Glasser Wisdom: The Good and Bad in Judgement
Judith Ashley is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series,
romantic fiction that honors spiritual traditions that nurture the soul. She is
also on the Senior Teaching Faculty of The William Glasser Institute.
Dr. William Glasser first came to notice in the 1960’s due to
his work at the Ventura School for Girls and the back wards of the V.A. Hospital
in Los Angeles. I heard of Dr. Glasser in the late 60’s but it was 1978 before
I took my first Basic Intensive Training. To learn more about this remarkable
man’s life, I encourage you to read “Champion of Choice” by Jim Roy.
I hope
you had fun with your “mission” this past week.
My guess
is that most of you see the importance of judgement in our lives. I’m dealing
with some health issues around food. It seems there are some foods I used to be
able to eat that my body now takes exception to. I’m adding foods into my diet
one at a time to see who the culprits are. Many judgements going on with each
new addition including what to add next and then how does my body feel.
There are
basics such as food that are ‘it depends’. For some, they do not have the
luxury of deciding what to eat. They are grateful for ‘something’ to eat. That
is where their judgement comes in. Going further down that line of thinking,
for some, the decision is what they will do to get food. Some are hungry enough
to steal food. Some will sell themselves for food.
Whenever
I hear the words “I had no choice”, I translate that into, this choice was the
best one given my options.
This ties
into the Myth of Choice. Somewhere in our lives we come to believe that there
is always a ‘good choice’ if we can just figure it out.
That just
isn’t true. Staying with food for our example.
We go to
the grocery store with a special dinner menu in mind and with a budget to stick
to. As we browse the aisles we find that while all the ingredients are there,
their prices aren’t within our budget. So, the special dinner menu we anticipated
isn’t available if we stick to our budget or we spend beyond our means to get
what we want. If the dollar amount in our budget is finite and there isn’t any
room to wiggle, we have more decisions to make as to what we will include or
not include. Every phase of this shopping trip takes judgement.
At this
point we have even more choices. We can bemoan the fact that we don’t have the
money to buy what we want. We can berate the grocery store for charging such
high prices. We can see if we can shop lift one of the ingredients so we can
afford the special dinner.
Each one
of these is a separate choice based on judgement. Depending on how important
that special dinner is to you, you’ll make your decision based on the importance
of the dinner rather than the possible consequences.
Judgements
that are helpful to us are ‘good’. That also means the consequences of that
judgement or decision is positive.
Judgements
that have negative consequences in our lives are ‘bad’. Sometimes we stay so
focused on what we want, we do not pay attention to possible consequences. And,
that can create problems.
Reread my
post on “The Ultimate Question” if you are having relationship issues. You may
find a way to make better or good judgements/decisions.
Where are
you making judgements that have negative consequences? Do you see a pattern?
I’ll be
back next Monday with more about how “Useless judgements” leech joy from our
lives and create havoc in our relationships with ourselves and others.
Follow me on Twitter: @JudithAshley19
© 2016 Judith Ashley
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