My Holiday Wish to You All

Don’t Make Too Much Lemonade

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. A popular and very noble saying, and one I’ve lived my life by.

I’ve been through some really difficult passages in my life, and you know what? I’m a gourmet lemonade maker. I’m a resilient, happy, upbeat, gourmet lemonade maker. And that has served me well most of my life.

The problem with all this lemonade lately, is I’ve come to realize it might be keeping me in situations longer than what’s good for me, and worse, masking my true feelings.

Making lemonade, looking on the bright side, walking on the sunny side of the street, being positive, are all really wonderful ideals — truly. Yet in the last few years, I feel perhaps I’ve been making too much lemonade and losing sight of my hopes and dreams. I’ve been so caught up with all the lemons and trying to make them into something better or “putting up with” things, yet my life just isn’t where I’d like it to be. It’s not the life I want to live.

I truly appreciate the goodness in what I have right now, yet don’t want to forget the passion I feel when I’m in the right place for my soul — for the divine person I am. With all that’s gone on in the last three years, I wonder if I’ve somehow swapped realities with someone else. They’re trapped in an alternate reality that would be LOVE for me yet it’s TERRIBLE for them!!! LOL

We all need different things and what works for one doesn’t work for everyone. It’s not always easy figuring it out either. One thing I do know, I love living in urban areas, where I can walk to get my business & personal needs met, have good public transportation available and feel the energy of people bustling about. I enjoy getting into random conversations w/others I meet standing in line or sitting outside the tea shop. And, it’s not just that I like it, I need it. My personality thrives on it. I feel anesthetized living in the suburbs. I feel heavy every time I have to get in my car to get something I need. I also love living in my house & having my peaceful hangout, so these needs and loves have to come together in some beautiful organic and holistic way. Knowing this can happen, and can happen for me, is the key.

The tradeoff for having my house was the burbs. It was an adventure I took that included lots of lemons. Real (which are delicious btw), and metaphorical. Maybe all the metaphorical lemons are showing up to tell me I need to make a change, and that it’s ok to do so. I mean, how much lemonade can one person drink after all???

In real life, instead of making lemonade I use lemons to flavor the foods I love or for cleaning things. And metaphorically, why not do the same thing? Use the lemons to reconnect and move forward with my dreams, see the lemons as flavorings to enhance my life, lessons learned to clean up the dross and keep moving toward Love instead of trying to make “lemonade”. Some things just won’t ever taste sweet when they aren’t in alignment with who one really is. And thankfully so, else we’d all be off track all the time, overdosing on all the lemonade we’re making and wondering why things are so hard.

So today I’m choosing to want my dreams and believe in them again. Today I’m choosing to Say Yes to Love (hello) and do something every day that will bring me closer to them until they are my reality. When I’m presented w/another metaphorical lemon, I want to give myself permission to say “Ugh, tired of lemonade — it’s ok to move on”. I want to give myself permission to grieve the parts that feel sad yet keep moving forward.

I want to live in a dwelling that makes me smile (like mine does now & even more so), an area that delights me, in a city that is successful (not potentially could be), and of course, surrounded by folks that love me.

I don’t have to figure out how it all can happen. My part is to do what I can to nurture my dreams everyday, even just a little because it will keep me open to the magic of possibilities. It will help me see “the space around the obstacles” as my astrologer likes to say.  That open space is often where the answers lie and where we find our way.

How about you? Have you been making too much lemonade lately?

xo

joette

Happy Day of Thanks

In my own life, I look at this day as a national holiday for reflecting upon the things that matter most and being grateful for all we have. I make a list and post it on my dining room wall, and sometimes friends will add to it. Even when times seem tough, there’s a lot of thankfulness to be seen on the list!

Sending my wish for you to have a thankful day, filled with love.

Happy Thanksgiving.

xo
joette

Fear, Hatred & the Polarization of America

I’ve been thinking about the polarization of our political parties and how much hatred I’ve seen from reading various posts from both sides.

