Wouldn’t it be great if we could get immediate feedback about when the mind shuts itself off and we go unconscious to ourselves and our communications with others? Wouldn’t that save a lot of grief and potential problems if we could say to ourselves, “Hey wait a minute, I’m beginning to drop off now. I’ll wake up when there’s a version of reality playing that I can relate to.”? Wouldn’t it be useful to be have a built-in unconsciousness meter somewhere in our brains that would alert us to when we go unconscious and when others do the same?

We all wish to experience life in terms of expansion, abundance, and growth. However, it is a fact of existence that life naturally also includes its opposite: contraction, loss, and retreat. Much as our hearts and minds want to experience only the positive, sometimes the negative is unavoidable as the circumstances of our lives changes and we rearrange our connections with friends and family.

Big death and little death—elements of change.
Physical death, in particular, is one of those unavoidable events we usually approach in a negative way. Many experts on grief and loss refer to physical death as big death. No one is immortal while in the body. Big deaths are part of our lives over time as we lose loved ones to the inevitable consequences of simply being alive.

Author Douglas Rushkoff’’s most recent work, Life, Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back, provides an interesting take on how society and the corporate world currently interact and more importantly, how the market forces have changed society for the worse.

Though the book makes some wild assumptions and at times provides little support for its positions, it does represent a comprehensive look at the ways society has changed over the last few decades. The corporate world has taken precedence according to Rushkoff’s work, and that’s push communities and individual relationships to the brink of disaster.

Setting boundaries is important in many areas of life. Knowing how to set appropriate boundaries—and sticking to them—can mean the difference between failure and success in relationships, work environments, productivity, family issues, financial security, and your own sense of self worth. Many tasks require concentration and balance in a peaceful environment.

Interruptions and unplanned chaos in whatever form make it difficult to focus on the task at hand and, if taken to extremes, can have a negative impact on many things in life. Boundaries can be violated not only by others but by yourself as well. It is important to realize that often, we are our own worst enemies when it comes to respecting our boundaries.