If you’re looking to change your life but you’ve struggled to overcome some issues, you’ll benefit from the book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz.
The book is based on ancient Toltec wisdom and one of the things that the author teaches is that you can be your own worst critic. Most people are too hard on themselves, constantly judging and finding fault.
You might have a mental image of what you’re supposed to do or be in life and you’re constantly striving to become that rather than resting in who you are. The four agreements taught in the book can lead to personal freedom that can restore balance and lead to a life that’s not filled with striving, stress or chaos.
The first agreement deals with what you say and teaches how those words can flow back toward you and cause you pain. Most people speak and don’t realize that they’re not paying attention to their words.
Yet those words are landing on the emotions of the other person and causing damage.
You may speak without thinking about it, without realizing how you sound and the kind of wound it caused in someone else.
Those are unintentional words. But you may speak in a way that deliberately causes harm. You might utter cutting remarks about someone’s life, their appearance, their decisions or their work.
You might get together with someone else and talk about them, putting them down without realizing that by casting those barbs, you’re bringing that wound back onto yourself.
The first agreement is to stay away from words that are used negatively and let what you speak be of a higher standard. Don’t spread lies or engage in gossip. Don’t say things carelessly.
The next agreement urges people to stop taking things personally. The reasoning behind this lesson is that you’ll stop believing that everything is caused by you, that what the other person is saying or doing is somehow about you.
There will be people who are going to call you out. They’re not going to like how you handle something. They won’t appreciate what you say and they’ll judge your motives without knowing what’s in your heart.
For this reason, you have to remember that just because someone says something to you or about you, that doesn’t make it the truth. The book also explains the agreement about assumptions.
When you make an assumption, you believe something to be true when it may not be. You may not know why someone speaks or behaves the way that they do. But refraining from assumptions can keep you from engaging in quarrels.
In the book, you’ll learn that it’s not the outcome that matters the most but it’s how hard you’ve tried. You’ll learn that you don’t need to give in to performance based self-approval and discovering that and applying it can set you free.
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