Move Outside Your Fears, Enter Through The Door Of Your Dreams

Updated 8/05/2018

So many times we ask the divine for help, for guidance.  The door is open, right there in front of us, but we don’t enter.  It could be that what we see beyond that door is not what we were expecting for the answer.  It could be that we are so caught up in the drama and chaos that we don’t even see the door.  We remain in our self imposed prison, feeling sorry for ourselves, and we are the only ones with the key.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

  –   Corrie ten Boom

I was reading a book recently and one of the sub plot lines was that one of the main characters had seen in a vision that he killed one of the other main characters.  Sometimes what we see is a still point scene, meaning that it is just a flash of what the scene is about.  But we don’t see what happened before or after it.  Like this photo we just see a green mist.  It isn’t until we step through the door that everything becomes clear. To refuse the journey because of what we think might happen, is to live our life with fears chains limiting every move.  Be brave.  Trust who you are at the heart and soul level.  Unlock fears chains and walk through the door.

Fear knocked at the door.  Love answered and no one was there.

  –  Dr. Wayne Dyer

In the book I was referencing, she had been poisoned with a drug that would affect her brain in such a way that she would become a killer, no moral codes, insane.  And the same time, the sane part of herself would know everything that the insane part of her was doing.  She asked him to kill her.  Our divine destiny sometimes leads us to places unexpected.  Without knowing the whole story we look out that door and see a scene that we reject wholesale.  We judge it without an understanding of what is really going on. 

It’s better to look back on life and say, “I can’t believe I did that” than to look back and say, “I wish I did that”. 

  – Lessons Learned In Life

We need to walk through that door to begin the long journey to ourselves.  To unfold our own myths.  The ones that you grew up with.  Your sibling is the smart one (which made you the dumb one).  Your sibling is the athlete (which made you clumsy or uncoordinated).  Your sibling is musical (which made you tone deaf).  We could go on and on with the comparisons between you and someone else as you grew up.  The teachers who told you that you couldn’t do something, weren’t talented enough, whatever the rejection was that you accepted as fact.  Then there are the myths that you just told yourself, based on your own low opinion of who you are, and what you are capable of. 

If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you’re not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.

  – Sir Richard Branson

And of course there are the hopes and dreams of those that love us, that aren’t the same as our own hopes and dreams.  I remember in the book, “Love, Medicine and Miracles”, one of the true stories was of a young man who had terminal cancer.  He was in college studying to become a doctor, because that was what his parents wanted.  When he found out he had cancer he quit school and went to play his violin which was his dream and passion in life.  Funny thing happened, his cancer went away.  When he started living his life purpose, he starting living his life. 

When opportunity knocks, don’t let fear hold you back.  Open the door and embrace the opportunity that has come forth.

 –  Live Life Fully

When he stopped letting fear of disappointing his parents stop him from being who he really was, he opened the door to the life he was supposed to be living.

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.  Failure is delay, not defeat.  It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. 

  – Denis Waitley

The other thing that keeps us from walking through that door is the voice that remembers that one time we fell on our face.  A complete laughing stock failure.  You don’t want that to ever happen again, so take no chances on walking through the door.  We need just enough courage to open that door and step through.  We need a new definition of what failure is.  Failure is a temporary detour.  It is the realization that failure is just a part of the process on the road to success.  Failure is not a stop sign.  It is a learning experience that we need to fully embrace.  To hold it in our arms, to hug it tight.  We don’t die from failure.  We do however stop living, if we let failure be a stop sign.

I’ve failed over and over and that is why I succeed.

  – Michael Jordan

In basketball you miss more shots than you make and you are still a success, why?  Because you keep trying, and you don’t sit in the stands and watch, not taking the shot.  You keep trying and you even though you miss some of the time, you also score some of the time.

Let the people discover you!  You might have the key of the locked doors in their lives!  Open yourself to the world; you might be the magic the world needs! 

