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…

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

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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).

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

Destiny Point

Purpose

Overview

Everyone has a reason for being here in the physical world. The problem is that many of us aren’t really aware of our true Purpose. Instead, we follow our inner desires and passions (which are often influenced by ego-minds that want us to show up so as to conform to the expectations of the world), and end up in places and situations that we didn’t really have in mind. This is because we were following a default purpose instead of a true spiritual purpose.

In Destiny Point, we dive deep into the concept of Purpose and discover ways to know with conviction why we are really here. Then we take our understanding and apply it to all of our choices, agreements, and commitments going forward.

Situation

Recently, you have been experiencing a kind of aimlessness or pointlessness in your life. You have been questioning yourself and wondering why you are doing a lot of the things you are doing. You are likely noticing thoughts like the following in your mind:

  • What is the point of this job | relationship | life | etc.?
  • Nothing about my life makes any sense right now.
  • I can’t figure out which way I’m supposed to go!

Depending on the frequency and intensity of these thoughts and stories, you may be feeling some hopelessness or despair, or possibly even some mild depression. Your condition may well be related to a disconnection from your Purpose for being.

Recommendation

Having a powerful connection to your Purpose can do wonders for improving your outlook on life. Your Purpose serves as a type of internal navigation system that can guide you in every area of your life; as such, it gives you a way to focus your energy and ensure that everything you think, say, do or feel is aligned in the best direction for your life. Being disconnected from your Purpose is much like turning off your internal navigation system. You end up driving blind, so to speak, which makes it very hard to get where you want to go. In truth, your internal navigation system is never really off-line; you may just be in a situation where you are not paying attention to it.

Reconnecting to your Purpose can be pretty straight-forward.

  1. Bring awareness to your situation—awareness of what is going on around you and within you. Notice, in particular, all the ways that your behavior is out of alignment with your Purpose.
  2. Notice whether you have deviated from your Purpose because of any external factors. Are you allowing yourself to be lured away by other things that may seem more interesting? Are you perhaps being manipulated by an unconscious desire to do things that others want you to do, even though you know they aren’t necessarily right for you? Have you perhaps forgotten your Purpose altogether?
  3. Whatever you discover, be gentle with yourself, and honor yourself for having the courage to be honest with yourself.
  4. To reconnect to your Purpose, you can do this short visualization. In a seated position with your eyes closed, allow yourself to breathe slowly and gently. As you become more relaxed, see yourself sitting at the top of a hill that allows you to see in all directions. Imagine that the world below you is exactly like the world of your deepest heart’s desire. See the people below interacting with one another in a way that supports your vision of the ideal world. See that everyone’s needs are all met, and that your world is in total harmony. Now, ask yourself this question: What part to I play in creating this world of my dreams? How do I show up to make it a reality? Allow the answers to bubble up into your awareness, knowing that they are written indelibly in your memory. Allow yourself to come back to the present moment.
  5. Take some time to journal your experience. Write down the words that describe the world of your dreams. These will typically be inspirational adjectives, and you may have many of them. Then write down all the things you saw yourself doing (action words) to bring that world into reality.

The combination of vision and action that you harvest from your visualization is the core of your Purpose for being. Write it down, anchor it into your body, and bring it consciously into your daily life. Let it inform everything you think, say, do or feel from this moment onward.

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…

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

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).

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

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

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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…

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 have been struggling with something in your life lately, and it’s making you a little crazy! Normally, when you see someone else struggling, you don’t seem to have any problem feeling compassion for him or her. But when you find yourself struggling, it’s a different story, isn’t it? You aren’t very kind to yourself, are you? In fact, you tend to berate yourself—beat yourself up, so to speak—in a manner which generates more internal pain and makes your suffering that much more intense. And that is the real challenge you are facing at present.

Recommendation

First and foremost, it’s important to be gentle with yourself, no matter what is going on in your life. But right now in particular, reconnecting to your Compassion will help ease the pain and suffering of your current situation, and will help you to unblock yourself from the solutions that will facilitate your way through your struggle.

