It has been a really negative year for everyone, you can't even turn on the news without seeing more negativity.

Fighting and name calling are becoming par for the course. Our own government is acting more like a class of preschoolers than a leadership body made up of mature adults. Not just one party, but both are playing the "I don't like you so you can't come to my birthday party" game.

I used to joke that maturity was overrated, but a little bit of maturity wouldn't hurt any of us right now. If you have a truth to speak, then by all means speak it but the minute we resort to including personal attacks and name calling we can no longer consider ourselves responsible adults.

One of my favorite parenting experts is a woman named Susan Stiffelman, she calls her parenting approach Passionate Parenting

Through her program I have learned many things, but most of all she has taught me the futility of power struggles. The more you seek to control another person, the more they resist that control, and the faster you lose the control you seek.

Perhaps she should expand her book to explain that that applies to every situation, not just our own children. We can all share our views as loudly and even as aggressively as possible, but if it is important enough to share then it should be our goal to try to get other people to hear and hopefully understand us?

When we shut them out before they even get a chance to hear it, what is the point of saying it at all?

It has been a year since I made the commitment to remain positive no matter what the situation. I picked a bad year to do it, and as hard as I have tried I still have a very long way to go.

Along the way I have had to cut out a lot of activities, going to my much loved locals only site is just one of those things. Not because anyone there has been unkind to me or attacked me in any way, but because the negativity is not only a physical but an emotional drain.

Those who teach positive living say that it takes five positives to counteract a single negative. If so then the cloud of negativity hanging over this country is going to take centuries to conquer.

Those same experts also teach that we should not focus on what we don't have, but what we do have. Instead of focusing on what is going wrong, we are supposed to focus on what is right.

I'm not saying that it is a bad thing to speak your mind or to disagree with what is going on in the government right now. I'm just saying before you complain, see if you can find a way to turn that complaint into positive action.

One thing I have always stressed to my children is that bitching has never solved a single problem. Instead of focusing on the problem, focus first on the lessons we can learn from it and then focus on finding the solution.

My children understand this concept, but so few adults seem to these days. Even my children know that smart people use their brains, the rest resort to calling names.

What are we teaching our children right now?

That is is better to hate than to love?
That it is better to complain that to take action?
That it is okay to call other people names as long as you don't like them?
That anyone who does not agree with you is the enemy?

Children do learn these lessons whether we mean to teach them or not, and it might seem okay to teach them to attack that which they do not like but... there will be times in every child's life when they do not like us.

When those lessons come back to us, they sometimes hurt.

One area of our life affects every other. If we insist we are teaching our children respect but can't offer respect to our neighbor or even our president, then we aren't teaching them respect at all.

We are teaching them to hate, and we really have no right to be surprised when that hate comes back home. Teach them love, and compassion, teach them to speak their truth respectfully, teach them to create not to destroy.

Early this week I got a phone call from a long time friend letting me know that her mother passed away, and she was in town to make arrangements. Loss is one area I've never been very good at dealing with.

My driving force in life is making people smile. I don't like seeing people sad, and when I do I want to help them be happy again but how do you go about doing that when someone has just lost such an important part of their life.

Loss is one of the most difficult aspects of life, but it is also one of the most unavoidable.

There are many different ways to experience grief, but the most often cited follow a series usually known as the five stages of grief.

† Denial - This isn't really happening.
† Anger - This isn't fair, why me?
† Bargaining - I'll do anything to stop this pain.
† Depression - It hurts so bad...
† Acceptance - I'm ready to move on

We all go through these phases at some point or another, we go them in different orders, with different timeliness involved, and in our own personal way, but we do go through them.

I want to cheer my friend up, to do whatever I can whenever I can to help, but right now I understand that her sadness is part of her process, and it is important.

As a friend my job isn't to take away her pain right now, but to be there while she is experiencing it, to offer myself in whatever form she may need, but at the same time not pressuring her, and allowing her to experience whatever she needs to experience whenever she needs to experience it.

It doesn't matter whether the loss suffered is that of a loved one, or a piece of yourself an adjustment period will most likely be necessary.

It is strange but before that call came I was hard at work on my latest project, a project dedicated to survivors of abuse and once again I am talking about loss, loss of a different kind. Not so much a loss of others, but a loss of self, a loss of hopes, a loss of dreams, a loss of innocence.

The process is very similar, and so is the response of anyone who functions in supporting an abuse survivor, our job isn't to take away their pain right now, but to be there while they are experiencing it, to offer ourselves in whatever form they may need, but at the same time not pressuring them, and allowing them to experience whatever they need to experience whenever they need to experience it.

She has been one of my longest running friends, we met in our late teens and eighteen years later we have moved to different states, been through marriages and divorces, watched our kids grow, and still get together and giggle like school girls when we get the chance.

So I'm going to be gone the rest of this week just being with my friend, she has a lot of work to do in a very short time and at least when I am helping I feel like I am contributing something to her at the moment - even if it is just helping pack up her mothers belongings.

Be well...

For many years I wondered what exactly I was here for, what my purpose in life truly was. I finally decided that all I really wanted to do was make a difference, I knew I couldn't change the world but something in me believed that if I could make a difference in just one life then my life would be a life well lived...

A year ago I became a trained domestic violence and sexual assault advocate for the San Miguel Resource Center, and today I was invited to attend their annual luncheon.

During the luncheon they talked about how far we have come in making our communities aware, there is help out there, nobody has to go it alone, and I am very proud to be a part of that education process.

What I didn't expect though... was being named Advocate of the Year. I'm still in shock, being recognized with such a great honor was enough to leave me in tears.

Thank you so very much....