One of the first things I had to learn about having fibromyalgia was that my energy now had hard and strong limits. I only have so much energy in any given day, and it runs out fast. Pushing myself to do more only aggravated my fatigue and took longer and longer periods to recover.

Until then I had not realized how many different ways there were to expend energy, and that certain things take more energy than others. Everything we do in life requires energy, from the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed we are using those energies.

We use those energies to accomplish our daily work, chores, and errands. We use those energies when dealing with family matters. We use those energies when we do our paperwork and pay our bills. Indeed everything we do requires energy, and when you run out as easily as I do you begin to become more mindful of that energy usage.

Positive energy comes from doing those things you enjoy most. Playing with your children, spending time with a loved one, snuggling with pets. These things may drain us to some extent, but overall they have positive effects on our energy levels.

Negative energies on the other hand have the power to drain our energy far faster than we may realize. When we allow negative energies to direct us, we can and will see the effects even when we are otherwise healthy.

What are negative energies?

Worry

Worry is a huge energy expenditure, and much of the time it is energy wasted. Worry has never once, in the history of mankind, accomplished anything. It has never paid a bill, cured an illness, stopped a war. Worry accomplishes nothing, but it is a huge drain on your energy stores.

Anger

Sometimes it just feels good to vent, but those sometimes can very quickly become a regular state of mind if you allow it. Anger rarely accomplishes your intended purpose, and it quite often turns a bad situation into something far worse.

Hatred

When we hate another we often see it as a sort of revenge, the problem is hatred hurts nobody but you. While the other person gets to go on with their life, you are continually sucked back into your hatred. Hatred has a way of draining not only your energy but the energy of those around you.

Expectations

While success gurus will often tell us to keep our expectations high, we must remember that those expectations only apply to ourselves. When we expect other people to live within our expectations, we are setting ourselves up for failure.

Resentment

We all have a few unresolved hurts in our lives, much of the time they remain unresolved because we are still waiting for something to happen before we let go of them. We could be awaiting on an apology, or for the other party to learn their lesson, or even on outside forces to remedy the problem. You don't need a resolution to let go, you really don't. All you accomplish when you wait it out is allowing your feelings to build until they are a constant drain on your energy sources.

When you begin to pay attention to not only where your energy is going, but what kind of energy you are using you will soon discover that learning how to live a life without negative energy drains is a path to true peace with yourself and the world you live in.

We all deserve to have peace in our lives, but peace does not come from the outside but from within yourself...

Sometimes as a webmaster you find search queries that led people to your site that make you laugh, like “rednecks who won't talk to intellectuals” or “testosterone hobbies.”

Then there are queries like... “staying positive for our kids during recession ,” “I'm about to lose everything recession ,” and “recession explained for children.” I can’t read them without feeling for the person who typed them in.

Quiet cries of desperation, people reaching out trying to find a little bit of hope. Hope is becoming a precious commodity in this world. I wish I were a financial advisor, that I could tell people when and how this will end, that it will be over soon.

When I talk about survivors I’m not just talking about people in abusive relationships, those who have survived sexual abuse and assault. We are all survivors in our own way, all of us face challenges and when we make it through them we automatically become survivors.

Once when my children were young I went to visit my aunt, not only did she have two young children she had just given birth to twins. I watched her juggling all of her responsibilities as a wife, mother, and business owner and got tired after just an hour.

“I don’t know how you do it.” I told her. She gave me the strangest look, like I just asked her how she breathes. She said “I don’t really have a choice.”

If you are wondering how you will survive a recession, possibly even the loss of your job or home I want you to know that survivors survive because the alternatives aren’t all that rosy either.

You will do whatever you have to do to survive it. No matter how tough things get, you will keep going. You can wait until this crisis is over to get happy, or you can find a way to do it now.

A few years ago a study was done where they followed a group of people who had won the lottery, and people who had become paraplegics. One year later they asked both groups how happy they were with their lives. Both groups, those who had lost something and those who had gained something stated that they were equally happy with their lives.

If you came here looking for hope, I offer you this video, and a choice...

The choice, as always is ours. Are we going to be victims, or are we going to be survivors? This isn’t a once in a lifetime decision. We will be making this decision for the rest of our lives. If you cared enough to come here looking for that answer... I’m willing to bet right now that you are a fighter.

Are you going to seek happiness despite the circumstances or give up?

I’ve been thinking about parenting a lot lately, not the basic stuff, the rules and guidelines, but the philosophy behind it. Something about the way my mind works seems to lead to a lot of funny ideas on many topics.

You see, there are a lot of things we do with our kids that don’t really make much sense to me when I hold them up to the light of day. From simple things like telling our kids not to talk to strangers, and then getting upset with them when they refuse to sit on Santa’s lap to hitting a child to teach them not to hit.

We send children conflicting messages on a regular basis, but we don’t even realize we are doing it. People call their children brats and then are somehow surprised when they act like one. The labels don’t stop there, some call their kids dumb, some call them lazy, some call them fat.

When you label a person, they tend to become the label. When we label our children negatively, the negative effects show. When we label them positively, they actually live up to those labels.

Parenting is an art, not a science.

I’ve also never understood the concept of forcing a child to clean their plate especially when we have such a high rate of obesity in our country. Yes, they need to eat healthy, but that doesn’t mean they need to eat when they aren’t hungry.

Sometimes, rules were meant to be broken.

Part of the art of parenting is knowing when to bend the rules, and when to break them totally. The most fun we have had as a family were the times we broke the rules. The days we ate dessert before dinner, stayed up way past bedtime to do something silly, or took a day off to just go hang out.

Many of us have forgotten what it is like to be a kid, when you look at things from their point of view you see things you never noticed before. The world can be a very confusing place for a child, and as parents we need to remember that.

They are people too, and they have a right to be heard just as much as we do. That doesn’t mean we always have to give in, but we can at least take the time to listen to them, to validate their feelings and explain our point of view.

Most of all I have never understood why people think we are raising children in the first place. We are raising adults, and we only have 18 years to get it right. If we screw it up, there can be hell to pay.

Just something else to think about...