This is a spiritually enlightening bestseller with just 49 pages written by spiritual teacher Don Miguel Ruiz. Its aimed at helping readers to free themselves from the chains of negative and toxic beliefs and actions. Don Miguel points out that when we are born we go through what he terms as ‘domestication’ that is we are taught what beliefs we should carry, the religion we should believe in, the political party to support, the language we should speak, what society deems right and wrong and with time we believe this information, abide by it just to please society at the expense of our true feelings and happiness which eventually lead to self-hatred. In order to break free from our domestication, he urges us to make these four new agreements with ourselves.
- The first agreement; Be impeccable with your word
This agreement talks about the power our words carry and urges us to avoid gossip and be mindful of the way we use them about others and their opinions about us. Don says you can cast a spell on someone using your word and if they agree with your opinion about them, their word will manifest.
“The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on earth.” - The second agreement, Don’t take anything personally
This agreement urges us not to take anything other people do to us personally because it says a lot about them and how they are feeling about themselves than it says about us.
” Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.”
“Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators, the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up.” - The third agreement; Don’t make assumptions
Always ask for clarification because making assumptions and believing in them only cause us drama, suffering and grief.
“We make all sorts of assumptions because we don’t have the courage to ask questions. These assumptions are made so fast and unconsciously most of the time because we have agreements to communicate this way. We have agreed that it is not safe to ask questions; we have agreed that if people love us, they should know what we want or how we feel. When we believe something we assume we are right about it to the point that we will destroy relationships in order to defend our position.” - The fourth agreement; Always do your best
This last agreement says we should always do and give our best in everything that we do but be mindful that our best will always change from time to time depending on different circumstances like how we are feeling, so we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves.
“Regardless of the quality, keep doing your best — no more and no less than your best. If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and in the end your best will not be enough. When you overdo, you deplete your body and go against yourself, and it will take you longer to accomplish your goal. But if you do less than your best, you subject yourself to frustrations, self-judgment, guilt, and regrets.”
