Learning to Make Lemonade

When I think of summer, I often think of lemonade — a nice, thirst-quenching, icy-cold glass of pure yum.  I will confess that I rarely make it from scratch — frozen concentrate works quite well for my children’s lemonade stands.  But I do know that the “from scratch” recipe isn’t that hard; essentially, it’s lemon juice, water and sugar (as well as ice, to give it that essential coolness).

This morning, I was reminded by a colleague that “when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade” — and this old adage got me thinking.  In the context of life, when life provides the lemons what are the life equivalents of water, sugar and ice?  Given that I’ve got a few lemons being handed to me right now, this seems like a good question for me to ponder.  Here’s what I’ve come up with.

Life lemonade is made up of the lemons that life provides, as well as plenty of openness (water), and trust (sugar).  The openness on your part is absolutely required — it makes the pure lemon juice more palatable, even without sugar.  And the openness is about having both an open heart, and an open mind.  When making life’s lemonade, it’s essential for you to be open to the idea that something good can and will get created, or at least emerge, from the lemons.

The sweetness of the beverage is provided by trust.  If you’re going to make life lemonade, you’ve got to trust that the universe isn’t handing you anything you can’t handle, and that you’ve got the  creative genius to end up with something that serves.  When you stand in the place of trust, you willingly let go of the control demons that can make any situation sour, and allow the lemons to be transformed into something that’s more than simply palatable (which is what happens when you add the openness, aka water) — it’s down-right pleasant.

So now, you’ve got a beverage that’s almost perfect. It’s just not cold enough.  And if you want it to be cold — you’ve got to add the element of time.  That’s right, give it time to chill.  It’s funny that in colloquial terms, the word “chill” means to “relax”.  If you’re making life lemonade, you’ve got to relax and allow time for the perfect beverage to brew.

Bottom-line is this:  if life hands you lemons, you can end up with a really good, life-enhancing lemonade.  All you’ve got to do is add the right amount of openness, trust and time, and all will be well.  The metaphor seems to fit for me right now.  Here’s hoping it works for you.

The Point of Power is Right Now

You know, this is something I’ve been aware of for a while now…and yet, it still catches me off guard from time-to-time.  It’s as though I’ve spent so many years either analyzing the past or trying to manipulate the future, that the business of staying right here in the present moment can be more than a little challenging.  Let’s face it; for me it can be down-right paralyzing!

I believe I first read this phrase, “the point of power is right now”, in one of Louise Hay’s books.  But I’ve since been confronted by variations on this theme wherever I turn.  A number of recent “daily affirmations” have pointed to this universal truth; several authors which I’m currently reading have expounded upon this.  And I guess what I’m coming to realize is that there really is no way around it — no matter what I want, no matter what I long for, no matter what I’m trying to change in my life, I’ve got to do it from present-moment energy.  Looking backward keeps me stuck, and fast-forward motion has me spin my wheels.

One of the questions that arises for me out of all of this, however, is how to blend the past and future so that I can truly leverage the power of the present.  I mean, I know that I can learn from past experience.  And I know that to some degree  I have to know what I’m heading towards in the future.  So how do I do these two things, without losing my toehold on the present moment?  These are the questions I’m dancing with now.  And even as I write them, I have an energetic sense that the answer lies in the here and now.  Go figure.

I guess the bottom-line is this:  peace, contentment, happiness, joy — all of this stuff is to be found in this moment.  So, ultimately, if those are the things I’m wanting, then right here right now is where I’ve got to hang out.  I’m gonna give it a try.

Allowing the Emotions to Flow

The human condition is characterized by a spectrum of emotions.  Everything from anger and sadness to joy and exhilaration can be experienced by one and all, regardless of age, gender or ethnicity.  When it comes right down to it, your ability to feel all of these emotions is what distinguishes you from other living creatures.

This ability, however, is often seen as a bit of a curse.  While humans can, in fact, experience any and all of these emotions, the tendency is to only allow a few of these to be okay.  Generally speaking, people are more inclined to allow feelings such as joy, excitement, happiness and love, while trying to avoid or stifle emotions such as sadness, fear and anger.  Why is that?

Well, one reason is obvious…the feelings that arise with sadness, fear and anger are less pleasurable than feelings of happiness, joy and love.  Given the choice most people would naturally lean towards the joyful end of the emotions-continuum than the sadness end.  The challenge, however, when you only allow one end of the spectrum is that you actually start to deaden yourself to life as a whole.  There’s a way in which, denying the feeling of any one emotion lessens your ability to truly feel other emotions.

To paraphrase Deepak Chopra, life is an experience in contrasts.  If you truly want to feel happiness — and appreciate it — then you’ve got to be willing to feel sadness — and appreciate it.  Now admittedly, trying to appreciate sadness or anger or fear can be challenging.  Sometimes, when feelings such as these get overwhelming, it can be difficult to determine what to do with the emotion.  You need to take care not to let it cloud your judgment and move you to make harmful choices.  That being said, when you can allow yourself to simply be with the sadness, to feel the anger or fear, more often than not, it will dissipate and naturally give way to more pleasant feelings.  In other words, allowing the emotions to flow — whatever those emotions are — can actually move you to genuine happiness, joy and excitement quicker than trying to stifle them ever will.

