Whose Business Are You Minding?
Everything is all about me in that it’s my thoughts that either torment me or bring me peace. I’m always telling myself and the people with whom I work, to focus on themselves. On the surface this sounds narcissistic, but it’s not. It’s responsible.
Basically, all your complaints about other people and events are really advice being given by you, to you. Recognizing this truth is quite liberating. Once you realize and accept this you can start to be curious about your thoughts and statements. When I’m thinking or saying, “She needs to clean up her yard,” it’s really my inner wisdom telling me something to compassionately take a look at within my own life. Maybe my lawn is immaculate so it isn’t true for me that I need to take better care of my yard. Then, I can ask myself, “What do I need to take better care of?” What have I been neglecting? Are my finances a mess? Do I fail to get appropriate amounts of exercise? Am I a workaholic?
In my view, no matter what person, situation or event I’m looking at in my life, it always comes down to the same thing. I have to do my own work in order to experience lasting peace and joy. By my own work, I mean that I always have to focus on myself, be curious about my own thoughts and emotions, or as the author Byron Katie says ‘mind my own business’.
According to Katie, with every thought I am either minding my own business, somebody else’s business or God’s business. (I’m not saying that you need to believe in God, nor is Katie. By ‘God’s business’, all that is meant is things that are out of everyone’s control. Feel free to believe in God or not.) When I’m thinking, “She needs to get out and have some fun, they shouldn’t yell, or he needs to keep me informed,” I’m minding somebody else’s business. On the other hand, when I’m thinking, “This drought needs to end or Hudson shouldn’t have autism,” I’m minding God’s business.
Whenever I’m worrying about anything other than my own business, I’m blocking myself from much growth and learning and creating anxiety and discomfort within myself to boot. Remember, everything is all about me in that it’s my thoughts that either torment me or bring me peace. So, to both experience lasting peace and joy and to grow spiritually and emotionally, my focus needs to be on my own business. Whose business are you minding?
Call to Action: Notice when you’re in somebody else’s business. Are you thinking how irresponsible your friend is because of all of their debt? Should there be no war? Do you wish that your neighbor would take better care of their pet? Are you worrying about dying? Should your parent, partner, friend, child or co-worker do what you ask them to do? All of these are examples of minding somebody else’s business. When you catch yourself, ask yourself how this thought is true about you in your own life. Do so compassionately. Rather than beating yourself up and making yourself wrong, be curious about yourself and your thoughts.
Remember: When you are focusing on yourself and your thoughts, the goal isn’t to blame or shame yourself. The intention is to be curious about what you are thinking and to recognize whether the thoughts torment you or bring you peace. You are either questioning your thoughts in a search for truth and subsequent peace or you are blindly accepting and believing your thoughts and holding on to being right. Which are you more committed to ~ being right or being curious about the truth?
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
What Are You Making of Life?
I had a really unusual day last week. My car broke down, and that was a surprise because it had been running perfectly. But, the owner at the business I was at was so incredibly nice! She let me use her phone and phone book to call AAA, gave me pen and paper to write the info down, and offered me a bottle of water while I waited. She even asked me to bring in business cards and display them at her business!
AAA got there really fast, and my car was running in no time. I had called my dealership to see if they could get me in to service it, but no luck. So, I called another garage and they said they could fit me right in. They looked at my car and quickly determined that I needed more work than we had anticipated. (It turns out that my alternator had gone bad and taken my battery with it. You always have to watch who you hang out with! ; ) But, they both had an alternator and the time to do the work. I gave them the go ahead.
It was getting pretty late in the day by then, and I hadn’t had any lunch. So, I walked to a nearby restaurant, which happens to be my FAVORITE restaurant in town. They were closed until dinnertime when they’d reopen. But, they offered to make me lunch anyway! Shortly after I finished my delicious to-go meal, the garage called to let me know that my car was done.
It was so strange! Every time something went ‘wrong’, something else related to that followed immediately that was so ‘right’. It just feels like further proof to me that the good stuff is always there if we’re open to it and look for it. (On that day I didn’t have to look hard at all to see it. The ‘good’ stuff was always so blatantly staring me in the face.)
I’m thinking that it’s always true that the ‘good’ stuff exists in every situation, even those that seem the darkest and bleakest. One of the most touching and beautiful experiences of my life happened as a result of and almost immediately on the heels of my dad’s death. My sister and niece, Lily, had flown into town shortly before dad passed. The two of them and my step mom were staying at our house. The night that dad died, none of us slept well. I know I was numb from the shock of it all since he had been healthy and well only hours earlier, and assume that everyone else felt that way too ~ except my niece who was too young to know what was going on.
