The Four Agreements and How They Can Set You Free
I’ve been struggling all day with a terrible case of writer’s block. Most weeks my blog post will simply form in my head based on something that I experienced, read or thought a lot about during the week. This week, however, I sat in front of my computer with nothing. My world felt heavy and uninspiring and the words refused to come. After staring at the blank computer screen for a while, I went and watched The Trial of the Chicago Seven on Netflix (excellent, by the way). After the movie, I still couldn’t think of anything to say, so I started scrolling through Facebook. That’s when I saw a post sharing information from don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, and I thought, “Wow. I’ve never written about The Four Agreements, and that book is basically my guidebook for living. I’ve got my topic!”
Ruiz opens the book by describing what he calls “the domestication of the human.” He says that little children are completely wild. They do whatever they want and they don’t worry about what anyone thinks of them. Then, society (parents, teachers, etc.) introduces the concept of “no.” Children are told not to do things that come naturally to them, and they are told that they are bad when they do those things, or that they’re good when they do what society wants. They are rewarded with praise or attention when they do what society deems to be “good,” and they are punished when they do something society sees as “bad.” Over time the child internalizes these concepts of good and bad, and the system of beliefs about what is right and wrong becomes the adult person’s agreements with life.
Most people never question these agreements, but many of them are damaging. Ruiz suggests that by adopting four different agreements, the person can obtain personal freedom.
The First agreement is “be impeccable with your word.” Ruiz discusses how most people have an ongoing negative and self-critical internal dialogue. He calls this negative self talk “The Judge.” He says that The Judge is very ready and willing to point out and shame the person for any minor violation against their agreements. For instance, perhaps you have an agreement with life that it’s not OK fail. If you have this agreement, you might avoid trying new things because the risk of failure is just too high. However, we all have to do new things sometimes, and when you inevitably make mistakes, your internal Judge tells you that you are “stupid,” or “a loser.” You internally say things to yourself that you would likely be quite hesitant to say to other people. This internal harshness reinforces your agreement and makes it even more terrifying for you to do new things that might lead to failure.
Clearly this is a damaging process. In order to overcome it, you can adopt the agreement to be impeccable with your word, which means that instead of judging yourself harshly for any infraction, you instead agree to avoid self criticism — you agree not to say things that go against yourself. Over time this new agreement takes over and clears up the old agreement that you had not to ever make mistakes. Can you imagine how much freedom this would bring into your life?
The second agreement is “don’t take anything personally.” The great truth that Ruiz reveals here is that what other people do or say has nothing to do with you. I believe that this is 100% true. Other people’s actions are a product of their own agreements with life, and you have no control over those. If you think about it, when people apologize they say things like “I’m sorry. I was having a bad day.” They admit that it was never about you in the first place. You have no idea what that other person has been taught, the agreements they may have, or what pain they have endured. If they hurt you, it’s as a result of their own agreements with life, not a result of your unworthiness.
Now, it’s important to say here that not taking it personally does not mean that you put up with being mistreated. If someone is treating you badly, know that it’s not about you, and walk away. Think about how much pain this agreement could spare you. If someone behaves hurtfully to you, instead of taking it on, or trying to prove them wrong, you can simply know that it’s not about you at all and move on from it.
The third agreement is “don’t make assumptions.” It is my belief that most of the pain that people endure in life is due to making assumptions about other people’s thoughts, feelings, or motivations. For example, you’re walking down the hallway at work and you wave hello to your coworker, who seems to look at you and then walk away without returning your greeting. Since you don’t know why your coworker apparently ignored you, your mind starts coming up with stories to explain it. Our minds love explanations for things that don’t make sense to us, even if those explanations are not actually true.
Unfortunately, the explanations our minds tend to come up with are worst case scenario, so maybe your mind decides that your coworker is angry with you about something. You don’t know what it is that you’ve done to anger your coworker, but now you’re behaving defensively around that person, which actually results in that person disliking you. However, what you don’t know is that your coworker is near-sighted and didn’t have their glasses with them. It’s not that they were angry with you. They simply couldn’t see you.
Instead of making assumptions about other people’s behaviors, simply remind yourself that you don’t know what their motivations were. Then ask yourself how important it is that you find out. If it’s truly important to you, then go and ask the other person what happened. If it’s not, then drop it completely.
The fourth agreement is “always do your best.” This is probably my favorite one. Ruiz says that in every situation simply do the best that you can. Don’t do any more or any less than your best. The idea of doing more than your best had never occurred to me before, but it’s extremely important because I think that many people are spending their time doing more than their best and burning themselves out. That’s not healthy.
I also love this little tidbit from Ruiz. He says that if you’ve done your best, then when someone criticizes your performance, you have your answer, “I did my best.” It’s so true! And if someone says, “your best isn’t good enough,” please go back to agreement number two, don’t take anything personally. Clearly that person needs to reassess some of their own agreements. Doing your best is always something that you should be proud of.
Remember that your best will vary over time. Your best will be different when you are healthy and when you are sick. It will be different when you are rested and when you are tired. And your best is always going to be different from someone else’s best. That’s OK. If you truly did your best, then give yourself the credit that you deserve.
For more information, please check out don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, or any of the Toltec Wisdom books by the Ruizes (don Miguel or his sons), HeatherAsh Amara, or Carlos Castaneda. These writings have changed my life for the better in many ways, and I think that they can do the same for you.