I want to share this book with you all. I have found it to be very helpful for me as I grow and develop as a person. don Miguel Ruiz is a wonderful person whose words have had a tremendous impact on my consciousness.

“Everything we do is based on agreements we have made – agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth.”

“In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible.”
From his website:
In this powerful book that has remained on The New York Times Bestseller List for over five years, don Miguel reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. When we are ready to change these agreements, there are four deceptively simple, yet powerful agreements that we can adopt as guiding principles. The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.

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.
http://www.miguelruiz.com/fouragreements.html

I am not saying any of these things are easy to do…on the contrary I struggle all the time with doing these things. But just trying to live my life by the four agreements, even when I fall short, has improved my life in a profound way. and trying to live by them has eased my suffering and sensitivity to life and other people enormously.

One example: the other night my husband got out of bed and opened the window, as it was stuffy. It was a warm night so I didn’t mind that he opened the window, but he didn’t pull the curtain all the way back so that even though no one from the street could see directly into our room, if our neighbors across the way looked out their window they could see right into our bedroom from that angle. I got all upset and ready to huff and puff, because my husband has been careless about this before (he truly does not care if people see him sleeping or laying there naked) and I have spoken sharply to him about it before because I do care about people seeing me sleeping and stuff. So when he did this I immediately took it as him not caring if I was on display and completely ignoring and disrespecting my feelings.

Then I remembered the 4 agreements, and immediately relaxed. Why? because I chose not to assume my husband did it on purpose or just to mess with me or disrespect me, and I chose to not take it personally whether he did it by accident or on purpose. So I was able to calmly and nicely say Brian, would you pull the curtain across? and he said Oh man, I didn’t even realize it was open like that, I’m sorry Trula. And he jumped right up and pulled it across and we cuddled a bit and had a pleasant night sleeping.

There was a time when I would have screeched OMG! Close the damn curtain WTF is WRONG with you? How dare you put me on DISPLAY you know I’m laying here NAKED you are such an ASSHOLE! and so on. He then would have responded angrily I didn’t MEAN to do it, it’s LATE and I’m TIRED so SHUT up getting on me about the DAMN curtain! You are INSANE picking a fight with me over this! and then it would have been on, we would have argued bitterly into the night and then tossed and turned and neither of us getting a good night’s rest. Over what? a simple curtain being slightly askew.

That’s just one example of how applying the four agreements helped us. Perhaps you are nowhere near as sensitive as I am/was, but just imagine how applying the four agreements can help you with people that are important to you and major in your life such as your spouse. I have found this to be helpful in everything I do and everyone I choose to communicate with.

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