Temp Card Reading - LaunchMoxie

What Is Your Ideal Lifestyle…

Discover What Is and What is To Be on Your Journey of Life…

Click the two cards below to see what Present and Future you have drawn. Then click again to get the description and recommendations for your specific situation. Watch for follow-up emails with even more information to guide you…

Be sure to write down the names of your two cards, so you can access additional information later.

Passive Income Lifestyle
This card will tell you how things are now…

Alignment Ridge

Integrity

Overview

As we learn in Alignment Ridge, Integrity is a state of being in which our thoughts, words, actions and emotions are all in alignment. Being “in integrity” is a wonderful experience, and most of us know instinctively when we are there. But, as we also learn, Integrity is even more powerful when we synchronize our alignment with our sacred Purpose for being. When we create this kind of alignment, we feel inspired and motivated, perhaps even unstoppable!

No-one is “in integrity” 100% of the time; we all slip-up occasionally. Thankfully, one of the other tools we learn about in Alignment Ridge is Accountability, which enables us to perform some powerful introspection to find out how we got off track, and to create a new commitment to find our way back to our chosen path.

Situation

It has come to your attention that your thoughts, words, actions and emotions are not aligned with each other, or at odds in some way with your purpose for being. As a result, you are feeling a sense of disorientation or confusion about your life. This may be creating a story loop in your mind with thoughts similar to these:

I have no idea where I am or where I’m supposed to be going.
I’ve completely forgotten my commitments, and I seem to be wandering around aimlessly.
My life is in chaos! How did this happen?
Nothing makes sense at the moment! Why am I doing this? How did I get off track?
<So-and-so> is going to be pissed at me; how can I make this right?

Recommendation

Being out of integrity is a pretty common state. Everyone experiences it from time to time, because, as humans, we all make mistakes. So, first and foremost, be gentle with yourself and make sure to approach this issue with love and compassion.

Begin by determining if you are out of integrity because of a broken agreement with someone else, or if you are simply out of integrity with yourself—in which case you may have forgotten or violated a commitment to yourself. Regardless of the situation, you can use this self-accountability process to get back on track.

Find a quiet place to journal your responses to the following:

What was the agreement or commitment I failed to honor?
What choices did I make (conscious or unconscious) that led me to slip out of integrity with respect to this agreement/commitment?
What were the consequences of these choices?
What possible unconscious beliefs do I have that may have led to these choices in the first place?
What is the source of these beliefs? Where might they have originated in my earlier life?
Now that I have a better understanding of what drove my choices, what can I do to take full responsibility for the consequences I created?
What new commitment can I make (to myself or to the other party) so as to challenge myself to grow from this learning and to regain my alignment with my purpose?

If your agreement/commitment was with another person, you will find it very empowering and liberating to approach that person from a place of vulnerability, and own your mis-step, offer any apology if required, and re-commit to your agreement.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Easy Do-It-Yourself
This card will tell you how things are now…

Dark Forest

Shadow

Overview

Each of us has parts or aspects of ourselves that we try to keep hidden from the rest of the world. We do this—consciously or unconsciously—because we have a negative belief about those parts: they are somehow unacceptable, inappropriate, bad or wrong. And what’s worse, because these parts exist within our overall makeup, we inadvertently come to believe that we are somehow defective or broken.

As we learn in Dark Forest, the truth is that our Shadows are actually very powerful aspects of ourselves, and if we simply take the time to meet, engage, understand and eventually embrace them, we will have a much deeper and more intimate knowing of who we really are. And this has only positive implications for the kinds of lives we are destined to live.

Situation

There is something on your horizon that you really want. It could be something that you want to obtain, or something that you want to achieve. You feel a powerful kind of hunger within you to be in a space where you actually have this, whatever it is. The problem is, you also notice that there is a part of you that is holding you back in some way. The reluctance may be manifesting as a cold, tight feeling in your gut, or it may be showing up as a voice in your head that is making your desire look very dangerous—or it may be a combination of these things.

You have an unconscious belief that to achieve or obtain the thing you want will somehow end up causing you pain, so a Shadow within you is activated by that belief and is trying to hold you back from getting hurt.

Recommendation

Congratulations! You have become aware of one of your Shadows. It is probably not immediately obvious what this part of you is attempting to create with its actions; however, most of the time, when you get down to the deepest truth of the Shadow, it almost always seeks to create one of the four core states:

Being — characterized by words like presence, fullness, wholeness, and sovereignty.
Serenity — characterized by words like inner peace, calmness, contentedness, and safety.
Love — characterized by words like freedom, acceptance, honesty, and unconditional love.
Oneness — characterized by words like inclusion, belonging, family, and relationship.

