What to do when life gives you lemons
You know that saying, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
What if the last thing you feel like doing is making lemonade? What if you don’t even like lemonade?
What if you do not even have the energy to find the pitcher. When you you find it, you are going to throw it at the next person that tell you to go make some lemonade?
How do you even figure out what to do, and where to start?
When we get the worse of life thrown at us, we find ways to cope. We sometimes retreat into hibernation. . We become anxious and angry and we find ways to avoid and project on to others so that we do not have to deal with those lemons.
After all, lemons are sour and we don’t like the taste.
At some point, we realize the we need to get moving. We need to go find the pitcher. So, we force ourselves out of bed. We use some coping skills to manage our lemons, and we implement the “fake it until you make it” strategy.
Making it work
And this strategy works, maybe in the short term or maybe in the long term. After all, it is hard to completely detach where there is a job to go to or kids to parent, or a house to clean, or whatever else we need to be doing.
There comes a point when we get tired of the “fake it until you make it” strategy. We realize there we are not acting like ourselves, and we do need some help. Someone close to us may point this out to us, or we may have another experience that reminds us that we are still carrying around those lemons. We seek help. We talk to friends, family, and we may go to therapy. Thorough this process, we begin to see that we don’t have to carry around our hurt, and we can learn to accept and find healthy ways to cope. We realize that we have choices.
And we see that the pitcher and lemons work better if we add the water and the sugar. We find a way to make the lemonade, even if we don’t really like lemonade. We have some help now.
We grow to understand that the lemons are part of us now. And we accept the bad experiences that they represent, and we and we understand that the lemons have changed us, and made us stronger.
Give your self time, know that you have the courage you need, and be willingness to take the first step.
We offer individual therapy, couples therapy, and children’s & teen’s therapy in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. We also offer teletherapy and consulting.