thought, “they will think I am crazy” and not even picked up the phone.  They probably did think he was crazy, but the thing is, they supported him anyway.

How many really good ideas have you thought of that you could do, but you let yourself be talked out of it.  You told yourself who am I to do this thing?  You listened to close friends and relatives that asked you “what are you thinking? Are you crazy?”  And so, you let the dream die before it even had a chance to breathe.

Those of you who do reach out to try the crazy idea, usually do so because of a personal crisis in your life. It may be like me that someone close to you was murdered.  Or it could be like Candy Lightner, the founder of MADD that your child or husband was killed by a drunk driver.  Or it could be like the Susan Komen Foundation that you lost your daughter or wife to breast cancer and set out to find a cure, so that no one else loses a loved one to that dreaded disease.

It could be that because of an accident you were told you would never walk again and be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life.  But you decided that would not be your fate and through hard work and determination you found your way to leave the wheelchair behind.  It could be that now you are working to help others regain their mobility, whether it is physical, mental or emotional trauma that must be overcome.

Most of you are not quite as crazy as Tim, but you still have the crazy idea that you can make a difference in the world, by transforming your pain into something positive.

I really loved Robin Williams as the professor in Dead Poets Society.  I loved the quote that the purpose of education is supposed to help our youth learn to think for themselves, not just recite rote answers.  That they should seize the day and make their lives extraordinary.

We need more extraordinary people in our world, because those are the kinds of people that make things happen.  They seize the dream out of their hearts, and they keep trying.  They realize that even the mistakes they will make along the way can be something wonderful.

So go out today and find your bathtub moment. The crazy idea that you can bring into reality. Like Tim you might find that your crazy idea can be done, and along the way you might just meet the Queen of England and get a Royal Navy Commission. Who knows what just might be possible?

We Don’t Have To Agree, In Order To Be Kind To One Another

“We find comfort among those who agree with us – growth among those who don’t” – Frank A. Clark 

It is interesting how as a human you tend to want everyone to think just like you do.  In my family, we like to have “conversations”.  When my grandmother was alive it was so interesting to listen to all of the adults after dinner.  She would usually introduce a topic that she knew some of my aunts or uncles wouldn’t agree on.

Then she would come at that topic in several different directions.  She was a researcher, and in her past had taught school in a country school with all the grades together.  She was really smart and if you were going to come at another viewpoint than hers, you had better know your stuff.

I grew up with it being normal to have conversations with others about conflicting viewpoints.  There never were any fights or loud voices.  No one was ever judged as wrong, just different.

So, raising my kids, we would also talk about things that we don’t agree with each other on.  My youngest son and I are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  We all give each other a hard time, but it is with a joke encapsulating it.

No name calling or escalating into arguments.  Because whatever your viewpoint is about something, if you have an open mind, you can find some good points in almost any viewpoint that you can agree on.

He is pro guns and very conservative.   I am the “hippy” who still believes that someday we will really be a global civilization and get along.

What is so interesting is that we both have examples of the others’ beliefs that we can poke fun at, and we have lots of stuff that we are totally on the same page about.  The reason it works for us, is that we realize that as we grow and shift and transform, sometimes those viewpoints that we have held to for years, also change.  What you felt strongly about at 5 yrs. old; at 15 yrs. old; at 25 yrs. old; at 50 yrs. old will not be the same things.

Be a freethinker

“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.  This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking.  Where is it absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless” – Leo Tolstoy

You don’t have to compromise your convictions to be kind to one another.  You don’t need to buy into being in fear of others, just because they are different. 

People are not meant to be matching bookends to you.  It really doesn’t matter what your political viewpoint is; what your skin color is; what your culture is; what sexual orientation that you identify with.  It doesn’t matter what your religion is. 

Imagine if you were to sit down and fill out a survey about any of the important things in life. Things like being able to feed your family; having a safe place for them to live; having adequate medical care; equality – both for racial relations and work wages.  

I think that the survey would reflect you could agree on all of those things universally viewed as being important.  You might differ in how you think it should happen, but those small differences should never escalate into hatred and violence.

Spread #love, not hate. Spread #peace.

