I had never heard of Don Miguel Ruiz or The Four Agreements, but my curiosity was piqued when a professor I worked with recommended it. We were just chatting about our winter break, and he mentioned his conflicts with his mother. I could see pain on his face. To make him feel better, I said, “It’s not your fault that she is difficult; it is what it is. People don’t change.” He looked at me and smiled, “No, it’s NOT my fault. I decided long ago not to take things personally. She’s always been that way, and it’s not my job to make her happy.” Then he told me about this book, and how he lives by the Four Agreements.
It’s a very slim book (I was expecting a big psychology tome, but it’s more a Jonathan Livingston Seagull than Stumbling upon Happiness), and the writing is frequently repetitive (a common problem in many New Age spiritual books, as if the message needs to be delivered as a lengthy chant, drilled into our mind by repetition). However, I find the ideas illuminating and make a lot of sense. The philosophy is very similar to that of Yoga. Let’s be honest, attaining personal freedom is a VERY VERY challenging process, and will possibly remain a life-long work-in-progress. We are (or at least I am) too “domesticated” (in the author’s words) by society and culture to set ourselves free easily, no matter how inspired we were when we read the book. The habits and thoughts are so deeply ingrained that they have become part of us (or in Ruiz’s words, “like parasites”). However, being aware is a good beginning.
Inspiration Quotes (or paraphrases)
Children are domesticated the same way that we domesticate a dog… with a system of punishment and reward… We soon develop a need to hook other people’s attention in order to get the reward… With that fear of being punished and that fear of not getting the reward, we start pretending to be what we are not, just to please others, just to be good enough for someone else… because we are afraid of being rejected.
The fear of rejection becomes the fear of not being good enough… Eventually, we become someone that we are not… we become a copy of someone else’s beliefs.
The domestication is so strong that at a certain point in our lives we no longer need anyone to domesticate us… We are so well trained that we are our own domesticator. We can now domesticate ourselves according to the same belief system we were given, and using the same system of punishment and reward.
The belief system is like a Book of Law that rules our mind. Without question, whatever is in the Book of Law, is our truth. The inner Judge uses what is in our Book of Law to judge everything we do and don’t do, everything we think and don’t think, and everything we feel and don’t feel. The punishment is shame.
There is another part of us that receives the judgments, and this part is called the Victim. The Victim carries the blame, the guilt, and the shame. It is the part of us that says “Poor me, I am not good/intelligent/attractive enough, I’m not worthy of love, poor me.” Breaking the rules in the Book of Law opens your emotional wounds, and your reaction is to create emotional poison, creating Fear.
Agreement #1: Be impeccable with your word.
Through the word you express your creative power… and… manifest everything. All the magic you possess is based on your word. We cast spells all the time with our opinions. During our domestication, our family gave their opinions about us without even thinking. We believed these opinions and we lived in fear over these opinions… By hooking our attention, the word can enter our mind and change a whole belief for better or for worse.
Impeccability means “without sin.” A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Sin begins with rejection of yourself. Being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself.
Mostly we use the word to spread our personal poison – to express anger, jealousy, envy, and hate. Gossip is black magic at its very worst because it is pure poison. We learned how to gossip by agreement. Emotional poison was transferred along with the opinions, and we learned this as the normal way to communicate. Every single time others gossip to you, they insert a computer virus into your mind, causing you to think a little less clearly every time.
We talk to ourselves constantly and most of the time negatively. Change first in the way you deal with yourself, and later in the way you deal with other people. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word.
Agreement #2: Don’t take anything personally.
You take it personally because you agree with was said. As soon as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you are trapped in the dream of hell. Personally importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about “me.” We think we are responsibility for everything.
Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind, in their own world different from your own.
Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their points of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.
You eat all the emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. You feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts.
It is not important to me what you think about me. I don’t have the need to be accepted. I don’t have the need to have someone tell me, “…, you are doing so good!” or “How dare you do that!”, because I know who I am. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem.
You create an entire picture or movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director, the producer, and the main actor. The way you see the movie is according to the agreements you have made in life. Your point of view is something personal to you. It is no one’s truth but yours. If you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself. And you get mad because you are afraid. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will be jealous or sad.
Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you don’t need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally. Our mind can talk and listen to itself… with conflicting agreements.
Humans are addicted to suffering… and we support each other in maintaining these addictions. Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves (as you do to yourself). It is painful to take that social mask off.
As you make a habit of not taking anything personally, you won’t need to place your trust in what others do or say. You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices. You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you. You can travel around the world with your heart completely open, say what you mean without guilty or self-judgment.
Agreement #3: Don’t make assumptions.
We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything, and believe they are the truth. All the sadness and drama are rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally. We only see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear. We literarily dream things up in our imaginations.
Interesting way the human mind works: we have the need to justify everything, to explain and understand everything, in order to feel safe. It is not important if the answer is correct; just the answer itself makes us feel safe. This is why we make assumptions.
We make the assumptions that everyone sees life the way we do, think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge, and abuse the way we abuse. This is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others. Because we think everyone else will judge us, victimize us, abuse us, and blame us as we do ourselves. So even before others have a chance to reject us, we have already rejected ourselves. We even make assumptions about ourselves.
Your love will not change anybody. If others change, it’s because they want to change, not because you can change them. Real love is accepting other people the way they are without trying to change them. We have to be who we are, so we don’t have to present a false image. Practice “take me or leave me.”
The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to (have the courage to) ask questions. Find your voice to ask for what you want. Everybody has the right to tell you no or yes, but you always have the right to ask.
Agreement #4: Always do your best, no more and no less.
Your best can change with circumstances, but keep doing your best, but no more and no less than your best. If you try too hard to do more than your best, you deplete your body and go against yourself, but if you do less than your best, you subject yourself to frustrations, self-judgment, guilt, and regrets.
Action is about living fully, taking the risk to go out and express your dream. Inaction is the way that we deny life out of fear. When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the moment. You were born with the right to be happy. We don’t need to know or prove anything. Just to be, to take a risk, and enjoy your life, is all that matters. You don’t need knowledge or great philosophical concepts. You don’t need the acceptance of others. You express your own divinity by being alive and by loving yourself and others.
Your own body is a manifestation of God, so honor it.
Most of the time we do things just to please others, just to be accepted by others, rather than living our lives to please ourselves.
Three ways to attain personal freedom:
Face each of our fears, one by one – do things to establish the new agreements.
Controlling your own behavior. Every day we awake with a certain amount of mental, emotional, and physical energy that we spend throughout the day. If we allow our emotions to deplete our energy, we have no energy to change our lives or to give to others. The way we see the world depends upon the emotions you are feeling.
We have a dysfunctional dream of the planet, and humans are mentally sick with a disease called fear. The first step to cure is forgive those we fell have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don’t want to keep paying for the injustice. The problem with most people is that they lose control of their emotions, saying things that they don’t want to say, and doing things that they don’t want to do.
Embrace the angel of death – to live every day as if it were the last day of your life. Be grateful for another day on earth, for the opportunity to be yourself again, and for having the things and people you have in your life.
I had a Downton Abbey marathon this weekend, watching the show from S1E1 to the latest. Let’s just say, the mania is real! I didn’t buy into the hype when it first came out; in fact, I watched about 5 minutes of it on Netflix, and moved on.
