The Four Agreements

While the wrapping around the main messages were often a challenge for me to get my head around, the key takeaways came through loud and clear. In The Four Agreements, those messages are:

• Be Impeccable With Your Words
• Don’t Take Anything Personally
• Don’t Make Assumptions
• Always Do Your Best

Author Don Miguel Ruiz, a nagual, or shaman, of the Toltec tradition, wrote with power. It was the talk of heaven, hell and God that did not resonate with me. It was there I feared I might lose the greater value of the book because I didn’t connect with all of it.

I put that aside and decided to take from the book the parts that spoke to me. The rest was framing to impact other readers, not me.

These parts left the greatest impression on me:

p. 32 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. If I have gratitude for you, then you will have gratitude for me…..

p. 60 Don’t take anything personally. As you make a habit of not taking anything personally, you won’t need to place your trust in what others do or say. You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices. You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you. When you truly understand this, and refuse to take things personally, you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments or actions of others.

p. 84 If you live in a past dream, you don’t enjoy what is happening right now because you will always wish it to be different than it is. There is no time to miss anyone or anything because you are alive…. You were born with the right to be happy. You were born with the right to love, to enjoy and to share your love. You are alive, so take your life and enjoy it.

p. 94 Who stops us from being free?…Who really stops us from being free? We stop ourselves. What does it really mean to be free? Sometimes we get married and we say that we lose our freedom, then we get divorced and we are still not free. What stops us? Why can’t we be ourselves?

A new friend sent me this book as a kind gift, because he believed the book held something that would be of value to me. He showed me love, kindness and generosity with his gift, and that gives the book more credence to me than if I had picked if off a bookshelf on my own.

The ideas I culled from the book deserve attention and sharing, and I will do my best with it.