I just finished reading a book Called "The Four Agreements", written by Miguel Ruiz. Excellent book! It reminds us of four little things that hugely effect our lives. It really is the simple things in life that truly bring us the most joy, yet we tend to forget about or get to busy for the simple things in todays fast pace society. Life is very simple & pleasurable if we allow it to be. Nothing shifts until you shift and these four agreements help me shift my daily way of living.
Agreement 1~ "Be Impeccable With Your Word"
The word impeccable means; free from fault or blame. In my opinion, this simply means think before you speak. Have you ever asked someone when they were due & they weren't even pregnant? Have you ever walked out of the house feeling absolutely amazing & then someone asks you if your feeling alright & that completely smashes your confidence because if you look like your not feeling well then you must look like crap!? Have you ever called someone a name? Have you ever told someone that you love them? Pay attention to peoples reactions when you speak to them, the people skills you will learn are indescribable. I was not aware of the power that our words have & I've come to realize the word is actually like a double edged sword. Freedom of speech is one of those bitter sweet things & is all too often taken advantage of. Just because I have the ability to say what ever I want does not make it right to do so without thinking of the consequences. We go around casting evil spells upon each other daily and don't even realize the long lasting effects & severe damage we cause in the process. Gossip is like a computer virus. One little piece of misinformation can break down communication between people, causing every person it touches to become infected & contagious to others. When someone gossips to us, we think a little less clear & then in effort to clear up our own confusion we gossip & spread the viruses to someone else. Eventully all we hear is the chaos of a thousand different voices all trying to talk at once in the mind. What a mess! Right? Good News!! This can all be avoided by Being impeccable with our word. Since this agreement was brought to my attention I've been practicing being impeccable with my word daily & its getting easier everyday. I take the time to notice how my words do affect the people I'm talking to & I think about how the words I am going to say will effect the person receiving the words. Do you know that there are all kinds of people in this world who go through the entire day without speaking to a single person? Can you imagine that? After thinking of that very thought one day, I decided to make it a point everyday to tell people Hello! Today I say hi to just about every face I see and I gotta tell you, the smiles & reactions I get in return are priceless. Our words really are magical & I choose to be impeccable with mine.
Agreement 2~ "Don't Take Anything Personally"
I touched on this agreement in my first blog so bear with me if things get repeated. This agreement is absolutely freeing in my opinion because i've worried about what other people thought of me my whole life. I would never admit it before but from childhood I remember being terrified of not being accepted. I've always had so many people to impress, my parents, grandparents, friends, kids, teachers, siblings, bosses, coworkers, pets, aunts, neighbors, cousins, uncles & who ever else I thought might have an opinion on me. This defect in my character caused me a lot of stress & negativity in my life until I made that agreement with myself, DONT TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY! And that means don't take anything personally from anyone or anything, good or bad. If someone tells me,"good job!" I say Thank You & move on, I can't take it personal even tho its a positive statement. One of the most important aspects of our lives is that they are our lives. No one else could live them exactly the way we are living them. We are all unique in our very own ways & we all do things differently. I am my own worst critic so if I can accept myself for who I am then thats all that matters because if Im good enough for me, Im good enough for God. What other people think of us is not our business, good or bad, not our business. We all have opinions & we all have eyeballs. Just like our eyeballs are "our" eyeballs our opinions our "ours" too. Everything that happens in our lives is an opportunity for learning. If I do something Im not very proud of then its time to look within and acknowledge, process, evaluate & move on. I can't beat myself up over it & I'm surely not going to let anyone else beat me up over it so I don't take it personally. Chalk it up to a lesson learned because someday your lesson will be helpful to someone else. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff & what other people think of me is definitely small so I'm not sweating it. Pat yourself on the back because you deserve it not because someone tells you you deserve it. DONT TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY! Practice this agreement daily & then watch as frustration turns into joy & creativity.
