Tag Archives: The four agreements

Personal Growth

Books to Grow Your Mind

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There is nothing that has allowed me to grow and understand life on a new level more than the books I read. They are a portal into knowledge and understanding that I can only hope to comprehend adequately. I know that my personal growth has stemmed directly from my experience with books and I wanted to share a few of the most recently read that I can highly recommend to all interested parties.

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

f5b978_861eea61847e45c39af1e1a019db3481This book provides simple and sensible guidance about life. It delves into the collective dream of society and the personal beliefs that we have agreed with and given power to. Yet many of these agreements are unhealthy and untrue, yet we allow them to stay a part of our lives. The book is based on Toltec Wisdom.

The four agreements are the ideas all people should adopt.  1. Be impeccable with your words. – Your words have power and how you use them is important.  2. Don’t take anything personally. People’s behavior is based on their experience and has nothing to do with you.  3. Don’t make assumptions Make sure you ask questions, speak your mind and never assume that you are sure about someone else’s thoughts. Many problems can be avoided. 4. Always do your best. This is simple advice but how many people do this in all that they do? Your best is effort is going to vary due to energy, health, time of day or any number of other factors, but if you continually give your best effort life gives back to you its best effort as well.

You can read this book over and over and get new things out of it. Also, lead to me reading other Don Miguel Ruiz books The Mastery of Love and The Fifth Agreement and also a book by Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr. called The Five Levels of Attachment.

The Biology of Belief by Bruce H. Lipton

bruce-lipton-quote-3A cellular biologist, Lipton started to make some radical discoveries about the behavior of cells. They didn’t work as he believed and his experiments led to his belief that what people believe affects their cellular makeup for everything from susceptibility to disease to how happy we are with our lives.  The basics are that our development has a lot more to do with our beliefs than it does with our DNA. It is an eye opening thought and supports the findings of Quantum Physics that our power as observer dictates our reality. Worth a read because it is a positive, empowering book. You are in control of your thoughts.

Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins

Personally, I find Tony Robbins annoying, but I love his message. Tony Robbins does a great job tony-robbins-quotes-41presenting you with steps that you can take in order to become better at what you are looking to improve at. There are many Robbins books out there, this one was written in the late 1990’s but the advice is still relevant today. If you want to be the best that you can be, this is a good place to start.  An example dealing with problems: people have issues dealing with their problems when they think the problem is permanent no problem is permanent big or small, pervasive, no one problem controls your whole life or personal, a problem is a challenge to learn from not a personal defect in our personality.

Robbins does a great job in providing simple to understand keys for a problem and gives you a place to start making changes. And of course, there is a giant within all of us. He also has a great process for changing beliefs that can help eliminate limiting thoughts. You will definitely have more tools to be successful after reading this book.

 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

the-alchemist-quotes-deep-wise-sayings-testGreat little read that tells a vital story. Each of us has a personal legend and we need to take action to make it come into reality. Having faith in life and the world will allow a person to find all of their personal power. It is a story that all can relate to and makes you look at your personal legend. It was probably not made by watching television or losing yourself in modern media.  We are all looking for the hidden treasure that will make our lives special, but the journey is always the real treasure, as much as the destination. Positive, powerful and life altering are words I would use to describe this quick little read. It is good for the soul and will have an impact on your life. I couldn’t recommend a book higher.

The Road Less Traveled by Scott M. Peck

155061_508544769168567_1480336927_nThis book was written in the 70’s I think, but its message is true for today. It begins by warning that there is always difficulties in life and once we accept that fact, it tends to not affect us as much anymore. This book is a guide to developing a person’s true self-building more meaningful relationships and providing an understanding of your actions.  I like books that provide actions that help us along the spiritual path, I find this book a great help.

Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life by Dr. Wayne Dyer

wayne-dyerThis project by the late Wayne Dyer provides an in-depth interpretation of Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching. The power of the Tao is all around us and the simple verses of this document allow for deep thought and personal growth on each page. Dr. Dyer does a nice job providing a connection to the modern world from each and every one of the 81 verses. Each time you read it, there are new insights that can help you develop as a person and contribute more to your family and the world. You can, in fact, change your thoughts and change your life for the positive each and every day.

Change your information and you will be learning to fly!

