Love yourself then LOVE will come! The Four Agreements

Posted by:  Medium Marie
Wednesday, February 11th 2009.

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The book is structured around Four Agreements, which are essential to living a fulfilled life and being free. They are agreements that you make with yourself. Don Miguel Ruiz, a shaman of the Toltec tradition, shares in his book lessons on the Path to Freedom--how we can change the Old Dream of the planet into the New Dream (the Toltec equivalent to the Promised Land, Nirvana, Heaven).

Born and raised in rural Mexico by his mother, a curandera (healer) and his grandfather, a nagual (shaman), don Miguel Ruiz today continues the nagual path in the Tradition of the Toltec--leading individuals to personal freedom. Ruiz was sidetracked in the modern life of medical school and work as a surgeon until a near death experience in the 70s changed his direction.

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz presents a practical guide to personal freedom. In this small guidebook, he reveals the source of our self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. The Four Agreements are a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness and love.

We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but there are many who cannot accept and love themselves. The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves; it is why we don’t accept ourselves the way we are, and why we don’t accept others the way they are.”

THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

1- Be Impeccable with Your Word

This is the most important agreement. Don Miguel talks about your word and the words of others are powerful. They have the potential to hurt yourself and others. And most of our self-limitations and fears, are due to the words or opinions of others.

When you know who you are then you're unaffected by the opinions of others because you are the one that dictates what you think or feel about yourself. As Socrates' would say, 'Know thyself'.

If I love myself, I will express that love in my interactions with others. Then 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. What I project, I recieve.

2- Don't Take Anything Personally

If you know who you are, outside opinion don't affect you because you're still you — you don't take things personally.

If someone insults or says anything negatively about you. It does not change who you are, or what you think about yourself. When your identity is weak, you are then vulnerable. If you once preceived yourself as beautiful, then say someone says you are "ugly" do you then instantly preceive yourself as ugly? No. If you accept what others think or say about you, then all of a sudden you're left with self-limitations.

3- Don't Make Assumptions

The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are facts. Which is far from truth.

Don't assume. Don't make things bigger than they are. A good example, and what I find I answer often when clients call me asking about a new relationship:

You are interested in a person. You leave them either a voicemail or email message asking them to "get together". They do not respond right away. You wait. Every minute that ticks by chips away at that fragil ego of yours. You then need their response to validate you. If he or she responds, and we go out - then I am attractive.

As the minutes turn into hours, you assume that they are not interested in you. That you have been rejected. You get yourself worked up, depressed and bothered. When either a few hours later, or the next day that person responds saying "Yes, I would love too. Sorry I did not get back sooner, I was busy doing XYZ". You worked yourself up over nothing.

This is one example of what happens when one makes assumptions.

4- Always Do Your Best

Just do your best — in any circumstance in your life. It doesn't matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself. When you don't judge yourself, you are not victim to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment. By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under.

Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action. You can have many great ideas in your head, but what makes the difference is the action. Without action upon an idea, there will be no manifestation, no results, and no reward.

Action is power. And action is really just making decisions.

Live your life fully. You never know what can happen. We plan for our futures, but it isn't promised to us. The truth is, we don’t know if we’re going to die tomorrow. We have just the present to be alive. We all have the assumption that we have many years ahead of us in the future. But do we?

To be completely free, you must accept and embrace death. It is only then that you can be truly alive.

"When you live in the dream of the planet, it is as if we are dead. Whoever survives the initiation of the dead receives the most wonderful gift; the resurrection…to arise from the dead, to be alive, to be ourselves again…to become free again and heal our mind.

"The angel of death comes to us and says, 'You see everything that exists here is mine; it is not yours. Your house, your spouse, your children, your car, your career, your money--everything is mine and I can take it away when I want to, but for now you can use it.'

"If we surrender to the angel of death we will be happy forever and ever. Why? Because the angel of death takes the past away in order to make it possible for life to continue…

"When are we going to live in the present? That is what the angel of death teaches us to do."