A Work In Progress

The Four Agreements is an amazing and life changing book, or better, a manifesto, by Don Miguel Ruiz. He has four principles to practice to create love and happiness in your life. They are:

The Four Agreements are: (from http://www.toltecspirit.com)

1. Be Impeccable with your Word: Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the Word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your Word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret. 

Straight out of the gate, I thought, I'm screwed! Someone like me could never survive the first principle! I am one snarky lady. So I thought, well, lets skip number one for right now. Let's see how feasible number two is. Nope. Gonna be a tough one here too. I am ridiculously sensitive. I take everything personally. I battle depression and anxiety, so by nature I am a insecure, and with that, am easily hurt by words and actions. So, now I am thinking, you already are incapable of doing 50% of the principles, perhaps you should just close the book and walk away. But, I hadn't bought the book for light toilet reading, so suck it up cupcake! I looked at number three. I chuckled as I realized, while reading this, I had just made two assumptions that I could not follow these principles. Then I read the line about avoiding misunderstandings, sadness and drama. DING DING DING DING!!!!! Okay, okay...if I want to remove the drama and sadness from my life, then I was going to have to make big changes to ME! 

So, off on a journey of rediscovery on a kinder, gentler, less sensitive me. This has been a six years in the making. I am a work in progress. One thing I've learned, it's hard to work on any self improvement while your in a boxing ring. Much of the last six years of my life have been brought to you from the middle of that ring...and I was getting my butt kicked! This makes something like, "Don't Take Anything Personally" nearly impossible. I have been blessed with an amazing therapist. She really helped me traverse the firestorm that was my life, and showed me that I cannot control how anyone else is going to behave. I cannot control anyone else's emotions or reactions, but I can control my part in it all. Only I can control me, my reactions. She showed me I have a central part in all of the bad relationships. I am a key component in this life. I am not a victim in any of this. I am a player. I bit of a hard pill to swallow in the beginning. 

The real way to end drama is not to react to it, to not let it get to you. Once again, this is something I have not quite mastered. I wouldn't even say I am past apprentice level, but I am constantly working on it. I woke up Friday to a nasty email. Several things were said about me. It was even suggested I check out a link on narcissistic personality disorder. Okay, I giggled about that, but just the tone of the email, the things that were said, which I knew were completely false, I let them get to me. I took them personally. Then I reacted by transferring it towards my daughter. I let my brother have it, via text! Oh lord, epic fail on the four agreements! What a mess! I lost it. I spent two days just consumed with the spitefulness of people. The constant lying and the emotional blackmail. Although I knew starting this blog was not going to be received well by all, I still was not emotionally prepared to handle the repercussions. Or more accurately, I allowed this person to get to me. I allowed their reaction to drive my reaction. This person always does. We all have people like that in our lives. People who just cause knee-jerk, wrenching reactions from you. 

Luckily, I have realized this concept of "never let them see you cry" is bullshit! I threw my distress to the universe, and my internet sister and brothers, and I was caught before I could fall. I was drenched in love and support and reminders that I am not the product of other people's opinions, I am the product of my own actions. And with that, I took some time and really absorbed what had occurred. I recognize now that I did exactly what was expected of me by the person who sent the email. They reacted to my blog. I reacted to them. The email was sent for that reason alone, to get a reaction from me. I was invited back into the drama, and I walked right through the door. I didn't write the post for them, I wrote it for me. 

So I continue my journey to better control myself. To work on the four agreements and making them more of a daily part of my life. To recognize that laying my thoughts out in a blog automatically makes me target for anyone's opinions. I will not always handle it well, but hopefully I will get better at pulling myself out of it. In the end, it's the whacky part of being human. We have emotions, hearts and feelings; even the coldest of us. An angry soul is a wounded soul.

In the real world, those who reach Nirvana, are usually the monks who live alone, in a vow of silence, on a mountain top. How easy it is to find peace when there is NOTHING to stress you out or push your buttons? That is not the real world. This is life, and life is full the people we don't get along with,  jobs that are stressful, families that pull you in every direction and bills.... Lets get real. If any of us can learn to utilize any of the four agreements in everyday life, we will be a little better off.

In the end, we all want a life a little more peaceful and filled with more love and happiness than anger and sorrow. Everyone feels better when they are happy. Who doesn't want to laugh over cry? Who really wants to feel angry all the time? I can tell you, when you are happy, your soul feels lighter, your heart feels lighter and the world is just a brighter place! I continue to work on the balance.

So the sign above my door continues to say A Work In Progess!

 Namaste