5 Ways To Start Attending To The Real Business Of Life

1. What others may or may not think about us is not our business. Our business is being aware of the unconscious parts of us that fear we're only as worthwhile as others agree we are.

2. Worrying about what tomorrow may bring, or how to fix yesterday's sorrow is not our business. Our business is to remain as present as we can to the part of us that imagines it can protect itself from its own negative imagination, or that believes it can escape a painful past it doesn't want... by revisiting it.

3. Comparing ourselves to others, or wondering why they make the misguided choices they do, is not our business. Our business is to see the part of us that can't wait to find fault with others, or with ourselves... in order to prove its imagined superiority.

4. We are not in the business of fear, no matter how much it tells us we stand to lose if we don't do as it tells us we must.

5. What to do with other people who don't see life as we often insist they do is not our business. Our business is to see that any part of us that can't stand alone hasn't a leg to stand on.

Special Exercise: Make a list of all the familiar thoughts, feelings, and actions you've always automatically complied with... and then watch what happens as you walk away from doing "business as usual" with them.