If you want to find out what your Shadow is trying to accomplish, perform the steps of a simple “shadow interview”:

Bring your full attention to the part of you that is holding you back from getting what you want. Imagine this part as another person sitting across from you. Let this part know that you simply want to get to know him/her better and understand his/her perspective.
Find out what this part likes to be called, so you can address him/her properly. Sometimes the response to this question will be a name (could be your nick-name as a child), or it could be a role, such as “protector” or “guard dog” or some other role. Whatever name is offered, make sure to use that name for all subsequent questions.
Ask the part how long s/he has been around. Thank you for being here, <part’s name>. Can you tell me how long you have been present in <your own name>’s life? (Remember, you are trying to get information from the other part here, so during the interview you want to refer to yourself in the 3^rd person.)
Ask open-ended questions to get as much detail as you can from <part’s name> that help you to understand his/her motivation.
As you uncover more and more information, you will probably learn that this part experienced some kind of pain in your early life when trying to go after what s/he wanted. As a result of this experience, s/he may have adopted a coping strategy that kept him/her safe as a child. However, this strategy is no longer working, so you as the adult now have the opportunity to provide support to the immature part of yourself that is still using this now-dysfunctional approach.
Make sure to express deep gratitude to <part’s name> for trying to keep YOU safe, and for working so hard to bring Being, Serenity, Love, or Oneness into your life.
Point out that, as an adult, you now have powers and capabilities that you didn’t have as a child, and that you know that the current situation is something that you can handle. Let <part’s name> know that you are choosing to go ahead and go after what you want, and that you are prepared to deal with any risks that might show up.
Let <part’s name> know that you really appreciate the fact that s/he is looking out for your, and welcome any additional warnings that might come your way so that you can keep the dialog open.

This process is a very powerful way to bring awareness to one of your Shadow behaviors, and to convert that Shadow from a covert saboteur into an agent that can actually help you in your future endeavors.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Easy Do-It-For-You…
This card will tell you how things will be in the future…

Peaceful Heart Meadow

Acceptance

Overview

Our ego-minds spend a great deal of time trying to keep us safe—sometimes in ways that, on close inspection, may seem quite dysfunctional. We often find ourselves trying to make sense of our circumstances by putting our own spin on things—that is, we analyze, explain, justify, or interpret our situations without really making any effort to accept them as they are. In other words, we unconsciously tend to reject what is in favor of our own story or thinking about what is.

In Peaceful Heart Meadow, we begin to learn about the first Key Skill: Acceptance. As we become more aware of what is, our first priority is to accept it as it is. That is, we suspend our judgments, conclusions or stories about it, so that we can grok it more clearly for what it really is—rather than for what we think it is.

Acceptance is not about agreeing with anything; it’s not about condoning anything; it’s not about believing in anything. All of those actions—agreeing, condoning, believing—require you to analyze, explain, justify or interpret what is, which puts you back into your ego-mind, and disconnects you from your innate ability to accept. Acceptance is simply about being fully aware of what is and acknowledging it as such—in other words, Acceptance is Awareness without Story. If you get out of your head and into your heart, you engage your natural power to accept what is. Once you have accepted it for what it really is, then and only then can you actually do something about it.

Situation

You are in the center of a confluence of events and circumstances that will lead to a situation you will find intolerable or unacceptable. Your unconscious reaction to this situation will put you in a place of powerful resistance to what is happening, and your resistance will in turn complicate the situation and exacerbate your own discomfort and upset. If you are not careful, this may lead to additional hardship or heartbreak for you.

Recommendation

You may not be able to change or stop whatever circumstances are coming your way, but you can certainly prepare yourself so that you are able to deal with them from a place of calm equanimity. The way to do this is to practice Acceptance for situations that are relatively easy to accept; then, as you gain confidence in your ability, you will find that bringing the same level of Acceptance to more challenging situations will become easier.

For a situation which has not yet come into being, it may be difficult for you to cultivate an accepting attitude in advance. However, you can use the Future Presence process to help you:

Use your imagination to create a challenging but realistic scenario that has a reasonably high likelihood of coming to pass in your life. Put this scenario somewhere into your future, and imagine that it is something that is certain to happen.
In your mind travel forward to a time a few days following the event in question, and begin to imagine that you dealt with the situation with complete success, because you were able to fully accept it as it was.
In your mind, conduct a short interview with your future self. Ask him/her the following questions:

How did you stay fully present and aware during this difficult time?
When you found yourself resisting the situation, how did you bring yourself back to a place of Acceptance?
What difference did your Acceptance make in your handling of the situation?
What were you thinking as the situation progressed?
What were you feeling?
How do you feel now that the situation has passed?

