Shots Fired

“When something bad happens you have three choices. You can either let it define you, destroy you, or you can let it strengthen you” – Unknown

In April of 2010 around 11 PM as my nephew and a friend were cutting across the park to go to his friends mom’s house the first shot was fired.  As my nephew was hit, he yelled at his friend to run.  When the second shot hit my nephew his friend started running.  As the third shot hit my nephew and he crumpled to the ground his friend stopped, turned around and saw the shooter emerge from the bushes and take off running.

His friend helped him up and somehow got my nephew to his moms house and they called 911 for an ambulance.  The doctors tried to get a lifeline helicopter but the fog that night was too thick for the helicopter.  After working on him for over an hour, they thought they had him stable enough for transport to another hospital 30-45 min away.  As my sister tried to catch up to the ambulance driving over the mountain pass, they phoned her to tell her to turn around.  My nephew had died in route.

Let’s go back in time to the beginning of this fateful Friday.  My nephew woke up early and grabbed his surfboard.  On the way to Lighthouse field he stopped and gave away some breakfast sandwiches he had made to several homeless guys as he checked in on them.  It was a regular routine for him to encourage them to quit drinking and take back control over their lives.  He then went on to meeting one of his best friends at Lighthouse Field.  His friend was going to film him surfing.  The waves were supposed to be really good and he had this trick he had been working on for some time.  He wanted to have it filmed so he could see what it looked like.  The waves were as predicted and he nailed his trick.

From there he went to work at O’Neils Surf shop.  Then he met another friend and together they went to another friends house.  Close to 11 PM they started across the park so he could get his bike and ride home.  Then “Shots Fired” happened.  A random gang banger shooting.  The shooter never said a word.  He just blew up our world from the cover of darkness for no reason that we could ever understand.

“Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us” – suburbanment.com

Fast forward a few years.  Our family is still recovering from my nephews murder.  My sister started a non-profit Mother Grizzles Against Gangs, but she ran out of money and closed it down.

Santa Cruz Sentinel 2014> "Four years ago this month, JoAnn Tennent lost her only child in a shooting near Grandview Street in Santa Cruz. Carl Reimer was 19, and no one has been arrested in his homicide.  Wednesday evening outside Santa Cruz City Hall, Tennent shared her grief with more than 80 people gathered at the third annual Victims Rights March of Solidarity. She also carried a message of hope and strength to stand together against gangs and violence in Santa Cruz County. “Carl wasn't just my son, he was your son. Because all your children are my children too,” she said. “When someone takes someone from your life, it's devastating. We can't just act like this doesn't happen.”  As part of National Crime Victims” Rights Week, the march started at Santa Cruz County Superior Court at 701 Ocean St. and ended at city hall. Participants held pictures of loved ones who had fallen victim to crime in the county, and they marched with posters with slogans such as “Stop gang violence” and “Violence does not only affect the victim.”"

As a coping mechanism I had started writing to heal my sadness and grief.  I was posting things on my personal Facebook page that I was writing.  I thought just maybe it would help my friends and family.  We were all rebuilding our lives around Carl’s loss.

“if you have the courage to begin, you have the courage to succeed”  – Unknown

A lot of people started commenting and sharing what I was writing and they encouraged me to do more.  And so this LemonadeMaker page was born.  I named it LemonadeMaker because I believe that we are all making lemonade out of life’s lemons.  It all started as part of my own recovery, and it grew into a life purpose.  It’s a vast vision, a dream that I work to fulfill every day.  It’s a calling. Although we lost someone we loved so much – the day of his death was also a day that Carl was following his own dreams.  He had a great morning.  He was really stoked that he had nailed his trick with his surfboard.  He wasn’t leaving his dreams for someday I will . . . , he was living them on purpose.

“In the end, some of your greatest pains become your greatest strengths” – Quoteslife101.net

I looked at my life and realized I wasn’t doing the same.  I was putting off my dreams for when I retired.  For later.  So when I started LemonadeMakers it was for the purpose of realizing my dreams of being a game changer.  Of being an influencer.  Of helping others to fulfill their dreams now.  Because none of us are promised a later to do it in.

Steven Pressfield stated in “The Art of War”, that most of us have two lives; the lives we live and the lives we are capable of living.

5 years later LemonadeMakers has almost 100,000 followers.  This happened because I saw something positive to retrieve from the ashes of my grief.  My nephew left me a trail to follow and I have been walking down it ever since.  It has totally changed my life.  I had put off the dream of writing, because my mind fears said I would fail.  Obviously that wasn’t true.  I had told myself for years that I was an introvert and couldn’t communicate with strangers.  Too my surprise this was also totally not true.  How many mind fears – lies – are you listening too instead of pursuing your dreams?

Don’t put your dreams off to tomorrow.  Start fulfilling them today.  Live the life you are capable of living.

Sign up now.  Click the button to register now.

The Light Is In You

“Know what sparks the light in you, then use that light to illuminate the world” – Oprah

Inside of you is a box of matches.  Each of the matchsticks is a gift that you have to Illuminate the world with.  Striking the match enables you to bring light to some sort of darkness in the world.  The darkness is filled with all of the problems in society we face today.

Each time you light one of your matchsticks, you can see some small part of what is hiding in the darkness. Your light will always shine on something that you can help to change in the world.

If you are brave enough, you strike a match and get curious about the secrets that are hiding in the darkness. Inside of every one of society’s problems lies the seed of the answer to what must be changed.

Those seeds are germinated with your passion.  In order for change to happen, it requires that you strike a match, get curious, and get creative about how to illuminate the possibilities within the seeds.  Trust your heart and your calling will light the way.

“To be a star, you must walk your own path, shine your own light and don’t be afraid of the darkness, that’s when a star shines the brightest” – Joel Brown

In times of hardship the automatic reflex is to contract, when in fact you need to expand. You feel that life is shutting you out. That failure is condemning you. Life is unfair, so you wail and kick your feet in frustration. You just want to dig a hole and disappear into it forever. Yet this is the exact time you must open your hands to receive.

