Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys

I have good news for you and bad news for you… which would you like first?  Let’s go with the good news.  If you have natural empathy, you are ahead of the game. The ability to intuitively predict and read the emotional responses of others will set you ahead when it comes to negotiation, teamwork scenarios and the occasional contentious meeting.  You will handle your relationships and family matters with kindness and others will appreciate your sensitivity and diplomacy.  You will cultivate trust and others will extend you the same respect that you so effortlessly grant just about everyone in your life.  Lucky you!

Okay, so as I have said before, every coin has two sides. So let’s look at the other side of this one.  Empathy has a down-side, or shall we say it has some very real risks.  I am going to call this a boundary issue and I can speak to this because it has always been an challenge for me.  Having been blessed with a natural empathy and sensitivity and having been doubly blessed to be born into a family where empathy was encouraged and cultivated, I have been hardwired and soft-programmed in a way that keeps me on the “kinder” side of most situations. I often find myself troubled by the difficulties of others and preoccupied with issues that are not my own.  Therein lies the issue. The problem with an empathetic approach is that, if you are not careful, it invites you to take on more responsibility than you should.  I am not careful.

When personal  boundaries get blurry, no one benefits. This is when “helping” becomes “less than helpful” because we are taking the burden…or inviting the other person’s monkeys onto our backs.  We all have “monkeys” on our backs.  Monkeys are the challenges that we carry, some of our own doing and some we just end up with; our weaknesses  our fears, our bad habits, our obligations and relationships. They are uniquely our own and no one can relieve us of our monkeys, although I have to say that I have a habit of inviting lots of "visitor" monkeys onto my back, despite the fact that I have plenty of my own. Like many of us, I do this under the guise of “helping”.   So here is a useful distinction on “constructive helping”.  

Constructive helping, requires that we keep a healthy distance allowing others to overcome their own difficulties. This approach enables coping skills rather than enabling dysfunction.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself the next time you are helping someone close…

• Who is losing sleep over the issue?  Do you suddenly seem more concerned about the issue than the person in trouble?

• Can you help the other to feel confident and optimistic about the situation? If so, is their new found optimism realistic?

• Can you cultivate new capabilities that will allow the person to address future challenges in new ways?

• If you have developed a plan to correct  a situation, who wrote the plan? Could the other person recite the plan without your help?

• Does the intervention (or “bailout") create a new situation whereby they will STAY helped, or is it just a matter of time before they find themselves in the same situation?

• Do you feel excited about the help you have given or do your feel a sense of bitterness and a lack of reciprocity?  Really think on this one, because, as kind people, we will often talk ourselves out of these unpleasant feelings.  But if these feelings are surfacing, you had best listen to them.

“Constructive Help”….

• Makes others stronger
• Develops skills and allows others to see options they didn’ t have or know they had before
• Encourages independence,  self-sufficiency  and confidence

In others words, constructive help allows others to thrive despite the monkeys on their backs.  Empathy is a gift that helps you understand the needs of others and boundaries allow you to be instrumental helping them to be better! Monkeys and all!

So, the next time you find yourself doing something for someone that that you know you shouldn’t be doing, remember this old Polish proverb “Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys” and help them help themselves instead. 

image credit: KireevArt |dreamstime.com