Have you ever become best friends with someone that you didn’t agree with?  It is possible to love someone that you totally disagree with about certain issues.  My husband and I have been married for almost 49 years. Our politics are on the opposite side of the spectrums, and our religious views are not the same.  But in comparison to how much we had in common, those things don’t interfere with our loving each other.

Even though we are in different political parties, I can acknowledge the good in his viewpoints.  We agree that we can have our own religious views and still love one another.

I think it is part of what has made us successful in our marriage.  We are best friends even though we don’t have the same beliefs about every single subject.

The more we can see the humanity in one another, the harder it is to hate someone.  No one should ever be judged wrong, just because someone else doesn’t agree with every word they say.

You don’t know what is going on in someone else’s life.  Something as simple as a smile has turned a stranger who was walking down the street away from suicide.  

If you could just be kind to everyone you meet, that simple act of kindness could save a life.  Be a heart that listens, and throw kindness around like confetti!  Be aware of opportunities around you to be kind. 

I love the video called Life Vests Inside – Kindness Boomerang’s – One Day.  You can watch it on “YouTube”.  https://youtu.be/nwAYpLVyeFU

It starts off with a young boy falling off his skate board.  A man with a orange vest like a road worker helps him up.  Then the boy sees an elderly lady crossing the street and having trouble holding on to her bags of groceries, so he puts down his skate board to help her.  Then the elderly lady sees a young woman trying to find coins for a parking meter and hands her some coins, and it continues on to end back up with the road worker being given a cold glass of water.  What I loved about it is that they included young and elderly; men and women; white, black, brown races; rich business man and homeless man.  Everyone had a chance to both give and receive kindness. 

The growth comes from really understanding that there can be different perspectives.  From understanding how what has happened in another person’s background could create a different belief system.

We have this idea that someone has to be wrong and someone has to be right.  You should never judge another’s choices unless you have a thorough understanding of their reasons for making those choices.

This thinking would mean that in almost all cases, there is room in your world for more than one belief.  Obviously we are not talking about harmful conduct.

“The best ideas emerge when very different perspectives meet”  – Frank Johannsson

The analogy of the map and directions fits here.  If you are going to San Fernando Valley from Ventura, CA, you might take the 101 to the valley or you might take the 101 to the 23, which becomes the 118.

Which way you go, would depend on where in the valley you were going and what traffic was like.  The 101 tends to be tied up with traffic more often and the 23/118 would probably be faster, again depending on where in the valley you were driving to.

I could argue for one and you could argue for the other.  I could have experienced a faster time one day, and you could have experienced a faster time the other way on a different day.  Depending on the circumstances the wrong or right answer would change.

Most things in life are that way – it all depends on the circumstances and the perspective you are currently viewing life through.

Regardless of which view you had, you could still be kind.  You could still show respect.  You could still hold yourself to a higher standard of grace and elegance when having a discussion.  You could still try to achieve the same goal, getting to San Fernando Valley.

So be kind.  Be compassionate.  Be respectful.  Express your beliefs with grace and tolerance.  Spread #love, spread #peace.

I Choose to be HAPPY!

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Never Doubt Yourself

In 1952 Florence Chadwick, who had swum the English Channel, tried to swim from Catalina Island to the California coastline. After about 15 hours a thick fog set in and she didn’t think that she could make it. After another hour she asked to be pulled into the boat, giving up. She found out she had stopped one mile from her destination. She later swam the Catalina Channel several times. To face the doubt down, you just have to keep going.

When she looked at how far she had left to go in her imagination, (since the fog prohibited her from seeing the coastline in front of her) it was easy to get discouraged and quit. When you want to quit you start thinking and saying ” I have given all I have”. “No one could do more”. “This far is good enough”. “This is all I can take or handle”.

“Strength does not come from winning.  Your struggles develop your strengths.  When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength”  –  Arnold Schwarzenegger

Something important was discovered in the experiment of the biosphere, in regards to trees.  When they first planted the trees they were really excited to see the growth of the trees and how healthy they seemed.  But what they discovered was that without the winds creating resistance for the trees as they grew, their root systems were very shallow and they couldn’t support their upward growth.  They all eventually fell down because the roots couldn’t hold the tree upright.  The same is true for us. 

