True Happiness in Life: 7 Practical Ways to Mind Your Own Business
The beginning of your life, the beginning of your spiritual journey, the beginning of your evolution and progress, and most importantly, the beginning of your happiness is in minding your own business — in being so consumed with your own improvement, your own life, and understanding yourself so profoundly that you have no time or mental capacity to focus on anyone else.
Easier said than done primarily because we care. We care about what people think of us, we care about what our loved ones are doing, and we have an underlying false belief that the actions of others can negatively impact us. Explaining why that’s a false belief is a call for another post completely, but let’s assume it is true that maybe somebody else’s actions can affect you. What can you do about that? Are you able to control someone else’s thoughts or behavior?
No, you cannot. It is impossible.
You can try to influence and convince or coarse, but it’s impossible to control another human being. The best you might be able to do is temporarily physically force the other into submission, but you can never change someone else’s mind unless they agree to. And you can never contain another’s spirit. Never ever ever.
We have free will given by powers beyond our understanding and another human cannot take that away which is the primary reason why those who persist on trying to control others, control outcomes, or control their environment will be perpetually miserable. They are going against the natural intention of life which is for each to be completely free.
Here’s 10 ways you can begin to tap into yourself, unleash your own spirit, and control the only thing you can control — your inner world. The good news is that as you transform your inner world, you’ll actually transform your outer world more powerfully and more quickly than you’ve ever been able to by trying to control others by willpower alone.
7 Ways to Mind Your Own Business Today:
Focus on your desires
Most people are clear about what they don’t want. Day after day you can find someone who complains all the time about everything and anything. It’s almost like people are seeking for something to complain about or seeking what is wrong with the world.
My favorite quote for those who complain is, “A statue has never been set up in honour of a critic” by Jean Sibelius. Those who judge and complain have the easiest job. There is no effort, no creativity, and no intention with criticism.
The most life-changing thing you can do right now is begin to seek what it is you truly desire. Not just in a broad sense like happiness, money, love, health, or peace. Get really intimate with your desires. They’ve been with you for a while. You’re not creating your desires, your finding them, dusting them off, and looking at them closely.
If you’ve been angry or sad or frustrated for some time (like I was!), figure out what it is that you want. Not what you don’t want, but what it looks like to fill that desire that is making you feel so upset. Visualization is so powerful to help you get clear about your desires. Close your eyes and step into your desires right now.
Get to know your thoughts
Most people are zombies living by default and completely unaware. Getting to know your thoughts is noticing there’s a voice in your head. Realizing you are listening to it, and here’s the hard part — realizing you can quiet it, too! It’s called meditation. Meditation is messy for most people because it’s the first time you are conscious of how crazy and quick the mind is moving at all times. It almost feels like it ramps up just as you’re trying to quiet it down. The truth is you’re simply aware of the chaos. That’s okay! It’s part of the process.
Meditation is a practice not a destination. It’s a way to practice listening to your thoughts and slowing them down. Noticing a space between the thoughts and growing that space slowly and intentionally. Some people use music or guided teachers (here’s my meditations) to help intentionally move their thoughts in a specific direction. Try it out! Treat it like a workout for your mind, and be gentle with yourself.
Once you’re practiced in noticing your thoughts, you can begin to be aware of your thoughts throughout your day and manage your focus. You’ll be able to catch the thoughts that don’t serve you earlier before you begin to spiral down to the point you feel disempowered. This is important because many times we think something critical of ourselves or another and we don’t question it. Once you start paying attention, you can recognize false beliefs like, “I’m such a horrible person” or “they think they’re better than me”. Unless you question these thoughts, your mind will take them as truth and respond accordingly.
Tune in to your feelings
A really good way to notice your thoughts and catch any disempowering thoughts as soon as possible is by focusing on how you feel. You’re more likely to catch a negative feeling before you catch a negative thought. But this requires you to care about how you feel.
Most people suppress their emotions, ignore how they feel, and bottle up. Our society teaches us to ignore our emotions which is really damaging because our emotions are the only indicator of our truth about how we feel in any given moment.
Feeling bad isn’t a bad thing, it’s an indicator of an unmet desire or a thought that is disempowering. Why would you ignore that clear signal? It’s like ignoring the smoke detector. You can remove the batteries and try to shut it down, but if you have a fire, there’s no getting around that. Listen to your smoke detector, open the hood, and get to know what’s going on.
This is critical to minding your own business because when something is bothering us we immediately focus on who is causing this and desire the external factor to change — the colleague, the spouse, the child, the politician. I encourage you to pause and look internally first. This can look like taking a journal and writing what you’re feeling, recording a voice memo and talking it out with yourself, finding a trusting friend or therapist to unravel your mind, or simply closing your eyes and “taking a look” within.
