http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCyzTUoJGUU

 

The book is amazing and below is a brief summary. This is incredibly simple, powerful and tough - but what isn't worth our own happiness?

Everything we do is based on agreements we have made - agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth. When we are ready to change these fear-based agreements, there are four deceptively simple, yet powerful new agreements that we can adopt as guiding principles. The Four Agreements® offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. 
 
1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don't Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say (negative or positive) 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.

3. Don't Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to 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.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.
Everything we do is based on agreements we have made - agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth.

Energy/Life Force/Power is the Common Element in Health

There are 3 Levels of Power: 1. tribal/group, which means your thoughts/actions move at the speed of a group. 2. Self-Power: I don’t want to be controlled/supported by the group – I am responsible for my reality and actions, 3. Symbolic/Higher Self: being able to look at our life as though you are witnessing a story play out in which you have the perspective of neutral observance and are not caught up in. At the symbolic/spiritual level you can access power at any way to change the physical word and ourselves. You want to look at every situation in your life through each of these lenses; from that you can have enormous insight from which use.

These three levels of consciousness means that you are not just limited 5 senses. As you learn that you are multi-sensory, it will change your definitions of how you look at reality and gather information.

If you are focused on positive loving thoughts, then that is the type of power that you will attract as that is what you are attuned to sensing. Like attracts like and if you are focused on negative then the same is true. 

Where are you investing your energy in? Are you at balance or at energetic debt?

We create our own reality. Your own thoughts, beliefs, feelings are not private or silent – they are very loud to your body. Currently that is very difficult because that is making any external situation have no impact on your internal situation. Most of us think, “Well once I can get my world/environment under control, then I can relax/meditate/look within”. You have to get in the center of your head and get neutral to the environment and manage your health from that perspective. The rational mind has no authority over a disempowered being. If you can learn to recall your spirit/power to yourself, then you can focus it on your health, etc. 

One of the earmarks of tribal power is initiation. When you find that the group does not work, move your power into yourself. The best way to do that is to move your power into present time; get your power out of the past, others, activities that do not serve you.

Every time you make a choice you are releasing your power to a target. Take conscious action when you make choices: e.g. do I really want to loose my temper over this, do I really want to eat this, do I really care about this.

Be aware of wise investment of your power on a daily basis. Creativity and manifestation requires power. Invest your power into your own personal sense of honor, in learning and practicing forgiveness, in faith ( you will never solve your mysteries – give it up and give into faith so you will be able to roll with the changes), in positive attitudes and appreciation, and in meditation and prayer. Your own power is the greatest gift you can give yourself and each other.

Do you have an empowerment process/schedule in you? Do you have power maintenance?

The key to healing is forgiveness. There is nothing logical or orderly about healing. There is nothing logical about forgiveness but you have to do it. You will never want to forgive, but after you have done it, it is the greatest gift you can give yourself and afterwards it will have seemed so easy.

Many people don’t want to heal, because their wound is a form of “social currency” in which they use it with others for control and connection. Thus it becomes an addiction, excuse, etc. to avoid self-responsibility and change.

Our wounds are ways of connecting, controlling and communicating with others [e.g. cords].

Investing energy in the past is like trying to make a corpse come alive. Wounds and keeping them going is incredibly self-destructive, but unfortunately it is very socially acceptable. From about the 1960’s and the ME generation this has developed. At the same time society’s definition of intimacy has changed greatly (people are ok to connect and share very intimate details with others even with no previous relationship).

Previous generations would suppress the self for the group/tribe/community – not say that this is the healthy way. Looking at this aspect of wounds allows us to see the shadow side of the self-help movement. Wounds are socially being used (on this shadow side) in a powerful way to not heal. When people want to discover who they are, they many times first look at hurt instead of what they want/their strengths and talents/what they can already do/etc. [Look at Emo culture where depression, self-mutilation, and other destructive energies/emotions/actions has now been glamorized into a fashion. The one with the biggest depression and/or expression of pain gets to get the most attention.] Others’ genuine feelings just don’t get time, space or validity around those using wounds. Clinging to wounds, letting yourself be controlled by others’ wounds, etc. are all a part of this.