  – Mehmet Murat Jidan

So many of us walk through life, trying not to be seen.  We are afraid of being judged, as not being worthy, of thinking more of ourselves than we should and being found a fraud.  But that is just a lie.  The more that we let people in, the more our life opens up.  The more that we be who we truly are without the limitations we put on ourselves.  The more that we help ourselves, the more we can help others do the same.  That is the change that the world needs.  To live out loud, who we are in our souls.  When we do that, we give others permission to do the same.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a  river moving in you, a joy.

  – Rumi

Walk through that door.  Don’t let the fear of change, of the unknown. of possible failure, keep you from living your life on purpose.

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Dreamers Touch The Stars And Change The World

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.

• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I would succeed at whatever I did, what would I want to do next?
• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I had millions of dollars in the bank right this moment, what would I do next?
• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I only had 6 months life to live in this life, what would I do in that time frame with my life?

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.

Dreaming With Your Eyes Wide Open Is Self Empowerment

As children you believe that your parents are invincible, indestructible, and that they will never let you down.  Then the unthinkable happens and they do.

Then when you are older and you think wiser, you fall in love for the first time.  As you view this person through rose colored glasses, seeing no faults, but only the perfection of your love, you place them upon a pedestal thinking that they will never hurt you.  Then the unimaginable happens, and they break your heart.

It isn’t your parents or your best friend, or your first love that let you down.  It is your own expectations, which were unreal.  You are broken hearted by your own projections of who who you wanted them to be, which was something that no one could live up to.

“The strongest source of empowerment is that which we find within ourselves” – Brett Blumenthal

What you discover is that it is unfair to put someone else in charge of your life.  It is unfair, because each person is responsible for themselves.  Handing it off to someone else will only hurt both them and you.  When you build your house upon the foundation of your soul, and take it’s direction, then you can add those you love to connect to your souls home.  You add your spiritual beliefs, your family, your friends, your career – everything you want in life, but the empowerment that comes from that foundation is what makes everything run.

“I came to believe that my identity goes beyond the outer roles I play.  It transcends the ego.  I came to understand that there is an Authentic “I” within – an “I AM”, or divine spark within the soul” – Sue Monk Kid

The roles you play, being a wife or husband; being a mother or father; being a son or daughter, being a grandmother or a grandchild – those roles can make you happy, but they are not the source of the happiness.  The source of the happiness comes from within.  Otherwise you are burdening your happiness on the expectations of those roles, burdening your loved ones unfairly with the responsibility of making you happy.  That is dooming yourself to be the perpetrator of a broken family filled with trauma and drama.

“We simply can’t control what comes out of people’s mouths.  However, we can control how we feel about what they say”  – Scarlett Jones

The same thing is true for your friends and those you work with.  You can’t base your happiness on what those around you say or do.  Or don’t say or do.  Have you ever worked really hard on a project at work, and no one noticed your brilliance?  Were you trying to be brilliant to have others laud you, or because you loved exceeding the expectations of others?

I love it when someone notices I did a good job, beat the deadline, came in under budget, etc.., but it needs to be for your own empowerment that you feel good about it.  Then if someone else does notice, that is whipping cream on the dessert, good when it is there, but not necessary to be enjoyed as a great dessert.

Have you ever planned a trip with the girlfriends and then were disappointed when others didn’t contribute and left all of the work for you to do?  What really caused the unhappiness?

Miscommunication, unrealistic expectations of others?  What about if you come from the viewpoint of creating an experience of joy?  Being authentic enough to ask for help when you need it, without expectation of how the help shows up.  Creating from that place is a gift to yourself and to those others who will be there.  It takes all of the drama out of the experience, leaving a space of “WOW” for what is created.  It makes you vulnerable to the beauty of what happens next.

Using the analogy of the butterfly.  The caterpillar is vulnerable in creating the chrysalis, not knowing how it will all turn out.  Knowing that the transformation is necessary, doesn’t make it any easier to do it.  The butterfly is vulnerable as it fights to get released from the chrysalis, dry its wings so that it can take flight.  It is a beautiful creation that can’t see the brilliance of the colors and designs of its own wings.  Putting your own human thoughts into the analogy, this transformation into something new would be terrifying.