Receiving isn’t just allowing someone to help you.  It is also saying yes to yourself; to risk; to higher potential; to new adventures. Opening doors to new opportunities. Learning about yourself.  Life is all about understanding something you’ve known about your entire life – in a new way. Be willing to be a beginner again, for a whole new world of opportunities is just waiting for you.

“At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lit the flame within us” – Albert Schweitzer

Somedays it feels like you just can’t motivate yourself to get out of bed.  You’re exhausted from beating your head against the obstacles in your life.  There are dark shadows obscuring your ability to see what needs to be done.  You try to strike a new match to get clarity and nothing happens.  You try another match.  Then you try a new area to strike the match.

Sometimes you will need to your light to be rekindled from someone else’s light, and sometimes you can help to illuminate their light source.  That is the importance of being part of a tribe.  Connect to others who are shining their lights to change themselves and thereby change the world.

Instead of just being preoccupied with your problems, you open your heart to the adventures and obstacles of their journey, and your own journey becomes illuminated.

“Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock” –  James Baldwin

Steven Pressfield stated in “The Art of War”, that most of us have two lives; the lives we live and the lives we are capable of living.

Many times the worst danger you face is your own uncertainty that what the light is revealing is something that you can face and deal with. Curiosity may have opened the door, but what you find may still feel like it is going to kill you.

Truth will both refine you and define you. It measures you. It takes caution and understanding to know what to do with the truth of who you are.  To accept who you have been in the past.  To be in awe of who you are revealing yourself to be today.

Part of the search for understanding who you came here to be, is to understand that change is how you grow those seeds which will crush the obstacles in your path.  Spirit understands whatever adversity you face, is also an opportunity. That when you embrace change, change also embraces you.

“Illumination is nothing if you do not share it with anyone.  Illumination is about spreading light across entire nations.  It’s about wearing that crown that shines like the sun on your head, and getting other minds to synergize with yours” – Suzy Kassem

If you have a vision but no plan, then you have a pipe dream. If you have a vision and a focused plan but lack action, then you’ll have a lot of frustration.  This is because you won’t achieve momentum when some days you take action, and some days you don’t. It makes it impossible for you to know what’s working and what isn’t.

If you are not intentional about what you say yes to, and what you say no to, then every day will control you and nothing will get done.

That’s where illumination comes in.  That’s where striking your match comes in.  You need to learn how to keep your lamp lit.  You need to learn how to strike your matches and use those divine gifts with purpose to not only shift and change your world, but the entire world.  Find your spark and light up those matches!

Don’t Let Something Amazing Pass You By

“Sometimes, thing don’t go as planned.  Life doesn’t always go the way you hope it will.  You can’t plan everything.  Life takes you where it wants to – you’re pretty much just along for the ride!  Just breathe – Re-Evaluate – Step out of the box – Forgive – Be grateful.”  – Namala Lakesh

I believe in plans.  But I also believe in being flexible.  I believe in taking stock and making constant adjustments.  It’s like a sailboat.  You are subject to winds and currents, but with the rudder and sails, you have the ability to maneuver into the direction you want to go.  Which is why I love the way I plan out my month and year.  I make plans and then as life happens I see where I need to make adjustments.  To re-evaluate what is really most important in the current time and space to accomplish.  That’s why I am sharing this system with all of you.  It works!

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails.”  – Elizabeth Edwards

Sometimes things happen in the reverse order of your expectations.  The patience comes in because you automatically put expectations on the plans.  You visualize them out step by step, and then life happens.  You lose you job, the promised promotion and/or raise doesn’t materialize.  Someone close to you is faced with a critical medical diagnosis.  The money you had planned for vacation now has to go to put in new plumbing.  In short, life happens.  You need to adjust your sails.

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”  – Michael Jordan

Sometimes obstacles are like the monsters under the bed.  You hear a noise.  Your imagination runs wild.  Your heartbeat goes out of control.  Suddenly you are screaming.  And it was all in your head.  Other times they are legitimate.  I remember one of the contestants in America’s Got Talent had been a singer, then tragedy struck.  She went deaf from a medical condition.  She stopped singing and gave up her career.

“Our life doesn’t always turn out the way we planned, but sometimes that’s because what we planned wasn’t suppose to be our life.”  – Gdonell

Mandy said in an interview, “I made the mistake of associating my entire identity with one single dream, and when that dream died, I very much felt like I died. I became a husk of a person for awhile.”

“Life doesn’t always go according to plan.  Sometimes heading in a new direction can be scary until you realize you’re headed toward a new and exciting destination.”  – Susan Cole

Then she got an electric tuner and spent 10 hours learning to sing each note perfectly.  “I couldn’t believe it”, she says, “My perfect pitch and muscle memory all came together.”  Mandy Harvey.

“If people are doubting how far you can go, go so far that you can’t hear them anymore.”  – Michele Ruiz

Then one day she decided to stop fighting against her dreams and start fighting for them.  She began writing her own songs and singing again.  She discovered that this real obstacle could be overcome.  She discovered that a big chunk of the real obstacle was in her own mind. Singing a song she composed she got sent straight through to the finals on America’s Got Talent.  She finished fourth.

“You don’t always need a plan.  Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, and let go and see what happens.”  – Mandy Hale

If you take a good honest look at your life so far, you will see times where what you had planned fell apart – and that it was a good thing.  You underestimated what you were are capable of. You made plans that were far too limiting in regards to your potential.  When you let go of the expectation of the plan, and how it should go – and instead learned to feel your way with intuition, amazing things happened.

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”  – Joseph Campbell

You discover hidden talents.  You uncover better ways to expand your comfort zones.  So when the path you are walking on changes direction, don’t be afraid to keep going.  When the sign says “dead end” don’t be afraid to go off the path and create your own.  When the wind blows you backwards, grab a tree and hold on.  When life challenges you to sit it out, get up and fight to keep moving forward.

