00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 236, "None of Your 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. 

00:20 

Alright, hello there. Welcome to the podcast today. Happy to have you joining me. We are going to be talking today about things that are none of our business, but that we sometimes want to make part of our business because we're people, right? So we're going to talk about three things today that really are none of our business and when we try to make these things our business, we put strain and stress on our relationships and we decrease the connection, which is the opposite of what we generally want to do. 

00:54 

So first, let's talk about other people's relationships. Now, I know that as a mom, you may feel that it is your job to monitor your family's relationships. Are your children getting along all right? If not, we may tend to think that it's our job to make sure they do even when they're all adults. So here's the deal: if your kids are still young, meaning not adults and you have parental responsibility for them, then it is your responsibility to teach them how to communicate, how to see the other person's point of view, how to compromise, how to collaborate. During this time, there is an element of their relationship that falls under your jurisdiction. But once our children become adults, the only relationship we are responsible for is the one that we have with them. And then we're only responsible for our part of the relationship, meaning I can only control how I show up in the relationship, how I feel towards them, and how I think and feel and act towards them. In fact, we can love them as wide and deep as the ocean and they still may not want to have a relationship with us. So they get to show up however they want to in our relationships and we get to choose and are responsible for how we show up in our relationship. Beyond that, if they are not getting along with another sibling, that's between them. That's their relationship. It's none of your business. If they are not getting along with your spouse, that's between them. That's none of your business. 

02:37 

Now you may be saying, "but we're supposed to get along and I don't like the tension and fighting." Well, okay, I have a few thoughts about that shocker. First, maybe they're not supposed to get along right now. Okay, stick with me here. Maybe the tension between them is something that they both need to learn from and maybe it's how they will finally figure out how to get along. And maybe, just want you to consider that, just maybe if you keep getting in the middle of their relationship, they will never be able to learn how to get along. They won't have to figure it out. Many times we don't like the fighting. It doesn't feel good to us. It doesn't align with our ideal of what a happy home should feel like. So we want to be the peacekeeper in the situation. What we don't realize is that we are wanting them to change their behavior, their fighting, so that we can feel better because it doesn't feel good to our ideas. This is not how emotions work. We create our emotions with our thoughts and we can't expect them to fix our emotions. We need to manage our thoughts around their conflict and not expect them to stop fighting so that we can feel better. We can feel better by changing our thoughts about their engagement, such as thinking they're struggling to see eye to eye and that's okay. Or maybe this is how they're figuring out their relationship. And maybe we need to just go in the other room or go for a walk to manage our mind and our emotions. But the same concept applies whether your children are not getting along with your spouse or if two of your siblings or friends are not getting along or two coworkers, etc., etc., right? Other people's relationships are none of your business. They get to work them out. They get to work through the process of learning to connect and communicate on their own level. And maybe it won't work out for years. And as difficult as it could be to see two or more people that we love being at odds with each other. it is not our responsibility to get in the middle. And as much as it might pain our heart to see their discord, we get to learn how to stay out of it and we get to work out our own emotions around their struggles and work out our own relationships with the people that we want to be connected to. And doing that, working out our own relationships and emotions, that's enough for one person without taking on everybody else's relationships as well. 

05:23 

Okay, the second thing that is none of our business is other people's emotions. Okay, this can be tough at first to wrap our heads around because we've been conditioned since we were young to think that we were responsible for how other people feel. We've been told to be kind so that we don't hurt other people's feelings. We've been told that what we are doing could make other people sad. We've been asked if what someone is doing to us is making us mad or sad or glad. Our culture is steeped in cute little phrases that make everyone responsible for all the other people's emotions and other people responsible for ours. And we've never been taught to question it until life coaching came into the scene. We have gone on our merry little way thinking that emotions come and go and we have no responsibility for our own emotions, and that we have to tread lightly so as not to hurt other people's feelings. Or that we think we're responsible for making sure that everyone is happy, that no one is bored or disengaged with what's going on, that everyone is happy at the family party or the family reunion. We think we have to please all the people coming and we rush frantically around trying to make this person happy with one thing and another person happy with something else. All the while not realizing that how other people feel is none of our business. 