I see that both feel threatened, and some seem bent towards wanting to destroy the other, even after this current election. For those of us caught up in this game, does it really make one feel good? Does one really feel clean after spewing hatred around? Does it change anything? Is it truly Christ-like, or Buddha-like etc? Hate expressed creates such an ugly energy with a sharp hurt to it. It’s energy is joy killing and life threatening, and keeps us in a small prison cell of fear.

What if we were to become vulnerable instead, unmask our fears and tell each other why we feel so threatened? What if we each would be willing to truly listen to the other and try to understand their hearts? We may still stand on different sides of the issues, yet perhaps we could in love, agree to disagree. Perhaps the dividing line would become softer. Perhaps we would find some common ground and embrace that instead of harping on our differences.

One of the greatest things about this country is freedom of expression, freedom of beliefs. I love this country because we have such a diverse population in thought, race, expression and beliefs. We have so much opportunity to learn to Love instead of fear.

Hate is fueled by fear. The more we learn about another and embrace our commonality, we may find we have less to fear and less to hate.

I’m sending my wish that Love will cover us all. That Love will bring us to our senses. We are one body, one energetic body, and we need to accept each part of us. Let us find what we can be thankful for, and discover what we can love and appreciate in each other, because I truly feel we will never, ever find true peace on this earth as long as we hold hatred in our hearts.

Say Yes to Love, because Love is where the (true) power is. The power to heal, the power to begin anew and the power to make peace. xo

The Chevron Richmond Fire and Love

The other morning I woke up thinking about the Chevron fire we had the day before, and all the ramifications there might be because of it. I thought about the birds that may have been flying nearby, breathing in all that toxic smoke, and all the wildlife in the area. Where could they escape to quick enough? How is this going to affect our environment in the long term?

I thought about the people living nearby, the commuters stuck in traffic passing the scene, and everyone and all the wildlife in vicinity of the smoke’s trail.

Then, my mind went to all the countries, cities, and people this country has brought devastation to by war. All the toxicity we’ve left behind, much of it due to the desire for oil. The oil dilemma is causing so much continuous pain.

When will it stop? When will we, as a nation, as a world, realize the pain of greed? We’ve had the technology for electric cars back when I was a child, and the big oil companies and who knows what other powers of control squashed it, as it would seriously impact their income stream. When will we unplug from this crazy energy of greed, lust, coveting, having, getting, and consuming?

Imagine a nation whose desire was love and the good of all? Imagine a nation whose mantra was “do no harm”.

My heart so desires to be plugged into the energy of Love, The Love Current. In everything I do, say and think. It begins with individuals, as we know. And there are more and more of us who are plugging in to the Love current and unplugging from the energies that cause hurt, separation, division, greed, hate, and fear. Collectively, we are changing the world as we create an atmosphere of Love within our ourselves, which radiates out into the world we touch everyday — our friends & family, our co-workers, bill collectors, drivers sharing the road (yikes), grocery clerks, etc.

Let’s continue to do what we can to affect change. Maybe that includes calling or writing to your representative, signing a petition or speaking out regarding decisions that will seriously impact the ecology of our world. Let our voices be heard and our lights shine bright.

One of the things on my wish list is a hybrid car for the “people”. A truly affordable hybrid. I bet it’s possible, and we “just” need some manufacturer to plug into Love a bit more and less into greed. Ha! That should be simple, right???  Well, a girl can dream…

endurance vs tolerating

In the coaching world, I often hear the question “What are you tolerating”? Meaning, what are you putting up with or ignoring, that is zapping your energy, your joy, and keeping you stuck. While this is a valid and important area of inquest, I wonder if that question has become a “catch phrase”. If we’re in a difficult situation, and we’ve tried to change it, we’ve asked and waited for direction, we’re doing all we can to make a change, yet it is unchangeable, perhaps it’s a lesson in endurance.