“If we can just let go and trust that things will work out the way they’re supposed to, without trying to control the outcomes, then we can begin to enjoy the moment more fully.  The joy of the freedom it brings becomes more pleasurable than the experience itself.”  – Goldie Hawn

LemonadeMakers is hosting a monthly free class on goals, resolutions, plans – whatever you want to call your means of change and transformation in your life.  We discuss on a live Zoom call what is happening that is working and not working.  Ideas to try to get us motivated to change and transform our lives.  Where we might re-evaluate our plans.  How to adjust our sails.

We invite you to join with us the first Saturday of every month.  The next class registration is opening today.  Come join us!  Click on the box to register now.

Breathe In The Love

Updated 2/01/2020

2020, in the month April it was the 10-year anniversary of my nephew murder.  He would have been 29 years old last month.  It’s hard to process everything that has happened as a consequence of that happening in our family.  My sister has more good days than bad, but she is still and will probably always be stuck in her loss.  My life has shifted so much I don’t think I am even in the time zone.  The ripples of his death will keep moving as long as someone reads this blog about our loss.

“No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…, ” – Terry Pratchett

Out of every great tragedy there comes the hidden blessings.  One of the blessings I received after my nephew’s murder was someone who was able to take the grief and loss that I felt and turn it into something beautiful and full of hope.  I wrote a poem purging myself of the intense waves of grief.  Writing is how I make sense of the senseless, it is how I can remain sane, when the crazy is calling my name.  So when my nephew was murdered, I wrote a poem about what I was going through.

“Writing is like breathing, it’s possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what” – Julia Cameron

I encourage anyone going through difficult times to write it out.  I think that it releases the poison, that would corrupt our souls.  In pain, we hold our breath.  Writing helps us to start breathing again.  To realize that we can still have a chance for a better and happier life.

“When we focus our energy towards constructing a passionate meaningful life, we are tossing a pebble into the world, creating a beautiful ripple effect of inspiration.  When one person follows a dream, tries something new or takes a daring leap, everyone nearby feels that energy and before too long they are making their own daring leaps and inspiring yet another circle” – Christine Mason Miller

I will print my poem at the end of this.  While I was able to process my way through the grief, it still felt a little dark.  The gift that this stranger was able to give me, was taking this poem and my story, and creating this beautiful song from it.  It took away the darkness in my poem and transmuted it into light.

I reached for this poem when someone else I love is having their own dark night of the soul.  We all need to remember that even though there are dark nights, they can be transmuted into something beautiful.

“Only in the darkness, can you see the stars” – Martin Luther King Jr.

I think that we all have those days, when the sky turns black, with no sunlight or starlight to shine upon us.  We think that God has turned his back on us.  We feel the intense emotions that threaten to drown us.  As I say in my poem, sometimes the sorrow burns us alive.

“Some days our grief appears as small manageable ripples.  Other days it completely crashes over us without any warning.  These are the days you need to be able to sit, reflect and remember; and not feel guilty in doing so” – Just Over the Rainbow Bridge

Sometimes it’s okay if the only thing that we can accomplish in a day, is to simply breathe.  Breathing in the love, turns the storm into a calmer sea.  The sun rises again.  As the poem ends, we can breathe again.  We can breathe in the love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it back into the world.

I hope you enjoy the song.  We had it created especially for LemonadeMakers.

“We all die.  The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will” – Chuck Palahniuk

Carl’s Poem

Yesterday you were so alive riding the oceans waves, yes, life was so simple and innocent

But now your soul has left behind your flesh, and your bones lie there just an empty cage

Help me, I can’t breathe as this news fractures my life, I am so unsafe, I just can’t balance

And grief engulfs me, and anger rages, and I just can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe from hearing the news on T.V or reading the printed pages of your murder

I feel the thunderous storm of emotions pass through me as lightning strikes my heart

The senselessness of your passing, the gunshots of a stranger who tore our lives asunder

And so, I grieve, and the sorrow burns as it drowns me, and I can’t breathe.

The hours pass into days as I stumble down this long road breathing with heavy sighs

The days spent in crying, and the primal screams of the dark nights merge into numbing weeks

Yet storm clouds break up as I begin to see the healing of the rainbow’s blessings

And so, I grieve, and I begin to breathe, I breathe love.

Life carries on with unending support of love that is surrounding me and protecting me

Forgiveness is the answer, so I move past the limitations of grief, rage, and sorrow

To live in limitless love, light and joy, and my heart-lines align to the universal love

And so, I breathe love, and I add grace, I breathe, I breathe grace.

Love from Carl’s heart washes through me, cleansing and healing every part of my body

A warm wave it ignites an inner fire of transformation that love is the ultimate expression of grace

It illuminates the greater vision for my life to emerge from within me, a graceful unfolding,

And so, I breathe love and grace, and I add forgiveness, I breathe, I breathe forgiveness.

I release the need to blame you Carl, myself, or anyone else for your ending,

I release fears grip on my soul, and I choose to walk this path with love

I have experienced a grace inspired event that challenged me, and I have awakened

And so, I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, and I add joy, I breathe, I breathe joy.

Grace has opened a door whose light illuminates my next step as I step out of the darkness

I share this, your gift to the world, that love is the ultimate expression of grace

As I practice this belief, practice will yield to insight, which yields to embodiment, which yields to manifestation.

And so, I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy, and I add hope, I breathe, I breathe hope.

As I breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope, life becomes a celebration again

And as I let my light shine, I unconsciously give others the permission to do the same

I will live like there is not tomorrow, I will live like there was no yesterday

I will breathe, I will breathe love, grace, forgiveness, joy and hope and manifest it out into the world.

On The Journey Of Self Transformation, You Need A Map

Imagining what we want next year is a far more powerful way to face the future than imaging what we fear – Marianne Williamson

Part of the process of planning out your dreams, goals, and visions of a better life is looking back to see what you have done so far.

Where is your comfort zone today?

What growth to it happened last year?

Part of my own growth for this coming year is taking the pilot program I created and turning it into a teachable course.  I have a card deck that I created that needs to be completed so that it can be sold to help support the cost of this website.  I know what needs to be done, but there is this underlying fear that it isn’t something that you will value as my readers.  I also believe that this is my year to break free of that fear.

