BOOK REVIEW
Book title: The Four Agreements: A practical Guide to Personal Freedom
Author: Don Miguel Ruiz
About the author
Don Miguel Ruiz, born into a family of healers, was raised in rural Mexico. The family anticipated that he would embrace their centuries-old legacy of healing and teaching. Instead, Ruiz chose to become a surgeon. In the early seventies he had a near-death experience at the wheel of a car. He awoke having hit a concrete wall. Ruiz remembers not being in his physical body as he watched himself pull two friends from the wreck. He was left stunned by this experience and began an intensive practice of self-inquiry.
About the book
In his book, The Four Agreements, Ruiz reveals the source of our self-limiting beliefs that rob us of our joy and create unnecessary suffering. The book is based on ancient Toltec wisdom and offers a powerful code of conduct than can rapidly transform lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness and love.
When coaching, clients are often faced with their self-limiting beliefs – which have more often than not come into their awareness whilst on a coaching journey or any journey of introspection and self-discovery. A coach can assist a client to uncover and name these self-limiting beliefs; not dwelling on the cause or source of such beliefs, instead working with the client to move them into a new and more free way of being.
Ruiz refers to the domestication of humans; it is through this process that we learn to live and how to dream. As children we don’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs, instead we agree with the information passed down to us and the only way to store information is by agreement. Children believe everything that adults say. The agreement then results in a belief system that controls our lives. We don’t choose these beliefs and we may rebel against them however we are not strong enough to win the rebellion.
1. Be impeccable with your word
This is the first and most important agreement. In addition, it is the most difficult one to honour. Ruiz places such importance on this agreement saying that it can result in one transcending to a level of existence he calls heaven on earth. This agreement, as simple as it sounds, is incredibly powerful. Our word is the power that we have to create. It is through the word that we manifest everything According to Ruiz misuse of the word creates a living hell. Impeccability of word will only create beauty, love and heaven on earth. Depending on how it is used the word can either enslave us or set us free.
By bringing into a client’s awareness the importance of being impeccable with their word it can stop them from doing things against themselves – whether felt, believed or said. Clients can easily go against themselves when they judge or blame themselves for anything. In addition, being impeccable with our word is the correct use of energy – in the direction of truth and love.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
The second and third agreements are born from the first. Whatever happens around us; we shouldn’t take personally. Nothing other people do is because of us. It is because of them. By taking things personally we set ourselves up for unnecessary suffering. As humans we are addicted to suffering; at different levels and to different degrees. According to Ruiz, there is a huge amount of freedom that comes with not taking things personally. Taking nothing personally helps us to break both habits and routines that trap us into suffering.
Coaching clients can benefit from not taking things personally and genuinely believing that what others say has more to do with them than themselves. Life doesn’t happen to us; life happens for us. It is our responsibility to discern what others say and know that what is said about us does not belong to us.
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
The problem with making assumptions is that we believe them to be the truth. Too often we make assumptions based on unavailable, inaccurate or incomplete data. According to Ruiz, all the sadness and drama in our lives is rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally. It is because we are often afraid to ask for clarification that we make assumptions. We believe them to be correct, we defend them and try to make someone else wrong. It is always better to ask questions than make an assumption. Assumptions set us up for suffering.
A client cannot make the assumption that we all see the world in the same way that they do. It is dangerous to assume that others think, feel and judge in the same way. A client will make a lot of assumptions about themselves which leads to inner conflict. It is during a coaching programme that these assumptions can be drawn out of the client and assessed. If a client has the courage to ask questions and stop making assumptions they will be able to communicate cleanly and clearly; and it is with this clear communication that all relationships will change – both professional and personal.
4. Always Do Your Best
According to Ruiz, this agreement allows the other three to become deeply ingrained habits. The fourth agreement relates to the action of the first three. Under any circumstances we should always do our best, no less, no more. Our best if not going to be the same one moment to the next since everything is alive and changing constantly. It is by doing our best that we are no longer able to judge ourselves.
As a client moves from their current way into their new way; doing their best doesn’t feel like work because they are appreciating what they are doing and can see evidence of a positive change. A client is doing their best because they want to not because they have to and certainly not to please others. Else they would not have sought out a coach in the first instance. We all do our best in the given moment with the resources available to us.
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