Drama doesn’t just walk into your life out of nowhere. You either create it, invite it or you associate with people who love to bring it into your life. ~ Unknown
Not my monkey, not my show is another saying that I use to deal with the drama of life and all its challenges. This saying is a take on the polish words of wisdom “Not My Circus. Not My Monkey.”
I am one of seven billion individuals on this planet and each of us holds our own unique reality. For this reason, it could be said that there are seven billion individual worlds, and no two worlds are the same. The lens of experience, conditioning and thoughts often distort the reality of every individual, and we all respond to life in our own way.
Through our interactions with others, our individual worlds often collide, and not always in pleasant circumstances.
I was inspired to write this post following an altercation with a neighbour many years ago. I lived in an apartment with a large terrace in a gated community in Spain. One day, as cleaned my terrace, soapy water flowed down the rain water overflow pipe onto the neighbour’s terrace below. My neighbour completely overacted, as he screamed and cussed at me from below, despite the fact that I repeated apologised. His response was completely out of proportion with my mistake. He was trying to create a drama show.
Years ago, if I was in this position, I would have taken this personally. My ego would have risen up at the angry person. I would have given them a verbal slap and a taste of their own medicine. I would have been drawn into their show by their anger monkey and smack bang into drama. My peace completely destroyed.
On this day, I refused to engage. I was satisfied that I had apologised and walked back into my apartment to avoid the drama show that he was trying to create. I refused to engage with his anger monkey nor join his drama show. Instead, I thought not my monkey, not my show.
You’ll find this method really works when dealing with any drama that is created through people projecting their shadow side, whether you have made a mistake or not. I use this in every situation where an individual is projecting something at me that isn’t mine to own, through emotional manipulation, fear-mongering or someone just trying to bring me down. Not my monkey. Not my show. No drama at the expense of my own peace and equilibrium. I stay in control of my feelings and don’t give my power away by reacting.
So, if you have people in your life who like to throw their monkey at you in an attempt to draw you into their drama show, think not my monkey, not my show and walk on.
(c) Samantha Wilson 2015. All Rights Reserved.