Take note of all the answers that you get, and bring your new understanding back to the present moment.

Recognize and understand that you have the capability to accept any situation for what it is, no matter how challenging it might appear to be. You can use this new understanding to prepare you more fully for what is yet to come.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Assetizing…
This card will tell you how things are now…

Peaceful Heart Meadow

Acceptance

Overview

Situation

Something unpleasant, painful or tragic is happening in your life right now, and it has triggered many different reactions within you. In essence, your reactions are just variations of your overall rejection of the situation, and your rejection of what is merely increases your pain and discomfort without in any way changing the situation. Your desire to reject what’s happening may be quite understandable, because the situation itself is causing you pain and distress. Perhaps you are having thoughts like these:

This situation is completely unacceptable; I have to find a way to make it go away.
This can’t be happening to me…again!
If I accept this, then it means that I’m agreeing with it. I simply can’t allow that to happen.
I don’t like it; I don’t want it; I don’t choose it. I refuse to allow it into my life.

Recommendation

If you’ve ever had a massage, then you probably remember a time when your massage therapist found a place on your body that felt painful to the touch. And when that happened, you probably had an instant reaction to tense your body and protect yourself from the pain. Interestingly, however, if you allowed yourself to consciously relax the muscles and accept the temporary pain of the therapist’s touch, then pretty quickly the pain subsided and the movement of the therapist’s hands actually relieved some deep-rooted tension, and therefore provided some much needed healing.

Think of Acceptance in the same way. Your current situation may be unpleasant or painful, but you can alleviate that pain significantly simply by acknowledging it, relaxing into it and allowing your breath to carry it away.

Find a quiet place where you can follow this simple process to help you return to a place of acceptance:

Take some deep breaths to ground yourself and bring yourself into the present moment. Bring attention to your emotions, thoughts, and physical sensations. Avoid any judgments, interpretations or conclusions as you do this. Just keep breathing gently and maintain your perspective as an observer.
When you feel sufficiently present and relaxed, allow your inner observer to take a closer look at the issue that has been triggering resistance. What is it about this issue that agitates you to the point that you want to push it away? Does the issue bring up any self-judgments or stories that challenge your ability to stay present? Again, avoid any judgments as you do this; simply observe the situation and what it brings up for you.
Bring the energy of compassion and forgiveness to yourself for the way you are reacting to the situation. Imagine that you are wrapping yourself in a big, unconditionally loving hug. Remind yourself that everything about you is perfectly okay—including any reaction or feeling you may have had up to now.
Take a few more deep breaths, and simply release your energy of resistance. Imagine that you putting all the resistance energy into an expanding balloon; imagine opening a window in your heart and allowing that balloon simply to float off into the distance. Watch it disappear over the horizon, never to come back into your body.
Take a few more deep breaths, and see yourself accepting your situation exactly as it is. It is neither good nor bad, right nor wrong; it simply is what it is. In your mind’s eye, see yourself examining the situation from all angles, maximizing your awareness of everything it contains.
Take some time now to honor yourself for bringing yourself back to a place of acceptance.

At this point, you have really completed the exercise. Give yourself some time to let the process anchor within you. After sufficient time has passed, and you believe you have fully accepted the situation for what it is, you will find yourself better equipped to decide exactly what steps you want to take to move forward.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Automated Modeling
This card will tell you how things are now…

Sacred Mirror Falls

Identity

Overview

People everywhere experience societal pressure to conform to what others expect of them. We are drilled from a very early age to be nice, to fit in, to put others’ needs ahead of our own, and so on. We are told not to rock the boat, not to make waves. And if by chance we fail to abide by all these rules, then we run the risk of losing someone’s disapproval, or maybe being shunned, or even worse.

Unfortunately, in order to meet the demands of these rules and regulations, we often end up disowning ourselves. We put on masks and costumes in order to appear publicly the way we believe others want to see us. In doing so, our true selves get lost, and we often end up feeling unhappy, disillusioned, depressed or angry.

In Sacred Mirror Falls, you are taken into a deep exploration of Identity—that is, the essence and meaning of who you really are—and how you can maintain your sovereignty and uniqueness while still honoring the protocols that society puts in place.