Someone might say, “I would like to change (move on, take responsibility, do what I promised, etc.).” but they don’t. Ultimately they do not want to heal themselves as their wounds allow them to socially say “back off/ don’t blame me / just one more drink / its not really my fault because …”. For example someone who once the crisis has passed/ended consistently looses their temper, manipulates, uses others, acts irresponsible, etc. will just pull out their wound as the ultimate excuse. Culturally it has become incredibly popular to use wounds.

We are ultimately responsible for our health and we can heal ourselves. You are in a constant state of gaining or losing your own life force/power/personal energy.

Negative judgment and negative action costs you a lot of physical energy (in addition to mental, emotional and spiritual). Negative intentions and judgment is not in line with you as a spirit. Every thought-form, action, feeling, etc. on this level pulls energy that does not replenish from god, the universe, etc. This energy must come from you and you finance it with the energy from the cells of your body.

The head (intellect/analyzer) is NOT the center of your energy system: it is the heart that is the center. From your heart’s point of view, you are the only one who has ever been victimized, hurt and have never hurt others. Because of these beliefs, forgiveness is the ‘eye of the needle’. Once you can open your heart to this realization, healing becomes possible.

Once you have forgiven, so many possibilities open up to you that were blocked or stuck with refusal to heal yourself. Truth is the reward for forgiveness, as well, the reward is we get our life force back to use it to create instead of just staying static or maintaining our wounds. We are afraid to forgive because we know our lives will change faster – faster than we think that we can handle. So we hold onto pain from the past as a way of avoiding possible pain from the future. By holding onto wounds, it gives you the “belief” that you can control the speed at which change occurs. This comforting thought of control is an illusion; it only supports us holding onto our wounds.

Lies that we tell Ourselves

1.     My life is defined by my wounds. Not true. People will look for wounds in others to keep wounds going or create situations in their lives that can sustain or repeat the wounds.

2.     If you are healthy (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually), then you are alone; as no wounds are there for you to connect/communicate/control with others. Without the wounds how would you connect with others? You can connect with others but it will be with those who are not addicted to their wounds or with the same people but in a different way. So the real fear is not connecting with the same people who are also addicted to their wounds.

3.     Pain is the enemy. Not true for pain is a guiding force. Instead of resisting pain, look at pain as one language of how your body is communicating with you and honor that.

4.     All physical illness is caused by negativity. No, that is not always the cause or case.

5.     True change (the big things) are not really possible. Not true: what is true is that with major change, you will become a very different person. The fear of the unknown (what will I do, who will be my friends, will I still have this family, where will I live, etc.) is the real reason major change is avoided by most. [Nothing other, mortal or immortal (God), can do the work for us, but the willingness to change is an essential prerequisite. This may sound too obvious: if we weren't willing to change, why would we be in recovery? Yet this is one of the most difficult steps of all. Old patterns were put there for a reason -- they are part of an outmoded survival strategy. Being ready to let go of what we once truly needed is as scary as jumping off a cliff, and very similar in that there is a period of time where we are in free-fall, when we have to let go of something old before we can get something new, before we even know what we are replacing it with.]

 

Healing Requires

1.     Put attention to your wounds. Don’t resist them. You must look at and feel them.

2.     Forgiveness

3.     Self-honor and self-respect; keep your word to your body and yourself.

4.     Stay in the present time and actively manage your energy.

5 Steps to Managing Physical Health

1.     Force yourself to forgive. It is the only way forward in that forgiving others, you will also forgive yourself.

2.     Redefine healing: it is not perfection/perfect pictures; it is an everyday task and the challenge is to walk through each day with making the small choices as well as the big ones as part of a continual process.

3.     Have others witness/listen to your wounds from neutrality 3 times, then let it go. After the third time it will not necessarily be easier but you will have been validated and heard. [We need the reflection of a friend, a coworker, partner or therapist to accurately get the intelligent perspective sought in the previous step. We are by nature blind to our own programming, so another perspective is necessary to help us see.]

4.     Stop asking “why?”. Stop needing to analyze and understand “before” you can move forward. Understanding why will provide information but it will still not release the addictions to wounds.

5.     Chart a future course / life path that is far from your wounds.