The Four Agreements are a summary of the mastery of transformation. You can transform what seems like hell, into heaven. The knowledge is there, it’s just waiting for you to use it.
If we could all live by the Four Agreements, we would be kind and sincere and we would not misinterpret what others say. What balanced, fulfilling and worthy lives we would live.
The only way to store information is by agreement. The outside dream might catch our attention, but if we don’t agree, we don’t store that information. If we agree, we believe, and this is called faith.
We have the need to be accepted and loved by others but we cannot accept and love ourselves. Self-rejection comes from having an image of what we believe it means to be perfect and then never being able to measure up to that ideal. This is why we don’t accept ourselves the way we are, or others the way they are.
If we can develop a strong enough will, to adopt the following Four Agreements and to start living our life according to these Agreements, the transformation in our lives will be amazing.
The First Agreement
Be Impeccable With Your Word
The first agreement is the most important one and also the most difficult to honour. With just this first agreement, you will be able to transcend to the level of existence of heaven on earth.
Via the word you express your creative power. It is via the word that you manifest everything. The word is not just a sound or a written symbol, it is the power you have, to express and communicate, to think and to create the happenings in your life. But like the double-edged sword, your word can create a beautiful scenario or your word can destroy.
Impeccable means ‘without sin’. A sin is anything that you do that goes against yourself. You go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything. When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.
Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy – showing love to yourself. Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement and it becomes part of our belief system. This is damaging if the opinion is negative. The only way to break this agreement, is to form a new one based on truth. If we buy into gossip or negative talk, we are believing the information and entering into a bad agreement.
Impeccability of the word can take away fear and transform it into joy and love.
The Second Agreement
Don’t Take Anything Personally
When we take something personally, it means we have agreed with what was said. We become trapped into the belief, because of what is called ‘personal importance’. Personal importance or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about ‘me’.
During our education and domestication, we learn to take things personally. We make agreements by buying into an opinion or believing something about ourselves, from what we have been told and taught.
Nothing other people do is because of you. Even when a situation seems really personal, even if someone insults you directly, it has nothing to do with you. It is about them. Their point of view comes from their programming. If you believe someone’s negative opinion, you take in their emotional baggage and then it becomes yours and you are negatively affected by it.
Whatever someone thinks and feels is their issue to deal with. It isn’t personal, it is the way they see the world. It is their opinion according to their belief system. If you take nothing personally, you avoid upsets in your life and even sadness disappears.
The Third Agreement
Don’t Make Assumptions
We have the tendency to make assumptions and the problem is that we believe them to be the truth. We make assumptions about what others are thinking, saying, doing, we react emotionally and inappropriately and create unnecessary drama. Because we don’t ask for clarification, we make the wrong assumption and then defend our assumption by trying to make someone else wrong.
Making assumptions in relationships is courting disaster. We expect partners to know what we want and when we don’t get what we want, we feel hurt, rejected, ignored and respond angrily, saying ‘you should have known’.
When we believe something, we assume our belief is right, to the point where we will damage relationships to defend our position. We assume that others see life the way we do, feel the way we do about things, judge the way we do. We then have a fear of being ourselves because we think others will judge us. So before anyone has a chance to reject us, we have already rejected ourselves. This is the way the human mind works.
Love does not need to be justified – it is there or it is not there. Real love is accepting people the way they are, without trying to change them. If you are wanting to change them, you do not truly love them.
To stop making assumptions, ask questions. With clear communication, all of your relationships will change. With clear communication, your word becomes impeccable.
The Fourth Agreement
Always Do Your Best
Doing your best, you are going to live your life to the full. You will be productive, you will be good to yourself and you will be good to others. You do your best, expecting no reward. Too often, people only take action because of what they can get in return. They don’t enjoy the action and that is the reason why they don’t do their best. Most people go to work, just for the reward at the end of the month. They don’t enjoy the work, so they resist it and end up resenting it and not doing their best.
When you do your best you start learning to accept yourself. You are honest with yourself and you learn from your mistakes. You start becoming aware, living in the present.
When you surrender and let go of the past, you allow yourself to be fully alive in the present moment. Not enjoying what is happening right now, is living in the past and being only half-alive. This leads to self-pity and suffering.
By doing your best, the habits of misusing your word, taking things personally and making assumptions, will become weaker and less frequent with time. Everything we have ever learned, we have learned via repetition. Taking action, is the right step, it is what makes the difference.
The Path to Freedom
Breaking Old Agreements
Are we free? Are we free to be who we really are? The answer is no. Who stops us from being free? We blame the government, we blame our parents, we blame God. But who is it who is really preventing us from being free? We stop ourselves.
It is time to stop the self-abuse, it is time to free yourself from the Judge and we do this by changing the foundation of our agreements. It is time to be free from the role of the Victim.
The first step toward personal freedom is awareness. We need to be aware of what the problem is, so that we can solve it. Your life is the manifestation of your dream – if you are not enjoying your life, change your dream. To realise your dream, you must free yourself from fear.
First we need to acknowledge that we have emotional wounds, we need to release the ‘poison’ and heal the wounds. How do we do this?
We must forgive those we feel have wronged us – not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves enough to take our power back. Experiencing unforgiveness is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to suffer.
Forgiveness is the only way to heal. It is the only way to no longer be the victim. One must also learn to forgive oneself. When you can do this, self-acceptance begins and self-love will grow and you will accept yourself just as you are. This is becoming free. When someone can touch what used to be a wound and it no longer hurts you, then you know you have truly forgiven.
By: Don Miguel Ruiz