Have you seen the death crawl scene in the movie, “Facing the Giants”? The high school football player is blindfolded so that he can’t see.  Then another player is placed on the football players back.  He has to crawl on his hands and knees with the weight of that player.  The purpose of the blindfold is so that he can’t see how far he has gone. When you can see how far you have gone, the tendency is to discount it.  You start looking for reasons to quit, because it is too hard.  It epitomizes the strength that you have hidden inside of you.  The strength you hide from yourself, so that you don’t know that it’s even there. 

“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what” – Harper Lee

When you see a big goal way down the field and what you have to go through to get there, your mind will start in with the negative chatter.  Your mind will find a million reasons, perfect logical reasons, why you can’t do it.  All words describing how it is impossible.  Your friends and family will probably jump on the bandwagon saying that you would be crazy to even attempt it.  Why start something doomed to failure?

In the movie, when the football player goes past the 50 yard line the coach gets excited.  Like a good coach he sees that the player has the strength to go further. He starts crawling in front of him, saying 10 more steps, 10 more steps until the player collapses saying he can’t go farther and it must be that he is at the 50-yard line. In fact, he is in the end zone and just carried another player on his back the entire football field.  Something that everyone, the coach, the other players and the boy would have said was impossible.

“Sometimes it is not the lack of ability, but the lack of confidence that prevents us from achieving what we really want.  Sometimes it’s doable, but self-doubt makes it impossible” – QuotesEmpire.com

You have amazing strength inside of you. You need to carry inside yourself something inspirational that feeds your soul and spirit to keep going. It could be a past victory.  There are many inspirational movies, Rudy, The Rocky Series, this film and I am sure you have your own list that you could continue with.  It could be looking at the miles you have already traveled. It could be the story of a family member.  Everyone needs the positive thinking of “I Can”, “I Will”, “I AM”, to shove aside the doubts and keep going forward into the end zone.

Next time you’re stressed, take a step back, inhale and laugh.  There is something about the breath that can disconnect you from strong emotions.  The old adage, count to 10 works for this reason.

• Think before you speak.
• You can take back a thought, you can’t unspeak the words.
• Remember who you are and why you are here.
• You’re never given anything in this world that you cannot handle.
• Even when it feels like you have been broken, you are still ok.
• Be strong, be flexible, love yourself and have compassion for yourself and others.
• Always remember to just keep moving forward, – it is always just 10 more steps.
• Like Dory in  “Finding Nemo”, in the face of adversity, just keep swimming.
• Don’t stop until you reach the finish line.

“Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come.  Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome” – Unknown

What gives us the courage to keep trying and stretching?  It has to do with your ability to change and transform.  It has to do with your attitude and definitions are around what transformation really means.

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?  Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?”  – Lao Tzu

See the  death crawl video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUKoKQlEC4

What Holds You Back From Success?

• What makes a person go after what they want?
• How do you figure out what “that” is?
• What does courage have to do with it?
• What does it mean to live safely?

It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you’re not.   – Denis Waitley

This is such a profound quote – “You” are what holds you back.

You hold ourselves back, because you doubt yourself in some manner.

When LemonadeMakers was born, it was in response to the murder of my nephew.  His death altered the course of my life.  My life until that moment, was being lived completely in the safety zone.  I have a nice corporate job, which I had worked years to obtain.  I was successful in my career and was earning six figures.  Then everything changed.  Carl’s death started me questioning what I was really doing with my life.

Was I making a real difference to anyone?

The answer was while I had a comfortable lifestyle, and had accomplished all of the goals I set for myself, the truth was that I had not made a real difference in the world.  I realized that I had played my life safe.  I realized that if I died tomorrow, while my friends and family might miss me, the world wouldn’t realize I was gone.

The grand vision of LemonadeMakers  is a reality T.V. show, in which we follow the transformations of “normal” people in each of our hometowns, who are out in the world to make a difference.   I had no idea how to bring this dream into being.  I had a 34 year career in the financial industry and was successful in that field.  I had no connections with anyone in the entertainment industry.  I didn’t know of anyone in my own community who I could use as my first show.  I had no followers.