I believe that you already know what needs to be done for your life in this year – that the questions you ask yourself, already have answers deep inside of you.  That those answers have been waiting for you to be able to accept them as truths, and that timing is everything.  If you are reading this then I believe that the time for you is now.

I believe that sometimes you need someone else to ask the questions that will send you searching for your own personal truths. The door is waiting for you to open it, and sometimes you just need to hear the invitation one more time.  That time is now.

Part of the process of self-transformation is learning more about who you are.  That person deep down inside of you.

• How many times have you created limitations about what you are capable of?

• How many times have those limiting beliefs created self-sabotage in your life?

• How many times have you been pulled back from transforming your life by the chains of your comfort zone?

• How many times has something that seemed to be what you wanted, pulled you out of growth and transformation?  Like the caterpillar that keeps finding the perfect leaf to consume, and delays making that chrysalis to become the butterfly?

• It all comes back to you and your beliefs around the possibilities – take the leap of faith.

In order to think or live differently, you need to understand your own life patterns.

When I received the scholarship application answers for the pilot program I ran, it revealed some common patterns.

• Almost everyone had thought in the past twelve months about making big life changes – such as moving some place new to them; finding a different job. This indicated that they were unhappy enough in their life to contemplate changing everything.
• A vast majority wanted a better life in order to give back something good to the world.  I loved this, because even though they had some pretty big issues they were dealing with in their lives, they wanted something better not only for themselves, but to help others too.
• They wanted to be better spouses, parents, better people.  These are all roles that we play in our lives.
• Some of the applicants had just completed or were going through a divorce.  When you have a major transition take place in your life, like a death, divorce, or job loss, it becomes a time to take stock of who you are and where you are going.  Many times, these transitions take away the thing you thought you were.  When the kids leave for college, how do you transition to an empty nester?  When you retire from your job, who are you now?
• Around 50% of those who responded had problems in the past or were working towards sobriety and ending addictions.  That is not only living with the label of addict, but also a load of personal issues to work through because most who have some sort of addiction used it as a coping mechanism for their life.

The answers to the questions told me that most of us are looking to make big changes in our lives.  We just need a little help to get started, and a little motivation to keep going so that fears stop us.

Life presents you with so many decisions.

A lot of times,

the answers are right in front of you.  

It’s not just about writing some words on a piece of paper.  It’s not just about creating a vision board and then waiting for the “magic” to draw in what you want in your life.  You need to brainstorm your way, map out the detours around the obstacles, and fully implement your plan.

What I know for sure is that you will hit walls of failure, fatigue.  Life happens not to you, but for you.  I know that sometimes it feels like you are getting hit with a sledgehammer.  It helps to have a few tricks up your sleeves.  To be able to handle them so that they just create slowdowns when the rain or snow is coming down so hard and fast, you can’t see.  And maybe a few detours around washed out roads or bridges.

Just don’t give up and stop completely.   In the movie Star Man with Jeff Bridges there is a line about yellow lights when they are driving down the road.  “Starman: I watched you very carefully. Red light, stop; green light, go; yellow light, go very fast.”

Message me if you want to “yellow light” your own life map, or just need help with a roadblock or how to find the right detour.

It’s Not Just About Chasing A Dream, It’s About Catching It Too – Part One

Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes it’s built on catastrophe.

– Sumner Redstone

If you have been following our posts for some time, you probably know the story of why I started writing my blog.  My nephew Carl was murdered in a random act of gang violence, literally walking through the park at the wrong time.  As you can imagine, this took a toll on our family.  In addition to grieving over his death, I was concerned about my sister making it through this tragedy.  I started writing through my own grief for both of them on my personal Facebook page and it took on a life of its own.

Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement.

– Matt Biondi

After a couple of years I created LemonadeMakers – because when life gives you lemons, you need to make lemonade.  At least I did.   Every part of life is full of choices.  You can choose to hide in the negative or dig for the positive.  Sometimes it seems like we don’t have a choice, but we always do.  It feels like we are so sunk down into the mud, that mud is all we can see.  We then miss the dry ground, the doors that we could open.  The chance for a different choice or response, to what is happening.

All I knew was that I had to bring something good and positive and life affirming to the table for myself and my family.  Then as I cleaned the mud off of me, I saw the need to bring this to others, because we are all going through something.  Maybe not as tragic or violent as my nephews murder, or maybe something even more so.  So a dream was born that just maybe I could help others, inspire them to make their own brand of lemonade.

Love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort and keep on learning.

– Carol Dweck

As LemonadeMakers has grown, so have I.  It has challenged me to work on my writing skills.  Believe me, I have heard from many readers when the grammar is incorrect, or the misspelling made it through spellcheck.  I think I have proof read something 10 times, and then I am reading an old post and see something that I missed.  It has helped me grow a thicker skin, and let go of the need for perfection and so many other lessons.

Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

– Joshua J. Marine

2019 has come to an end and I wanted to talk about how you keep going, growing, and expanding your comfort zone from day to day.  In 2019 my birth father died and I had to let go of the dream I have had for over 55 years – that some day he would call me and tell me how much he loved me and wanted to be a part of my life.

I have been caring for my bonus father (I don’t like the step part of any label, as though it is less than the real thing) and his health has been steadily deteriorating this year and he has been in and out of the hospital.  He is starting to lose brain function and it breaks my heart.

This August we found out that my husband of 46 years has prostrate cancer.  It is outside of the prostrate and so surgery isn’t an option and he is starting radiation therapy.  He was a long haul truck driver, so he had to retire a little sooner than we were planning on.

The entire year I have been working month to month, each month waiting to hear if this is the month I get laid off work.  I have worked for the bank for 15 years and they keep extending the lay off, and they also keep telling me it is coming.

Failure is not the opposite of success; it’s part of success.