Fly along with me
I can’t quite make it alone
Try to make this life my own
Fly along with me
I can’t quite make it alone
Try to make this life my own

I’m looking to the sky to save me
Looking for a sign of life
Looking for something help me burn out bright

Life

My Notes on The Four Agreements

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The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz is a book I read years ago, and I just came across my reading notes. I thought they were worth sharing. Each of us has to agree with the truth of a thought before it can affect us. Once we do accept, that thought will affect our lives positively or negatively until you choose to change it.  The book talks about fear and how fear dictates what we do, and what parts of ourselves we show to others.  The four agreements are the ones we should seek to create in our minds. Interesting thoughts.

Agreement #1 Be Impeccable with Your Word

Your words contain magic in them and the power to make your life like heaven or like hell. The magic that you wield through your words is either light or dark- a blessing or cursing yourself and others. Too many of our bad agreements about life were planted by the callousness of the words of others. And even sometimes our own.  We are all connected as one.

Agreement #2 Don’t Take Anything Personally-

All the people are living in our dream. You are but a bit part in another person’s vision. Most of what people say and do is because of their lives, NOT due to you, your value, or behavior. The best action is to stay away from the insult or adverse response. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.

Agreement #3  Don’t Make Assumptions-

 

All assumptions are fantasies made in your mind about the behavior of others. See yourself reflected in the faces of others. Deal with the facts using the pure nature of your words and that of others. Truth is desired; fiction can be left behind.

 

Agreement #4

– Always Do Your Best

A simple thought can change your life negatively or positively. In each activity, each day, in every moment, simply trying to do your best is all anyone can do. If you continually strive to accomplish your highest achievement: you will embody your best to all.

Other Key Thoughts from Notes:

 

-Be who you are NO matter what someone says about you, or whatever they do, don’t take their words personally, and it doesn’t hurt anymore.  You will no longer be afraid to love, to share, or to open your heart.  NO ONE ELSE IS LIKE YOU!!

-Most people are emotionally wound

ed and sick with fear. All people carry wounds in their minds, which are open and hurting. They make us afraid to be who we are.

-Shyness is a fear of expressing yourself, and you may believe you don’t know how to sing or how to dance, but this is just repression of the healthy human instinct to express love.

-We are born into this society, grow up in it, and we are condemned to be like everyone else in it. Playing nonsense all the time.

-Fear leads to injustice- we become full of emotional poison, which eventually we have to release in some manner. Telling someone how bad they are or about all of their perceived flaws. These actions allow the poison to move from one person to another.

-Love is not about concepts: Love is about action.  To practice love is the only way to master it.

-Bad, complicated, unhealthy relationships are based on fear, drama, and the war for control.  The battle for control = no respect and selfishness, not love. “I have to control you because I don’t respect you. I have to be responsible for you because whatever happens to you is going to hurt, and I want to avoid pain.

-Team players play together but not against each other, and you are playing because you want to have fun.

-Track of love- you are giving more than you are taking. You love yourself enough not to allow selfish people take advantage of you.

  • Everyone dreams of their dream. You can control your half but nothing else. Or partner in a relationship is responsible for their half.
  • Know what love is and what is fear: you become aware of how you communicate your dream. The choices you make in each moment determines the quality of your communication. Just by catching the awareness of the track of fear, you can change it. Merely changing your attention can change your world.
  • Love and happiness come out of you. There is no dependence on anyone else for feeling this way.

This book allowed me to look at my dream and how I was not myself in some ways. Following the four agreements can give you freedom. Just the fact that most people are not treating you a certain way because of you, but because of them has been great for my personal growth. It is being a better communicator to other people, not assuming and asking questions and being impeccable with my word and honest with all, and doing my best. The level of my best can change from day today, but I try to give it all, whatever that tends to be on that day.  I recommend this book to anyone who is seeking personal growth and understanding.

Quotes from the Four Agreements

“To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive — the risk to be alive and express what we are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans.”

“We don’t see the truth because we are blind. What blinds us are all those false beliefs we have in our mind. We have the need to be right and to make others wrong. We trust what we believe, and our beliefs set us up for suffering. It as if we live in the middle of a fog that doesn’t let us see any further than our own nose. We live in a fog that is not even real. This fog is a dream, your personal dream of life — what you believe, all the concepts you have about who your are, all the agreements you have made with others, with yourself, and even with God.”

“Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their on mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in.”1

“The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are the truth.”

“All the sadness and drama you have lived in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.”