I bet if we kept score of the wrongs that have actually been done to us versus the wrongs we have imagined, the latter would win by a landslide for almost all of us. That would be a terribly important statistic regarding our relationships, wouldn’t it?

Our brains are hardwired to look for patterns in order to simplify and classify what we encounter. When hurtful things happen, we anticipate the wounding behavior of others to protect ourselves from possible future wounds. We imagine others are thinking and feeling things about us that correspond to the wounding event(s). We start to organize our behavior around avoiding possible triggers, overcompensating by acting in the opposite way or surrendering to it. Our expectations contribute to co-creating future interactions that corroborate our assumptions.

The fascinating thing about this process is that most of it takes place in our own heads and outside of our conscious awareness.

Please enjoy the following guest post by Julia Merrill with useful tips on dealing with summer sleep routines with our children. 

​Julia Merrill is on a mission. She wants to use information to close the gap between medical providers and their patients. She started BefriendYourDoc.org to do just that.

Many children eagerly anticipate the summer holidays. With their time off from school, more free schedules, and warmer weather, their days are often full of fun, exciting adventures. This typically extends toward the night, as well -- children frequently break their standard sleep routine in the summer. Children and teens still require a certain amount of high-quality sleep in the summer, even though it can be difficult to get them to follow a summertime sleep schedule. Here are some ways you can create a summer sleep schedule for your children and improve their sleep in general.

​I watched a short documentary on Netflix a few days ago about Ram Dass called Going Home. He calls suffering the “sandpaper from the spiritual point of view that is awakening people” and encourages people to make friends with change.

I am trying to make friends with change. It has been two months since my mother died. There’s a hole in my heart that I cannot fill with tears, religion, or tequila. Her death has introduced me to grief the likes of which I have never experienced. Her absence follows me like a tail. Life just feels different now. No matter what I do, I cannot go back to the way things were.