Agreement 3~ "Don't Make Assumptions"
The mind is interesting to say the least. For some reason my mind feels the need to justify & understand everything in order to feel safe and secure. This need for understanding & justification leads to a lot of assumptions and some of the things I assume are just plain silly. Although, now that Im realizing what Im doing when Im doing it and it cracks me up at times. I assume so much & didn't even realize how much I do it! Not long ago, I assumed someone might be assuming something. Crazy right! The great thing is after making this agreements with myself, now Im aware of these habits & Im definetaly understanding the importance of not assuming. Have you ever made an assumption about what someone was doing or thinking? I have! More times then I can count and what's even worse is then I shared my assumption with someone else as if it was the truth. So basically I assumed and then gossiped, not good because we all know how poisonous gossip is. Now just like its not good to assume what other people are thinking or doing, we also shouldn't assume people know what we are thinking or doing. Do you know how many times I assumed my ex husband knew why I was mad at him or what I was thinking? So many I can't remember and these assumptions led to so many disagreements. If I only knew then what I know now so much conflict could have been avoided but everything happens for a reason and all of those conflicts are learning lessons in life. Im finally realizing the importance of ASKING. If we just ask questions, we don't have to assume. If we don't understand or we are unclear about something, it is our job & we owe it to ourselves to ask questions. It's simple! Think about how much drama & poison can be avoided by not making assumptions. Have you ever waved to someone & they didn't wave back? What went through your mind? How rude! Is she mad at me? Maybe she didn't see me. These are not only assumptions I've made but after I made them, then I took my assumptions personally. Broke two agreements & wasted time & energy over nonsense. Bottom line is assuming leads to a lot of problems & should be avoided if your intending on living a more peaceful life.
Agreement 4~ "Always do your best"
Its plain & simple, always do your best, noting more, nothing less. Our best is going to change from moment to moment depending on our environment & well being. Obviously if we're sick our best isn't going to be as good as if we are in good health and thats okay we just need to be the best we can be at that moment. This doesn't mean do better then your best either because if we try to go beyond our best all we do is wear ourselves out & the result is less then our best. If we are doing what we love, we will probably do it exceedingly well. If we focus on success, we will probably forget about living. If we focus on living and doing what we love, we have a good chance of being successful. When you go to work are you excited about what your going to be doing or are you thinking about your days off and your paycheck? When we work for the reward we resist work and we don't do our best. Find all of the positive aspects in all areas of your life & the reward is far greater then any paycheck. Have you ever had a job you didn't love? Have you ever had a boss you couldn't stand? I've had a few! If we focus on the job we don't like or the mean boss we have we are focusing on the negative aspects & in return we get more negativity. You get what you give & you have to give in order to receive. If I go through my day doing things because I have to then Im not doing my best & it's not even worth doing. If I find what I love about the things that Im doing then Im doing it for the pleasure and my best shows. I determine how great I want my life to be & I take action to get there. My life is what I make it and if I want a wonderful life I have to act on it. Action is about living fully, inaction is the way we deny life. I can choose to find positive aspects & ALWAYS DO MY BEST or I can sit in front of a television an be afraid to live & be proud of who I am. Shawn Anderson has taught me a some great ways to take action on creating a positive day & I hope they help you in the same way they have helped me. When I wake up I ask myself questions and these 3 questions help they me find positivity & inspire me to do my best. I ask myself the questions & really think about my answers. #1 What am I excited about doing today? Think of how great you will feel when you do it. #2 Whom can I serve or encourage today? In other words, what can you do or say that will make someone else feel great. #3 What am I most grateful for right now in my life? Think about something specific that makes you feel fortunate. We can only be our best when we do our best. If we ALWAYS DO OUR BEST its easy to follow the first 3 agreements. If we follow "The Four Agreements" we are bound to be better people and have better lives.
Well thats all for now folks, I do hope your enjoying reading because Im enjoying writing. As I've said before Im new to blogging and am not completely up to par on rules of blogging and writing so feel free to comment & give me advise. Constructive criticism is always welcome, Im learning as I go but isn't that what life is about. Im going to college soon so the spelling, grammar & punctuation will get better in time. I do want to say that a lot of this wonderful information comes from Don Miguel Ruiz & Shawn Anderson. Both amazing writers & teachers. Im fortunate to have one as a friend & words can't describe how grateful I am for what he has shared with & taught me.