“Your authentic self is the source of your brilliance.  It’s the universal you – the person you always thought you could be before your fears and beliefs about what is really possible reined in this brilliant reality.  Getting in touch with the source of your brilliance and staying connected will make you shine every day.  Tapping into your intuition is how you will discover your authentic self and your true brilliance” – Angela Artemis

There is no manual provided when you tap into intuition and transform your life from the ego driven life, to the life of being self-empowered and fueled from within.  It is a journey of self-discovery.  It is scary and terrifying because you will almost certainly fall and have to get back up many times.

You also have the joy and satisfaction of knowing that it is your own magnificent journey.  There is a tunnel that you drive through when you travel to Yosemite National Park.  On one side of the tunnel you have beautiful mountains and trees and you think this is what the park is about.  Then as you emerge through the tunnel it is like arriving on another planet.  While what you saw before the tunnel was beautiful scenery, it pales in comparison to the vista that opens before you as you exit the tunnel.

Discovering your true authentic self and living from that place is like coming out of that tunnel.  You thought you were happy before, but it pales in comparison to the true source of happiness when you live from within.   Your soul becomes visible to yourself and others.  It opens the door to soul to soul connections.

Have you ever met someone and it is like you’ve known them your whole life in 5 minutes?  That is a soul to soul connection.

Every day you connect, lose connection and reconnect to that brilliance of your soul’s intuition.  You learn to believe in your future self.  It is like the beauty of that butterfly taking flight.  Miracles take place every day.  Tap your true potential.  Spread those wings and fly.

As always, LemonadeMakers is here to help if you ever need someone to coach you to your magnificence.

Who Are You Becoming?

We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.

  – Max Depree

I love to read great books.  I have love affairs with the characters, watching them undergo their transformational hero’s journeys through the pages to the end of the story.  I get great ideas from the authors words, that send me speeding down the side roads of my own life.  Every year I look back at what in my life I shed like an old skin, and what ways I have changed as I try to improve my own life.

The most important question to ask is, “What am I becoming?”

  – Jim Rohn

I have a rule, that I can’t bring a new thing into my house, unless I let go of something that is already there.  I love to send boxes to the goodwill or some other second hand store.  I think about the clothes I give away as going to a new person who will enjoy them just as much as I did.  I think about the books I have read, laughing and crying my way through them and how they will stir the emotions of another reader.

I love the person I’ve become, because I fought to become her.

  – Kaci Dianne

In this same way, I look at my beliefs, my habits, my lifestyle.  When I want to get healthier, work on improving my finances, grow in my own self knowledge, I realize that in order to make these transformational changes in my life, I have to let go of something that is no longer serving me.  I have to step outside the comfort zone and pay the tolls to walk down a new path, to undertake a new journey.

I know not who I am, simply that I am forever becoming exactly what I am meant to be.

  – Becca Lee

There is so much more to us than we are aware of.  I like the word developing.  Like the developing of film.  When we look outside and take in a scene, there are certain things that attract our attention.  We miss most of the scene we are looking at because we simply see what our filters let us see.  But if you snap a photo and enlarge it and go over it and over it, there is so much more there than we were aware of.  If you were to grid out the photo and examine each block of the grid, you would probably see insects, birds, small animals and lots of plants.  You would look deeply into the shadows to see what is hidden in the semi darkness.

Dear Self,  This is going to be your year.  So dust off your sh*tkickers and let’s get started.  All my love, Me

  – Unknown

Taking that same view into our own personal lives can be a real eye opener.  We are all worthy of being fully developed into the magnificent beings that we are capable of being.  I remember that when I was growing up I had two of my sisters and my brother develop into artists through classes in school.  I can’t draw a stick figure and I was always jealous.  My mom always wished she could draw and paint like they could.  Sometime in her early 50’s she was talked into taking an art class with her best friend.  I have hanging on my wall in the living room a painting that she did.  It is amazing that what she discovered and developed from one art class, is that she could in fact draw and paint.

