Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Four Agreements

The Four Agreements


In the best selling book The Four Agreements don Miguel Ruiz gives four principles to practice in order to create love and happiness in your life. The Four Agreements are powerful in their simplicity. For those starting out on a personal growth path, following The Four Agreements and implementing them in your life can be an excellent practice. With practice these agreements become integrated into your being and every area of your life and become easy habits to keep.

Everything you do is based on agreements you have made. In these agreements you tell yourself who you are, what everyone else is, how to act, what is possible, and what is impossible. What you have agreed to believe creates what you experience. When these agreements come from fear, blocks and obstacles develop keeping you from realizing your greatest potential.

The Four Agreements are:

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz, Amber-Allen Publishing, San Rafael, CA (1997)


>>>>
Simple as they sound the first is the most difficult for most people.

Take Care

2 comments:

Jonas said...

I like those "Four Agreements". Yes, they may appear to be straightfoward and simple...but they're not.

AJ said...

I've learnt the hard way that they are all have degrees of difficulty.

"And thirdly, the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner." to quote Barbarossa in The Pirates of the Caribbean. Arrrrrrrr!

Take care,
AJ