ONE

 

Just ONE Step?!!!

Just one step ... ONE day at a time ...

The whole "gun thing" created quite a crisis for me!  I had 100 thoughts going through my head all at the same time!

How could I have been so wrong?

What happened?

Why?

Was it my fault?

What did I do?
What should I have done?
What could I have done differently?
What do I do now?
How could I have been SO WRONG?

How could I have been SO WRONG about him?
Did I put my faith in the WRONG person?
Why do I always trust the WRONG people?
Why didn't I see the REAL person?

REAL?!!!
What is REAL?!!!
Do I really know?
Have I EVER really known?
WHAT IS REAL?!!!
Who is the REAL me?
What if EVERYTHING I've always thought was REAL isn't REAL at all?

So many questions!

So few answers!

So many thoughts scrambling around my head that they were bumping into each other!  Crisis are chaotic.  They bring even more chaos!  For me, fighting the chaos meant filling my mind with even more thoughts, reading books about co-dependency and recovery, psychology, philosophy, therapies ... obsessively fighting the BIG, LOUD questions with BIGGER and LOUDER answers!

Remembering that time or dwelling too long on remembering, even to describe it to you, brings back the way I felt back then:

My head hurt.
My jaw hurt like I had been clenching my teeth for decades.
My neck hurt from all the tension.
My shoulders ached like I had the weight of the world on them!
My chest felt HEAVY ... as in "I have a HEAVY HEART" ...
It hurt to breath!
My lower back hurt.
My whole body felt weak ... like I had the flu ...

WITH NO END IN SIGHT ...


What IF everything I've ever thought
and believed was JUST WRONG?


It was in that place that I found the FOUR AGREEMENTS.

I'd like to share A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom - THE FOUR AGREEMENTS - A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz.   He shares Toltec Wisdom ... which says we all live by spoken and unspoken beliefs (agreements) that we have gathered since birth.  We can transform our lives by replacing any negative agreements with THE FOUR AGREEMENTS: 

1.    BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD

Don Miguel said:

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. 

The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic.  Your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you.  Depending on how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know. 

If you make an agreement with yourself to be impeccable with your word, just with that intention, the truth will manifest through you and clean all the emotional poison that exists within you.

I heard what he was saying.

Your words have power ... the power to bless or curse so why not use them to bless yourself and others?  It's easy to give in to random negative thoughts, to judge, to criticize, to doubt, to worry, to fret, but what if all those negative words had gone unsaid?  What would happen if we were committed to making our speech more authentic and infused our words with more wisdom and integrity?  What if we always meant what we said and said what we meant?


Powerful!  I have been excited about this point of view from the first time I read it.

The idea that EVERYTHING I thought could be wrong ... that I could actually replace those old beliefs and agreements by consciously controlling my speech ...

What could it hurt?

I had tried so many other things that hadn't worked.  I may as well try that!

One thing at a time ... One day at a time ... One thought at a time ... I started asking myself, "Is this the TRUTH?" ...

I started THINKING about what I said BEFORE I said it.  

Breaking old habits isn't easy.  I am co-dependent.  I have always tried to "sugar-coat" life, glossing over the low spots and glorifying the high spots.  Co-dependents are not direct.  We are not DIRECT with our words and we are not DIRECT with our thoughts.  Getting to the HEART of anything doesn't come naturally for me.  It felt awkward to me ... At first, I just STOPPED talking ... like the old saying, "IF you can't say anything nice than don't say anything at all" but that is what I had always done ... I wasn't dealing with the TRUTH.  I was avoiding it.

I kept practicing ... Eventually, THOUGHTFUL communication replaced INDIRECT communication ... My speech wasn't the only thing that changed.  The way I thought and felt about the things I said changed ...

That was just the FIRST AGREEMENT and already I felt different!  

I am sharing this with you but it is YOUR CHOICE what you do.  

Just trying my best to keep the Four Agreements created opportunities to praise myself every time I caught myself doing something right! 

Over my lifetime, I have accepted a lot of crazy ideas and agreements about me, my life, my family, and the world.  Most of those ideas and agreements were not KIND to me, my life, my family or the world.  Some of those ideas held me back and opened me up to abusing myself.  Those false beliefs opened me up to receive other people's false beliefs that matched my own poison.  Exchanging that kind of poison is just two people abusing each other!   

Bad things could have happened a year ago or ten years ago but theyare in the past.  The only way they can hurt me now is if I bring them back.  Some things hurt like heck years ago but it doesn't have to come back and hurt me 30 seconds ago! 

There is no good that will come out of keeping that pain alive.


I learned that I could quiet the things I thought and the things I said by being impeccable.  Would you like me to tell you about the SECOND AGREEMENT? 

Tags: The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz, One: Be impeccable with your word