Before Lemonade, Cry, Scream and Curse Or Steps to Take Before Being Positive, so It Can Actually Work

It is often said, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”

And, “Appreciate or be grateful for everything you have.”

This are both  and ultimately what we want to do, but there are a few intermediary steps if it is going to work out. If we don’t approach the making of lemonade with our whole self, it doesn’t work.  Knowing where you are, what you feel in the beginning is crucial.  When you stuff away feelings they increase your stress and block progress in your life.

1.     Be aware of what your feelings actually are.  Sometimes we are so conditioned to try to be positive, that we barely notice those feelings of anger, grief, jealousy, or deep sadness as they go by.  We are so conditioned to stuff them we don’t notice we are putting them away, deep in a pouch in our unconscious rather than actually letting them go.  Inside the pouch they wrestle around wanting attention, wanting OUT.  If they don’t get these things they build our stress levels, and they can literally either make us sick, give us migraines, or have explosive moods.

We create a lot of our own stress from how we talk to ourselves, and if we are allowing ourselves to feel what we feel.  Notice these things!

2.     After noticing, feel any feeling fully!  When you let a feeling be there, without judgement or second thoughts, it can actually just pass on through, after it’s been felt and noticed, it goes on into the great universe of dissolved feelings.  Ahhh.  Babies are great teachers in this regard.  A baby gets upset, cries, lets it go and laughs, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.  But the baby is able to let go and move on far more easily than most of us adults.

3.    Mostly we are so trained to not feel feelings that step 2 is very very difficult so we can take this next intermediary step.  Pause, very meaningfully, all alone somewhere and  acknowledge the feeling before it gets stuffed and just say hi to it. “Hi,  feeling of deep anger, I know you are there and I acknowledge you.  Hi.  It doesn’t matter if you are the most enlightened, kind or best feeling I could have.  You are there.  Hi.”  Imagine you feel supremely angry or annoyed by a co-worker, but your mind is so well trained you don’t allow this sort of feeling. At some point it seeps out, maybe with some nasty gossiping or actually back stabbing that person and feeling it’s okay.

Don’t go there.   Stop for a moment, notice the feeling and deep in your mind, just say “hi” to it.  It is there.  When you shove it under the rug, it gets bigger, a bit nastier and darker.  At some inappropriate moment it will pop out, in a larger more ferocious form and attack you or someone else.  It can bring down your mood, make you sick or cause you to place undeserved blame or anger on someone else.  Know you have feelings, we all do.  Acknowledge them.  I mean it quite literally when I say to say “hi” to them.  One day when I was in college I was walking down the street feeling really depressed.  I was in the fairly attractive, intelligent range and had  a decent room I was renting and food to eat, but boy was I depressed and self hating.  A woman about my age came up and said Hi.  She was a Down’s Syndrome person with very bad dental issues, all sorts of other issues.  But she was happy.  She was going to get ice cream after dinner.  That made her happy.  She wanted to cheer me up, really a very kind person.  She had some wisdom going on.  She told me to have ice cream after dinner and I would feel better.  I didn’t.  I did say to myself, I need to look at all that I have, not tear myself apart with criticism.

4.    The ability to stuff feelings in order to be more positive, is not the case for everyone.  Some people are extremely good at feeling their anger, grief, jealousy annoyance etc. and not so good with the making lemonade or appreciating what you have part.  Another blogpost will be for you!  You may also need the “make lemonade of your lemons coaching for a different reason.”

5.    Making lemonade from your lemons.

So something crappy happened, you had the moment of acknowledging your real feelings, without judging them.  You have said hi to them.

Maybe you have really felt them, let them dissolve, and are ready to move on.  There is something bad that has happened and that’s real.  But you can gather yourself up and say okay, this thing happened.  It sucks, but what do I have left.  What do I do to move forward and make use of this situation in the best way possible.

Here's a personal example:

Wanting to be a positive person, I recently broke my ankle, had pain, couldn’t walk without crutches or a cane for a few days etc.  Trying to be that positive person, I said, “But luckily it was my left leg so I can drive!  And I still have one good leg!  And I didn’t have a concussion!”

Then I remembered what happened in Sleeping Beauty when the bad fairy wasn’t invited and I let myself have my feelings, as in “Damn it why did I have to break my leg!  This sucks!  I was just starting an exercise program.  I hate this.” 

I didn’t wallow in these but I let them out.  Then I went on with, the good things and with knowing I really needed to get some writing done and want to meditate more and I am now only 6 days after the break, hobbling around with no cane, no crutches and almost no pain.  I am wearing a big thick cast-like boot which protects leg ankle and foot.  I am grateful they make these things. 

So why did I refer to a fairy tale?

Fairy tales often have some wisdom about our internal process.

In this case, there was an evil fairy not invited to the big christening party for the princess.  This is much like the act of trying to not have our negative, darker emotions.  We push them down into our subconsious, move quickly into coping strategies.  But, as in the fairy tale, the bad fairy or negative feeling(s) doesn’t just put up with this.  She curses the princess.  The curse is mitigated by other forces, but it leaves the princess in a deep sleep, missing years of her life.  What does this mean?  This is what happens when we push down or push away our feelings.  A lot of energy goes into pushing away feelings.  Without those feelings and without the energy used to hold them down, we live a kind of half life.  We don’t feel anything completely, wander around acting polite and “nice” but not fully alive. 

To be fully alive we need to feel the feelings, not hold onto them as if they are the only reality, but recognize they are feelings of the moment.

Let them be there for the moment like a big wave crashing through.  After a bit the waves calm down.  The feelings have been felt and if we don’t hold onto them, they dissipate. 

After the feeling let go, look around and in our own ways cope with what we have.  This is the time to use the lemons to make lemonade and be grateful for whatever you have.  This is when it can be done in a genuine way.

The practice here, to reiterate, is to notice, acknowledge and allow your feelings.  And I really mean it when I say to say “Hi” to those feelings.  Maybe have a little conversation, maybe something quite basic, such as, “Hi dark feelings.  Hi Stress.  You are here, I am aware of you.  We can accept each other.  I will listen to you.”  And do it.