For the last year, I've sat as the devoted mother to a son learning martial arts. We live too far from the do chang for me to drive home during the hour of his class so I stayed during the winter to watch or study. On nicer days in the spring and summer I took my mp3 player for a walk around the closest park.

I have learned several very interesting life lessons during the time I watched.  The most significant is the break falls. They learn to fall in such a way as to not hurt themselves. Rolling, tucking, slapping the mat to stop and leaping over objects instead of bumping up against them. Over and over their partners make them go down on purpose while they practice this very important skill. The biggest reason is to prevent injury.

What if we took a few moments ourselves and decided, planned and practiced what we would do when we went "down" in life? Those days everyone has where you lose your job or relationship, you get the phone call about a sick or injured child, or life just has us down for various reasons. Is it possible to plan for these times just enough to know what we would do without spending too much time on them so as not to attract those actions into our lives? Could we roll and tuck with some life skills so as not to injury ourselves emotionally while the seemingly negative occurrence was taking place?

In class, it is expected you will go down at some point. Either just losing your balance or being actually taken down during sparring practice, it will happen eventually and more likely, quite often. It is highly encouraged to get up again quickly and be ready for the next action put to you by your opponent.

For some reason, we've learned in life that everything is supposed to be rosy all the time and when the pendulum of emotions swings the other way, that its bad and means we've done something wrong. I would like to surmise we tweak our thoughts and therefore our beliefs to those that would better serve us.

The first question to ask yourself is where do you get your energy? Do you feel full and energized when you spend time alone or with a friend or group of friends? This would be the first plan to break fall your life when things get negative and you find it hard to bear. If you are more introverted meaning you get your energy by being alone and doing activities by yourself, take the time to spend time alone especially at times when emotions are running negative. Do a singular activity with the intention of filling your energy cup to overflowing. On the other hand, if you are more extroverted meaning you get your energy from social gatherings and having other people around, take the time to spend time with positive, energetic people with the intention of filling your energy cup.