Situation

You are showing up in your life in ways that you believe other people want to experience you. This could manifest in a variety of ways:

You may be putting aside your own wants and needs in order to accommodate the wants and needs of others.
You may be saying (or doing) things in order to avoid confrontation or conflict, rather than speaking your genuine truth.
You may be resorting to humor, perhaps even to excess, in order to get people to like you or approve of you.
You may be adopting a perfectionist approach to your life out of some unconscious belief that it is not okay to make mistakes.

These strategies, and others like them, may actually work to some extent in getting the kind of approval or acknowledgment you are seeking. But they also have a negative impact on your self-worth, because deep down inside you know you are not being your authentic self, and one thing you want more than counterfeit approval or acknowledgment is to be seen and experienced for who you really are.

Recommendation

At the moment, you are being driven by unconscious beliefs about how life operates, so it is important to shed light on these beliefs so that you can understand and accept them for what they are. This will require some deep and tender introspection. You can begin by asking yourself questions like the following:

What are my beliefs about how I’m supposed to show up in the world?
What are my beliefs about how the world responds to me?
How did I come to believe that I am obligated to please others or put my needs aside for them?
What might happen if I spoke my truth in all situations, rather than trying to avoid conflict all the time?
What would I lose if I stopped being the “joker” or “class clown“?

Bring compassion and forgiveness to yourself as you ask these questions. Try not to judge yourself in any way; simply observe your answers and notice how you feel about them.

In your soul, you know that it is possible to accommodate people’s wants and needs without compromising your own. It is possible to bring authentic humor into situations when it is called for. It is possible to speak your truth in virtually all situations while still honoring the truth of others. It is possible to aim for perfection while allowing mistakes to guide you.

You also know it is possible for YOU to show up vulnerably and authentically as the shining light you are—while still allowing space for other’s lights to shine just as brightly. So, the real questions you can ask to get you back onto your true path are questions like these:

How can I show up in authentically in the world while honoring the authenticity of others?
How can I honor the wants and needs of others without compromising my own?
How can I speak my truth consistently and reduce the likelihood of conflict?
How can I allow the gentle flow of my natural humor in a way that contributes to every situation?

You will notice that all these questions begin with How can I… When you ask questions in this powerful way, you are inviting the Universe to feed authentic answers to you through your Soul. So, when you ask them, make sure you maintain your awareness so that you’ll be ready when the answers appear.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Cash Pumping In…
This card will tell you how things will be in the future…

Karma Crossroads

Choice

Overview

One thing that we all have available to us in every moment is Choice. It may not always seem that way, though.

Sometimes, some of the alternatives available to us may be completely unacceptable for any number of reasons, so it may seem that there is only one viable option, even if that last remaining option is distasteful—in which case, it is usually the least of all evils. When this happens, we may think that we really have no choice at all—or that we are forced into something we didn’t really want.

In other circumstances, we may be making our choices unconsciously. In this case, we may be operating on “auto-pilot”, making decisions without even being aware. The problem here is that, when we aren’t aware of our choices, then we are certainly not aware of their impact, and we may not realize how our actions are affecting the world around us.

In Karma Crossroads, we look at the concept of Choice in a new way, and we learn how to make our choices both consciously and responsibly.

Situation

New circumstances are approaching which will require you to make some potentially life-changing decisions. Your past tendency to put decisions of this type off until they “resolve themselves” may have worked to some degree for you in the past, but that approach is not going to work for you this time. If you apply that strategy in this case, the unintended consequences could create a lot of chaos—not to mention unpleasantness, pain and/or suffering—in your life.

Recommendation

Even a decision to do nothing is a choice—and it may be exactly the right choice for you under certain circumstances. But be clear: doing nothing is simply one of your available options. As long as you have examined all the options and evaluated their possible outcomes, then you are making that choice consciously—which is really the most important thing for you.

In order to prepare for whatever might be coming your way, you would be well advised to practice making all your choices as consciously as possible. The more important the situation, the more important the choice process. For every situation that shows up in your life, practice the following:

Examine and enumerate all the relevant options that are available. Write a list and make sure you haven’t missed anything.
For each option you have noted, write down all the relevant pros and cons you can think of. Include as much detail as you can for each one.
Run through the option list again, and this time, for each option, rate your level of enthusiasm on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is “not so crazy about it”, and 10 is “can’t wait to get started.”
For each of the most highly rated options (i.e. the ones you rated at 6 or higher), make a list of all the possible consequences that might come to pass if you make that choice. Notice whether you would be willing to take responsibility for that consequence or not.