– Arianna Huffington

When you add this year up, it has pretty much sucked.  I am sharing this with all of you for a couple of reasons.  I know that I am not the only one that had things go sideways in her life this year.  I think it helps when you know you are not alone in walking and sometimes crawling through life’s storms.  I also wanted to share with all of you some of the great things that happened this year, the times when the storm clouds parted and the sun shined for a brief moment reminding me that storms don’t last forever.

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. But it is the ability to resist or use failure that often leads to greater success.

– J.K. Rowling

I stepped out and made a video about “Catching the Perfect Wave”.  I tried to do a couple of webinars, which failed dramatically with no one or only a couple of people attending.  I discovered my own way of doing things, rather than just following in someone else’s steps of how things should be done.  I learned a lot and really expanded my comfort zone around talking and teaching with groups of people.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal; It is the courage to continue that counts.

– Winston Churchill

I created a pilot program about transforming your life.  It centered on the first ring of the Transformational Life Compass, which is all about the labels we live our lives around, the archetypes in our personalities and how to see how we are sometimes our own worst enemy in self sabotaging our life.  We granted scholarships to 22 people and while everyone didn’t show up and some didn’t finish – I think it was a great success.  The full program will start in February and I am really excited about the life transformations it is going to create to those brave enough to come and join us.

Important achievements require a clear focus, all-out effort, and a bottomless trunk full of strategies. Plus allies in learning.

– Carol Dweck

I think  that 2020 is going to be a turning point year for a lot of us.  I love the thought of 20/20 vision, focus that is crisp and clear.  The ability to see both near and far without fog distorting the images.  So how do we take all of the lessons of 2019, the good, bad and ugly experiences and build on that foundation something even better?

The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them.

– Michelle Obama

For the start of the year, to give us all 20/20 insight and vision of what we can accomplish in this brand new year, I am designing a workshop.  It will give all of us working together the tools of how to plan out the new year.  What to do when the lemons start falling off the tree and hitting us in the head.

There is a military proverb that says something like “in war the battle plans only survive until the battle begins”.  Every year we make goals or resolutions to make changes in our life.  It might be for health, or education, a better job, working on our marriage, raising children, buying our first home and so on.  Those goals or dreams seem to survive the first month or two of the year and then they morph into something unachievable and unrecognizable.

There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.

– Brian Tracy

With everything going on with my job, my husband, and my dad, I could put my dreams for the next step for LemonadeMakers on hold.  I could put my entire 20/20 focus on these very important personal things in my life.  I could just let LemonadeMakers struggle along until my personal life got easier.  I put my writing on hold for too many years.  I refused to do that in 2019, and I won’t do that in 2020.  I am in a marathon and there comes a point in running where if you keep going, you break through into a new level.  I want to share with you how I did this in 2019 and how I plan on it in 2020.

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

  – Eleanor Roosevelt

So stay tuned tomorrow for Part Two, to read about some of the tools I use and that you can use too – I can’t wait to share everything with you!

Resistance – Here There Be Dragons

As fellow travelers on the road of transformation, we here at LemonadeMakers have been checking our course against our mission, vision and purpose.  As part of that “checking in” you take compass headings, check your map and determine the next part of your course.  What you realize as you take your course headings, is that you have gone off course.  You have sunk into the comfort zone.

In order to create the kind of life you want to live; you have to focus on what’s important to you. To maintain harmony in your life and stay on course, means that you need to examine where you are in your own personal hero’s journey.

Self-transformation is a lifetime journey.  It’s the never-ending story of who you are, and more importantly, who you are becoming.

As you travel down this road you will reach what I call “way points”. These way points are the places where you check in and get supplies for the next leg of your journey. Where you pull out your map to see that course corrections need to be instituted.

Unless you have not moved at all, you will need to make some adjustments to get back on course.  That’s because the “dragons of resistance” are always at work.  Fears, distractions, addictions, just the contrary winds of life in general – it is all designed to take you off course.

Part of checking your course is to see where your own map is ending – the edges of your own comfort zones.  While you may have expanded this zone in the past, you are now needing to expand it again. It is time to reengage the battle, to face off with your dragons of resistance.

You have an intuitive knowing that deep inside of you is a second self.  An unlived you.  Your authentic self.

The dragon of resistance doesn’t want that authentic self-released.  LemonadeMakers writes these blogs to help you learn to recognize your own personal dragons of resistance.  LemonadeMakers is offering you the opportunity to wake up and assist you in finding that authentic self.

Do you want to navigate your life with love, inspiration, and peace? In order to help with your staying on course, we try to provide these daily reminders to become more self-aware of what is going on in your life.  To become more self-aware of the doors of opportunity that show up in your life.

If you looked at the ancient mariner maps, you would see at the corners of the map, a warning. “Here there be dragons”. As the hero of your own journey, you are going to face those dragons.

Did your dragon of resistance just raise his head and roar at you?

On the field of transforming yourself, stands a hero and a dragon. You are the hero and resistance is the dragon. The dragon confronts you every single time you want to start on a new journey of self-transformation.  Every time you expand your comfort zone.  Every time you make a new goal, a new dream.  Resistance will make itself known.

You will hear many roars from your dragon – fears labeled no time, no money, too risky.  It feels safe when you are invisible, average, because then your dragons fire can’t burn you.  Every fear that your dragon bellows at you has some part of reality in it.  Some vestiges of truth that have been stretched into a terrifying illusion by the dragon of resistance.

You can use these dragons of resistance as the needle of a compass to what your God-given destiny is pulling you towards.  You know that this God-given destiny is not average. You deserve better than average.

You can use the dragon of resistance to guide you to that calling or purpose.  A good rule of thumb is that the more important the call is to your soul’s evolution, the more the dragon of resistance is going to show up.

The dragon is out to destroy the reason you are being called: the living out loud of your divine destiny, your personal genius, the soul’s gift you have that no one else on this earth has but you.

You will know if you are on course, by the level of resistance you are currently feeling to discovering more about your authentic self.

You are on a lifetime journey of discovery.  There is always something new to learn, discover, uncover and reveal about who you are and why you are here now.