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

  – Deepak Chopra

Inside of all of us are these amazing talents we don’t know we have.  We just haven’t taken the time and energy to do that thing we always wished we could do.  We just don’t have the confidence and courage to step out and take the chance that we might be really good at something that we think we are terrible about.  We just haven’t decided what is behind fears door #1, #2 or #3. 

Think of three things what you have always wanted to learn how to do – play a musical instrument, learn how to dance, learn a craft of some sort, paint, pottery, woodcraft – whatever it is.  Now take photos of those things and paste them on a piece of paper and then cut out some doors from a magazine and tape the doors over the three things you have always wanted to learn how to do.  Now just sit there and free write all of the “reasons” why you can’t learn about what is behind door #1, then do the same thing for door #2 and #3.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life.  If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it fullspeed.  Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it.  Lukewarm is no good.

  – Ronald Dahl

Now I am giving you a magic wand that is called enthusiasm.  I want you to waive it over the three doors and grant yourself one wish.  Open up the door that most calls to your heart and soul and write down how you will feel when you are doing this thing.  I want you to write it in the present tense, that you have taken the classes or lessons and now you can play the piano, or dance the waltz or you just built a cabinet or rebuilt a car engine.  How happy and joyful do you feel?  Now go back to all of those “reasons” why you can’t do what is behind that door.  Cross through each one as you name the fear behind it.  Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of not being good enough and so on.  Now go out and learn what you need to know to bring that dream out from under the bed, dust it off, shine a light on it, and figure out how to do what you need to do to “get it done”.

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple.

Know what you are doing.

Love what you are doing.

And believe in what you are doing.

  – Will Rogers

Bravery Is Taking One Step, Then Another, And Another

“Running away from your problems is a race that you will never win”  – Unknown

What is the difference between

leaving something that doesn’t serve you

and running away?

I think it is several things.  The realization that there is nothing that you can do to change the situation.  You can only change yourself.  If the situation doesn’t change after that, then it is time to ask yourself “why am I still here?”.

Years ago I have interviewed for a new job and was hired.  The first hour of my first day at the new job, I knew that I had made a mistake.

The owner of the company had a lot of anger issues in how he treated his employees.  He wasn’t the person I had interviewed with and when I was shown around the office he wasn’t there.  If he had been, and I saw how he treated his employees I never would have accepted the position.

As an example he would walk around the office and open the paper drawers for the fax machines.  If they were down even a few sheets of paper, and even if the receptionist had filled them 5 minutes ago he would start yelling and cursing at her.

The Saturday of my first week there, I went into the office to set up my desk with the various underwriting guidelines they used for several different companies.

While I was there, the owner of the company came in and we started talking.  I had already worked for an owner like him, and I had sworn I would never allow someone to treat me like that again.  So I told him very clearly that the first time he yelled and swore at me, like I had seen him do to others, would be the day I quit.

• your employment 
• your family
• your spouse
• your friends

have you stayed in instead of leaving? 

You tell yourself that you have no choice but to stay. But you always have choices.

Your happiness starts with you. 

Not only how you treat yourself, but how you give permission to others to treat you. I could only make that choice because I loved myself, and trusted  that doing the right thing would work out in the end.

“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble.  Courage is the foundation of integrity”  – Mark Twain

It is how you treat yourself with the inner voice inside your head.

“Note to self:  You don’t have to be brave every single minute.  Sometimes, you rest.  You say, “I’m not brave enough for that . . . right now”.  But you will be.  Soon”  – Nanea Hoffman

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are”  – e.e. cummings

Ability And Inner Guidance Know Best

Updated 11/26/2021

“Your life is yours to live, no matter how you choose to live it.  When you do not think about how you intend to live it, it lives you.  When you occupy it, step into it consciously, you live it.”   – Gary Zukav

Take a moment to think about this past week in your life.  How many things are habitual that you do?  How much of your life is lived on autopilot?  You get up in the morning, shower, brush your teeth, . . .  daily habits that you don’t think about if you should do or not do.

Now think about how much of your life you actually thought about living?  Did you do anything new?  Did you plan out a trip to somewhere you’ve never been?  Did you drive down a different street going to or from work that you’ve never been down before?  Did you do anything different than the previous week, month or ever year?

