“The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz is the most profoundly practical book I have found to guide one to a high-value, high-joy, high-performance life. To practice its tenets is to move toward spiritual enlightenment. Pretty darn impressive, right? For me, it is a way to identify agreements I’ve made to myself that are black magic, bad juju, anxiety triggering activities. In fact, whenever I feel out of alignment, I look for the agreement I’ve violated and viola’ I’m back on The Golden Road to Unlimited Joy, or at least I’ve got the proper guidance from my internal compass.
Today we will look at The First Agreement; Be IMPECCABLE with your word. It’s not what you think.
When I first read this agreement, I thought it meant to be true to your word, or, always say what you’ll do, and then do what you say. What this agreement really means is to understand the power of your word, both to yourself and to others. Understand its power, and wield it responsibly.
Your word is the source of all of your creative power. Other creatures certainly can communicate rudimentarily. It is only humans who can express ideas. It is this ability to invoke language to describe that manifests everything in our lives. It’s simple to understand that everything that is created or destroyed emanates from our word.
The human mind is fertile ground where seeds are continually planted and germinate. Each word we speak to ourselves or to others are seeds that can grow into towering redwoods, or choking weeds.
Words cast spells on others with our opinions. We can create a self-fulfilling prophecy in others with the wrong words, or we can allow the spells that others cast on us to thrive with their maleficent utterances. Gossip is the fountainhead of evil in our lives. We plant seeds of discontent between others when we speak of others behind their backs.
People who love us cast the most impactful spells on us with their words. When our loved ones are not careful, they can do the most significant harm with the black magic of an impulsive, misplaced opinion.
Likewise, be careful with your internal self-talk. We create dark clouds around us by rehashing the past, fretting about the future, or being too critical of our present. Controlling our internal dialog is a practice. First, you must understand its power to motivate your self to engage in the practice of positivity.
The final three agreements all rest on the foundation of the first. Conscious, mindful, responsible use of your word to cast only sun spells on others and yourself is the first agreement to make to help us undo all of the malicious contracts we have made to ourselves throughout our lives. We funny, silly humans, The power we all have with our words is beyond comprehension. Everything good in our world and everything wrong is promulgated with our words. Mind what you say.
