Honoring the Four Agreements
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz is a wise reminder of how to operate in this world detached from negative ego, reactivity and lower emotions that seem to dominate our ordinary lives. Like much wisdom, the agreements are simple. When applied, they will enable you to transform your state from one dominated by suffering and lower frequency emotions such as fear and anxiety to make space for more peace, joy and freedom in your life.
Radical, right?! Here’s the cliff notes on how to do this:
- Be impeccable with your word. Simple, and challenging. Because this relates to personal boundaries as well as speaking your truth. For instance, if you are committed to making space in your life for what is important to you; then, you have to be able to be in action with your words. So if you are committed to your health, and you say “yes” to other activities and commitments to other people that fill your day, you are not using your voice/power to make time for exercise or healthy nutrition. Perhaps you can use loving words to speak your truth, practice self-love, and compassion for you and others?
This means verbalizing forgiveness too. Often, we need to forgive ourselves for not speaking our truth, and begin again. Patience and compassion advised.
2. Do not take things personally. Haha, chew on that. No, seriously. This was the hardest agreement for me to realize, and the most liberating. Ever found yourself in victim mode, where it feels like your misery is a result of all the things being done to you? Feel the heavy weight of chaos and frustration over the things you can’t control?
Yup, that was me. Every time someone did something that hurt me or had a negative impact on my life, I took personal offense. I thought they must be doing it directly to me, made up stories about how they didn’t think I was worthy enough to be considered or treated with respect. Even today, I catch my ego putting me in the “rationale” spiral of thoughts about how this person did this to me on purpose… Wow, turbo. Most people go through life without self-awareness, they don’t think about consequences of actions nor are they awake to the why or impact they will have. Ironically, by allowing myself to take things personally, I am operating in the same fog, I am caught up in the past. Reliving what happened, making up stories about why, making someone right or wrong.
Now, how much energy have I invested and wasted presently on something I can’t change or control?
Best to let go of attachments, and focus on what you can control, your emotional state (which is really a reaction to the past) and how to harness that energy by learning from the past and making progression action in the present.
3. Don’t make assumptions. Piggy-backing off the second agreement, if you make an assumption about a person or a result, you will be acting from the past. Making a choice based off pre-conceived beliefs does not allow for the beauty of the unknown to come in. It does not make room for progress or growth. How can there be space for more love in your life if you have already decided how your relationship will go? How can you allow for opportunity for your business to grow during an economic crash, when you have already decided that there is no hope?
Assumptions suffocate hope, hope is the air of creation. Creation is vitality.
4. Do your best at whatever you action you are attempting. This doesn’t mean perfection in every action, it’s more like striving towards perfection is perfect. Aka, be present with your actions and do the best you can in that moment. When you know you have done your best given the circumstances at hand, you are free to let go of attachment to the results from action taken. You are less likely to dwell on the action in your mind and more free to live in the present moment. For example, I am a writer and since it is not my career, I set goals (block out time for writing and schedule topics) so I can succeed in my goals. If I don ‘t block out the time, I don’t write, and the ideas don’t get shared.
The inspiration does not flow through me, unless I commit to all four agreements to get it done. Having the time blocked off enables me to focus with clarity and attention on the result I want to achieve, and I walk away knowing I have done my best given my parameters. When my time gets hijacked, I feel totally out of alignment; because I know I did not do my best to make the time to flow the energy and complete my goal.
Additionally, Don Miguel Ruiz co-authored a book on a fifth agreement. This agreement is deep and does not require merging with the other agreements. However, it is important to reflect on the fifth agreement at historical present.
Bonus:
5. Be skeptical; but learn to listen. Be skeptical is really to master discernment in your life. There are many truths and many realities in this life, as well as one unified reality of time and space. Since we are all individuals with different life experiences, we operate on different truths. That truth is filtered through a lens polluted with beliefs and life experiences (possibly even traumas). Humans are mirrors for each other. What a person or media says, may cause a triggered reaction from you. This reaction is based on the lens from which you are filtering the information. Simultaneously, that person or entity has an objective/motive or intention for speaking their “truth” which has been polluted through perception.
Basically, life is one big game of telephone. And your objective is to progress and expand your understanding of life while learning how to discern what is truth or reality.
Learn to listen from your heart instead of your mind (which is polluted with ego, emotion, and beliefs), trust your intuition (exercise it by practicing discernment), question reality, seek truth. Know there are many truths and have compassion.
In the end, we are all doing our best:)
I would love to hear from you on which agreement was most challenging for you and how you found the agreements… Namaste!
