The Art of Minding Your Own Business

I think I’ve always understood the value of focusing on yourself. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent enough of my life being told who I should be, what I should do, what choices I should make, and even what I should believe. People have a lot of opinions about lives they have never had to live. We do it with relationships, parenting, careers, healing, spirituality, and just about everything in between. We look at someone else’s life from the outside, usually knowing only a fraction of the story, and somehow convince ourselves that we know what they should be doing differently. But have you actually lived a day in their shoes? 

I see this especially within the spiritual community. I am asked all the time whether something is “right” or “wrong” to do within a spiritual practice. Can I do this? Am I allowed to work with that? Is it wrong if I believe this but also believe that? Sometimes I want to ask, who exactly are we waiting to give us permission? Obviously, there are things most of us can agree cross a moral line. If what you are doing harms another person, exploits someone, or intentionally disrespects a culture or tradition, that deserves examination. But outside of that, why have we become so comfortable appointing ourselves the authority over someone else’s relationship with God, Spirit, their ancestors, or their own soul? 

There is a difference between discernment and judgment, and I think we have forgotten that. One of the harder things I’ve learned through doing my own inner work is that when someone really bothers me, sometimes there is something there worth looking at within myself. Not always. Sometimes people are just assholes. But it is much easier to point out what someone else is doing wrong than it is to sit quietly with ourselves and ask why it bothers us so much. Why does someone else’s spiritual practice make you angry? Why does the way another person lives their life feel threatening to you? Why do you need them to believe what you believe in order to feel secure in what you believe? I have found far more wisdom looking into my own mirror than I ever have pointing at someone else’s. 

I also think there is a responsibility that comes with finding your own path. It is your job to figure out what is right or wrong for you. That takes reflection, discernment, and being willing to question yourself sometimes. There is nothing wrong with asking for advice or getting feedback from people you trust. Sometimes another perspective helps us see something we couldn’t see on our own. But ultimately, no one else lives inside of you. No one else has your exact relationship with God, your experiences, your intuition, or your path. You can listen to what other people have to say without handing them the authority to make your decisions for you. 

Spiritual gatekeeping is one of the strangest examples of this to me. You can’t use this herb, you can’t pray that way, you can’t work with that tradition, you can’t believe in Jesus and read tarot, you can’t do this unless you were taught by the right person or given permission by someone who apparently has been appointed manager of the spiritual realm. I do believe respect matters. History, culture, and lineage matter. There is a difference between respectfully learning from something and taking something sacred, stripping it of its meaning, and claiming it as your own. We should care about those things.

But I also think spirituality is much bigger, older, and more interconnected than the boxes we keep trying to put around it. Human beings have prayed, burned herbs, lit candles, honored their dead, interpreted dreams, created altars, asked for protection, and tried to understand the Divine for thousands of years. I think keeping traditions alive matters. Sharing what we have learned matters. Approaching what is sacred to another person with humility matters. Condemning people is where you lose me. Who are we to condemn another person? Are we God? Spirit don’t like ugly. 

I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of that judgment because my own spiritual life doesn’t fit neatly into a box. I am a Christian. I love God, Jesus, and Mother Mary. I pray. I also read tarot cards for reflection, work with herbs, light candles with intention, believe our ancestors remain connected to us, and believe intuition is one of the many ways we can receive guidance. Some people would look at parts of my practice and call it witchcraft. At this point, they can call it whatever they want. I spent enough years of my life worrying about what other people thought about me, and I don’t have much interest in spending the rest of it arguing about terminology. I know what my relationship with God feels like. I know when something brings me closer to love, compassion, accountability, and a deeper understanding of myself. At some point, I had to stop asking other people for permission to have the relationship with God that I actually have.

 That doesn’t mean I think I know everything. If anything, the older I get and the deeper I go into my spiritual life, the more comfortable I become saying that I don’t know. I could be wrong. I have been wrong. I have changed my beliefs before and I’m sure I will change some of them again. I think that is part of being alive. I would rather remain curious and continue learning than become so attached to being right that I stop growing. 

People get so threatened when someone finds God, healing, meaning, or connection differently than they do, and I often wonder why. We are incredibly complex creatures. There isn’t another person on this earth exactly like you. We were never meant to all think alike, believe alike, heal alike, or express ourselves in exactly the same way. We make up the many different facets of this world, and I believe we are all different expressions of God. Maybe the goal is to find our own way home, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the ride while we are here. We can explore, learn, question things, change our minds, and discover what resonates with our souls and what doesn’t.

 I wonder how many of us have held ourselves back because we weren’t somebody else’s idea of who we should be. How many parts of ourselves have we hidden because we were afraid of being judged? How many times have we known something deeply within ourselves and immediately looked outside of ourselves for someone else to validate it? We get scared to be seen because God forbid we upset someone. But I also think sometimes another person’s freedom makes us uncomfortable because it reminds us of the ways we aren’t free ourselves.

 Watching someone unapologetically be themselves can confront us with the parts of ourselves we have been hiding. Seeing someone question something we have never allowed ourselves to question can make us uncomfortable. Seeing someone connect with God differently can challenge what we thought we knew. Instead of immediately deciding that person must be wrong, maybe sometimes the better question is why what they are doing bothers us so much. 

There is an incredible amount of freedom in realizing that most of the time, other people’s lives are simply none of our business. We have enough work to do within our own. I certainly do. There are still things within myself I am healing, patterns I am trying to understand, ways I could love people better, things I need to forgive, and parts of myself I am still learning to accept. That is enough work to keep me busy for a lifetime. Maybe if we spent a little more time tending to our own gardens, we wouldn’t have so much time to criticize what someone else is growing in theirs. 

Share what you know. Teach what you have learned. Listen when someone else’s experience has something to teach you. Respect where traditions come from. Be willing to be wrong and change your mind when you learn something new. Most importantly, try to be a good human being. I really don’t care whether you’re Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, atheist, spiritual but not religious, still figuring it out, or none of the above. Just don’t be a shitty person.

 Love people. Give them room to find their own way. Let them heal differently than you healed, question what they need to question, and change as many times as they need to change. Give yourself that same freedom too. I believe we are all walking our own paths trying to find our way back home, and none of us really knows exactly what that journey is supposed to look like for someone else. So maybe we could spend a little less time trying to manage everyone else’s path and a little more time walking our own.