Your work is to learn more about your personal vision, your dreams of who you want to be. To ask what’s missing?

Ready to widen your comfort zone?  Ready to confront and tame or destroy a few dragons?

Winter-Sorrowful, Spring Is Coming

In April of 2019 I went to my birth father’s funeral.  He died of complications of dementia.  I hadn’t seen him in years.  My parents divorced when I was four years old.  Despite all of my intensely wanting him to be a part of my life, it just never happened.  Many reasons, excuses and stories – too many to go into here.  What I wanted to talk about from my own experience is the feelings of being a child of divorced parents.

For me it was very painful because I blamed myself for the divorce.  I thought it was something I did.  Since 50% of marriages end in divorce, there are probably a lot of people in the world who grew up like me.  Thinking that somehow you caused the divorce.  I didn’t realize that I believed this until I had kids of my own.

Lots of self-analyzing and trying to figure out where my own self sabotage patterns originated revealed it to me.  My adult self knows that it isn’t true.

My dad like a lot of fathers remarried another woman with children.  They became his family as is right.  Unfortunately, my stepmother didn’t return the favor and the few times I went to their home it was clear I wasn’t wanted.  It was clear as a child, as a teenager and as an adult when I visited with what should have been her grandkids, we were not welcome.

So, my dad and I became completely estranged.  It broke my heart.  For me at least, I always wanted my dad to say he wanted me in his life, and then to try to make that happen.  I had the fantasy that once I was an adult and he didn’t have to deal with my mom, that he would show up and be the dad I always wanted.

I didn’t realize how much of that fantasy was lying beneath the surface until I found out he had died.

Wintercearig is a Norwegian word meaning winter-sorrowful describing that feeling of deep sadness comparable to the cold of winter.  I think that the death of the fantasy was harder than his physical death.

I solaced my heart that he had dementia, so there were probably close to 10 years that he didn’t remember me.  Grief is a slippery animal though.  It comes and goes when you least expect it.  I know he wasn’t a happy man, and I know how hard my mother could be for him.  I just wish it could have been different, and that they could have put aside their own pain for my sake.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer – Albert Camus

I am working my way through winter of my loss.  Part of that process is to pull out the gold from the dross.  To find the invincible summer in my story.  To make Lemonade from the lemons.  My disappointments in my childhood and the letting go of the fantasy as an adult are part of who I am.  I can talk to this with total compassion, because I have been there.  I learned to appreciate the good qualities that my mom and dad had and let go of the expectations that they would ever become who I wanted them to be.

Pain has a lot of lessons to teach you.  I remember years ago I was talking with one of my sister in-laws about forgiveness.  She stated that if her husband ever had an affair that she would never forgive him.  That she would divorce him.  I told her that with big decisions in life, we think we know what we would do.  But until that moment arrives it is all speculation. The reason for that is how connected everything is.

It isn’t just that someone had an affair.  You have to look at all of the circumstances around what happened.  There are so many things that happen in your relationship with your partner.  What is going on at their work?  What is going on with their larger family?  What are all of the stresses in their life that weigh in on your partner, so that they would do something that would destroy their life?

When something this devasting happens and you look at all of the possible choices you have to face, many times we do not do what we thought we would.  You have to stand out in the cold, and really look at every single crystal of the snowflake to make a decision.  Like the snowflake, the breaking of the marriage bond is different for every couple with no two alike.

The future lies before you, like a field of fallen snow; Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show – Unknown

My experiences in life gave me a little bit of a soapbox in regard to fathers who don’t see their children.  The damage it causes those children affects them every day of their life.  Many of us don’t realize how much, until something happens that brings it to the surface.  I had thought I had given up the fantasy of my dad showing up on my doorstep one day, saying “I love you and I want you to be part of my life”.  It was still apparently a running program in the background, taking up energy.

So, if you are divorced and you aren’t connected with your children, make the sacrifice to do whatever it takes to be a part of their lives.  Just show up, with no excuses.  With no blame, except to say, “I’m sorry”.  It may take a while before they trust you again, because even if you didn’t mean to, you broke their heart.  But if you put in the effort and keep trying, eventually they will open the door.

When I am processing pain, grief, sadness, I write.  This is something I am still working on, but I wanted to share the work in progress.

Maybe you are like me, a daughter or son, who just wanted to be told that they were loved, that they weren’t a mistake that could just be thrown away, that they were proud of who you became.

Maybe like me you just wanted them to show up at your door and say Hi.

A note for my Dad

I learned to say goodbye at an early age

To hear “love you, see you soon” knowing in my heart it wasn’t true

Looking out of the back window of the car as mom drove me away

Silent tears wishing I was still with you

It’s a broken road my mom and dad have made

I’m tired of feeling disloyal loving you both, being torn between you two,

I feel my frailness crumble as you both pull me apart

My heart is torn, broken with your hammers beating it to pieces

Years go by with a few hours here and there

Visits so short they can’t even be remembered

How many times I reached out to you?

Only to hear the deafening silence.

The sharp thunder of glaciers breaking up and falling into the ocean

The cold became the color of blinding whiteness

I waited for your presence, the phone call, the letter, anything

To hear you say, “I’m here and I love you.”

Deep sadness covers me like a layer of snow

Leaving my heart cold, pain frozen into arctic ice

Daddy why did you die and leave me alone

Never to hear those words, “love you, see you soon” fulfilled?

I think I will miss you forever, since we never got to say goodbye

Wishing you had been a constant presence in my life didn’t make it happen.

The gift you gave me in passing me by in forgetfulness,

Is seen daily in my being a part of my own children’s lives

How Does Your Life Grow?

Updated 5/14/2019

Benjamin Franklin has a famous saying,

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes – Benjamin Franklin 

I would amend his quote to include change. Change happens whether you want it to or not. It is necessary for growth, and without it there can be no life.  A seed is planted, the seeds shell breaks open, and a shoot pushes its way out of the soil.  The shoot becomes a thriving plant through continued growth.  With the right amount of water, nutrition and sunlight, the plant produces a bountiful harvest. 

