My Five Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz a wonderful spiritual leader of our time wrote the book "The Four Agreements". Those agreements make a lot of sense to me and to many who have read this small but powerful text about how to approach life by as he states: being impeccable with your word, never taking things personally, doing our best and not making assumptions. I would agree that these four agreements in life could certainly make life a little less complicated and a lot happier for all the obvious reasons. After many years of having read his four agreements I have come up with my own five agreements and these are them:
1. Tell the Truth
Always tell the truth. Don't BS anyone for any reason and don't make up stories just to make yourself important or bigger than what you are. We tend to think that the little white lies are OK but I think those white lies lead to the larger ones and our lies are compounded. I love Iyanla Vanzant because when she coaches people she consistently repeats "tell the truth!" in a way that is both bold and comes across as genuine. Telling the truth about our feelings is yet another form of the truth. Telling the truth about how we feel for someone, about someone, about something or matters of the heart is truly one o the most important things we can do for our selves and for others. Just tell the truth. Let the truth be known. Let the feelings of honesty out. If you are mad then state that you are. If you are overjoyed shout it out. By telling the truth we set a path of honesty and a path of serenity and peace in our lives. We set ourselves up for more truth and more of the light will come forward as well as more of who we are at our core. We were meant to "tell the truth".
2. Have Boundaries Always
I think that the second most important thing in our life is to set boundaries. Let others know, especially the ones who you love and those who say they love you, what your limits and designated lines are. When you don't set boundaries you set yourself up. When you set boundaries you send clear messages about how you will be treated, what is acceptable and what is not. For years I did not set
boundaries and what I found out was that it became too late to set boundaries with someone who I'd allowed to cross mine over and over and over again over years and years. I finally figured out that the only way to set my boundaries was to draw my line and walk away, letting go completely of the relationship and taking back my empowerment. A lesson well learned by enduring a lot of disrespect and a lack of boundaries. Set your boundaries early if not immediately with family, friends, spouses, lovers or coworkers. If you set them right away it sends the message that you truly mean it. If you wait to long it could become too late. Life is about setting boundaries and by doing so receiving the respect you deserve.
3. Don't Settle
Do not settle for seconds or thirds. If you settle you will eventually understand that by doing so you robbed yourself of what you deserved. We settle when we take a job that is not aligned with our spirit and our thinking and when we accept a person in a relationship that is not really up to our life standards, our beliefs and our interests. By settling we create resentment in our life because we have said yes to something or someone we should of passed over. When we settle we know it almost right away and unfortunately we continue to settle until we either realize we can walk away or we get left because it becomes obvious to the other person or we stray and that ends it in a bad way. In life we should never settle but rather strive to be in the best situation with the best person suited for us that has interests and values like ours and is willing to give as much as they take. When we settle we are telling our spirit that we are not good enough to have what we really deserve and want in life whether it's a job or a person or a long term friend. When we settle for whatever we can get we soon realize we don't get much.
4. Be Empowered Not Powerful
I love how we think when we are little. We think power means we can beat up a person who might try to beat us up. We think that having power is having a more impactful punch. We confuse power with being empowered. Being powerful may mean we can fire a person for no good reason or we can beat the crap out of someone we don't like or who hurt our feelings, even someone who has hit us first but being empowered is when we don't exert our physical strength and we realize a power within that is sacred and spiritual. We become empowered when we know that walking away from people who intend to harm us will get us the best results: peace and serenity. Being powerful for some means that they make more money than their spouse or that they oversee a million dollar company like the Trump Towers. Empowerment is much more enduring and long lasting.
5. Know When to Let Go and Move On
The last thing to know in life is when to let go and push on. We tend to hold on to things and people for much too long and for all the wrong reasons. We hold onto jobs for too long. We hold on to abusive people in our life for too long. We stay in bad situations for much too long and we even tend to play with the wrong person for too long and for the wrong reasons. When we know when to let go we listen to our hearts and our intuition and we say thank you and move on. We know it right from the start yet we hold on much too long to our own detriment. Knowing when to let go and move on is a life skill that can save our life and save us some pain we did not need and did not deserve. On the other hand holding on is a sign that something in us needs to be corrected and healed.
