My colleague and friend Dene Witten-baker is an expert addictions counsellor, who spends much of her time making people aware of their boundaries. One of her favourite expressions is “What’s mine and what’s somebody else’s” In other words are you minding your business or busying yourself with someone else’s?
Where do I stop and you begin, might be a question worthy of pondering.
How many times during a day do you get busy with something that is really none of your business?
Getting busy with others can be a way of avoiding looking at our own ‘stuff’. It saves us having to examine our own conflicts with self and others, it’s also a way of ‘projecting’ our less than perfect aspects out onto others.
In preparation for a talk I’m giving in the Autumn at Breeze yoga I’ve been revisiting the wisdom of my favourite ancient sage, Patanjali, who laid down a series of guidelines for one to live one’s life by. A set of precepts, that, if we could adhere to, would mean we would be living in a pretty cool society because we would be respectful and honest in our communications with others at all times.
One of Patanjali’s top tips is Satya, which roughly translated means, truth. Where possible, if we can stick to what we know to be the truth, we might feel more peace in our hearts and minds. So this rules out rumours, lies, deceit and exaggerations, because they HURT others.
I think if you asked most people, honestly, if they wanted to hurt anyone else the answer would be a resounding ‘NO’!