I didn’t have the anything in my life, to make something like that happen.  Like Denis said, what was holding me back, was what I didn’t think I was – a person who could make a sizzle reel and sell a T.V producer into making LemonadeMaers a reality T.V. show.

 What I knew is I needed to become the person who could.

A person who could attract and build a community of followers, who would want to watch this show.  A person who could locate the local community heroes to film their stories.  A person who could get introductions to the people in Hollywood that would say yes to this show.

For years I have dreamed of going to Petra in Jordan.  I have books and magazines that talk about the site.  For whatever reason, this site speaks to me more than any other place that I could visit in the world.  Why haven’t I went there?

Because it is still a poster on the wall.  Because it is a someday dream.  Because that dream is not yet coming from within me.  LemonadeMakers comes from within me.  It is like the air I breathe.  It is something that I work at every single day.  It is vital to my being alive.  It is my divine purpose.  It is my souls calling.

This vision taught me to let go of who I thought I was.

I thought that climbing the corporate ladder and earning six figures would make me happy.  It was what I was taught from an earlier age, to have a successful career.

For years I was the introvert that was invisible.  I hated being in crowds.  I never knew how to introduce myself to strangers and have a conversation.  I was comfortable being the fly on the wall that listened to what others had to say.  All of that has changed.  I let go of this need to not be seen.  Now I can step out on a stage of 600 – 700 people and talk for an hour about LemonadeMakers and see my vision take root in their hearts.

This vision made me realize that the corporate job I had put so much value in, was not what I really wanted my life to be about.   I have discovered hidden treasures that were buried deep within me.  I discovered that I can write about what is important to me, and that my writing strikes a chord in many people.  Somehow my reaction to Carl’s murder recalibrated my inner compass.  I had a new direction and a better destination.

I have made some mistakes in investing with a partnership that didn’t work out.  Having everything go as planned isn’t a learning experience.  It doesn’t change or transform you.  What I discovered about myself through that mistake was worth the price of admission, because I saw how I was still trying to play it safe by riding along on the coattails of the other business.

I discovered that the notion of being invisible was still playing a part in my life through this partnership.  Sometimes this journey has felt like I’m going to die, that it will never happen, that I’m not capable of being that person.  But every time those negative emotions poke their head out, I go back to curiosity.  I go back to wondering what the gift is I am not seeing yet.  And I start digging to expose it.

I have transformed again, and once again the wind is lifting my wings to a new experience of growth and change.  Transformation is an ongoing learning experience.  It is the journey of self discovery.   It is the understanding that change is not something to be scared of or to be avoided.  It is a natural part of your journey and the whole reason for having a destination.

I have discovered how important curiosity, anticipation, and expectation are to having fun with change and transformation.

Your journey will be different than mine.  What is the same however, is that whatever your journey uncovers is a gift.  Every roadblock.  Every detour.  Every storm, flood, earthquake, and tidal wave leaves behind a gift if you are willing to be curious.  It all boils down to “What are you doing to improve your life?”

So get excited over discovering in the debris left behind, the treasure it has exposes.  Your real life begins –

• When you believe in intuition.
• When you trust in your intuition.
• When you act from the space of imagination.

Life’s Storms

Revised 5/13/2019

I wrote this poem on a Sunday (see it at the bottom). It had been banging around in my head for a while wanting to be released. So, I took some quiet time while everyone was asleep and let it out. The entire poem is printed at the end of the post.

There is no growth without change. You’ve got to let go of some old stuff. And that can hurt. Often when I’m in the most pain, I realize it’s coming from my trying to control everything. Or resisting the changes that come with the progress. But you see that light . . ., that beautiful next level . . ., and that’s what you have to focus on – Ali Brown

I found the quote by Ali after I wrote the poem and was struck by how much of what I am trying to express in the poem is in her quote.

You have to release what no longer serves you. That could be the story that you have been telling yourself that holds you in chains of fear about success and failure. It could be the story that you tell yourself that you are not capable of being more. The stories you could be telling yourself go on and on.  They are varied and unending, depending on what your life has been about so far.

This control is when you stand up on the ship of your own destiny and release the anchor holding you to your stories. You drop the weight that holds you in place. You open to the winds of change.  You drop all of the baggage of blaming the world for where you are at this moment in time.  You decide to take your control back – control of how you think, how you react.

