“None-ya!”
“What?”
“None-ya!”
“I don’t get it.”
“None of your business.”
“Oh.”
Ouch.
What a tremendous and hard-earned lesson.
This interaction happened in my late teens. I have always been an intensely curious person. I had asked this person a question that I now view as slightly intrusive I will admit. It did not seem that way at the time. This person was more than an acquaintance, if not yet a friend. Though “none-ya” landed with a thud at the time, I now see it as a gift. It has continued to unfold with greater application in the many years since it was introduced. While I adopted it verbally for a time, now I use it as a silent form of reminder within myself.
It continues to amaze me how often I can become disturbed when I insert myself into someone else’s business. This almost always happens on the internal plane. I watch the shenanigans people engage in, and I always have an opinion. I have come to know that having an opinion is not a problem. Believing the opinion is where the disturbance kicks in. From an over-identified opinion, I then decide how people should resolve their drama’s, fix their problems, and resolve their issues. Recognizing that I am caught in this dynamic, I can then step back and give myself some very freeing advice:
None-ya.
Works like a charm. When I choose to engage it. And I do so with ever-increasing frequency.
I have been in a helping-vocation for more than three decades now. It still humbles me that people frequently come to me for assistance with their patterns, issues, problems. It can be seductive to think that I somehow know something that can help. When I notice that seduction kicking in, I remind myself that I am gifted with a keen intuition, and I am particularly good at asking questions. When I counsel, I am drawing forth the wisdom in those I am blessed to work with. While I am being invited into someone’s business, it is still theirs. I may offer suggestions, yet I do so in the clear awareness that what they do with those suggestions is completely up to them.
Outside of my vocation I seek to be clear about what is my business and what is not.
My business is my business, and yours is not.
It is far easier to type those words than to apply them.
It is a lifelong pattern for me that other people feel free to verbally and emphatically define me. I guess it is what we humans do at some level. It has felt extreme to me, though, in terms of my personal experience of this. It used to trigger me, and to send me into extended periods of angry reaction. I not only wanted to say “none-ya,” I wanted to scream it. That has softened considerably, and in the softening, I have gleaned a great gift from it.
As a result of this pattern, I am far less likely to define others. It is far easier to detach when I find myself in someone else’s business. Knowing the pain of having others insert themselves into my business, I commit to not inflicting that pain onto others. I am fairly quick about saying to myself “none-ya,” and to tending to what is really my business:
Me.
It is beyond liberating, I promise you.
It is not your business to define me. I apply that by being sure I don’t try and to define you.
Now, do not hear that I am claiming to never get into anyone else’s business. That is an ongoing practice that I have far from perfected. I do, however, increasingly move in that direction. The payoff is that I have far fewer problems and disturbing issues. That is because I am not taking on the problems I perceive in others, and I am not engaged in seeking to resolve what are others disturbing issues. I now have abundant life-force to use for good because it is not misdirected into other people’s business.
So, I sum this up solely for my benefit.
What you think of me is none of my business.
What I think of you is none of my business.
Your attempts at defining me are none of my business.
My attempts at defining you are indeed my business in one way: I will not.
None-ya is a great boundary setter for sure. It keeps my focus where it needs to be: on what is in fact my business. When my focus is externally directed it is focused as blessing, not on getting into your business. When I allow none-ya to direct my attention to blessing there is no greater gift I can give.
You will likely never hear me say none-ya regardless of what you might ask. You may see a slight smile and a feel a spacious pause. You will know if you are paying attention that you have crossed uninvited into territory that is personal domain.
No harm. No foul.
I am clear about what is my business whether or not you are. In that clarity there is no anger necessary. Just a simple, peaceful inner knowing.
None-ya.