Learning to endure is highly beneficial to our spiritual health. Learning to move on with our lives in spite of the thorn in our side, stretches our spiritual muscles and strengthens our spiritual bones.

Crosby, Stills + Nash wrote a song “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”. While I never agreed with that policy as far as intimate relationships go, if we’re in a situation we cannot change, what can we love in it? What can we do to walk toward Love? Where can we find the love while enduring a difficulty? We might think it’s not possible, though Love can shine through the impossible.

Moving forward toward Love changes everything. It breaks the stagnant energy cycles, the hopeless thinking is replaced with freshness and possibility. When we are released, we’ve changed. We’re stronger, wiser, and play larger in the world than we did before.

Athletes do endurance training. As spiritual athletes, we can benefit too. Being able to endure with grace, richness and love, is a worthy goal and changes us from a hot house plant into a magnificent tree, able to withstand the winds of change, while giving shelter and joy to the world.

Tolerating zaps our joy. Endurance deepens our learning and increases our faith. We then find the peace and joy that passes our human mind’s understanding.

xo

colds, flus + love

Since Christmas Eve, I’ve gotten caught by some sort of something three times! I cannot remember the last time I’ve been sick, so this is quite surprising.

So what does Saying Yes to Love have to do with it? Well, it’s easy to find ourselves with unloving thoughts, i.e.: “I don’t have time for this”, “will I ever feel well?”, “it was dumb of me to go without my jacket, now look what happened”, “I have no one to care for me”, “My partner doesn’t know how to care for me”…. The mind’s dialogs are only limited by our imagination! Someone once said “There’s no greater nation than imagination”. That’s so true, and we can be in an imagi-nation of doom + gloom, or an imagi-nation of upliftment and love.

So how do we change our thoughts while feeling yucky? How do we say Yes to Love?

I’ve found that I recover faster when I choose to be kind to myself; nurturing, resting and eating good food, both physically + mentally. This equals Love to me. Even when we feel we cannot stop and rest, because we’ve got to get the kids to school, care for our family, etc, we can still be kind to ourselves by watching our thoughts and inner dialogue.

Masuro Emoto has done numerous studies on the effects of spoken words and water. I’ll talk more about that in another post, but remember that we’re 98% water. What we speak + think really does affect us.

What would it look like for you to Say Yes to Love, when you’re not feeling well? Can you make that happen? If you don’t think so, why? Is it reasonable? If so, do you feel you don’t deserve it? If that’s the case, please make the choice to abandon thoughts of self-neglect and embrace thoughts of Love. You deserve it!

A few years ago, it seemed I was frequently catching colds and became very nervous about having colds + flus passed on to me. I decided to write an affirmation / meditation / treatment to dispell this, and it has really helped to change my perspective!

Maybe it will help you too:

My Love, I know only You are real.
God is all there is and your spirit, your life, fills every aspect of my being.
You are perfect health and this perfection is also mine.
I am a Golden Vessel of Light.
Perfect Health radiates within me in every part of my being.
Every cell is constantly renewed by Love.
My veins are clear and strong, and the blood flowing through them is filled with the Life of God.
Every bodily function is operating perfectly.
I am stronger with every breath I take.
As I discover the broken places, I see Golden Liquid flowing there, and encompassing me with Compassion.
There is only Love, Harmony and Grace in every muscle, every bone, and every tissue.
I see myself bathed in your Golden Healing Light.
As of this moment, I let go of my beliefs about catching a cold.
I release my fears about other people passing a cold to me.
I know that each breath I take is your breath, and your breath is that of Life Abundance.
Within me, there is no place for sickness to dwell,
Within me, there is no place for fear to dwell.
I reject the habit of colds and flus.
I eliminate the imagination of sickness and turn my thoughts to Love.
I turn my thoughts to Health.
Thank you for opening my eyes to see your Beauty even more clearly.
My thoughts are Love.
My thoughts are Peace.
My thoughts are Perfect Health.
And so it is.