“Three kinds of business. . .”
“What’s that about?” I asked myself when I first heard Byron Katie talking about this. The very first time I understood what she meant, I knew she was on to something. She had just conveyed a life-changing concept to me!
The Three Kinds of Business
- What I say, think, do, and feel is my business.
- What you say, think, do, and feel is your business.
- All the rest is God’s business, including what both of us do and say.
Who’s in Charge?
You’ll start to find that in some ways you’re in charge, and in other ways you’re not. For example, what I’m saying right now. . . I’m not thinking through each little part of how I move my mouth, and how things show up, and what comes out. It’s the same with so many things in life.
In fact, if we were completely in charge of our own business, none of us would ever be in pain. We’d be happy all the time.
So there’s something much bigger going on where all of it coming together is what I would refer to as God’s business. Yet how I feel, how I react, what I say, think, and do is my business. Things go pretty well when I keep the focus on that, keep the video camera on myself, instead of being over there in your business and believing that you need to change before I can be happy.
And when I am over in another’s business, or meddling in God’s business, in the all-that-is-greater-than-me, things don’t go very well.
So we can cultivate the ability to go in and question the thinking that says I need you to be different than you are, I need it to not rain today, I need myself to show up differently than I did. It’s all, in some ways, God’s business.
Our monkey minds would like to give us the illusion of control. They want us to think they’re in charge, which is why they’re over in what we would be in what’s called God’s business so much of the time.
Letting Go of Conditional Peace
When I came home to myself, so much health and energy and focus were restored; in fact, hopefulness was restored.
When we’re in someone else’s business, we’re just all focused on them. We’re believing that what they say, think, do, or how they react to us is everything. We tend to really need other people to show up differently so that we’ll know we’re okay, and that we’re safe, and that we’re loved, and that we can accomplish our goals.
That’s like telling these littlest parts of us that they’re not going to be okay unless certain conditions are met. Yet the littlest parts of us, well, all of us, our intellect, our logic. . . they know that we’re not in charge of how OTHERS show up. We’re not in charge of how it ALL shows up. We’re not even that much in charge of how WE show up! So when we start meddling in that, we’re going to be suffering. We’re going to be in pain when we start creating those conditions. When we let go of them, we move into an unconditional connection to self, others, and life.
I did end up becoming certified under Byron Katie in The Work, a six-year process that changed my life. And yet my life was changed the moment I got these and a number of other concepts. I’ve developed a body of work around what I call the Symmetry in life. . . the paradigm shift that allowed me to dependably shift my own emotional state by working with the ways my brain was wired—and I’ve specialized in the shift of being able to be kinder and more forgiving to myself. I learned to turn these “in others’ business” thoughts around and let go of so much.
Life Steps Up and Supports You
I was chronically ill, I was just coming out of a bad divorce, and I was financially in trouble. Yet so many things have cleared themselves up as a result of coming out of others’ business, coming back into the business of the moment, and trusting what shows up.
When my reaction to it feels painful, that’s my work, that’s life shepherding me exactly where I need to go next. I just didn’t know what to do with it before. Now that I understand about the Symmetry inherent in whatever upsets us—i.e., when we are in others’ business, we can use that to find out how we need from ourselves exactly what we thought we needed from them—and I love teaching that to other people, since it brought me radical relief even after all my years of seeking. It’s phenomenal to watch life stepping up and supporting folks as they put it to work.
Take care and let this just be there with you, this concept of the three kinds of business. Keep asking yourself when you’re upset,
“Whose business am I in? Have I left myself? Have I abandoned myself and gone in there?”
Let’s take out the middleman! Come home to yourself. It’s very sweet and simple to be in your own business.
You can learn more about how to do this by signing up for a Radical Relationship Relief workshop. It’s kind of a mini-course where I’m just going to walk you through the steps so you’ll know how to come back into your own–and get out of others’ and God’s business–and really find peace, freedom, and unconditional connection. Take care. See you soon!