You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying.  What you can do is calm yourself.  The storm will pass – Thimber Hawkeye

It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the storm of fears and doubts. To realize that as you set sail on your ship, that there will be those who you leave behind, because they are still chained to their own stories. 

When I thought deeply about this I thought of Pompeii.  The volcano was going to erupt.  It had been giving signs of the coming destruction for months.  The people who were awake and listening, left the island behind.  But so many of the people didn’t believe what they were seeing on a day-to-day basis.  And they left fleeing to safety too late. 

I am sure that they fully believed the lies they were telling themselves, the false stories about how safety lay in staying – not in fleeing with nothing to their names, to untold dangers.  No, for them staying was the only smart thing to do.

You, however, face your fears of not knowing how you will steer the ship, or even where the next safe harbor will be.   You have the courage to face the fears of the unknown, to face the lies that you told yourself and make the right decision – to face and live through the changes that are coming.

There comes a time when you just have to listen to the music of your soul and set sail to the unknown. And so the journey begins. 

Life’s Storms

Storms without a name whip the seas into a fury, winds screaming through torrents of rain.
Waves crashing against the shore, bring in lost and forgotten debris.
Stand tall on the deck of your ship, as the birds scatter beneath the howling winds,
Let it blow away what no longer serves you. 

You feel the backlash of empty words with no truth, the shadows are winning.
No sunlight, every battle lost, and shadow is winning. No rescue. 
The lack of love, the hunger for life is insatiable, an open mouth that wails to be fed.
You can’t undo what has been done, it doesn’t serve you. 

Thunder rolls and lightning flashes exposing what still needs to be released.
Let it go out the door, don’t run after it as if falls off the deck and into the sea.
Feel the weight of the past, as the sounds of the anchor being lifted vibrate through your body,
The anchor being lifted from the bottom of the sea, the sound of your journey echoing onward.

Change, the anchor of our soul, it both drops into the sea, and is pulled back up into the ship,
Change moves us ever forward on the journey, unearthing the destination clue by clue, star by star.
Change reveals the next adventure, the next treasure that we are seeking,
Change reveals the next harbor in which to rest our soul

Bright morning stars, as day breaks open the dawn releasing the light, as it climbs the clear sky,
Light breezes blow as it fills the sails, with the dust blown clear, we see what has been done.
Every color sparkles as it plays upon the sea, as we awaken, transformed once more,
We hear the music of our soul, whispering as the journey begins again, echoing ever onward.

Ocean

When you look across the ocean with the sunrise or the sunset, you see the colors mirrored on the surface. This is like our appearance, beautiful when calm and serene. But if you dive down deep, into the depths, that is where the true beauty of a person lies, in their soul. This is the beauty that we miss, when we make surface judgments about someone.

Rumi says, “Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.” Self knowledge is the place to start. We need to dig down deep within us, and question all of the stories we have told ourselves about our life. What do we know to be 100% totally true?

If we seriously ask and listen to the answer to this question, most of us would have to acknowledge that most of our stories about life are made up. We make them up to make sense of the things we have seen, done, and experienced. John Lennon said, “The more I see, the less I know for sure.” This is because the more that we learn about life, the more we see that most of our knowledge is surface knowledge. The deeper we dive, the more we see how much more complicated and interconnected our understanding of life is.

“Knowledge is knowing the depths of the ocean. Wisdom is knowing where to swim” Saleem Sharma. Sometimes life can be hard to navigate. When the storms come in, the waves churn up from the bottom of the sea bed. Things come to the surface that have been long buried. We are like this when the storms of life blow in. All those things that we stuff down inside of us, because we either can’t, or don’t know how to deal with them, come churning up to the surface.

Instead of being afraid of what we have buried, we need to rise up and calm the waters. Be still. Breathe. Be at peace. Realize that God never brings anything into our lives that we can’t handle. Wake up to your dreams. Live them out in your reality.

Lean on the divine, and on those who love us. Change what can be changed, release the rest. See the hope of a new day, the beauty that lies within each of us, and the love that never dies. Remember that you can do anything you “think” you can do, and impossible really means “I m possible”.