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The 4 Agreements: The Secret to Personal Freedom

The 4 Agreements: The Secret to Personal Freedom

by Parker · 34 things on Twos

A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom
These four agreements come from the book "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz
This is a practical guide to personal freedom
The freedom we are looking for is the freedom to be ourselves, to express ourselves. But if we look at our lives we will see that most of the time we do things just to please others, just to be accepted by others, rather than living our lives to please ourselves.
Practicing the new agreements in your life is how your best becomes better. Repetition makes the master.
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Be Impeccable with Your Word
Impeccability means “without sin.”
A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself.
Sin begins with rejection of yourself. Self-rejection is the biggest sin that you commit.
If I love myself, I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction.
When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself.
In your whole life, nobody has ever abused you more than you have abused yourself.
You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good; you feel happy and at peace.
Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves.
Wherever you go you will find people lying to you, and as your awareness grows, you will notice that you also lie to yourself. Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves. You have to trust yourself and choose to believe or not to believe what someone says to you.
When we really see other people as they are without taking it personally, we can never be hurt by what they say or do. Even if others lie to you, it is okay. They are lying to you because they are afraid.
It does not affect me because I know what I am. I don’t have the need to be accepted.
Don’t Make Assumptions
We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking — we take it personally — then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word.
We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.
Because we are afraid to ask for clarification, we make assumptions, and believe we are right about the assumptions; then we defend our assumptions and try to make someone else wrong.
The way to keep yourself from making assumptions is to ask questions. Make sure the communication is clear. If you don't understand, ask. Have the courage to ask questions until you are clear as you can be, and even then do not assume you know all there is to know about a given situation. Once you hear the answer, you will not have to make assumptions because you will know the truth.
Always Do Your Best
Under any circumstance, always do your best, no more and no less. But keep in mind that your best is never going to be the same from one moment to the next.
If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough. When you overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself, and it will take you longer to accomplish your goal. But if you do less than your best, you subject yourself to frustrations, self-judgment, guilt, and regrets.
"You are not here to sacrifice your joy or your life. You are here to live, to be happy, and to love. If you can do your best in two hours of meditation, but you spend eight hours instead, you will only grow tired, miss the point, and you won't enjoy your life. Do your best, and perhaps you will learn that no matter how long you meditate, you can live, love, and be happy."
It is the action that is going to make you feel intensely happy. When you always do your best, you take action. Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you're expecting a reward. Most people do exactly the opposite: They only take action when they expect a reward, and they don't enjoy the action. And that's the reason why they don't do their best.
If you take action just for the sake of doing it, without expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action you do. Rewards will come, but you are not attached to the reward. You can even get more than you would have imagined for yourself without expecting a reward. If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life. We are having fun, we don't get bored, we don't have frustrations.
When you do your best, you don't give the Judge the opportunity to find you guilty or to blame you. If you have done your best and the Judge tries to judge you according to your Book of Law, you've got the answer: "I did my best." There are no regrets. That is why we always do our best. It is not an easy agreement to keep, but this agreement is really going to set you free.
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If you are impeccable with your word, if you don't take anything personally, if you don't make assumptions, if you always do your best, then you are going to have a beautiful life.
I want you to see yourself living a new life, a new dream, a life where you don't need to justify your existence and you are free to be who you really are.