Book Club - The Four Agreements

Book: The Four Agreements  by Don Miguel Ruiz

I was looking into an old journal of mine and stumbled upon some reading notes about the book “The four agreements”. If you haven’t read that book yet, don’t wait any longer. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve read ;

1. Super easy to read, I literally read the whole book on a plane.
2. If you’re looking for AH moments - this is the book for you
3. It’s the kind of book that you can read multiple times and still get different insights every time.

I’m so excited to share this with you, these notes were written after reading this book, I was just in a flow, connecting all the concepts together. No editing, this is as raw as you can get.

 

March 9th 2021 - Reflections on The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz 

 

We all live according to our own belief system, our own personal experience of life. What we do, what we think, how we see the world, what we think we are, why we think and act a certain way. 

Everything listed above is the sum of our own experience of life. How we choose to experience life is up to us… entirely ? 

Not if we haven’t paid attention to what/who surrounds us ; parents, friends, society, our own vision - those are all influential matters that determine how we see the world.

 We can choose what we see if we are aware. Aware of the thoughts, ideas, opinions, we are letting our mind penetrate. 

For example; 

We might value the opinions of friend #1 more than the opinion of friend #2. It might not be better or even relevant but for some reason we let the opinion of #1 penetrate our mind and dictate how we should think/act. 

Our perception of  life is in part imposed on us by others when we don’t pay attention. We just agree without thinking for ourselves. Most people have no clue how important and powerful what they say/do can affect someone. either good or bad. Unfortunately, what we say leans towards a negative train of thought - affecting the person on the receiving end. 

Conditioning / domestication 

Why do we share some values, principles and opinions ? 

Most importantly, where do they come from ? 

We aren’t just born with a set of values. They are passed to us through our domestication - the period when we were young and sensible to every bit of information our parents gave us. Like sponges soaking up everything. 

We see the world through our parent’s lense until we are old enough to have our own opinions. Some never get to the point of having their own personalized lenses. Why ? 

Because we don’t believe in ourselves; we believe what everyone says about us or about how we should do stuff, but we mostly fear to go our own way. 

Conditioned to live through what our parents taught us; 

Example: Having a degree is the only way to be successful. So as a kid you believe this is the only way to reach success. Even if that’s not what you want. 

 

So if we don’t take the time to become aware and grow our own belief system by asking simple questions like : 

 

What do I like ? 
What is really important to me ? 
How do I want to live my life ? 
Is this an opinion I believe is true ? 
How do I see myself ? 
Why does this person’s opinion matter to me ? 

 

We can’t blame our parents for showing us their way because they’ve been told the same things by their parents. They just share what they know.  If they knew better, they would’ve thought us better. It’s up to us to go our own way, deciding what we want to give importance and nurture. 

 

What are The Four Agreements 

An agreement is something we accept to be true. We make plenty of agreements with ourselves. What we agree is true will dictate what we think of ourselves, of the world and dictate how we behave. 

Example: A confident person will act in a totally different way than someone who has made an agreement of insecurity. An insecure person believes that they are not enough. They are scared and they stay in that state of mind. Once you break that agreement by gaining more confidence, you instantly see the world with different lenses.

 

1. Be impeccable with your words 

• No gossip
• Be careful to what opinion you believe is true
• using words to spread love
• most of the time we use words to critic, gossip, hate
• We underestimate the impact we have on others with our words. Good or bad.

2. Don’t take things personally

• When someone says something to us that we believe is true, we take it personally because we feel like we’ve been penetrated in our own mind. Like someone has read our mind. Since we already believe that to be true about ourselves, when someone shares the same opinion, it reinforces it and makes it true. It’s like now we have evidence that this is ture “i’m not the only only thinking this about myself” 
• If we just remember that someone’s opinion is as true as they believe /we believe, we can manage not to take stuff personally. We let those thoughts affect us. – We agreed to let them in. 
• the opinion of someone only reflects his view of the world. It can have no impact, little impact, huge impact to the receiver. 
• Judgment of others is only the reflection of their life, on us

 

“ My haircut is ugly ? It’s only ugly if I believe it is. Regardless of the opinions”

 

Taking things personally sets us up for suffering, we can break that by reminding ourselves that nothing is about us. We have that habit of thinking everything is about us but in fact it’s about them.The person is not in your head nor lives your life…They don’t know if what they’ve said triggers a past wound or other sensible cord. That is your responsibility to heal these wounds. 

You gotta break the agreement of taking things personally by trusting yourself enough. Only then will you be able to free yourself from the opinions of others. 

________________________

Unfortunately I haven't written about the other 2 agreements.

Which are :  Don't make assumptions - always do your best)

I left the link of the book here if you want to read it for yourself THE FOUR AGREEMENTS 

 

I would love to hear from you, have you read the book ? What do you think ? Comment below