Anyway, all of us adults ended up awake and prowling the house in the middle of the night. Not knowing what else to do, we sat down to have some tea. As the four of us sat at the dining room table drinking tea and watching dawn approach, we heard Lily stirring in the other room. My sister immediately moved to go and get her, but my partner looked longingly in that direction. My sister told my partner she could go and get Lily and at that moment, the four of us realized we all wanted to go together. So we did.
Once we got in the bedroom, we gathered around the bed where Lily was laying smiling and cooing. We all touched her, stroked her and spoke comforting and reassuring things to her. She looked at each of us and made happy noises back. In that moment, I experienced such profound joy and connection. We wouldn’t have all been together, just the five of us women, without Dad’s death.
I am profoundly grateful for the experience. Once again, I believe it reinforces the notion that nothing is inherently good or bad. It’s all what we make of it. True, nothing had changed regarding Dad’s death. He was still physically gone. I still felt huge loss. But the loss was somehow more bearable now, its edges weren’t as pointed and hard and unyielding as they had been only minutes before. The grace and light of our shared connection as we gathered around Lily and she reminded me that as Dad always used to say, “Life is good,” had softened the intensity of my grief.
Call to action: Where are you only looking at and for what’s wrong? Can you find any beauty in the person, event or situation? Are you willing to open your mind, thoughts and beliefs and try?
Remember: Nothing is inherently good or bad. Everything simply IS. We frequently torture ourselves with our repetitive negative thoughts about a person, situation or event. It doesn’t have to be that way. You have the power to change what you focus on. It’s up to you to do things differently. Nobody else can do it for you.
AAA got there really fast, and my car was running in no time. I had called my dealership to see if they could get me in to service it, but no luck. So, I called another garage and they said they could fit me right in. They looked at my car and quickly determined that I needed more work than we had anticipated. (It turns out that my alternator had gone bad and taken my battery with it. You always have to watch who you hang out with! ; ) But, they both had an alternator and the time to do the work. I gave them the go ahead.
It was getting pretty late in the day by then, and I hadn’t had any lunch. So, I walked to a nearby restaurant, which happens to be my FAVORITE restaurant in town. They were closed until dinnertime when they’d reopen. But, they offered to make me lunch anyway! Shortly after I finished my delicious to-go meal, the garage called to let me know that my car was done.
It was so strange! Every time something went ‘wrong’, something else related to that followed immediately that was so ‘right’. It just feels like further proof to me that the good stuff is always there if we’re open to it and look for it. (On that day I didn’t have to look hard at all to see it. The ‘good’ stuff was always so blatantly staring me in the face.)
I’m thinking that it’s always true that the ‘good’ stuff exists in every situation, even those that seem the darkest and bleakest. One of the most touching and beautiful experiences of my life happened as a result of and almost immediately on the heels of my dad’s death. My sister and niece, Lily, had flown into town shortly before dad passed. The two of them and my step mom were staying at our house. The night that dad died, none of us slept well. I know I was numb from the shock of it all since he had been healthy and well only hours earlier, and assume that everyone else felt that way too ~ except my niece who was too young to know what was going on.
Anyway, all of us adults ended up awake and prowling the house in the middle of the night. Not knowing what else to do, we sat down to have some tea. As the four of us sat at the dining room table drinking tea and watching dawn approach, we heard Lily stirring in the other room. My sister immediately moved to go and get her, but my partner looked longingly in that direction. My sister told my partner she could go and get Lily and at that moment, the four of us realized we all wanted to go together. So we did.
Once we got in the bedroom, we gathered around the bed where Lily was laying smiling and cooing. We all touched her, stroked her and spoke comforting and reassuring things to her. She looked at each of us and made happy noises back. In that moment, I experienced such profound joy and connection. We wouldn’t have all been together, just the five of us women, without Dad’s death.
I am profoundly grateful for the experience. Once again, I believe it reinforces the notion that nothing is inherently good or bad. It’s all what we make of it. True, nothing had changed regarding Dad’s death. He was still physically gone. I still felt huge loss. But the loss was somehow more bearable now, its edges weren’t as pointed and hard and unyielding as they had been only minutes before. The grace and light of our shared connection as we gathered around Lily and she reminded me that as Dad always used to say, “Life is good,” had softened the intensity of my grief.
Call to action: Where are you only looking at and for what’s wrong? Can you find any beauty in the person, event or situation? Are you willing to open your mind, thoughts and beliefs and try?
Remember: Nothing is inherently good or bad. Everything simply IS. We frequently torture ourselves with our repetitive negative thoughts about a person, situation or event. It doesn’t have to be that way. You have the power to change what you focus on. It’s up to you to do things differently. Nobody else can do it for you.
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