00:00 

This is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 38, "Love is Minding Your Own Business." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Well hello, everybody. Hi there. So good to have you with me today. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to join me and to hopefully learn some things that are going to make a positive difference in your life and help you to be in a healthier, emotional place. This is my journey as well, as I have worked the last several years to really get myself in a better place to understand what emotional health is and figure out how to get there. And I'm feeling pretty darn good about where I am and about where I'm headed. That does not mean that I'm perfect by any means. It doesn't mean that I've got all the answers. And it does not mean that everything we talk about I'm fabulous at because I'm not. But I'm understanding the importance of it and how the pieces fit together and it's a process of learning, right? It's a process of moving forward and getting where we really want and need to be. 

01:16 

So today we're going to be talking about something that I was not good at for the vast majority of my life. And the title of this one is love is minding your own business. OK, so this is a tricky one. And I think it's especially tricky because most of our whole lives, we have been taught the exact opposite. We're taught to get into everybody else's business. It's your responsibility. I think especially women. Let me just stick that in there. It's our responsibility to make sure that other people are happy and comfortable. It's our job to help them fix things so they can live a better life, even if, and especially if, they don't see that something needs to be fixed. It's our job to help them see that, right? 

02:00 

And I know that for me, I just want people to be happy. I have since the time I was little, have just wanted to help people be happy. And so this concept of minding my own business is something that I've struggled with my whole life. I always felt that I was responsible for making sure that things turned out just right. My poor ex-husband, right? I was always wanting to mind his business because I knew what he should be doing better to be happier. And I knew what he should do to make me happy so that our relationship could be better. Silly Tanya, right? 

02:40 

I am so glad to be in a better place at this stage because now I understand so much of the negative behaviors that I brought into our marriage, right? I used to want to help everybody feel happy. I felt that it was like my special assignment on Earth, kind of like I got one of those messages before I left the pre-Earth life that said, "your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to make everyone happy by controlling every situation that comes up, by telling people what to do, and by holding their feet to the fire, by shaming them into submission," right? And then the whole thing turns off in a big poof of smoke. I really kind of felt that that was my responsibility in life, was to help everybody see things that they needed to see, and accept things that they didn't accept. And change things that they weren't changing. I accepted that mission wholeheartedly for a lot of years, except that that wasn't really the mission. I completely misunderstood the message. 

03:36 

About 10 years ago or so, I had a huge awakening of sorts. I started very slowly to begin to realize that people, they just didn't want my amazing and well-intentioned advice. Go figure, why wouldn't they want it? I saw things, I was smart, I could figure things out. I always kind of had a handle on this life coaching kind of stuff and the ideas behind it. Why wouldn't they want it? This is the thing: people are pretty happy where they are. Or if they're not happy, they're happy being not happy. If they weren't happy or at least okay with their situation, then they would change it or fix it. They would figure it out. They would find people to reach out to who could help to give them a better perspective. They would start movement on this. If people want advice, they're gonna ask for it. I was just always happy to tell people what they needed before they asked for it. I don't do that so much. 

04:36 

Now, because I've lived in a space of thinking that it was my job to help people be happier all the time, sometimes it just comes out before I even know that it's coming out. But I'm getting so much better at just hanging back and letting people walk their own paths. Because here's what I'm learning: people are really okay with living lives filled with drama. In fact a lot of people really enjoy living their lives with a lot of drama. Often they create the drama if there isn't any because it makes them feel alive and it creates a lot of energy. Granted it's usually bad energy but it's energy nonetheless and they are okay with that and guess what? That's okay. A lot of people are really okay with living lives that have shallow and disconnected relationships. It's not worth the effort necessary to work on themselves and figure out their own stuff so they can get to a better place or they just don't even see it. They'd much rather watch TV or play video games than engage in the super difficult work of self-improvement and that's okay. 

05:41 

A lot of people find a lot of satisfaction in complaining about everything and making mountains out of molehills. Nothing is good enough. The steak is always overcooked. The movie was never entertaining enough. The weather is just a little too hot or too cold. It doesn't matter what it is, they just like to complain. And that's okay, because guess what? If they're okay with their lives, how they are, then that is their business. It's not mine. Minding my own business means that I allow people to live the lives they want to live. Minding my own business means I don't judge them for how they want to live, even though it may be very different than what I would see as happy and productive and amazing. Even if I see that they're living way below their potential, guess what? It's none of my business, it's theirs. 