How much of your life is lived consciously?  Can you say like Alice in Wonderland, “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed quite a few times since then?”

There is a saying that we have two ears and one mouth, because we are supposed to listen twice as much as we speak. I think that this ability to listen also applies to listening to our inner voice. I know that this is something that I constantly practice.

Do you ever have that nagging feeling as you are walking out the door to go to work or run errands? That feeling that you are forgetting something, but can’t think of what it might be? Do you run down your mental checklist and don’t see anything that you have forgotten? Then later, something happens and you realize what it was you forgot? Happens to me all the time. That is the inner voice talking, but not being listened to.

“The more you trust your intuition, the more empowered you become, the stronger you become, and the happier you become.”  – Gisele Bundchen

It is the same voice that tells you stay away from that person – you know the one that makes your skin crawl? It is like a radar warning you away from danger or from a bad relationship. Have you ever pushed that voice down saying, “there is nothing wrong with this person” to yourself, only to regret later not listening to it?

When I worked for a major bank in San Diego years ago I had that feeling about a new hire.  I was a mortgage loan supervisor at the time, and every new loan would come across my desk and I would assign the set up clerk and loan processor for the file.  This new hire literally made my skin crawl.  I told the branch manager that there was something majorly wrong with this guy, but he passed the background check, so that was all he cared about.  So I went through each new loan submission this guy turned in and rejected almost all of them as having something wrong with the documentation (translate loan fraud). 

Our office was on the 15th floor facing the freeway.  There was a side road that ran along the freeway and one afternoon everyone was at the windows watching something going on down below.  When I went to see what was going on, this loan officers Porsche was alongside the chain link fence next to the freeway and it was on fire.  The fire department was there and as they were shooting water at the car, I could see these funny sparks shooting out around the vehicle.  Pretty soon I saw the police arrive and they handcuffed the loan officer and put him in the back of the police car. 

Turns out he had several hand guns and rifles in the trunk of the car along with ammunition.  It was live ammunition going off that was creating the sparks.  It was a few days before he came back to work, and he was fired.  I never let my branch manager forget that I had told him that there was something wrong with that guy.  Sometimes we just know intuitively when something isn’t right.

“Problems are the gifts that make us dig out and figure out who we are, what we’re made for, and what we’re responsible to give back to life.”  – Tony Robbins

This inner voice is the key to having a life of transformation that doesn’t throw you into “dark night of the soul” transformation. When you listen to this voice, reflect on what it is trying to tell you you can save yourself a lot of trouble.  I love Tony Robbins quote because it puts a slightly different spin on knowing yourself.  You need to understand your place in this world, in order to figure out what you are responsible to do with your life.  The biggest changes you have made in your life usually come out of the biggest challenges.  It shows you who you really are when you pull back the curtains and stop pretending to be the “All Powerful Wizard”.  It shows you how to pay it forward and do good with your life.

I am sure that most of us have heard of the saying, take 10 deep breaths, then talk. It is critical that you pause before reacting. What is so important about taking the deep breaths, is that it helps you step out of the whirlpool of emotions that you are drowning in.  You can step back and see from a less emotional viewpoint what really needs to be said, or done at that moment.  It allows you to reconnect the heart and mind, so that you can make good decisions instead of emotional ones.

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”  – Aristotle

When I was growing up, there was a lot of yelling and fighting between my parents. It was one of the things that I used to say, “I won’t be this kind of parent when I grow up.” When my kids would do something that made me mad, the house rule was they had to go to their room. When I was done being mad, and able to have a conscious conversation about their behavior then I would go to their room and we would have a talk about what had happened.

It was part of my own self knowledge – I needed the time and space to disconnect from the anger or frustration in order to be the kind of person, the kind of parent I wanted to be.  Pausing, Reflecting and the Taking Action.