When you have completed this process, you will have a very good idea which option is likely to produce the most desirable outcome—and whose unintended consequences you’d be most willing to accept. In this way, you are much better equipped to make a conscious, well-informed choice for which you’d be willing to take full responsibility.

This may seem like a lot to do for every choice that comes your way, so use it only for choices that feel really important to you. Also, the more you practice this process, the more efficient you will become, and soon the process will become for you more like a powerful meditation than a chore.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Awakening
This card will tell you how things will be in the future…

Alignment Ridge

Integrity

Overview

Situation

You will be faced with conditions and circumstances that will put at least two of your commitments in conflict with one another. You will find that you have to make choices that will pull you out of integrity with at least one of these commitments. Because you are a person who highly values integrity, this will cause you a great deal of inner turmoil; you will have difficulty making the necessary choices.

Recommendation

Whenever you have two or more commitments that come into conflict with each other, you are faced with a dilemma: Which commitment do I follow through on, and how do I minimize the damage when I break one of the others?

If you simply choose one commitment and forget about the other(s), then you risk damaging your relationship with the people involved in the broken commitments. This can get worse over time if you allow this sort of thing to happen repeatedly, because then people begin to see you as someone who doesn’t keep his/her word, who can’t be counted on, who “flakes out” and doesn’t follow through. This in turn leads to broken trust, which makes it very hard for people to stay in relationship with you. Most people will accept an apology once or twice, but after that, if there is no change in behavior, your fate is sealed with them.

So, what is the solution? Simple: Negotiation. This is a form of self-accountability because you are acknowledging that you somehow allowed two or more commitments to come into conflict with one another. You are taking responsibility for the choices you made to allow this to happen, and you are asking one or more of the people you committed to for permission to change the terms of the commitment(s).

You could approach the other party (or parties) and say something like the following:

I want to apologize to you because I’ve created a situation in which I have a conflict with the agreement I made with you. I will not be able to complete that commitment in the manner we agreed upon, and I would like to discuss with you how we might be able to re-structure the agreement in a mutually acceptable way.

The other person may not be in a position to modify the existing agreement, so you may have to try this approach with each of the other people involved. Whatever happens, make sure you approach each party with a genuine desire to find a mutually acceptable solution. Even if things don’t quite work out the way you want them to, at least you have made your best effort, preserved your integrity, and reduced the risk of broken trust with those people.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Igniting…
This card will tell you how things will be in the future…

Garden of Mercy

Compassion

Overview

It is pretty obvious that there is a lot of suffering in the world around us. And only the coldest of people would fail to feel empathy for this suffering, or to desire to find a way—no matter how small—to relieve it, or better yet, to eradicate it altogether. This internal drive to soothe or eliminate obvious suffering is what most of us recognize as Compassion, the key skill taught in Garden of Mercy. Compassion is a powerful force that, according to the Dalai Lama, is actually a primary pathway to happiness.

Ironically, while most of us have no difficulty experiencing or expressing compassion for others, all too often we have difficulty cultivating any level of compassion for ourselves and our own suffering. This is the main focus of the teaching of Garden of Mercy.

Situation

You will soon encounter circumstances involving a loved one that will challenge your natural ability to maintain your compassionate center. The loved one in question will be embroiled in circumstances of his/her own creation, resulting from some ill-considered or unconscious choices. If you allow yourself to go into reaction mode, you will find yourself berating your loved one, and making matters worse as a result of your own upset. You may also find yourself resorting to blaming or shaming statements, and telling your loved one things like “I told you so” or “You should have known better”.

Recommendation

Sometimes our loved ones do things that get them into trouble. This can be particularly difficult if the loved ones in question are children, in which case your role as a caring parent comes into play and you feel compelled to step in and help out—especially if your child is experiencing a lot of pain or suffering as a result of his/her choice. If the loved one happens to be an adult child, then things get complicated, because now you have to balance your desire to relieve suffering with the child’s need to experience the full impact of his/her choice. Of course, if the loved one in question is not one of your children, then your response will vary accordingly.

When a loved one gets into a challenging situation of his/her own creation, and it has a direct (negative) impact on you personally, you may find it difficult to remain grounded and compassionate. One of the first things you can do in this case to help remain grounded is to remember that, at one time or another in your life, you may have made a similar choice—a choice that caused problems for a lot of people you cared about. In other words, take a moment to walk a mile in the other person’s shoes.

