Protective and Supportive Behaviors

Judith is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrates the journey from relationship to romance.

Now that you are on your own journey to Unconditional Acceptance of yourself, you may find that you are more accepting of others.

You see that they are taking care of themselves in a manner that does not “serve” you, does not support you. But you ‘accept’ that on some level it supports them.

When I’m teaching for The William Glasser Institute I talk about ‘protective behaviors’ and ‘supportive behaviors’. We often see protective behaviors are negative.

A simple example from my 7^th grade teaching days.

“Acting out behavior in the classroom” as in a 15 year old boy in 7^th grade being disruptive. What I know is that those three older boys who were in my 7^th grade reading class couldn’t read 7^th grade level books which is what I had to teach from.

Not my classroom or I would have had more problems

They came from a community where it was common to drop out of school at 16 when it was no longer ‘compulsory education’ and work in the mills or woods. These boys most likely read at a 2^nd or maybe even a 3^rd or 4^th grade level. As a ‘secondary teacher’ I never was taught how to ‘teach reading’. Only elementary teachers had that as part of their curriculum.

When they were disruptive, the other students didn’t see how poor their reading skills were. If they really were out-of-line, I could have them sit in the hall or even send them to the principal’s office. Again, the other students wouldn’t see that they couldn’t read the books we were studying.

During those times when I read to the class and we discussed the story, they were not behavior problems and they did participate---at least to some extent.

So disruptive behaviors “protected” them in some way. Perhaps from embarrassment. Perhaps from possible ridicule. Perhaps for a reason known only to them at that time.

Take a moment to think about yourself. Where do you use ‘protective’ behaviors?

And what is an example of a ‘supportive’ behavior? Something that ‘supports’ you in reaching your goals, something that when you are engaged in it, you feel better about yourself and your world.

Your free copy of Lily: The Dragon and The Great Horned Owl is waiting for you.

Go to JudithAshleyRomance.com and sign up for my occasional newsletter “Connections.”

Follow the prompts to download your own digital copy of Lily the first book in The Sacred Women’s Circle series.

Learn more about The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshleyRomance.com

Follow Judith on Twitter: @JudithAshley19

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Barriers to Unconditional Acceptance

Judith is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrates the journey from relationship to romance.

One of the barriers I see that keeps people from continuing down the path to unconditional acceptance is the concept of ‘approval’.

Acceptance and approval are not the same thing. I can accept that something is true without approving of it. I can accept that something is true or important to another person without approving it for myself.

A simple example: Virtually all of my friends drink coffee. I don’t. I accept that drinking coffee is important to them. I don’t approve of drinking coffee for me (it tastes awful and I didn’t feel good when I was in college and tried it out. Getting sick on a coffee date was not a good experience).

As I’m working on my own Unconditional Acceptance, I use the concept of “resume” as I heard it explained by Susan Peirce Thompson. Susan is the founder of the BrightLine Eating System. She talks about the reality that there are times people on this program stray off the path. What’s important? Resume.

This concept works well when we are on the path to Unconditional Acceptance.

I couple of weeks ago I found myself yelling at the television. I was horrified and fell into the old pattern of chastising myself for the lapse. When I finally stopped ringing a peal over my head, I remembered “resume” and so I did.

It’s really that simple.

Lily is the first book on the left!!!

When you find you’ve strayed from the path you want to be on, stop where you are and pivot so you resume your journey on the path you prefer.

Your assignment:

Use the goal you came up with last week and practice “resume.”

Or, if you are far enough down the road to success, that it could be several days or even weeks before you stray, pick  something else to work on remembering that when you stray to “resume”.

Set your new path by declaring your goal and your daily practice to reach that goal. Use positive present tense action words.

I easily and effortlessly learn to use Vellum and publish my books.

What’s important is to catch ourselves when those negative thoughts invade our positive thoughts. It may be a few minutes to a few days before we catch them but when we do, instead of beating ourselves up, our new mantra is “Resume.”

Your free copy of Lily: The Dragon and The Great Horned Owl is waiting for you! Spoiler Alert!!! Lily may not use "resume" but she does have to learn to find her way back to her path.

Go to JudithAshleyRomance.com and sign up for my occasional newsletter “Connections.” Follow the prompts to download your own digital copy of the first book in The Sacred Women’s Circle series.

Learn more about The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshleyRomance.com

Follow Judith on Twitter: @JudithAshley19

Check out Judith’s Windtree Press author page.

You can also find Judith on FB!

Self-Acceptance is First

Judith is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrates the journey from relationship to romance.

For this next post we’ll take a look at our own self-acceptance rating. I come from the belief that we can best help others by taking care of ourselves. This has not always been how I’ve viewed the world. But then thoughts such as this one popped up.

When you are sick with some bug, how well can you take care of someone else? If you are me, not as good as I am when I’m well.

Extrapolate that thinking and you come up with the concept that in order to be at your best in helping others, you must be your best.

