Several years ago when I was going through my divorce I joined an AOL group for divorced singles. My son was only six, the divorce was messy and I was feeling pretty helpless at the time, concerned about raising a son on my own, not knowing what I was doing or where I was going. People were telling me I was a terrible mother, my little boy would be messed up if I raised him alone and he needed his father. I was selfish. I was breaking up our family. I was a loser. My mother criticized me at every turn as she had always done, offering no support whatsoever, and my lifelong insecurities were mounting. But that AOL group was just what I needed. The members were welcoming, lovely and kind and I found myself there every evening. Several of the members were regulars and we quickly became friends (Miranda is still a friend on Facebook). But after a few weeks I was still at a roadblock and was basically just breathing, working and taking care of my son. Then one evening the group talked about the things they were doing to move on with their lives and my friend Trapper mentioned a Book that literally changed his life, “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz. A few days later I received a copy in the mail from my dear friend and spent the evening reading it. From the first word I knew this would clear the roadblock for me to get on with the life I wanted to live it. And it was.
As children we are introduced a Book of Law, a set of rules (thought beliefs) taught to us through repetition. In this process of agreements (domestication), our parents and others teach us conditions of worth, rewarding us for good behavior and punishing us when we don’t behave. Others’ opinions of us become a strong influence on the habits we form. We create agreements in our minds as to who we are, who we should be, how we should act, etc., an unconscious set of instructions for living life, and over time we try to live up to our self- formed definition of perfection in order to be accepted, robbing ourselves of realizing our greatest potential as the divine individuals we are. Our Book of Law rules our reality and thus rules our dream.
As a child, my parents’ tools of reward and punishment were always emotional and often physical, but it was the emotional abuse that really messed me up. I don’t remember ever being told they loved me. I was stupid. I was ugly. I was hopeless. I was worthless. I was a naturally shy child and with the emotional abuse I suffered I questioned my worthiness of love and happiness. Unfortunately these feelings continued long after I became an adult and worsened through several relationships with emotionally and physically abusive men. I honestly felt this was the life I was meant to have and ultimately I married a man who emotionally abused me and our son. Haunted by the old agreements of my childhood, I was determined that no child of mine was going to grow up the way I did, so after six years my son and I moved out and I filed for divorce. I resolved to be a good mother and give my son a good life, but to do that I knew I had to help myself.
In adopting the Four Agreements you are challenging the beliefs you learned and the habits you practiced since your childhood domestication. “The Four Agreements” is a guidebook offering four principles to practice in order to create love and happiness in our lives. It’s about simplifying and taking ownership of the dream of your lives, casting off social expectations and standards (“the dream of the world”) that limit us as individuals, robbing us of joy and creating needless suffering, to return us to our true nature of freedom, happiness and love.
Now don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t easy for me at first to adopt and live by the Four Agreements. Many times my inner judge reprimanded me when I stumbled and my old feelings of self-doubt and failure would cloud my mind, but I carried on. Time and time again I returned to the book and eventually bought the cards, keeping them close by and reading one every time I felt I was lapsing. But in time I have gained more awareness of the ridiculous expectations of the dream of the world and more power over my agreements, with gratitude and unconditional love and acceptance for myself and those around me ~ Nirvana.
If you are not living the dream of your life please read this book. You won’t be sorry. The path to love, freedom and happiness can be yours.
