When life throws you lemons, make lemonade…
You have probably heard this saying many times. It tends to be thrown around a lot – so much that you are probably either laughing to yourself thinking, “Whoever came up with that line was on something”, or…
…you are just plain sick and tired of hearing it (especially if you are currently struggling with something you just don’t know how to get past).
Life is constantly throwing us lemons. Sometimes, those lemons are flat out CHUCKED at us in large quantities or sizes!
So what do we do when life hurls lemons at us? We make lemonade of course…
But how?
How do we take the bitterness in our life and turn it into something sweet and refreshing like lemonade?
I recall a post I made on Facebook a few years back; I wrote “…makin’ lemonade with the lemons life has thrown me.”
Upon realizing the date of my post (May 25, 2010) it dawned on me, the irony that I wrote this four years prior (almost to the exact date) to my home burning down on May 24, 2014.
Let me tell you…there was a lot of lemonade to be made with the lemons that followed!
The good news is, the bigger the lemons are that we are thrown, the more sweet, refreshing lemonade we can make.
Ok – so now I know you think I’M the crazy one. That’s fine, but before you call me a lunatic, let me explain.
The moment I woke to my home in flames, my life instantly changed.
As my children and I suddenly became homeless, great chaos struck our lives.
Many people didn’t see the turmoil I went through because I appeared to be strong on the outside as I did what I needed to keep my family safe and provide for their needs, but as the reality of what happened sank in, I began to feel the true weight of our trial.
I broke down into tears many times…
I experienced moments of frustration and hopelessness…
Getting my life back in order was a great challenge.
There was so much to do to keep up with working a full time job, finding a new home for my family, getting moved (not once but twice), sorting through the remains of the fire to find what we could salvage, and cleaning soot from the items we did keep…all this while keeping up with the needs of my children and the many other responsibilities of my already busy life.
The business I had been working so hard to develop seemed like a dream of the past that I would never see come true because I just had too much on my plate!
It was too much to keep everything together…but I WOULD NOT accept the alternative!
I refused to let those lemons knock me down!
What did I do with those lemons? Why…I made sweet, refreshing lemonade…of course!
How I made my lemonade…
- I worked with a life coach to help clear my mind of the chaos (that’s right, even a coach needs a coach).
- I used my best friend for a shoulder to cry on.
- I asked myself questions such as, “What can I learn from this situation?” “How can I use my experience to help someone else?” “How can I make the best use of my time?”
- I continued to work on my spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being – and when I would begin to fall backward, I would push myself forward again.
- Instead of letting my experience destroy my dream of being a life coach and an entrepreneur, I used my experience to build my dream!
… and I squeezed one lemon at a time.
In a nutshell…I survived my fire and…