“When you know yourself you are empowered.  When you accept yourself you are invincible.”  – Tina Lifford

Every Great Dream Begins With A Dreamer

“In order to save myself, I must destroy first the me I was told to be”  – The Dreamer

 You were born a dreamer.  All you have to do is watch any small child.  You can see their dreams, their imaginations running wild.  They create whole worlds with blankets and pillows, some Legos and Hot Wheels, Dinosaurs and some plastic green Army Men.  Whatever they can get their hands on.  If you give them a few tools they will cut and saw out some boards and hammer together a space ship, then put on their capes to go out to save the world from alien invaders.  The horrible thing that happens to you as you grow up, is that you let go of your dreams.  You became a realist and make your possibilities into a small safe comfort zones.

“There are only two kinds of people in this world.  The realists and the dreamers.  The realists know where they are going and the dreamers have already been there”  – Robert Orben

You need to destroy your comfort zone and remember that you are a dreamer and you have unlimited potential.  Your dreams were designed to custom fit your personality.  If you let them, they will continue grow and expand as you do.  They will follow you all of your days, growing greater and grander as you do.  When Walt Disney was laying in the hospital dying, he had his newest dreams taped up on the ceiling so that he could look up at them and continue to plan their realities.  As long as you continue to learn, to grow and expand, so will your dreams.  Dreams are your future realities, waiting in the wings to come out on the stage of life.

“The dreamers of the day are dangerous people.  For they dream their dreams with wide open eyes, and make them come true”  – D.H. Lawrence

I am always amazed when I read an old science fiction book or look at some of the drawings of someone like Leonardo Da Vinci.  He created on paper the bicycle, the helicopter, and an airplane.  What powerful dreamers they were.  At the time, they were writing about a future they could only see in their minds eye.  They made up inventions that had us deep within the oceans, that had us exploring the galaxy, that had us beaming a person from the land mass of a planet, up through space and into the interior of a space ship.

“Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended”  – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Over time, inventors have been catching those concepts or thoughts, and they have been bringing them into reality.  They invented deep sea diving suits, and submarines and special mini subs that could go even deeper.  You have the ability to see the ocean floor from satellites deep in space.  They took us to the moon and back.  Now we go back and forth on a regular basis to a space station.  I saw a news piece about how someone is building personal small helicopters that will fly themselves and be used in the near future to take us to work.  While this isn’t the flying car that turns into a brief case we saw on the George Jetson cartoons, it is getting closer to a reality.

“All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers.  They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision”  – Brian Tracy

When you are a dreamer that puts action steps into your dreams, you discover a number of things.  You discover what hard work really looks and feels like.  You discover the real cost of sacrificing everything to make the dream into reality.  You discover that the price isn’t as large as fear told you it would be.  You discover that every time you fall down, every time it doesn’t work out like you thought it would, that every single failure, is just a way to show you a new viewpoint into what you are bringing into the worlds reality. You discover that failures are just stepping stones to greatness.

“Do not let the fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.  The world you desire can be won.  It exists  . .   it is real . . .  it is possible . . . it’s yours”  – Ayn Rand

Every night you tossed and turned trying to figure out the right way, and all of the struggles you have or will go through, are in the end are the price tag of the ever expanding new you.  Each and every price tag that you pay for .. . every single failure, is what is leading you to the mastery of the idea, and the fulfillment of the concept.  The steps of the completion of the dream, becomes a part of the never ending journey to which we all sign up for.  You gain a true understanding of the words, “it is not the destination that matters, but who we are becoming along the way”.

“Yes, I am a dreamer.  For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world”  – Oscar Wilde

Dreamers Steer By The Stars, SO . . .

Follow your Dreams

Make a Wish

Dream Big

Take a Chance

Believe Big

Make a Change

Taste the Sky

Find the Fire Within

Follow Your Passion

Hold the Vision

Trust the Process

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just because someone invites you to argue and fight,

doesn’t mean you have to accept the invitation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Journal prompts:

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

Have Faith That Everything Will Work Out For The Best

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Say YES To New Adventures

It all begins and ends in your mind.  What you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it.

  – Unknown

So how do you work with your mind to change your story?  You acknowledge that you are where you are in your story because of how you did, or did not use your power.  You realize that while you can’t control every challenge that happens in your life, you can control your response to it.  That is where your power to control your story originates – how you respond.

