Monday, October 3, 2011

The Four Agreements

I read an article today that really resonated with me.  It summarized the principles in the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.  These agreements are not easy by any stretch of the imagination, but these are items that I am going to strive to put into practice immediately, as I know they would make my life less painful and mentally taxing a lot of the time.

The article was written by Mary Kelly-Williams, M.A., a contributor of Stepmom magazine.

1.  Be Impeccable With Your Word ~ No slander, gossip, maligning or being catty or unkind towards another.  While it may feel good at the time, ultimately it hurts our hearts and souls wasting precious time on disparaging another human being.  We look and feel better taking the higher road.

2.  Don't Take Anything Personally ~ Because it rarely is about us.  It is often the other person projecting what they think we represent (or don't) when it comes to their relationship with us.

3.  Don't Make Assumptions ~ We tend to put people in boxes and can be stubborn about letting them out.  When we assume something we react to the assumption, not the reality.

4.  Do The Best You Can ~ On any given day, do the best you can, with the capacity you have for that day.  The capacity is ever-changing.  We are human.

10 comments:

CalamityJr said...

Great food for thought. Thanks for sharing.

Chocolates4Breakfast (Terri Malinovich) said...

Good life lessons.

Patty C. said...

Great post ;)

Babs in Alabama said...

This is good, Heather :)
Babs

aprilmecheelesdulllife said...

Sounds great to me !!!

Lesleyanne said...

Food for thought, great post.

Lonneke said...

I totally agree with those agreements. And seeing them put together like this makes sense and is a good reminder.
Thanks for posting this.

Siobhán said...

I need to share that with my teenage daughter--especially #2! She has been upset because friends are telling her that she's weird. Good life lessons!

jayne@~an eye for threads~ said...

What a coincidence, I am stitching the actual agreements and every stitch enforces the thought therein.
Everyone should read this book at least once.
Be always in stitches.

Denise said...

Have read this book - Jayne told me it was a great read and she was so right!

They sound pretty easy to do...but...it's tough to break some habits!