Like Don Miguel I have my own agreements in life. I think there have to be at least five more and I am certain they will come to me so stay tuned in. Off the top of my head I would say that another good agreement might be centered around self-love and self-nurturing. Agreeing to love yourself first and putting our mask on first. Like I said, stay tuned...
1. Tell the Truth
Always tell the truth. Don't BS anyone for any reason and don't make up stories just to make yourself important or bigger than what you are. We tend to think that the little white lies are OK but I think those white lies lead to the larger ones and our lies are compounded. I love Iyanla Vanzant because when she coaches people she consistently repeats "tell the truth!" in a way that is both bold and comes across as genuine. Telling the truth about our feelings is yet another form of the truth. Telling the truth about how we feel for someone, about someone, about something or matters of the heart is truly one o the most important things we can do for our selves and for others. Just tell the truth. Let the truth be known. Let the feelings of honesty out. If you are mad then state that you are. If you are overjoyed shout it out. By telling the truth we set a path of honesty and a path of serenity and peace in our lives. We set ourselves up for more truth and more of the light will come forward as well as more of who we are at our core. We were meant to "tell the truth".
2. Have Boundaries Always
I think that the second most important thing in our life is to set boundaries. Let others know, especially the ones who you love and those who say they love you, what your limits and designated lines are. When you don't set boundaries you set yourself up. When you set boundaries you send clear messages about how you will be treated, what is acceptable and what is not. For years I did not set
boundaries and what I found out was that it became too late to set boundaries with someone who I'd allowed to cross mine over and over and over again over years and years. I finally figured out that the only way to set my boundaries was to draw my line and walk away, letting go completely of the relationship and taking back my empowerment. A lesson well learned by enduring a lot of disrespect and a lack of boundaries. Set your boundaries early if not immediately with family, friends, spouses, lovers or coworkers. If you set them right away it sends the message that you truly mean it. If you wait to long it could become too late. Life is about setting boundaries and by doing so receiving the respect you deserve.
3. Don't Settle
Do not settle for seconds or thirds. If you settle you will eventually understand that by doing so you robbed yourself of what you deserved. We settle when we take a job that is not aligned with our spirit and our thinking and when we accept a person in a relationship that is not really up to our life standards, our beliefs and our interests. By settling we create resentment in our life because we have said yes to something or someone we should of passed over. When we settle we know it almost right away and unfortunately we continue to settle until we either realize we can walk away or we get left because it becomes obvious to the other person or we stray and that ends it in a bad way. In life we should never settle but rather strive to be in the best situation with the best person suited for us that has interests and values like ours and is willing to give as much as they take. When we settle we are telling our spirit that we are not good enough to have what we really deserve and want in life whether it's a job or a person or a long term friend. When we settle for whatever we can get we soon realize we don't get much.
4. Be Empowered Not Powerful
I love how we think when we are little. We think power means we can beat up a person who might try to beat us up. We think that having power is having a more impactful punch. We confuse power with being empowered. Being powerful may mean we can fire a person for no good reason or we can beat the crap out of someone we don't like or who hurt our feelings, even someone who has hit us first but being empowered is when we don't exert our physical strength and we realize a power within that is sacred and spiritual. We become empowered when we know that walking away from people who intend to harm us will get us the best results: peace and serenity. Being powerful for some means that they make more money than their spouse or that they oversee a million dollar company like the Trump Towers. Empowerment is much more enduring and long lasting.
5. Know When to Let Go and Move On
The last thing to know in life is when to let go and push on. We tend to hold on to things and people for much too long and for all the wrong reasons. We hold onto jobs for too long. We hold on to abusive people in our life for too long. We stay in bad situations for much too long and we even tend to play with the wrong person for too long and for the wrong reasons. When we know when to let go we listen to our hearts and our intuition and we say thank you and move on. We know it right from the start yet we hold on much too long to our own detriment. Knowing when to let go and move on is a life skill that can save our life and save us some pain we did not need and did not deserve. On the other hand holding on is a sign that something in us needs to be corrected and healed.
Like Don Miguel I have my own agreements in life. I think there have to be at least five more and I am certain they will come to me so stay tuned in. Off the top of my head I would say that another good agreement might be centered around self-love and self-nurturing. Agreeing to love yourself first and putting our mask on first. Like I said, stay tuned...
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