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Invisible Boundaries

We all surround ourselves with all manner of boundaries; we have our personal space, the things we accept and those we don’t, those people we listen to and those we ignore.  We are allotted cubicles at work, we have our seat on the sofa, our parking space in front of our homes and many more..

Regular readers will remember that Cooke Towers is situated deep in the heart of rural England and normally we just listen to the birds (& me) twittering and the joyous sound of petrol driven strimmers.  Last night one of our neighbours had a big party and at 1am we could still enjoy the sound of their ribald remarks and cheery goodbyes.  It sounded like they were in the bedroom with us!

It was odd how  to note how it felt to have the privacy of one’s bedroom breached by all this noise.  It felt like a personal assault, as opposed to just bit of a nuisance.  I’m sure this was because some primitive bit of my psyche was trying to defend our territory. 

I’m sure this kind of reaction is at the root of many of the problems we have at work and at home.  What examples do you have of this kind of territoriality and what tactics have you tried to deal with them?

“Life is uncharted territory. It reveals its story one moment at a time.”   Leo F. Buscaglia

 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 13:57 and is filed under Flight / Fight, Personal Change. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Invisible Boundaries”

  1. Sam Deeks says:
    5 July , 2009 at 16:39

    I do as Eckhart Tolle recommends – I use the noise as an opportunity to explore my reaction and be conscious and present. In practice, that means letting go of my resistance to the noise or the intrusion.

    On the (relatively) rare occasions I’m able to do that, I find my anger hives way to understanding leaving me far better equipped to make an intervention in the situation if it’s really necessary.

  2. richardderwentcooke says:
    5 July , 2009 at 17:02

    Sam,
    I have to say that I react at a totally viseral level to noise in general and find it hard to do this. Last night I did remind myself that it was not about me. Eventually I put on my mp3 player and just let it all go, but I found myself rehearsing (totally pointlessly) all sorts of conversations with them about it, maybe we should thank the Universe for these free ‘tests’?

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