Mind Your Own Business
Byron Katie says that there are three kinds of business: my business, your business and God’s business. She says that much of our discomfort and anxiety comes from getting out of our own business, or allowing others into ours.
When we are in God’s business, we are concerning ourselves with things over which we have absolutely no control; the plane crashing or the world coming to an end, when the drought is going to break… We are spending (or wasting) our energy on thoughts and anxieties that are going to go nowhere, fast.
When we are in someone else’s business, we are concerning ourselves with things that do not belong to us, and that we also have no control over. We worry about what they think and feel, and how they may or may not behave. We think about what they need, what they want and what they like – often at the expense of our own needs, wants and likes. We may even tell them what they should be wanting, thinking, feeling or how they should be behaving – even if they haven’t asked.
When we let other people into our business, we allow them to tell us what we should be thinking, feeling, wanting or liking. We weaken our own boundaries and we open ourselves up to being discounted, overlooked, bullied or rescued. We allow ourselves to feel weak and child-like.
Staying in our own business, and keeping others out of it, can be hard because from an early age many of us have been dragged into other people’s business and/or have had other people encroaching on ours. It is hard to know where we and our business ends and where someone else and their business begins.
When clients come to me with relationship struggles and concerns it is almost always because one or both parties are out of their own business; overly concerned with what their partner is or isn’t feeling, doing or saying, or underly concerned with taking responsibility for getting their own needs met.
We struggle with boundaries.
But strong, healthy boundaries are vital for strong healthy relationships.
Just as good fences make good neighbours, good boundaries make good relationships. We need to stay in our own business by taking responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings and actions, and we need to allow others to take responsibility for theirs, in order for us to have happy and healthy relationships – with people, with work, with ourselves.
Because when you mind your own business you mind your own life…
Hello there, I'm Judy.
I'm a Master Life Coach, facilitator, trainer and published author from sunny South Africa. I'm passionate about helping people make things go right in their world of work and in their lives - by rediscovering and building on their resilience, resourcefulness and creativity.
More About JudyAs seen and heard, on and in...
Trusted by
Add some Breathing Space to your workweek
Join my newsletter and receive this FREE year-long email series, offering a weekly moment of calm and a prompt for self-care.
I respect your privacy. You can unsubscribe at any time.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA.