Allowing people inside your life is a beautiful thing.  Letting go of people who drain your spirit is another beautiful thing you can do for your life.  The key to being happy is knowing you have the power to choose what to accept and what to let go.

  – Dodinsky

First step is to silence the mind.  The subconscious mind is so busy trying to distract us from our real story.  It wants us to get lost in the stories of who our parents said we were.  Of who our friends and relatives expect us to be.  But our true story is waiting in our hearts to be re-discovered.  To be released from the cage that we put it in when we were small children. 

Meditation is a great way to learn to silence the mind.  Visualization is another great way to give the mind something structured to do, so that it will let our heart and soul communicate with us.  For me, my heart and soul communicates best in my dreams.  Many of my poems and best blog posts come from ideas in my dreams.

The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself.  The challenge is to silence the mind.

  – Unknown

Second step is to let go of trying to control things that you have no control over.  To let go of what you can’t change.  Which usually means that we are trying to control the behavior of someone else.  Or control things over which we have no power in the first place. 

In our life story we sometimes have to climb a high mountain pass.  We are supposed to travel up over the pass and back down the other side.  As we follow our road over the mountain, we may find the road has been washed out.  We might find the road has had a rock or mud slide.  Maybe a bridge is out, or there is a raging forest fire.  We might have to detour around whatever the roadblock is.  That doesn’t mean that we drag all of those rocks, mud, broken bridges or burning bushes with us, as we go down the other side of the mountain.  We leave that roadblock on the road.  It is not our business to fix the road.  It is not our burden to control the journey and demand that the road be repaired before we continue across the mountain.  Our business is to simply travel to our destination by any means possible.  It is in the traveling that we learn, change, adapt and transform.

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

  – Unknown

Third step is to really, truly, believe from the bottom of your soul, that you are unique, no one in the entire universe is like you, and that is how it is supposed to be.  Stop trying to fit in a mold.  Stop trying to be Martha Stewart in the home, and Oprah at work, and Marilyn Monroe in the bedroom, all rolled up into one amazing super woman.  Don’t try to make yourself live out someone else’s story.  Live your own.  

You weren’t made to replicate, obey or stand in the shadow of another person.  You were made to stand in your own power and find the truth in your soul..

  – Lonerwolf

Fourth Step is to realize that while we all need a helping hand once in a while, nothing will destroy our power to live our own story faster than having the habit of depending on others.  Just like a tree that grows in the forest, we must grow deep roots to support our upward growth.  If we start leaning on the trees that we are planted by, when the storm comes into our life our roots will not support us and we will crash to the ground.  The unfortunate thing about our crash is how we damage those next to us as we fall.  We must learn to stand up alone and be an original.

Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others.  If you lean, you will never be strong or original.  Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.

  – Orison Swett Marden

Fifth Step has to do with your relationship with yourself.  Really understanding what real self love and self trust is all about.  Not having these vital areas in balance in your life is what leads to most of our broken, damaged relationships – with friends, with family, with our spouse, with our co-workers at our job,  It enters into how people treat us, how we communicate our needs, wants and desires, and how we are perceived in the world.

The relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.

  – Jane Travis

Sixth Step is your relationship to others and the world.  You can’t make everyone happy and it isn’t your job to do so.  There are always going to be people who say that you are “not enough” – not good enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough . . .  and so on.  Those judgments are on them.  They want to feel better by having their own problems being pushed off on to you.  It is not your job to judge them back.  To think that you have to show others what kind of “bad” people they are.  Their true colors will come out without your help or assistance.  Don’t blame others for your life, and don’t accept the blame for how they are living their own life.

Give.  But don’t allow yourself to be used. 

Love.  But don’t allow your heart to be abused. 

Trust.  but don’t be naïve. 

Listen.  But don’t lose your own voice.

  – thisislovelifequotes. net

There are more steps, breadcrumbs that you find along your journey.  It all begins with a simple decision.  Is this DAY ONE, or is this ONE DAY?  You decide.  What’s your story?

