“Life is what you make it”, “when life throws you lemons, make lemonade”, “you and only you can change your life, if you don’t like it, change it”. How many times have we heard these expressions and want to scratch the living day lights out of the person who decided to be witty enough to say them to you? You smile, nod, all while your thinking to yourself “Oh, just be happy, just change my life, I didn’t think of that! Thank you for you insight.” Fact is – truth hurts. And although you may think these people don’t understand because they aren’t walking in your shoes, I am going to fill you in on a secret. They are Right.

It has been a pretty dark Winter, in multiple ways. If things are going to hit your life, affect your every movement and thought, it might as well happen in the cold depressing months we call Winter. Looking back I can laugh, because I made it through, but it seems to be one thing after another that can leave our lives upside down. So when do we break free? When do we finally throw our hands in the air and give up concentrating on the miserable, suffocating things that have been happening in your life, accept them and find the light?

I will be the first to admit that I am the biggest pessimist there is. I complain constantly. I am exhausted. I have worked multiple jobs (several at a time), and over the past six years I have said a specific job was the cause of my exhaustion and I have dropped it, moved to another, picked up insane hours, and done a repeat cycle to my self over and over again. Then there is the mental stress, the family problems, and the financial instability that can completely rock your world. Life can throw lemons alright, so lets start making some lemonade.

“We spend our whole lives worrying about the future, planning the future, trying to predict the future. As if figuring it out will somehow cushion the blow, but the future is always changing. The future is the whole of our deepest fears and our wildest hopes, but one thing is certain: When it finally reveals itself, the future is never the way we imagined it.” – Meredith Grey “Scars and Souvenirs” (3.18)

I understand the worry about the future. You have dreams, plans about exactly what you want and what it will be like, and unfortunately, it never happens that way. My mother was married at 21, had my sister at 22, myself at 23, my brother at 25 and my last sibling at 32 (a little surprise). She had an amazing career at a young age making beautiful wedding gowns. The story goes that on her wedding day she was an hour late because of the swarm of people around her limo that just wanted to see ‘the wedding dress maker’s wedding dress’. I wanted to be everything she was. Fall in love young, find the man of my dreams, have a career, have a family, and all young enough to be able to live the rest of my life however I want.

Of course that didn’t happen. I left my house at 17 to live with the love of my life. The first long term relationship and it ended due to the disgusting heart ache of substance abuse. I firmly believe to this day though that the break up is what made us both strong enough to move on in our lives and drove us to want more and to better ourselves (see the lemonade there? I’m trying). Then I escaped to another great guy, but again, didn’t work. For some odd reason that break up was even harder, but after a few weeks of crying and doing nothing but working (truly what I do best) I went out to drink my sorrows away and met the man of my dreams, my now husband.

My point to rambling on about my love life is to bring back around my point to my earlier statement. Every life “hiccup”  can be looked at two ways. I could say that I wasted seven years of my life dating the wrong men for me and ruining my plans of being a young successful mother, or I can look at it as if I didn’t go through the roller coaster of relationship disasters I never would have met my husband. AKA – lemonade.

So what is the key to releasing the stress of life? Always being optimistic and looking at the glass half full instead of half empty? Sure. But most life situations won’t be settled that way. So what is the key to the stress of life? One of my brothers taught me grounding. When you are freaking out IE: crying, stressing, ready to pull out your last follicles – you just stop, sit, use all of your senses… touch – your chair, the floor, your clothes, smell – the room, the air, hear – what are people talking about, who is around you.. and you continue this with all your senses and when you are done your heart rate is lowered and you’re done freaking out. I laughed when I first heard this, but then I tried it during one of my emotional melt downs and it actually did work, for that moment.

I honestly believe that the key to life’s stress is – none. There is no easy answer and everyone has their moments. Life’s key… the answer to all problems, its just all in how you deal with it. So while some people can sit in a chair and calm themselves, others prefer the follicle pulling method. Either way, you have to believe.. you have to remember… this very moment, the moment that is making your skin crawl and your fight or flight reaction screaming to run for the hills, tomorrow it will just be a memory, next week, you might not remember it, and next year it will be obsolete.