Not my monkeys

At work, I experienced a series of events that were seriously stressing me out.  I came across a blog or a meme that reminded me that in some situations I can truly say, "Not my circus, not my monkeys."  I use this when I am taking responsibility for something that is not my job.  I tend to over step and try to 'fix' situations that aren't my responsibility.  My counselor first pointed out my tendency to take on responsibilities that aren't really mine to do.  It is a carry over from childhood when I was held responsible for my mother's happiness and my younger brother and sister from about nine years old until I married.  It wasn't my responsibility to care for the younger siblings but  I worried about them.  Tried to make sure they were safe.  And was punished if they did anything wrong.  The craziness of holding one person responsible for someone else led me to behaving like I could 'fix' someone else.   Years of counseling drove home, the only person I could fix was me and wow did I have my work cut out for me working on fixing myself.  I sat down with myself and asked..."Is this my circus and are these my monkeys?"  If I answer no to either one I back off.  One of my coworkers was stressing out to.  I told him, "Not your circus, not your monkeys."  He thought about it over the break and came back feeling much better about his job.  One of my major challenges is to not take on responsibilities that rightfully belonged to someone else.  Learning to be responsible for myself is actually tough because I was trained to put my needs last.  Learning to follow airplane instructions will help, put the oxygen mask on myself first.