Silence is not neutral. In the PLT Framework, there is no such thing as a neutral silence.
Every silence in a relationship or business context is either a deposit or a withdrawal. Either you are holding something that should be spoken — and running Tax — or you are holding something correctly, at the right moment, for strategic reasons.
Craig Jones identifies five types of silence in his book The Silence:
The Strategic Hold — silence deployed with intention. Information withheld at the right moment. This is positive Profit.
The Avoidant Silence — the conversation not had because it's uncomfortable. Pure Tax.
The Punishing Silence — silence used as a weapon. Destroys Love while pretending to protect it.
The Exhausted Silence — having said everything, said nothing more. This is different from avoidance.
The Earned Silence — the silence that follows complete honesty. Nothing left to say. Rare.
"The conversation you are not having is not a silence. It is a Tax."
The PLT practitioner audits their silences. What are you not saying? To whom? Since when? What is the Tax accumulating? The audit doesn't require you to speak everything — it requires you to know what you're deferring and choose it consciously.
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