Identify your intentions
My productivity workshops are all based on intentions because most of us are doing a bunch of stuff all day, and we have no clarity on why we’re doing the things we do. This is super effective to self-awareness. Begin to ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. Don’t settle for your first reason. Go deeper and continue to ask why until you find your foundational reason.
You know you’ve reached your core intention when it’s based on your love for something or someone. For example, I go to work because I love my lifestyle, I enjoy my team, and I want to provide for my family. The initial reason might be a paycheck, but you must ask why you want a paycheck. Continue to explore your activities and desires and get grounded in your intentions.
Especially if you’re in the “controlling” camp, explore why you want to control another’s behavior. What is your real intention? What is it you’re trying to protect? What is it that you desire? What gaps are unmet? What do you need in general that you think only this person can provide?
Understand your wounds
Once you start mastering your mind, and focusing on your desires, your life will be quite pleasant. There’s no need to go back and unravel your whole life and fix anything. You are perfect right now, the problem is that you don’t think you are. You think you are broken or wrong.
As a hypnotherapist, I help people mend wounds and sometimes go back to childhood and reframe what happened, but you can do this on your own, too. But don’t stir things up unnecessarily. If your life is pleasant and you’ve released the past, you’re free!
However, if you’re disturbed by a memory or you’re triggered by the behavior of others, it’s worth exploring the experience and reframing what happened. If it feels raw and begins to trigger negative emotion, your mind still thinks you’re in danger. If you’re not in immediate danger, you can heal your own wounds by looking at what happened with your new, wiser perspective — yes, your current perspective. Again, grab a journal, voice memo, or if you need to, get professional help.
As an RTT practitioner, I highly recommend RTT as a method to heal past wounds because it doesn’t require years of therapy or ongoing re-triggering of what happened. It’s a targeted, transformative, and empowering experience.
Don’t try to change everyone’s behavior because you have an open wound. You can heal if you want to, and that’s within your control. Or you can continue to try to change everyone else which I guarantee you won’t win that battle and continue to live an unfulfilled life.
Listen to your intuition
Intuition is your gut feeling sometimes it’s your imagination, an impulse, or an idea that comes to your mind spontaneously. If it feels good, listen to it. My company is called Be Out of Your Mind because what I know for sure is that if you live your entire life within the logical part of your mind, you’ll never truly feel bliss.
Think about the time you were truly blissful or in a non-substance induced “high”, maybe you danced without caring what others thought or you had an amazing orgasm or you were “in the zone” while playing sports or performing on stage. You are literally out of your mind and simply in flow.
We don’t have to live our lives in this place, but how much more fun would life be if this was part of our day more often? Start small with following your intuition with small things like cleaning out a drawer or sitting outside or going for a walk. These seemingly “unimportant” ideas are inspirations and a glimpse of flow. When you start to respond, you’re opening yourself to more of these “out of your mind” blissful experiences.
Expand your mind, body, and spiritual practice
To expand your mind, read a book, listen to a podcast, learn a new skill, improve yourself! Have a conversation with someone with a diverse perspective. Feed your mind just as well as you feed your body.
Speaking of the body, spend time doing something good for your body — build flexibility, balance, or strength. Try new recipes, a new vegetable, and treat yourself really well. You know what you need to do. Be consumed with just doing one thing that’s better for you, maybe just drink tons of water today.
Once you have clarity on your truth, and you’ve explored what works for your own self-awareness, create rituals that make you feel better and bring you back to your true self. This is what I would consider a spiritual practice. It can be as traditional as prayer or as unconventional as pole dancing. Your spiritual practice is yours and it’s simply about bringing you back to your true self.
Final Thoughts
Minding your own business sounds a bit rude, I know. And yes, what I’m telling you is to be selfish. Be so consumed with getting to know yourself, that what others do doesn’t impact you as much. You’ll be much less reactive. When you focus on yourself, you’ll naturally want to connect, share, and give, so don’t worry about that.
But when you worry about others without tuning into your own needs, not only are you less effective, you’re also depriving yourself. You can’t make yourself poor enough to help the poor or sick enough to help the sick. On the contrary, being an example of wealth, health, and bliss is the most constructive inspiring action you can take to bring progress to the whole world.
Be the best version of you, that’s what the world so desperately needs.
Much love,
Mayra Leen
Questions or Comments?
Visit www.mayraleen.com, email me at Hello@MayraLeen.com, or set up a quick chat with me here.