The seed stepped into its destiny by not remaining dormant in the ground.  It did not let fear keep it from cracking the hard protective shell.  It pushed itself out of the limitations of the seeds shell.  It pushed itself past the fears that resided in the darkness of the soil, thrusting up into the light.

Stepping into your destiny really is the only real, true, authentic way to live.  Fear is all that holds you back and holding on to that is really what keeps us stuck in the dark – Unknown

Growth and change can be painful, but it doesn’t have to be. You have a choice in how you react to it, and how it affects you.  Change is the law of life.  But all change is not growth.  That is because change isn’t always forward movement.  Sometimes change takes us backward, instead of forward. 

Having an open mind is necessary if you don’t want the growth that happens when you change to be painful. This is because if the mind is closed, then you are forever being controlled by the things that the mind refuses to give up.  Wisdom is knowing yourself so that you spot your patterns of self-sabotage.  Mastering yourself is when you spot the self-sabotage and instead step through the gateway of transformation.

Your vulnerability is a powerful gateway.  Stepping into it invites growth, freedom, healing, your greatest love.  It is a pathway born from courage, connecting your truth + being true to the magic already living within you – DanielleDoby+Tribe

Think of a baby bird. It is a soupy glob inside the egg. It transforms into a baby bird. If it doesn’t transform, the egg goes bad and never has life. Once it transforms it still needs to peck its way out of the eggshell. If it doesn’t get out of the eggshell it will die. Then once it is out of the eggshell it grows to the point that it needs to use its wings and learn to fly. All are components of constant change and growth.  The prize of growth is in the freedom of flight that the mature bird has.

This is a great illustration of change. Some of the changes are beyond the control of the bird. it has no say about changing from the soupy glob and into the baby bird. Instinct has it fight and peck itself out of the shell. The bird could fight against the changes but doing so would lead to its death as it needs to eat to survive. It goes through change and transformation after change and transformation.  It has the freedom of flight.  It has the wind beneath its wings lifting it up into the sky.  The reward is in the fulfillment of its destiny.  

Personal growth is not a matter of learning new information, but of unlearning old limits – Alan Cohen

What it comes down to is how the attitude that you have about change and life, speaks to the kind of life you have. The attitude of survival actually fights against change, because your focus is on avoiding what you don’t want. You avoid disease with drugs, you try to avoid war by creating better faster ways of killing your enemies, so that you aren’t killed by them first. Weapons of mutually assured mass destruction.

A different attitude would be to focus on thriving. In thriving you seek out ways to live a happier, healthier way of life. You seek the good things you want in your life, instead of avoiding the bad things you don’t want. You seek to cooperate with others in love and peace, connecting heart to heart. You become pioneers of a better future.   Assumptions need to be cleaned out of your thinking process, because they serve as blinders, and you miss vital information.

Be the change you wish to see in the world – Mahatma Gandhi

Growth and change are very scary. You will trip and fall and bruise yourself. Others will make fun of you, stating that you can’t change the world (you are a pipe dreamer).  They use fear as a powerful motivator to stay where you are.  Because they themselves have a lack of self-trust, they will say that you can’t trust others.  Because they are themselves bullies, they will say that the bad guys will win, if you don’t act in a forceful way. Since they don’t have a life experience of safety, they will say you won’t be safe until you destroy what the others have. They will say a lot of things, to push you backwards into a cage of fear of loss. They will push you back into the cage of what they falsely call safety. 

Goals are what we reach for, but the real prize is how we change to achieve them.  I always think of Imagine by John Lennon. What if…. we all really do have infinite potential. What if we really can do anything? What if we can make our dreams come true? What if, changing you, really does change the world? 

That is the kind of world I want to live in, and what I find is that the more I create that space inside of me, the more I find others who are doing the same. I really do believe that someday we will be living life in peace, and sharing the world with each other, and the world will really finally be “one”.

Follow Your Dreams, They Know The Way

Revised 2/01/2019

“Consult not your fears, but your hopes and dreams.  Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential.  Concern yourself not with what you have tried and failed in, but with what is still possible to do” – Pope John XXIII

Everyone has dreams.  How many times have you said the words, “I thought of that idea, but didn’t know how to accomplish it” – or “that could have been me being rich and famous, I thought of that idea years ago”?  I believe that the universe downloads great ideas to many, because most of us will never chase the dream into a reality.

When you are a dream chaser you realize that the person who you are, has just been constructed out of the myths you have told yourself since you were a child.  That this person who was created out of ideas, beliefs and images – is not really who you are.

Those myths don’t define you, and they are not who you are deep inside your soul.  The dream is your soul’s way of clearing out all of the things that no longer serve you.  It draws out of the center of our soul, who we really are.

“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground” – Wilfred Peterson

When you decide to become a dream chaser, it changes your life forever.  This is because this decision means that you have decided to become someone different than you have been.  You realize that in order to bring your dream into reality, you have to become who the dream is calling you to be.

• Someone who is brave enough to follow her own wild and crazy ideas.
• Someone who has the courage to put as much effort into doubting the fears that come up, as you put into doubting your dreams.
• Someone who puts her visions of what is possible onto the world stage.

You realize as a dream chaser,

that your dreams are a verb.

This means that action needs to take place.

You need to serenade your dreams.  Ranging from a simple love ballad to the romantic symphony.  Music that reflects the intensity of your love of the dream you are chasing.  You bleed the words of your soul’s poetry onto the page of your dreams.  You spill out your heart’s desires, creating a flood of emotions.  You float across the dance floor of your dreams, stamping your feet with the intensity of the Paso Doble.  You paint out your dreams in swirls across the canvas, blending in the colors of your life as you paint it into existence.  As the conductor of the orchestra, with the baton leading the intensity of the music, you create a tapestry of tones and colors across the mind.

“Dreams are valuable commodities.  They propel us forward.  They give us energy” – John C. Maxwell

All of this art creates the souls wishes from deep inside of you, out onto the world stage.  The distance between your dream and reality is bridged by action.  Small steps become long distances, when you just keep walking.