Discover Your True Story

You tell me to quiet down cause my opinions make me less beautiful.  But I was not made with a fire in my belly so I could be put out.  I was not made with a lightness in my tongue so I could be easy to swallow.  I was made heavy – half blade and half silk.  Difficult to forget but not easy for the mind to follow – Rupi Kaur

Life gives us a lot of experiences.  They run the whole emotional scale.  You fall from ecstatic joy to pain that leaves you whimpering in the corner, wishing that death would come and take you away from it.  Life gives you the experience of Heaven, Hell and every realm between.  Like clay you are formed and molded by your life experiences.  Like clay you go through the fire.

But you have a choice about what that fire does to you.  You can choose to become rigid, brittle and defined by those fires, so that everyone you meet hears about your horrific life.  Or you can choose to become refined by the fire, tempered by it and made stronger.

Why would you fear the fire?  Because when you are refined by the fire, it exposes you.  You become vulnerable. You have to own the good, the bad, and the ugly and beautiful parts of who you are.  To be ok to be perfectly, imperfect.

People will see the ugly parts of you, and you have to acknowledge that that is part of who you are.  You can’t deny it, you can’t make it be less than it is, you can’t say it doesn’t exist, and that somehow that ugly bit of you is actually someone else’s fault.  You can’t say I lost my temper, and it was that person’s fault.  That they deserved your going nuclear on them.

The fire shines the light on you.  If you stand up in that light and acknowledge who you are, then you have the opportunity to transform it.  You can release the negativity, shift it, and change it into something better.

She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword – Atticus

You might have this mix of fairy tale dreams where you want someone to take care of you, and yet at the same time you fiercely do not want someone to fix you.  You are not looking to be fixed.  You are not broken, or damaged, or needing to be rescued.

That is judging your experience without knowing the whole story.  That is making assumptions of what your dreams are made up of.  That is not understanding what your destiny is preparing you for.

You don’t need a hero, you are one.  What you need is a sword to cut out of us all of the parts that do not serve you, and do not belong as part of you.

Promise yourself that you can and will do better.  Hold yourself to not looking back.  Learn from the past but don’t live there.  Leave the baggage at the airport and travel lightly through life.  Anything that shattered you wasn’t meant for you.

You have this habit sometimes of holding on to something that doesn’t serve you.  You stay in the job, where you’re experiencing bullying, where you’re put down because you believe in some way it is true.  You stay in the job where you are experiencing harassment because you tell yourself you need “this” job.  You stay in a relationship that burns your soul, sacrificing yourself because they say they love you even when their actions tell you it is a lie.

Don’t continue to dance on the broken glass, thinking that you can somehow fix it.  It will just slice your soul and shred your spirit.

You can’t let other people tell you who you are.  You have to decide that for yourself – Unknown

At some point you have to change the situation.  Instead of being battered by the storm, you have to become the storm.  In order to thrive you have to become fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.  You have to put on your life jacket and abandon the sinking ship, with the knowledge that you will be okay.

It might not be today or tomorrow, but the storm will always play itself out.  The sun will shine again.  You are valuable, you are a Goddess, and you must firmly believe that with all of your heart and soul.

She was powerful, not because she wasn’t scared but because she went on so strongly, despite the fear – Atticus

This kind of power comes from the place of not needing anyone to validate who you are.  To get to that space, you have to have gone through the refining fires.  You have to have exposed your vulnerable places, your ugly thoughts and actions.  You have brought the light to all of the dark corners of your heart.  When you have faced who you really are without the masks, without the excuses and justifications, fear gets burnt out of you.

Fear is a choice, and you can choose not to live at its address any longer.

When we accept who you are, you lose false pride.  When you own “this is who I am” fear loses its grip on you.  You are ready.  You are willing.  It is time to go out and fight for your dreams.  You no longer feel that you are obligated to prove your worth to anyone, and if they are demanding that you do so, you walk away.

Once upon a time you were a little girl with big dreams that you promised you’d make real one day.  Don’t disappoint yourself – Unknown