43. The Four Agreements - Don Miguel Ruiz (📱)

Reading Notes:

Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.

We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.

We have learned to live by other people’s points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else.

But nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves, and it is the Judge, the Victim, and the belief system that make us do this.

The way we judge ourselves is the worst judge that ever existed.

If you abuse yourself very badly, you can even tolerate someone who beats you up, humiliates you, and treats you like dirt. Why? Because in your belief system you say, “I deserve it. This person is doing me a favor by being with me. I’m not worthy of love and respect. I’m not good enough.”

The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal.

But the most important agreements are the ones you made with yourself. In these agreements you tell yourself who you are, what you feel, what you believe, and how to behave.

In these agreements you say, “This is what I am. This is what I believe. I can do certain things, and some things I cannot do. This is reality, that is fantasy; this is possible, that is impossible.”

Don’t Take Anything Personally

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in.

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. You eat all their emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of hell. Immunity to poison in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement.

Even the opinions you have about yourself are not necessarily true; therefore, you don’t need to take whatever you hear in your own mind personally.

Humans agree to help each other suffer. If you have the need to be abused, you will find it easy to be abused by others.

Wherever you go you will find people lying to you, and as your awareness grows, you will notice that you also lie to yourself. Do not expect people to tell you the truth because they also lie to themselves. You have to trust yourself and choose to believe or not to believe what someone says to you.

The whole world can gossip about you, and if you don’t take it personally you are immune.

You will only need to trust yourself to make responsible choices. You are never responsible for the actions of others; you are only responsible for you. When you truly understand this, and refuse to take things personally, you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments or actions of others.

THE THIRD AGREEMENT IS DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS.

whenever we make assumptions, we’re asking for problems. We make an assumption, we misunderstand, we take it personally, and we end up creating a whole big drama for nothing.

It is very interesting how the human mind works. We have the need to justify everything, to explain and understand everything, in order to feel safe.

It is not important if the answer is correct; just the answer itself makes us feel safe. This is why we make assumptions.

The fourth agreement is about the action of the first three: Always do your best

If you have the awareness that the whole drama of your life is the result of what you believe, and what you believe is not real, then you can begin to change it.

Once you forgive yourself, the self-rejection in your mind is over. Self-acceptance begins, and the self-love will grow so strong that you will finally accept yourself just the way you are. That’s the beginning of the free human. Forgiveness is the key.