| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Health, Mind & Body |
| Author: | Don Miguel Ruiz |
I started reading the book today and I finished it late this afternoon. It was really nice. I hate to make it sound like I'm belittling (which I'm not), but I can't help but to feel the proper expression is...
"It's a really nice little book that takes sound principles for a healthy outlook on life, and explains them clearly and concisely."
I enjoyed reading this and found it to be a refreshing way of looking at the same concept we read about in "The Secret", "The Secret of the Ages", "A New Earth" and basically all of these kind of "New Age Healing" genre. I really enjoyed it.
I also am amazed that the stuff he talks about, telling people to tell everyone "I love you!" even if you don't know them and love them personally, is the same thing I have been trying to do here on the blogs! I came to the same conclusion independently from this, but it's really really nice to see another culture confirming what came to me through the Universe.
Here are the Four Agreements:
1) Be Impeccable With Your Word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word sto 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 (we live in a dream world that has been created and perpetuated before we existed, and we are all in a fog). 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.
And the best one of all that ties them all together...
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-judgement, self-abuse, and regret.
Simply said, extremely difficult to achieve due to our programming and reinforcement of the programming from birth, but #4 allows us to make mistakes, fall of the wagon, learn from our mistakes, get up and try try again until little by little it gets easier and our teeeny weeny successes gradually eat up the big failures until we are succeeding more than we are failing.
It's also nice because often people misuse "I always say what I mean" as an excuse to say things that HURT others, just because it's true. This goes against these Four Agreements because you need to say things IN LOVE. This means that you need to find a way to express the things you want to say in a loving, kind way without "blasting them with the truth".
I love you!
I really enjoyed the book, especially the first time I read it when I had first gone off to college. A lot of the book seems like common sense to me, but... what's that saying about common sense again?
ReplyDelete*winks*
Glad you enjoyed it, IGLU! *snughugs!*
And now I am looking forward to reading a book that Shivdeep sent me while I was too busy with my MBA studies to read: The Four Noble Truths, by the Dalai Lama. I wonder if buddhism and the Toltec wisdom are in harmony. I'll let you know!
ReplyDeleteI love you!
Iwish I read you today before i abused myself. But something, honesty although it may hurt someone, hurts you if you are not aware you are being dishonest with the other persson in your interaction with them.
ReplyDeletePepper - #4, my friend. #4. Tell yourself you did your best. It's OK. Nobody is perfect. You did the best you could do at the time. That's the most important thing. Tell yourself that. Remember you are not your mind. You can tell your mind that you did the best you possibly could do. I know it's weird, but YOU ARE NOT YOUR MIND. YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS. Those thoughts are "me", but they are not "I". You OWN them, but they are not you.
ReplyDeleteThen #2. #2 my friend. Do NOT take how you feel about yourself personally. Because they are just the thoughts of "me", but that is NOT you. Don't take other's criticisms personally, but MORE IMPORTANTLY do NOT TAKE YOUR OWN criticisms of yourself personally. The "me" in your head is no different from some other person "out there". Just actively tell yourself that "it's nothing personal", and "me doesn't know I". I am I, I am not me.
Yes, kind of new ageish, I know, but when you realize that the mind likes to have all these thoughts, and criticisms of you on its own accord, and likes to mentally beat you up... when you can see this... and then you can understand that all those thoughts are based ON THE PAST, therefore they are over and done with experiences that do NOT define who you are, but just "stuff" that's stuck in there rotting and old.... you can tell your mind that it's wrong.
I think I should go and take my schizophrenia meds now....
We love you!
Hmmmm very interesting. I will have to try to remember this, expecially #4.... after all our best is really all we can do, right? What someone defines as our best is there problem, and as long as you know you did so, what they think is irrelevant.
ReplyDeletePaula - That's it exactly. BUT also look at especially #2: On top of doing our best, we tend to beat ourselves up as well, and take what we think of ourselves personally (i.e. self-inflicted, self-abuse and self-criticism). So you have to tell the "me" inside your head that is self-abusing you that you did your best and even though "me" is not satisfied with your efforts (because me bases me's assumptions and expecations on the "Laws" that were formed before we were created), what "me" thinks is ALSO irrelevant.
ReplyDeleteRemember our "Book of Laws" that comes to define us is written by both outside AND inside influences. It is actually MUCH easier to "make irrelevant", or "not take personally" the outside attacks than it is to not be bothered by the inside attacks. So, never forget that "me" will be trying to undermine "I" at all times and you have to convince "me" that "I am doing my best and what 'me' thinks of 'I' is not personal."
Weird, I know, but as I write more of this, it makes sense in a weird, schizoid sort of way...
I love you.
No I get it what your saying, and "me" is my own worst critic... that keeps me up and night... the shoulda coulda woulda...... over and over and OVER.....
ReplyDeleteI spin my wheels like crazy, and I am full of ideas... that is the entrepreneur in me, the creative spark I have goes and goes.... but then that little voice, makes me crazy sometimes.
ReplyDeleteExactly! And if "me" gets to you, it will wear "I" down which means that "I" won't have the energy to "do my best", and the results will be less than what could be done, which will cause "me" to jump in and say, "see? Me told you so!" And that is where the vicious inner cycle really starts to undermine "I".
ReplyDeleteTell your inner voice to shut the hell up already! Geez........
ReplyDeleteOY VEY IS MIR!!!
ReplyDeleteMy inner voice needs a DRINK....LOL
ReplyDeleteMy outter voice needs a smoke....LOL
ReplyDeleteand NEITHER can agree.... SIGH... OH WELL.. oh well.... did I say that twice?
ReplyDeleteHave both, Paula... i did.
ReplyDeleteOK! Sounds like a good plan to me.....
ReplyDelete