Remember the joy of the babies first step?  You would hold out your hands and walk backwards one step, to encourage them to take another step.  The next thing you know they are running across the room, the yard, and the world.  Small steps become long distances, when you just keep walking towards the souls wishes.

What is most needed at this moment, is for all of us to let lose our passions and come alive.  Come alive and go out and do what you see needs to be done.  Don’t wait for someone else to solve your problems, or your neighborhoods problems or the world’s problems.  Come alive and do something.  Join an organization to help others; get involved in volunteering, in politics, in raising your hand and saying, “I can do that”.

Refuse to let the fears and nightmares of other people’s lives distort your dreams.  Don’t apologize for having dreams.  Don’t stop chasing them because others don’t want you to try to bring them into reality.

• Realize that chasing your dreams is hard work.
• Realize that chasing your dreams will change your life
• Realize that chasing your dreams will impact the life of every person you know.

Once you’ve started chasing your dreams, your spirit won’t let you stop because your dreams excite your spirit.  You develop a deep hunger that can’t be satisfied in any other way.  It is your road, your dreams, your life.

Don’t follow your dreams; chase them . . .  – Kunal Patel

Dreams are all about transforming.  When you listen to your soul’s voice, you see your dreams play out in your imagination.  Your imagination is the illustrator to the book that your soul has written out on your heart.  It is up to you to read the blueprint designs and go out into the world and build them into reality.

Negative people are like termites.  If you let them into your dreams, they will destroy what you are building.  Don’t let them get in even a first bite.  You are far too smart, to let the negativity of your own mind or that of others stand in your way.

Remember that God put that dream into your heart.  He whispers to your soul what the next step is to bring it into reality.  You just need to listen, believe and go out and do what you can do.  God will make sure the right doors open, but you have to step through them.

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?

Stand In The Light to Be Seen As You Are

Updated 11/24/2021

You are probably like me, and you want to be liked and accepted.  This internal need that you have to be loved, sometimes causes you to put on a mask of who you think that someone wants you to be.  The perfect little girl.  The shy teenager.  The princess, the joker or the nerd.  The smile pasted on your face, that life is wonderful, when inside you are screaming in frustration.

You can see this for example when you go back home for the holidays.  You fall into the childhood role or character you have for your family, even if it no longer fits.

“Your need for acceptance can make you invisible in this world.  Don’t let anything stand in the way of the light that shines through this form.  Risk being seen in all of your glory” –  Jim Carey

It is hard to show up without any masks, but it is vitally important for you to be true to who you are.  These masks are the cause of so much unhappiness.  You meet someone you like, but if you are both wearing masks, then neither of you is communicating who you really are.  So you fall in love with the mask, and not the person.  You communicate to the mask, and what the person deep inside is trying to say never gets heard.  You create so much drama and trauma to yourself and others that way.

If you just say what you really mean, life gets so much easier.  The truth is that you may not be who you want to be yet.  But you have come a long way from where you used to be.

It takes great courage to be vulnerable enough to remove the mask.  It takes great courage to stick to your values and not allow others to sway you into actions you don’t want to take.  It takes great courage to trust others with who you are at a soul level.  It takes great courage to be persistent enough to keep removing the masks.  So continue remove mask after mask.  Burn them up, so that who you show up as the real you.

Embrace your imperfections.  Be authentic.

“Loving ourselves through the process of owning our story is the bravest thing we’ll ever do”  – Brene’ Brown

What I loved about the main photo for this blog, is that they people in it are being crazy. They are playing at being stupid, silly and weird.  But when you look at each face you see that they are also having fun.  How many times do you catch your face in the mirror or a reflection on a window and see that kind of happy expression on your face?  On others faces that you love?

You need to be who you are and find those happy faces more often.  When you let the world’s conflicts and tragedy’s be the things you focus on, you lose that happiness.  The news focuses on hyping the negative, and giving you very little of the positive things that happen every day.

• Every day a new mom and dad have this miracle of a new baby come into their lives and change them forever.
• Every day a child does something wonderful, like riding a bike for the first time, or winning a race, or making a home run.  And they celebrate with their loved ones what they achieved.
• Every day a police man or a fire man or the driver of an ambulance saves a loved ones life, and they celebrate they have another day with their loved ones.
• Every day someone is doing something wonderful, brave, heroic, and we lose sight the of the miracles of life.

You need to celebrate all of the wonderful things that happen in your life and the lives of those you love.  Don’t let those who are still sleep walking through their lives stand in the way of your awakening.

Closing with this quote, because “I see you” needs to be something that happens to you and you need to see others.

You need to stop being invisible.  You need to let those who are trying to become a better person, know that you see them as a human being deserving of love and respect.

You don’t have to agree with everything that they have done in their life, to still give them love and respect.  How many people in nursing homes, living in the street, eating their lunch alone in the café – how many people do you pass by that are not being seen?  How many just need a hug, and someone to say, I See You?  I SEE YOU!

Scars Tell The Best Stories, And You Are Brave, Wise and Strong Enough To Tell Them

Updated 1/28/2019

“You are capable of far more than you know.  Don’t be afraid to unleash your greatness” – Unknown

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not” – Unknown

Can you think of at least one dream,

that you have put on the “someday” list?

“Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve” – J.K. Rowling

“When life gives you something that makes you feel afraid, that’s when life gives you a chance to be brave” – Lupytha Marmin

“There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current.  And wouldn’t you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become.  This path does not belong to your parents, your teachers, your leaders, or your lovers.  Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day” – Jodie Foster

• The next step happened when Facebook took away the word limit and what I wrote grew a little longer.
• The next step was when I created this LemonadeMaker page. 
• The next step was when I started creating my quotes on a photo to create these memes.
• The next step was when I expanded the writing into a full blog. 

I started believing in myself,

because you helped me

to build the confidence to believe in myself

“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God” – Leo Buscaglia

“Don’t be the reason someone feels insecure. Be the reason someone feels seen, heard, and supported by the whole universe” – Cleo Wade