Begin by feeling some gratitude for the fact that you have become aware of this issue. Even though you may be feeling emotional pain about your situation, if you can allow a little bit of gratitude to come into your heart, you will immediately begin opening the door to your Compassion. So, say out loud “Thank you for bringing this issue to my attention. Now that I am more fully are, I choose to begin bringing healing energy to my circumstances.” Empowering intentional statements like these have an amazing ability to invoke the entire loving machinery of the universe, so take advantage of that and watch how quickly you find resolution.

Sit quietly now, and imagine that your Suffering Self is a little child sitting right before you. You know this child better than anyone, so you know exactly what the child is feeling and experiencing. Invite the energy of the Ideal Parent into your own awareness, and allow your inner knowing of what it means to be an Ideal Parent to bring unconditional love to the child. Speak to the child the way you would want to have been addressed when you were little. Say the things that you know this child really needs to hear. Let him/her know that you are here to be fully supportive—without judgment or condition or restriction. Just listen to what the child has to say, and ask questions to help you understand exactly what is up for the child. As the child continues speaking, open your heart and your arms to welcome the child into your lap. Whatever the child is feeling, simply allow those feelings to come out on their own, and welcome them with as much love as you can.

After a while, the child’s pain will subside, and you can then address the subject of the life challenge that brought up all the pain in the first place. Find out what you can do as the Ideal Parent to help the child resolve the issue. Trust that a solution will appear in your awareness. Discuss your ideas with the child, until you come to a mutual understanding for the best approach that you can take together.

Before you release the child, remind him/her that you are always here to provide support, and that anything that s/he is feeling is perfectly okay, even if it feels painful. Express love and gratitude for the willingness of the child to open up to you. Express love and gratitude that you have reconnected to your own Compassion for yourself, and that you have found a way to move forward with your challenge.

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…

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

Conditions are coming into being that will trigger unconscious resistance in you. You will find yourself looking for ways to avoid certain people or circumstances, and you may not be fully aware of this tendency. You may hear an inner voice warning you of some kind of unspecified danger, or strongly suggesting other activities that will keep you away from this situation.

Recommendation

When your Shadow activates, it works behind the scenes. Since it represents a part of you that you disavowed or disowned at an earlier time in your life, it tries to stay out of sight. This Shadow initially came into being because of an unconscious negative belief you took on when you were younger—likely as the result of a painful or traumatic experience—and it adopted whatever coping strategy you discovered for dealing with similar experiences that appeared to be creating the same kind of pain or trauma.

The situation today is that, even though you are much older and wiser than when you experienced the childhood pain that started this dynamic, you are still unconsciously using the same coping strategy—even though it almost certainly no longer works for you! Your Shadow is still alive and well behind the scenes, and whenever it detects a situation even remotely similar to the one that happened when you were a child, it automatically goes into self-protection mode and starts implementing its innate coping strategy. Meanwhile, you are still trying to live your life and do the things you do, but your Shadow—in its zeal to keep you safe—somehow takes over and manages to run the show, sometimes creating chaos in the process.

The solution here is for you to raise your awareness and bring your own Shadow into the light. You must remember that your Shadow is trying to create one of the four core states: Being, Serenity, Love, or Oneness. It is simply using a strategy that no longer achieves the desired result.

Create a safe and quiet place where you can relax and know you are totally safe. Do the following:

  1. Bring your awareness to the Shadow within you, and let it know that you are here simply to provide love and support.
  2. Speak to the Shadow as if it were a small child, and invite it to come closer so that you can hold it in your lap. See yourself as a loving parent who is trying to soothe his/her own little child. Just be totally present for this child, without judgment or condition, and make yourself available to listen to whatever the child has to say. Some of the following questions might be helpful:
    • What do you imagine is going to happen?
    • Does this remind you of something else that happened to you at a different time?
    • What happened to you as a result of that similar situation?
    • How did you feel because of what happened to you?
    • What did you come to believe about yourself or the world because of that situation?
    • And so you adopted the strategy of <describe the strategy> because it kept you safe, right?
  3. Once you have answers to these questions, you (as the adult) can now begin bringing some loving support to the small child. You might say something like the following:
    I am really sorry that that happened to you, and that there was no-one there to protect you when you needed protection the most. I am proud of you for finding your own way to keep yourself safe. That really worked for you for a long time, so thank you for doing that. It just shows how resourceful and thoughtful you were. But I am here now. I am an adult with adult powers, and I can do things that I could not do when I was a child. I am here to keep you safe and protect you. You no longer need to take care of me—that is my job, not yours. So, I release you from your job of trying to keep me safe, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you have done for me.
  4. You may find that the child will release some tears, and you might do the same. Just let that happen, and allow the love to flow between you.
  5. When you are ready, release the child, and allow him/her to go off and play, like a child should be able to do.
  6. Take note of how you are feeling, and embrace the full power of who you really are.

After this process is complete, you will be much better prepared to deal with future situations that trigger the pain and reaction of old wounds.

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…

Nama Station

Forgiveness

Overview

When we are caught up in the dramas of our ego-minds, it is easy for us to fall into the habit of playing the BS Game—that is, the “Blame-Shame Game”. When someone else does something that causes us discomfort, upset or pain, we put ourselves into the role of victim and the other person into the role of perpetrator. In this way, we give all our power away to the perpetrator—who may not even be aware of the fact that s/he has done something “wrong”. In allowing ourselves to slip into this finger-pointing pattern, we often end up creating even more pain and upset for ourselves, while secretly hoping for the other person to suffer.

Nama Station teaches us about the powerful healing capabilities of Forgiveness, a tool whose sole purpose is to give ourselves permission to release ourselves from our own pain and suffering. When we forgive, it really has nothing to do with the so-called perpetrator! It is really all about letting go of something over which we have no control, and—without forgetting or condoning or agreeing with actual bad behavior—releasing ourselves from the prison of our own negative thinking, and reclaiming our power.

Situation

Someone in your life will do something that directly impacts you in a negative or malicious or painful way. A person with whom you are personally or professionally involved will do something that violates your boundaries in some way or breaks a trust with you. You will find yourself doing a lot of repair work to clean up the damage, so this situation may also result in damage to your name or your reputation.

Recommendation

Knowing that you are on a collision course with an unpleasant and potentially painful interaction with someone can certainly be unnerving. However, worrying about what might or might not happen in the future is not a very productive (or effective) way to prepare for it. As someone on a path to Life Mastery, you are certainly more interested in living your life in the present moment as much as possible.

So how can you prepare for this kind of event in your life? In a word, Pre-Forgiveness. That’s right, forgiveness in advance. It may sound a little strange, but it is a powerful tool that you can engage any time you find yourself worrying about something that someone in your life might do. Here’s how it works:

  1. Imagine that you are in the future and the event has already happened, bringing with it whatever discomfort, unpleasantness, or pain it might have contained. Imagine that you have already experienced your reaction or response to the situation and that you understand this person was doing something out of his/her own fear or pain and wasn’t intentionally trying to hurt you.
  2. Notice how you feel about all that has happened. Just be with the feelings that show up within you and allow them to pass through you.
  3. Notice any judgments you may have about the other person, and allow them to pass as well.
  4. Tap into your own powerful sense of compassion, recognize that you too have done things like this that caused pain for others, and begin to feel unconditional love flowing from your heart to the heart of the other person.
  5. Say the words out loud: “I forgive you”. See yourself offering this gift of forgiveness to the other person, without condition, without expectation of any particular result.

Bring yourself back to the present moment, and notice how you feel now, having actively forgiven this person. Realize that you completed this process without even knowing for sure who the other person might be. There is great power in this Pre-Forgiveness process and you can use it anytime, anywhere. Let this be an ongoing practice for you on your continuing path to Life Mastery.

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…

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

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).

Focusing…
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).