I’ve made progress in this past several years. And here is a classic example:

In February 2011 when Sarah Raplee and I came up with the idea for a group blog—Romancing The Genres (Check us out!) I was a fast typist on the computer. I could write reports, emails and I had completed the first three books in the Sacred Women’s Circle series. Of the two of us, Sarah was the techie. She fearlessly clicked the “Help” button on Blogger for help. I hesitated to search on the internet for anything much less click into the vast unknown.

It's a bit blurry but this is Sarah and me at our first book signing!

Saturday night Sarah and I were on the phone talking about, if I purchase a used Mac so I can learn and put my books on Vellum, oh and there was a discussion about using the ‘macincloud’. I’d actually searched for the Vellum site and then read several responses on a site dedicated on how best to use Vellum.

Am I fearless when it comes to clicking around the world-wide web? No, I still have my moments. But, I am cautious, not terrified I’ll do something wrong and my computer will blow up. (I see some of you laughing!)

How did I shift from fear to caution and from ‘knowing’ I can’t to believing I can learn new techie things?

I changed how I saw myself.

I went from ‘conditional acceptance’ to unconditional acceptance that I am an intelligent woman and have the capacity (mental, emotional and physical) to learn new things.

Did it happen overnight? Absolutely not.

And I do consider that if I believed it could change overnight, it would or it would change more rapidly? Yes I do. I’m an unconditional-acceptance- work-in-progress.

If you believe, you can succeed

Your assignment if you wish to continue on this journey to unconditional acceptance with me is this:

Pick one aspect of yourself you’d like to see in a positive light. 

Write out in present tense what this aspect is as if it already exists. Now look at specific thoughts and actions you can take to stay on this path.

Notice mine is “I easily and effortlessly learn (present tense) new software. I could be more specific and say ‘Vellum’. I could leave it there. I can also add why. The added value to me in this project. "I easily and effortlessly learn Vellum so I am more efficient and effective in publishing my books."

You can decide if adding the value of the project is important to your moving forward on the path to unconditional acceptance. 

My action steps or plan include: seeking input from others about where to purchase a used Mac; use my Microsoft One Drive more consistently to improve my experience in using The Cloud so I can better determine which option is better for me; remind myself when (notice I’m not using ‘if’) I feel frustrated that I’m intelligent and can learn this; regroup/resume and go forth again.

Check back in next Monday for another post on Unconditional Acceptance.

Your free copy of Lily: The Dragon and The Great Horned Owl is waiting for you.

Go to JudithAshleyRomance.com and sign up for my occasional newsletter “Connections.” Follow the prompts to download your own digital copy of the first book in The Sacred Women’s Circle series.

Learn more about The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshleyRomance.com

Follow Judith on Twitter: @JudithAshley19

Check out Judith’s Windtree Press author page.

You can also find Judith on FB!

Starting the Journey to Unconditional Acceptance

Judith is the author of The Sacred Women’s Circle series, romantic fiction that honors spiritual practices that nourish the soul and celebrates the journey from relationship to romance.

If you’ve been following me over the past year or so, you know I’m on the Senior Teaching Faculty for The William Glasser Institute and I write romantic women’s fiction with strong spiritual elements.

My Glasser tag line is "It's All About Relationships."

My author tag line is “Soul Nurturing Romance.”

 

You also know that I experienced an epiphany while working with True Path Consulting NW’s founder, Paul Iarrobino and yet another one while attending the Desert Dreams Writer’s Conference this past May and June.

What does this have to do with Unconditional Acceptance?

Beautiful Saguaro Cactus

Quite a bit really.

1.     Working with Paul helped me vocalize what I want readers to experience as they read my books.

2.     Attending Desert Dreams showed me the power of my “core question” which is “What would it be like to be in a place where you are unconditionally accepted, unconditionally supported and unconditionally loved?”

Because the people I talked to at the writer’s conference in Arizona were, for the most part, stunned and unable to answer the question I experienced the power of the question from yet a different perspective.

From that different perspective I asked myself “What would happen if we had a conversation about creating that life of unconditional acceptance, support and love for ourselves?”

And that’s the impetus behind this and future blog posts.

Next Monday I’ll weigh in more specifically about ‘unconditional acceptance.’

Today I leave you with these questions:

On a scale of 1 – 10:

How well do you accept yourself?

And unless you gave yourself a 10, what would your life be like if you were at a 10?

Your free copy of Lily: The Dragon and The Great Horned Owl is waiting for you.

Go to JudithAshleyRomance.com and sign up for my occasional newsletter “Connections.” Follow the prompts to download your own digital copy of the first book in The Sacred Women’s Circle series.

Learn more about The Sacred Women’s Circle series at JudithAshleyRomance.com

Follow Judith on Twitter: @JudithAshley19

Check out Judith’s Windtree Press author page.

You can also find Judith on FB!