Sounds like a negative, sassy, come-back to someone who is offering unwanted advice and meddling too much. A simple phrase such as “mind your business” is loaded with defensive posturing and attitude.
Here recently, I’ve been analyzing the phrase and with the help of my best friend, I am now seeing it in a different light. Recently I read a caption under a picture of a woman, Besse Cooper, who was celebrating her 116th year of life. When asked what her secret was to longevity she said, “minding my own business and not eating junk food.” Besse gets it. Aubrie gets it. I think I am too. You see, growing up in a family system with high dysfunction, drug/alcohol abuse, and regular visits by the police because of violence, it was easy to be engulfed by the chaos of others. You couldn’t mind your business because the behavior did affect us. Our car windows were busted, my mom was spit on, guns and hammers were drawn and thrown, items were stolen, yelling and fighting and red and blue lights and scrambling and speeding off and anger and pure chaos. Ugh!
The more I learn about myself and codependency, the more I understand that when a system (whether it be familial, romantic, friendship or even with the government), one compensates for the other. A dysfunctional person disrupts the system. Those dysfunctional people are probably a product of their own dysfunctional system also. It really is cyclic. How the other members of the system compensate is by being overly attentive to the affairs of the dysfunctional person (which now makes them BOTH unsavorily dysfunctional). The person overcompensating is deemed codependent. I had heard this term before but ignored it. (Probably because I was too busy obsessing and making a plan for the guy I was seeing, who was messy and all over the place. Us codependents find the most messy people to try to help them to give us meaning and worth.) Only here recently, have I begun my journey into recovery from codependency. It all makes sense. One of the biggest indicators of codependency is the inability to mind your business and essentially, mind your OWN affairs and take care of your OWN life. Simple concept but one that can alleviate so much pain and turmoil in a codependent’s life.
How many times have I tried to help someone to the point that it consumed me?
How many times have I tried to change someone to fix them?
How many times have I used emotional manipulation to try to elicit the response I wanted?
How many times have I been in trouble but ignored it?
How many times have I felt like my identity was tied up into someone else’s problems?When someone used to inquire, “So tell me about yourself,” I’d go blank. The truth is, I didn’t know. I had worked so hard on helping others that I had lost myself. I didn’t know who I was or what I liked but I could tell you everything about someone else! The severity of this has since switched to only moderate, as I now have a stronger sense of self and am learning the self care that I neglected for years and years. Another key component of this is the ability and want to “mind my own business.” To me it means to love your life, first and foremost. It means to focus on what you have going on and to trust that others can handle THEIR OWN business. They can take care of their life just as much as I can take care of my own.
I wasn’t doing that before.
I would find one crisis after another to tie myself to and make it my mission to fix/help/solve/heal/cure them. I was a chaser of problematic people. I didn’t take care of myself and would neglect myself. I would ignore the weight gain, the financial problems, the messy house and poor diet. I would shelve myself to run away from myself. It’s a blessing to realize I am not that person anymore and that I care more about myself than I ever have. Each day, I am slowly learning the self-care I neglected for so long. I almost feel as though I’m being raised again and that I am experiencing a second childhood. I’m filling the gaps and becoming whole. It hasn’t been easy. In fact it’s the hardest shit I have EVER gone through and it’s painful.
What consoles me though is the prospect of not hurting anymore. Of healing and having the loving relationships I deserve. I am learning to mind my own business because when I don’t, I slip deep into sorrow and obsess and lose myself. It’s going to take work and effort and tears and patience but I am committed to my own recovery from codependency. Although I wish, at times, it would move a lot faster, I am learning to trust the process and the struggle. I am earning my stripes.
So the next time someone tells you to mind your own business, maybe you should. Maybe you need to focus more on you and your happiness and less on the unrest of others. Maybe you need to obsess about your own life and figure out the best way to care for self instead of trying to dictate the best way for someone else to live theirs. Minding your business is a good thing! A healthy thing! Besse Cooper figured it out, Aubrie figured it out and I think I can too.
This. I’ve Recently been on this journey. Mjagles explains it very well, it is exciting in the autonomy that you have over your own life, but there are also days where things don’t go so well, and you experience extreme guilt for caring about yourself, or for forgetting the problems of others for a moment. But recently minding my own business has given me a higher awareness of myself, and the self value that comes with that alone has definitely been and improvement in my life.