06:51 

Now that doesn't mean that we just decide to run, I don't know, willy nilly and say and do everything that comes to our minds and don't think about the effect it can have on others. Absolutely we choose to show up the best we can. See our actions go into the other person's circumstance line and then they get to take over by what they think and feel about our actions. I can't control what others think and feel. That's obvious, so obvious, by the number of times in my own life when I've thought that I've just done something that will make somebody else happy and they end up being really put off or even angry about it. But generally I can choose to behave in ways that will make it easier for others to have more pleasant thoughts and feelings. I'm not responsible for other thoughts and feelings, but I am responsible for mine. And my thoughts and feelings show up in my actions which then end up in other people's circumstance line. So though I'm not responsible for their feelings, I am responsible for my own actions. And remember my actions end up in their circumstance line and then they get to choose what to think and to feel about those circumstance. Okay. So though I'm not responsible for their feelings, I'm responsible for my own actions. 

08:15 

And here's a place as well where we want to do a double check. We want to make sure that our reasons for doing what we're doing are clean and don't fall into people pleasing. We're not trying to manipulate them into thinking or feeling a certain way. For example, we're not on our best behavior so that other people will be more inclined to like us. The end goal is to be on our best behavior just because that's the kind of person we want to be. We want to be kind and loving. That's in alignment with our values. So, watch your own thoughts and feelings so that you show up in your action line the way you really want to, but not in an attempt to control or manipulate others. And back off thinking that you're responsible for how other people feel. We can't control that. Some people just always have a bent toward negativity. None of your business, my friend. Some people never seem to be happy with the circumstance regardless of how much thought and care you may put into it. Again, none of your business. Some people will just never like you no matter how likable you are or how kind and loving you are. None of your business. Right? So, that second one, we are not, it's none of our business what other people feel. Other people's feelings are not our business. Okay? 

09:41 

The third thing that is none of our business is other people's decisions. Isn't it fascinating how often we feel that we should have an opinion about the choices that other people make? We can have a tendency to stand back and get all judge-y about decisions other people make because they're not the decisions that we would make. I see this a lot with our adult children. They decide to go to a different university than we were hoping or they decide not to go to school at all. And we have a lot to say about it. Or our siblings might make a financial decision that we might not make and we get all judge-y about how they handle their finances. Or our neighbors decide to remodel their kitchen and they chose cabinets that we would never choose. Or someone decides to step away from the Church and we think that it is our business to monitor their decisions and talk to everyone about it. Often this space of thinking other people's decisions are our business is where a lot of gossiping comes into play. We stand back and talk about other people's decisions not in an informative sort of way, but in a judge-y sort of way. 

10:52 

So my husband and I dated long distance for just four and a half months before we got married. It was a decision that we did not take lightly, although we did make it quickly, and we had so many people weighing in on our decision. We finally, between us, chose to adopt the phrase "they can have an opinion but they don't get a say." That just helped for us because there were people who were more than a little frustrated that they didn't have a say in our decision. That when they told us what they thought that we didn't just drop all of our plans and follow their counsel. But guess what? Right, it wasn't their decision to make. In fact, it was none of their business and we 100% understood that they were coming from a place of love and concern and we appreciated so much their love and concern, but we also understood that it was none of their business that it was our decision to make regardless of what the outcome might be. So this is not to say that we can't express concern or ask questions. But it does mean that, ultimately, it's none of our business what decisions people choose to make. What is our business is how we choose to show up for them before, during, and after their decision. They might even ask you for your opinion or ask for your advice. Great. Give it to them and then let go. Don't expect them to change their opinion to meet yours and don't expect them to follow your advice. Just because someone asks for it doesn't mean that they agree with it once they get it or even that they're going to adopt it. So let go of other people's decisions and instead focus on how you can best show up supportive and compassionate and kind. That's what is our business: how we show up. None of the rest matters. 

13:02 

I just keep coming back to this great commandment that Christ gave us to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And I just more and more believe that everything hinges on that. If I can truly learn to show up with love and learn to love cleanly, then I think I'm doing a pretty good job. This none of your business, staying out of things that aren't our business, but showing up the way that we want to, choosing intentionally how we want to show up, that's the brilliant mark, my friends. Okay, that's going to do it for us today. Hope you have a great, great day and I will talk to you next week. Bye. 

13:55 

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.