The bottom-line is this:  despite our social conditioning to deny certain emotions in favour of other ones, it actually serves our experience best when we can embrace it all.  There actually is room for it all.  And all emotions serve, when you allow them to flow and be without judgment.

When You Can’t See What’s Ahead

A couple of years ago, I was driving with my family on our first-ever March Break trip to Disneyworld.  The excitement in the vehicle as we drove on that first night — a 4 hour stretch, just to say we were on our way — was palpable.  My husband was the only one of us who had ever been to Disneyworld, and even he was tingling with the anticipation of reliving the magic with all of us.

That first night we stopped at a hotel, enjoyed a relaxing evening complete with popcorn and a bit of TV before going to bed.  When we awoke the next morning, we were in the midst of a major (and I mean MAJOR) snowstorm.  Now, for us, being from Canada and specifically southwestern ontario, snowstorms aren’t necessarily a huge deal, so we just ate our breakfast, climbed in the van and headed on our way.  Well, we weren’t on the road for more than 30 minutes before we were all feeling more than a little nervous, and that’s putting it mildly.  There was a ton (more or less) of snow on the roads, plows hadn’t been by in who knows how long, and every few meters there was another vehicle in the ditch.  The windshield wipers were freezing and becoming so snow-covered that there was no way of knowing what was ahead.  The only thing we could see was what was right in front of us — and the screen of our GPS.  And the only thing we knew for sure, was that at some point, if we kept driving, we would be out of the storm.  So, white-knuckled, my husband kept his hands on the wheel, his foot on the brake, and his eyes on both the road and the GPS.  By doing this and staying calm,he  managed to get us safely through the storm and onto clear roads (granted it was a good 2 1/2 hours later till we were on clear roads, but clear they were).  My job in all of this was to ensure that the children stayed calm and occupied — so out came my bag of activities, the in-car movies, and my own calm-factor (albeit with perspiration on my forehead).

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, this morning it occurred to me that life can, at times, feel exactly like that drive to Disneyworld.  There are times where the storm clouds of life come in and you cannot see what lies ahead, no matter how hard you try. All you know for sure is that if you keep moving forward, the clouds will clear and all will be fine in the end.  In those circumstances, the key really is to stay grounded in the here and now, taking one step at a time, and re-adjusting as necessary.  Granted, this can be challenging in the heat of the moment.  You may well want to “take the nearest exit” as it were, crawl back into bed and try to out-wait the storm.  What I know for sure, however, is that in most cases, simply standing in the knowledge that the storm will pass, and taking whatever small steps you can to move forward in the meantime, is actually more productive.

Bottom-line:  anyway you look at it, keeping your focus in the present is the option that serves best.  Always.  And especially when life feels cloudy.

Learning to Bless

As is normal for anyone engaging in the process of living life (I mean REALLY living, not just going through the motions), I seem to be in a constant state of evolving and learning.  Moment to moment, day to day, things are constantly shifting in my world, and what I know for sure is that’s a good thing.

Sometimes, the changes can be overwhelming, however.  Sometimes, it feels like evolution is happening so quickly that I barely adapt and assimilate what’s transpired before I’m on to the next stage.  In moments like that, what often happens is that I feel unprepared for this next stage.  It’s like I’m being asked to use new skills without having adequately practiced them in a safe container.  At least, that’s how it feels.

This has been the scenario for me for much of this past week.  Even as I stand in a place of gratitude for all that has transpired, and a place of curiousity about all that might yet be, I find myself being thrown into uncomfortable circumstances with a sense of trepidation — it’s like I’m not quite sure that my fresh learnings will actually work.

Well, one of the things that I’m playing with — and it’s actually serving me to play with this learning in these trepidation-filled scenarios — is the act of “blessing”.  When something comes at me that feels less than comfortable, when I’m feeling like I don’t want to be with something or someone, I’m learning to bless the circumstance, the person, the thing in question — send out an abundance of love — and trust that all is unfolding as it’s meant to.  What I’m noticing is that as I bless things rather than curse or question them, my focus shifts.  I no longer stand in problem-solving or frustration; instead, I stand in a place where I can hand the situation over to be dealt with by a higher power.  When I bless something, I can actually disengage from what might otherwise be a negative interaction, and engage in a more positive way.  Learning to bless all that is in my life becomes a blessing in and of itself.

Admittedly, this requires a bit of conscious effort on my part.  Sending blessings — especially to things, people, circumstances I don’t like — has not been my pattern in the past.  And I’m noticing that it actually serves my life better than anything I’ve tried so far.

Bottom-line:  the ability to bless and send blessing, ultimately liberates me from the place of fear.  And that’s a good thing.  I just need to keep practicing

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