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.

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