A powerful book that really had an impact on me is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. I recently reviewed what I learned from this little book and decided to write a book review about it. The book is structured around Four Agreements, which are essential to living a fulfilled life and being free. They are agreements that you make with yourself.
In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel talks a lot about freedom — the essence of what we all desire. But, what holds us back is fear.
To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is no the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying to satisfy other people's demands. We have learned to live by other people's points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.”
It is mentioned in the book that Don Miguel experienced a near-death experience that changed his life. In the 1970's, he fell asleep at the wheel of his car and ended up crashing into a wall of concrete. After this experience, he devoted himself to to the mastery of the ancient ancestral wisdom, studying with his mother (a healer) and learning from a powerful shaman in the Mexican desert. These experiences have provided us with the powerful wisdom that he shares in this book.
We dishonor ourselves just to please other people. We even do harm to our physical bodies just to be accepted by others. You see teenagers taking drugs just to avoid being rejected by other teenagers. They are not aware that the problem is that they don't accept themselves. They reject themselves because they are not what they pretend to be. They wish to be a certain way, but they are not, and for this they carry shame and guilt. Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they believe they should be. They become very self-abusive, and they use other people to abuse themselves as well.”
Nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves. He talks a lot about negative self-talk — how we doubt ourselves and feed our brains with negativity and limiting beliefs. However, the cure of self-abuse is self-love. It's only when we truly love ourselves we can accept ourselves.
We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves; it is why we don't accept ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are.”
The Four Agreements
1. Be Impeccable with Your Word
This is the most important agreement. Don Miguel talks about your word and the words of others are powerful. They have the potential to hurt yourself and others. And most of our self-limitations and fears, are due to the words or opinions of others.
During our domestication, our parents and siblings gave their opinions about us and we lived in fear over these opinions, like not being good at swimming, or sports, or writing. Someone gives an opinion and says, “Look, this girl is ugly!” The girl listens, believes she is ugly, and grows up with the idea that she is ugly. It doesn't matter how beautiful she is; as long as she has that agreement, she will believe that she is ugly. That is the spell she is under”
I can completely relate to this. Back when I was growing up, I'd hear a lot of negative opinions from others. But I think part of this is having a strong identity and sense of self. When you know who you are (ie. know that you're not ugly), then you're unaffected by the opinions of others because YOU are the one that dictates what you think or feel about yourself. You know the truth.
But, he is completely right with the affects it has on others. More importantly, it's also the affect YOU have with your word on yourself.
Being impeccable with your word is not using the word against yourself. If I see you in the street and I call you stupid, it appears that I'm using the word against you. But really I'm using my word against myself, because you're going to hate me for this, and your hating me is not good for me. Therefore, if I get angry and with my word send all that emotional poison to you, I'm using the word against myself.
If I love myself, I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction. If I love you, then you will love me. If I insult you, you will insult me.”
2. Don't Take Anything Personally
This is what I talked about earlier with IDENTITY. If you know who you are, other things don't affect you because you're still YOU — you don't take things personally.
If someone insults or says anything negatively about you, who cares? It shouldn't change how you feel or what you think about yourself. It's only when your identity is weak that you're vulnerable. Then you ACCEPT what others think or say about you,, and all of a sudden you're left with self-limitations.
3. Don't Make Assumptions
The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are REAL, which is bullshit.
When you meet a guy or girl and it went really well, you make the assumption that they are now your new boyfriend/girlfriend and it's going to be amazing and wonderful. However, it hasn't really happened. It's fake. It's all what you manifested in your mind. Therefore, what happens when the reality doesn't meet that assumption? You get hurt. You are creating even more fear and self-doubt in the future.
Instead, don't assume anything. Don't make things bigger than they are. This is what “one-itis” is, if you've heard the term. It's when you meet someone, create a total fixation with them that they are wonderful and that you're going to live happily ever after together… and then you think about them all the time, and you begin getting depressed and bothered by it. This is making assumptions.
4. Always Do Your Best
Just do your best — in any circumstance in your life. It doesn't matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. And if you don't judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under.”
For me, this is a matter of PRIDE. When I pushed things past my comfort zone or did the best I could in something, I feel great about myself because I can look in the mirror knowing I did my best. I never want to have any “what ifs?” in ANYTHING… or no feelings of regret. I can deal with the temporary embarrassment or discomfort of pushing my comfort zone, but at the end of the day, I KNOW that I can go home happy. This is a big part of my personal growth.
Most people go to work every day just thinking of payday, and the money they will get from the work they are doing. They can hardly wait for Friday or Saturday, whatever day they receive their money and can take time off. They are working for the reward, and as a result they resist work. They try to avoid the action and it becomes more difficult, and they don't do their best.
They work so hard all week long, suffering the work, suffering the action, not because they like to, but because they feel they have to. They have to work because they have to pay the rent, because they have to support their family. They have all that frustration, and when they do receive their money they are unhappy. They have two days to rest, to do what they want to do, and what do they do? They try to escape. They get drunk because they don't like themselves. They don't like their life. There are too many ways that we hurt ourselves when we don't like who we are.”
Sound familiar to anyone?
Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action. You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward.”
Action is POWER. And action is really just making DECISIONS.
Don Miguel talks about living your life fully. You never know what can happen. We plan for our futures and what's ahead, but it isn't promised to us. There truth is, we don't know if we're going to die tomorrow. We have just the present to be alive. We all have the assumption that we have many years ahead of us in the future. But do we?
To be completely free, you must accept and embrace death. It is only then that you can be truly alive.
This was a long book review, but I really enjoyed this book. I also really enjoyed writing this, as everything seemed to sink in a lot deeper. The book is a short read and has a ton of value in it. If you want to learn more on the Four Agreements which I lightly touched on, then I'd recommend checking out Don Miguel Ruiz's book.
Check out more details on The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz at Amazon by clicking here.