When Life Gives You Lemons….

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
-Viktor E. Frankl

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passess the time. Vision with action can change the world. – Nelson Mandela

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. – Haruki Murakami

Dealing with the feelings involved in our “lemon” experiences is what is really hard.
We often struggle with accepting, paying attention to, or understanding our feelings and it is difficult to value our emotions when people become uncomfortable with any displays of emotion. Emotions are difficult and messy. We need to be able to feel what we are feeling, own it, admit it, acknowledge it and live through it to the other side.
Society does not recognize that dealig with feelings is a useful skill. We have to do the work of labeling, accepting and finding strategies to move forward.
We are often not taught at home or school to label our feelings beyond happy, sad, angry and, for the most part, we don’t find anyone to sit with us, hold us and not feel uncomfortable with frustration, sadness or anger that actually makes sense. The problem becomes that if you don’t correctly label your feelings and understand the underlying causes, it is difficult to take action and move forward. We become stuck. Emotions drive our attention, working through them allows us to learn and grow.
Society loves the quick fix. We love instant gratification. We want to treat the feelings once someone has hit rock bottom. We need to learn to connect, listen and find opportunities for compassionate empathy.

Emotional regulation is absolutely essential in this current world that is volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. We need to learn how to use our emotions wisely and this means developing the skills necessary to live in and cope with an unjust world. We need to be curious about each other. When we feel someone is struggling, we need to offer support, check in on them and stand by them. We often pull away when people are suffering – talking about cancer or job loss or family issues is uncomfortable. How should we act when we care about each other? How do we move past the uncomfortable feeling and really connect and support each other?

The way that we act grows out of reflection. What are our values and how do these play out every day in our lives? For me, I value honesty, integrity, compassionate empathy, and always being kind, even though the world constantly does its best to harden me. I want to stay focused and calm and I want to make the world a better place.