06:36 

So, easy enough to mine my own business when it's someone who lives on the other side of town and I don't ever interact with them, right? It's much more difficult when it's somebody in my neighborhood and our kids play together. Or it's more difficult still when it's my next door neighbor or even a good friend. And an insanity level of difficult when it's a spouse or children, especially if we're all under the same roof. So how do I mind my own business when it's someone very close to me that I care a lot about? 

07:08 

Good question, huh? So here's what you do. First of all, let's take a step back and realize that God never gave us one of those letters before we came to earth telling us that we were responsible for everyone and everything. Really, our going away letter said that we were responsible for ourselves and that's it. And within being responsible for ourselves, we are responsible to learn how to have charity, the pure love of Christ. I'm responsible to have loving behavior towards any and all of these people who are living their lives, minding their own business. Everyone needs to figure out their own stuff at their own pace. in their own place. My job is just to allow them the space they need to work through it. I need to give them an unconditional love space where they can pull out their weakness, check them out, look them over, figure out what they want to do with them without me looking over their shoulder telling them that their weaknesses are horrible and what they should do to fix them. 

08:15 

When was the last time someone looked over your shoulder when you were checking out your weakness and started advising you about what to do? Maybe this morning, maybe last week, how did it make you feel? All warm and cuddly and so full of thankfulness that they're getting in your business? No, no, no! It makes us feel insecure and frustrated and even a little bit violated, doesn't it? "Get out of my business and let me figure this out on my own. If I need your help, I'll ask for it. In the meantime, mind your own business!" I bet that's what you said, or at least in your own mind, if you didn't say it out loud. Minding my own business means I'm creating safe places for people to pull out their weaknesses and figure them out. Minding my own business means I'm only worried about pulling out my own weaknesses and figuring them out. Minding my own business means exactly that. You figure out your stuff, I'll figure out mine. We'll ask each other if we need help. 

09:22 

Otherwise, okay, I'm working on it or I'm not working on it. Either way, it's my business, right? And that's okay, too, because my journey is my journey. It's mine to walk and work through. And if I need a break right now, I need a break. If I'm okay parking on the side of the road, that's my decision about my life. It's not your decision. But this can be incredibly difficult when our lives get so intimately tangled in a marriage or with our children, right? There's a different level where we feel some responsibility. But let's look at what many of us are doing when we don't mind our own business with these really close  relationships. 

10:03 

So let's say your husband gets home from work and he seems upset about something. You try to engage in conversation and he cuts you off and he even snaps at you a little bit. When you ask him what's the matter, he says he doesn't want to talk about it and he just wants to spend some time alone. Being in his business means that you start trying to figure out what's going on in his mind. What is he thinking? Is there any way to really know what he's thinking at this point? Nope. If he doesn't want to talk, that's his business. Whatever's going on with him, he's trying to figure it out. And as long as he keeps it in his head and doesn't share it with you and ask for your help, guess what? It's none of your business. 

10:45 

So how do you react when you do think it's your business? Well, you might start to form theories about it, coming up with stories about what could be happening. Maybe he's angry at you, or maybe he really doesn't love you or trust you since he won't share it with you. Maybe you did something wrong, right? Eh, okay. So and what? Where does all of this type of thinking lead? Getting another people's business. How do you start treating yourself and him when you're having all of these thoughts trying to get in his head? First of all, you start putting your life on hold. It's very easy to start over analyzing things. We might start having thoughts that create horrible feelings. And then your actions start to mirror those thoughts. 

11:29 

For example, you might think, "maybe he won't share because he doesn't trust me." Okay, first of all, see how it just turned on yourself? And it became a very selfish thought. We're not thinking about him, we're thinking about us, right? So this is a thought, "maybe he won't share because he doesn't trust me," okay? That's a thought that creates the feeling of, let's say, insecurity. So when you feel insecure, you're going to start to act that out. You might keep reaching out over and over and over, even when he says he's trying to be by himself, right? "Come on, tell me what's going on. What's happening? Why are you upset," right? You might keep trying to get him to talk to you, or you offer food and back rubs. You keep showing up at the door saying, "hey, I just brought you some dinner." What's the end result here? 

12:26 

Alright, our thought is, maybe he doesn't trust me. Maybe you won't share because he doesn't trust me. Our feeling is insecurity. The action is that we keep reaching out over and over and over, and the end result here, he needs space to work through something, and you've made it all about you and your insecurities. You don't respect his request for some time alone, and he learns that he can't trust you so he doesn't want to share. 

