We’ve all heard it before…Mind your own business. It comes with such a negative connotation. I remember being a kid and hearing that phrase being said around the playground. In actuality, it is true and real and something we should all be striving for. We need to spend more time minding our own business instead of minding the business of others.
Who gave us permission to get involved in someone else’s business without being invited? I believe it comes from the premise that something is “wrong” and we need to fix it. If we truly believe that everything is in Divine Order then nothing is broken and nothing needs to be fixed. Leave it alone. Perhaps it is a life lesson that person needs to learn and you are getting in the way of them learning it. That means they will continue to have that issue repeatedly until they learn it. Support. Encourage. Facilitate. By all means, let them learn their lesson.
When we truly love ourselves, we simply reflect that out into the world. When we do that, other people’s business won’t seem so important. If people need help, it’s important that they learn to ask for it. We are all accountable to our own stuff. Don’t take on other people’s stuff in the name of helping them. Ask them if they need help. Let them know you are available to assist if they need it.
If you are still reading, you might be thinking that Minding our Own Business would be a very selfish way of living. Ah, that word Selfish…the word of mothers around the world who wish to impose guilt upon their children. Can we change that word to Self-aware? If I am self-aware, I know what is mine and what belongs to others. I understand that I need to ask for what I want and it isn’t a personal attack if someone says no to me. When I am self-aware, I clean up my own stuff and become the best that I can be. I honor and respect everyone around me at the point at which they are in their life. It doesn’t have to be where I am.
When you are in a stressful situation, ask yourself, “How much of this belongs to me?” If you didn’t create it, cause it or have anything to do with it, chances are you are minding someone else’s business. Take a step back, set a boundary and Mind your Own Business.
I first heard about being selfish as “self-aware” from Abraham. It has helped me to check my intentions in many situations. When I find myself minding someone else’s business I try to stop and look at that situation and see if there is truly a need for me to insert myself. A surprising number of times the answer is no. This post did bring me to want to ask a question, if you wouldn’t mind. It has to do with empathy and sometimes being “forced” into others business. Over the weekend I was visiting my family for a Bat Mitzvah,Spirit was there without question, it was amazing! Some time into the ceremony at temple I felt like I was hit with a truck. I was eventually able to identify it as someone else’s pain/anger/unease. Is there a tool you could share for those times when we get someone else’s business and we’d like to go back to minding our own? Learning that I have an empathic gift sometimes makes it difficult to be selfish. 🙂
Thank you!
Thanks for your comments Dan. Getting those empathic hits is no different from the situation you described earlier. We don’t own other people’s feelings or pain, expressed or picked up on empathically. If I am in a crowd and feel something like that, I simply say a prayer for the person to ease their pain/anger/unease if it be for their best and highest good. Maybe they are learning something from the pain/anger/unease and if we take it away for them, they won’t learn the lesson. Our human self doesn’t want to see anyone suffer and it may be a piece of you that doesn’t like to suffer (who does?) so the person’s energy connects with you on a stronger emotional level. The feelings you feel about them may be stirring up the shadow side of your soul, the side we usually tend to not want to be or recognize. Ask yourself, “What is it about this feeling that reminds me of me?”. Maybe there is something you need to learn from them. Being empathic is only difficult if we choose it to be. See the lessons when the feelings arise and then make a better choice.