The Four Agreements

This is a review of the book “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom” by Don Miguel Ruiz. I am going to quote from the inside cover of the book. (The book itself says that is allowed without permission from the publisher when it is done as part of a book review.)

This book, which I ran across a few decades ago, was incredibly powerful and helpful for me at a time of need in my life. I recently had reason to think of it again and looked over it again. This time the Four Agreements seemed as powerful and helpful as ever and I was able to see they applied at a more deeper level than I had realized when I first read the book.

As best I recall, at the time I was looking for anything which would be a practical guide to me for achieving personal freedom. So it would definitely have got my attention. I can’t remember exactly when I bought it, but I see that it was published in 1997. It would have been quite a new book at the time. I remember seeing it a lot in bookstores, which have always been been places I and my family liked to browse and chill. At the time the self-help /psychology section was one of my favorite places to browse.

About the book: overall I found it was easy for me to understand the author’s key points.

Admittedly it was a little offputting to me that on the back of the book it says it’s based on ancient Toltec wisdom. I had no idea what that was and in practice it meant at times it felt a little like I was reading a book in a language I was not very familiar with.

On the other hand the author includes straightforward examples using interactions between human beings which I found easy to relate to and which illustrated his key points very effectively.

So, as I have said, overall I found this book easy to understand. And it was incredibly helpful to me at a time of need in my life. And still rings true, coming back to it decades later. That’s why I’m writing about it. I think there may be other people out there who would find it helpful too, since it was and is so helpful for me.

These are Four Agreements from the book, shared from the front inside cover of the book:

Be impeccable with your word

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

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.

Don’t make assumptions

Find the courage to ask questions and 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.

Always do your best

Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you’re sick to when you’re healthy. Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

As I said, this is exactly how the Four Agreements are stated in the book. I needed to think about each one carefully to see whether it rang true for me and could be helpful to me. The comments under each one (italicized by me) were very helpful. The examples in the book were perhaps the most helpful of all – but you’ll have to buy the book to get those!

When I first read the first one “Be impeccable with your word” I had no idea what it meant. The italicized comments helped. Most of them sounded like something from the Bible or a sermon to me; they were not new information; I didn’t have a problem with them. However one part: “Avoid using the word to speak against yourself ” was intriguing. I realized, hmmm, I do not always do that. Sometimes I am sure something is always true but I say “in my opinion” or “but I could be wrong” because not saying that seems to annoy other people.

To be clear, that piece of the first agreement was not helpful because it enabled me to behave differently. It was helpful because it enabled me to see that in an ideal world I should not need to caveat thing I say. I should be able to be assertive. However I do not live in an ideal world. I live in a world in which men and white people and authority figures have more than their fair share of power. (Ok, when I say that I do mean “in my opinion and in my experience” and it is not always true).

Anyway the point is, no I don’t do that, but it is not my fault that I can’t do that and I am absolutely right to be upset that a smart woman often is simply not allowed to assertively express herself in the way that a man is allowed to. A smart woman who says the exact same words as a smart man is liable to be criticized for being too aggressive or forward or inappropriate whereas the man would be praised for his clear thinking and clear self-expression.

Bottom line, it was extremely validating. It said yes the world you live in is messed up. Yes you are right to be upset about it. No it is not your fault. Yes you are right that in an ideal world you could follow this agreement to your heart’s content.

Unlike the first agreement, I understood the second one “Don’t take anything personally” right away. If anything the italicized comments confused rather than helped me because they were a bit Toltec-y for me.

I understood it but, I was pretty convinced it was wrong! There’s no way no-one ever says something to me which is not intended for me personally! There are definitely times at which in reality I upset or please people and their response is based on reality and not a dream.

Anyway after a while I realized that with a small tweak this could be extremely powerful and helpful to me. The tweak that works for me is modifying it to ” Don’t assume anything is 100% personal” Once I made that tweak I could totally see where he is coming from. The mood someone is hugely influences the way they communicate with me and also their perception of my role in their current unhappiness or happiness. When someone is feeling negative emotions and also is upset about something I had a role in, they are liable to misattribute their emotions and hold me 100% responsible for everything currently upsetting them.

It seems to me if I deny any personal responsibility when someone upset, tries to talk to me about something, that is likely to be inflammatory and unhelpful. I would rather try to be honest and see if I did do something to contribute to their current feelings.

On the other hand at that time in my life I was going through something very difficult and was being hugely blamed for some things I was fairly sure were not 100% my problem. It was impossible for me to have a rational discussion with anyone about that at the time, for various reasons. While I didn’t completely agree with the book author that I had nothing to do with what was going on, the concept that I had less to do with it than I was being blamed for, and that anyone who thought it was 100% my fault was probably somewhat wrong, was extremely helpful and validating.

The third agreement “Don’t make assumptions” seemed straightforward to me. I understood it without the italicized comments. I think I’d already figured it out by the time I read the book. A book I read around the same time (Love is Never Enough by Aaron Beck, maybe I should review that also) points out, as best I recall, that it is difficult but very helpful if you are able to give your spouse the benefit of the doubt, when if you are upset with them over something they did to you. In practise what this means is, do not assume they did it on purpose even if you can’t understand how they could have not realized it would have hurt you. Maybe you are so convinced they did it on purpose that it feels like a lie to say “maybe you didn’t do this on purpose” – but, trust me, said the author, in effect, if you want to resolve this, giving them the benefit of the doubt will work better than going with your feeling that they did it on purpose.

I was intrigued that the italicized comments point out that this one agreement could transform a person’s life. On reflection I think that’s probably true if you hadn’t already realized it. I had already realized it so it didn’t make much difference to me, right then, at that time.

I really needed the italicized comments to understand the fourth agreement “Always do your best”. Because to be honest the statement by itself really pushed my buttons. It sounded very shaming from where I was at that time, being blamed for a ton of stuff, having to process difficult stuff, literally struggling to accomplish as much as I probably could at other times in my life. Sometimes having a hard time getting the simplest things done – or so it seemed to me.

This agreement together with the italicized comments was perfect for where I was at at the time. It validated my inability get much done at all when I was under huge emotional stress.

Perhaps it was the fourth agreement that transformed my life.

Anyway, so it was an incredibly helpful book to me. I hope that something in here or in the book is helpful to someone else reading this.