Ask Yourself: Whose Business Am I In?

A simple but powerful question to bring you back to yourself: Whose business am I in?

When your attention drifts into judging, fixing, or carrying someone else’s experience, this track helps you gently return to your own body, your own lane, your own steadiness.

A practice in reclaiming your energy, softening over-responsibility, and standing on your own side.

Transcript

Hello my friend, If you are someone, And we can all be like this sometimes, Who get suddenly overwhelmed, Feeling sucked into other people's drama, Or a feeling that you're over helping, Maybe even imposing, Or becoming a messenger, Becoming the peacemaker, Or spending a lot of time and energy worrying about, Concerned about, Things that are happening to other people, That you can't change, And that worrying itself doesn't create any blessing for those other people, Or for you, And then you find in your own life, You're overwhelmed with all the things that you haven't caught up with, Or you're feeling not as connected to yourself and your own needs. There's a simple question that we can ask ourselves that gives ourselves a little bit of a moment of distance from plunging ourselves into energy spaces, Places where we might get consumed in that way. Now of course, We live in a collective, And we do care, And thank goodness we care, And often we can be of great support and assistance to others, But if you're honest, Would you agree that sometimes we get involved with things where we're not adding any value, And in fact we might be subtracting value? Maybe we are over helping, Maybe we're doing things that we haven't been asked to do, And taking away some of the person's power or agency over being in their own process and their own journey. It's quite easy to begin with a sense of caring, And then just accidentally slip into more of a controlling role, Especially if you don't like seeing people unhappy or a little lost, And you want to rush them to the happy ending, And you think involving yourself and your energy and your time will help speed things up. Sometimes things don't need to be hurried or rushed, Sometimes people just need to be in their process, Or things do need to work themselves out in different ways. So when we're overstepping, It's not just that we're imposing sometimes, But we're stepping out of our own energy, In our own energy field, And signs that we're doing that are when we're feeling things like, Wow I did so much for that person and they don't appreciate it. Or we get too involved in why someone is acting or behaving the way they are, And thinking that talking to them, Talking about them, Ruminating on their behavior, Especially if it's behavior that hurts your feelings, Or is hurting others that you care about. We spend so much time on that, But that person's not made the intention themselves to change anything about their behavior. Sometimes we have to say, That's the way they're choosing to be. How much do I want to choose to give my power, Which is my peace of mind, My time, My energy, Over trying to change something in someone, A behavior that I can't change, And I really have no business changing. Now because this is a nuanced question, Always, When am I being a help? When am I being a hindrance? When am I overstepping? When is there balance? What is balance? In the end is the question. It's useful to take a pause, And I find a very powerful way of taking a pause so we can tune into where we're at, Is to ask a question and to feel into our body for the answer. Your body will give you the signs, And the question I'm suggesting is, Is this my business? Am I in my own business now? Because we should always be in our own business. That's completely different from being compassionate and helpful towards others. Even when you're being compassionate and helpful towards others, You want to stay in your own business, And that's the balance. So next time you find yourself feeling one of those things, Maybe underappreciated, Maybe there's someone who's resistant to change, And you're working very hard to think about ways to influence them into change, Or maybe you're being a go-between and messenger where no one's asked you to be, Or where you have been asked to be, But you still have a choice not to be. Check into how you're feeling in your body, And ask this question, Am I in my own business now? Am I not in my own business now? And how you will know is how you feel inside your own body, Because the body gives us physical sensations of when we're being pulled out of our own energy, Pulled into other people's bodies and lives. It's a physical feeling, Sometimes of being stretched, Agitated, Your own body's signals of overwhelm, Which can be feeling very tight, Tight around the chest, Bracing, Not relaxed, Not loose in your body, Or a feeling of everything having speeded up, Rapidly beating heart, A fidgety feeling, Racing thoughts, Or it can be a feeling of pure fatigue, Like you're beating your head against a brick wall, Because you probably are. So you want to compassionately check into those signals, You haven't done anything wrong, How very human of you, This is very human, But you also want to appreciate that you have your own values and your own priorities. So if your body is giving you signs and signals that you're stepping away from your own business, That can look like you're not getting your own work done, You're not having time and space for you to relax and get what you need, Whatever your needs are. You might not have energy or a sense of capacity to be present for people you really love and care about, You love your attention and your presence, Might not be doing the things that you usually do that create health in your body, Like taking walks, Exercising, Taking time to cook yourself great meals from scratch. Sometimes we're so busy looking after everyone else's business but our own in some way, That we abandon ourselves, It really is self-neglect. And so this question, You just take a pause, And it can be really effective to take a hand on your heart and another on your belly and just breathe for a moment. That's an effective way of tuning into yourself again in your body and dropping out of your head and its busyness. And then you ask, How much am I in my own business now? Or am I in my own business now? Or what parts of me are not in my own business? And then just breathe, Feel and see what comes. Over time this practice brings really instant responses and you can quite quickly see no, That thing I just did, Or that impulse I just had, Was not me being in my own business. Or the way my life feels at the moment feels like, I'm not enough in my own life, Meaning I'm not in my own business, The majority of the time. And just using the word business gives sort of an image that I like of having your own opportunity. You know, When we start a business for ourselves, It involves investment, It involves doing something creative, And it involves having opportunity, Creating opportunity, And we want our business to thrive. So this is a good word for your own energy field and what you're involved in, Your priorities, Your values that really matter to you, Where you really need to be investing, Including all your own needs and your heart's desires. This doesn't mean you won't ever be there for others. It means the opposite. It means you'll be able to be there for others in much more genuine and effective ways. You'll be grounded, You'll have more energy available and you'll be really discerning about what's really needed in a situation. And the other benefit is that all of that will come back to you too, When you meet your own needs in your own business, You'll be grounding, You'll be discerning and you'll be available to yourself. So I hope you find that question, Am I in my own business now? And that body-based check-in useful and let me know in the review section if you do. I'd love to hear from you. Thank you for listening and until next time, Bye for now.

Reviews

Helpful. I am still learning not to put myself last all the time. Also important to not rush in giving advice unless asked and even then take it slow. I like the “pause” idea

Yes, the concept is very useful. Even when we are helping someone in need we should be mindful of our choice or responsibility to be helpful--that's the business we're in at the time. I think this will help relieve any resentment that might arise. That's my take away! 🙏🏽 Many thanks.