Remember your own situation, and the pain and suffering you caused as a result of your choice. Remember how that felt. You probably experienced some guilt or shame about it, and you probably deeply regretted what you had done, but in the face of the impact you created, people around you may not have wanted to hear about that; perhaps their reaction was less than compassionate, and it may have seemed as if they wanted you to suffer even more.

Now consider your loved one. As a result of his/her choice, s/he may be going through a very similar experience as you did, so you can empathize with this person, and you can approach him/her from a place of loving compassion. You can commiserate; you can share a little about your own experience; you can listen to understand more about the choice that was made. And when that is all done, you can help the other person find ways to make reparations.

Remember, we are all here on this physical plane to express and experience the truth of who we really are. In doing that, we sometimes make choices that cause pain for others. Whenever that happens, we must remember to treat ourselves with compassion and to forgive ourselves whenever necessary. And we must be willing to take responsibility for our choices, and make amends if appropriate.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).

Focusing…
This card will tell you how things will be in the future…

Ayuwi Circle

Relationship

Overview

Imagine a world in which you are completely alone. No other people. No animals or plants. No other life of any kind. And no inanimate objects of any kind, either. Sounds pretty desolate, to be sure. And yet, if you think about it for a moment, you might ask yourself this question: in the absence of all these things, how would you know who YOU really are?

It is a perplexing question, one well worth considering, for it brings us all face-to-face with a head-slapping realization: that we need all those other things (people, animals, inanimate objects, and so on) in our lives so that we can relate to them. And by relating to all those entities, we get to experience ourselves for who we really are.

That is what Ayuwi Circle teaches us: that Relationship is the single most powerful tool available to us in the physical realm for fully expressing and experiencing who we really are. In other words, relationships—all relationships—are sacred!

Situation

You are headed for troubled waters in one of your closest relationships. The other person will engage in a seemingly trivial behavior that will trigger a reaction within you. However, in the interest of “keeping the peace”, you will minimize the event and decide not mention it. In the following days or weeks, the other person will engage in other “trivial” behaviors that you will also minimize and stay silent about. Eventually, the build up of energy from your silent reactions will reach a breaking point, and you will react in a much more emotional, possibly even explosive, way.

Recommendation

The scenario described above is not uncommon, especially in close or intimate relationships. The problem is, we value our primary relationships and we want them to go well, so we may find ourselves choosing not to mention these so-called “trivial” problems because we believe that we’ll be seen as petty or nagging.

Unfortunately, if you withhold the truth about the internal reaction you are experiencing because of something your partner does, you are inadvertently creating a barrier to closer communication with him/her. It may be a very small barrier at first, and your partner may not even notice. But when the next trigger or “ouch” occurs and you again choose to remain silent, then you are effectively adding another “brick” in the wall between you and your partner. As more and more “bricks” are added, you become more and more sensitive to the things that your partner does, and soon enough, you won’t be able to contain your reaction anymore, and you will will over-react in a way that makes no sense at all to your partner!

To avoid this kind of problem, it really helps to develop a relationship practice of Sharing Withholds. This is a highly conscious process that requires you to step through your fear and into your courage, in order to share with your partner what is going on for you. The process in NOT about shaming or blaming your partner for whatever s/he did, nor is it about trying to get him/her to change in any way. Rather, it is about honestly and vulnerably sharing your own reaction—using Self-Responsible First Person Communication. It goes like this:

Connect to your inner compassion and unconditional love, and approach your partner. Say something like this: Partner, I have a withhold I’d like to share with you. Are you willing to hear it? If your partner says yes, then continue with the process; otherwise, ask for a time when s/he’d be willing to hear what you have to say and come back later.
Continue with your own share: Thank you for being available for this. When you did <describe the behavior without judgment>, I found myself feeling triggered. I felt <describe what you were feeling> and I noticed that I began reacting internally the way I reacted as a child whenever <describe the childhood situation that caused you pain>. I know you are not my <parent/guardian/whoever may have caused this pain>, and I do not want to create distance from you. I just wanted to share this with you so that you understand what’s going on for me.
Pause to allow your partner to digest what you have shared. Your partner should simply say, Thank you for sharing this with me. Would you like me to respond to your share?
You can say yes or no, whatever seems true for you in the moment. This may or may not lead to further discussion with your partner.
Close the process with a shared hug, as appropriate in your relationship.

If you and your partner practice this kind of sharing on a regular basis, you will find your relationship growing stronger by the day.

For more information about this topic, please see the full program at Life Mastery Way (and remember the name of your card).