12:55 

So see how that cycles right back to the initial thought that maybe he won't share because he doesn't trust me? Our thought has created the end result, that now he can't trust us to give him some alone time, right? And so he's not going to want to share because he doesn't trust it. Here's an amazing connection. When we make things our business, we become very selfish in what we are doing. When we become selfish in our thinking, we don't act out of love for the other person, which is one of the main things we were sent here on earth to do.Learn to love other people and treat them with love. To have an emotionally healthy relationship, we have to learn to step back and give other people especially those closest to us, room to walk their own path. 

13:52 

There is no more loving way to have a relationship with someone than to stay out of their business. Other attempts to give them unwanted help are just shoring up our own crazy selfish thoughts and they're going to be breaking down the relationship. And this is the torture chamber of living life in somebody else's business. It breaks down the relationship, it breaks down the trust. 

14:20 

So what if in this situation you took a step back and said, "alright, take all the time you need." If we're coming from a loving place, recognizing that they need some space, that this is theirs to figure out, and you continued on doing with what you were doing. No second guessing about what was really going on. You just trust them that if they need someone to talk to about it, they'll find someone. Maybe it's you, but maybe it's not. But give them space to figure out their own stuff. This also allows you to continue on figuring out your own stuff. 

14:57 

If you find yourself wanting desperately to get in their business, it is time for you to start doing some of this work and figuring out what your own thoughts are about them needing space. It is really time to start learning how to stay out of other people's business. If a situation like this makes you feel insecure, we gotta figure out your own thoughts, right? You have some serious work to do on your own thinking. 

15:23 

And this is one thing that I do as a coach. So you can hire me to help you save yourself and your relationship from your own thoughts, right? This is so important. One last thought because it came up at dinner with some friends recently. My friend's father is widowed and at this stage, he's old, he's struggling a lot, but he's quite needy and very irresponsible at this older stage in his life. He's always overdrawn on his bank account. He just wants somebody to take care of him. So he started dating a woman who doesn't know these things about him. So many people would say, "don't tell her, keep out of it, it's none of your business."What do you think? What are your thoughts on this? Is it my friends? Should she be giving some information to this woman so that she knows it about her dad or is that getting in her business and his business? 

16:22 

I'm gonna tell you what I think. And you may disagree with me. I think that's totally fine, but from some of my own personal experiences, this is where I would go with that. People don't know what they don't know. Sometimes they need information so they can make a better decision. In this case, this woman may need to know that her money... might be at risk and she'll need to not give him access to all of the money if they get married. I personally don't believe giving people information to help them make better decisions is getting in their business. Getting in their business would be trying to tell them what they should do with that information or having an agenda for how they should respond to that information that I gave them. Giving needed information I think is actually quite compassionate especially when people just don't know what they don't know. 

17:15 

Alright so minding your own business does not mean we don't have boundaries and consequences for those, but that's a totally different conversation. If you've not listened to podcasts seven, eight, and nine about boundari go go listen to them or if you need a refresher go back and listen to them again. Alright because this is a different conversation. Just remember that boundaries have to do with what's okay and not okay with how we engage with others. In the example I use today, the husband will need to set boundaries on the fact that it's not okay for his wife to continually try and engage with him when he's asked for space. 

17:56 

And it's not because he doesn't love her. It's actually because he does love her and he doesn't want to feel resentment toward her for not respecting his space. So he needs to let her know, "this is not okay. I've asked for space. I need some space." The underlying message for today: we have got to learn how to mind our own business. When we do we can have healthier and happier relationships because we build better trust with those people that we love and we are in a better place personally as well because we're focused on our own beams rather than on other people's tiny slivers. Again, I said this before but I'm going to say it one last time. There is no more loving way to treat someone than to stay out of their business as they work through their lives. 

18:48 

Gosh, this grown-up gig is awesome. I love understanding things. I'm so grateful that this is a piece of the puzzle that's come together for me because I feel that it has just set me up to have better relationships with my children, better relationships with close friends. It's put me in a way better place I think and I'm really, really grateful to be here. So if you would love some personal help from me to learn how to mind your own business or just to navigate through some tough situations with more clarity, you can contact me at tanyahale.com. Click on the coaching tab and you can book a free 20 minute coaching session to get you started. I will not be able to offer these forever. So if you want to take advantage of a free one, jump in. Let's do this. I would really help you learn how to mind your own business and help you figure out your own thoughts in that process. 

19:39 

And thanks for joining me on this podcast. I appreciate it. If you feel like it's helping, go ahead and subscribe. If you've not yet, leave me a review and share it with somebody else who could use it. I appreciate all of that from you. This is a great journey that I'm on. I'm loving it and I'm glad that you're joining me on it. Thank you so much. Have an awesome day and I will talk to you later. 

20:02 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.