The FIRST of THE FOUR AGREEMENTS

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.

The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic.  But like a sword with two edges, 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. 

All the magic you possess is based on your word ... when you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself ... Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself.  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.

 

Most of us say things everyday without giving our words too much thought.  Without thinking, we say ...

"I don't like the way I look."
"I never have enough money to do the things I want."
"I don't know how to organize my time."
or even ...
"I hate (fill in the blank about something you don't like about yourself)" ...

Where does negative self talk lead?  It defeats us before we even get started.  It immobilizes us.  It stops us in our tracks.

It can have the same effect on the people around us.  Imagine for a minute that Mom has had a really hectic day.  It's felt chaotic and all her plans have been side-tracked or delayed.  She comes home to make supper and while she is cooking, the tv is blaring, her teenager's boom box is booming, one of the smaller children is fussing in the other room and her 5 or 6 year old walks in singing a new song she just learned in school.  In overwhelmed frustration, Mom turns to the 5-6 year old and says, "Please stop singing.  It's giving me a headache!" 

The 5-6 year old singing wasn't causing the headache.  It was just the last thing ... the final straw in Mom's chaotic day ... BUT the 5-6 year old worships her Mommy and if her singing was bad enough to give Mommy a headache, the five-six year old now believes she must have a terrible voice and the 5-6 year old grows up, rarely singing because she doesn't want to give anyone a headache with her bad voice!

That's an extreme example, but how many of us accepted the labels that were put on us like "the clown", "the pretty one", or "the smart one"?  As we grow up, people feed us information about us and the world around us but most of the things other people say are JUST their opinion and nothing more.  After all, it is not a FACT.  Those little contracts, for the sake of this discussion, are "agreements" that we gather as we grow up, thousands and thousands of little agreements that weight us down or build us up.

In the same way, we freely share our opinions with the people around us, adding "agreements" to the lives of others.  Thousands and thousands of little agreements that weigh them down or build them up.

Most of us don't mean any harm when we say the things we say.  We are merely stating our opinion.  We have no idea what weight our opinion might carry or how it impacts another person ... but rest
assured, YOUR OPINIONS DO HAVE IMPACT!

You can't do one thing about the things you have already said.  Of course, you can apologize for the "really bad things" you have said and hope to make amends but we are talking about THOUSANDS of little agreements you have made over a lifetime.  You can't remember them all.

You can change the way you communicate today.  Your words have power.  You can speak "new life" into someone's dream or you can speak "death" to someone's idea, even your own dreams and ideas.  If your words have the power to bless or curse yourself or someone else, it only makes sense to be more mindful of the things you say.

If someone asks you a question and you really don't know the answer, it is better to just say, "I don't know."  If someone wants your advice about what to do in their life, it is better to ask them, "What do they want to do?" and discuss options that they have rather than to send them in the wrong direction.  I am not saying that we should all become philosophical monks answering every question with a question.  We're not impeccable when we pretend to be someone we aren't.  We have to BE REAL with ourselves and others.  We are all where we are today, with the people we are with for a reason.  We are meant to learn from each other.  Some of us are "natural leaders" and some of us are "natural followers".  The integrity of those relationships are maintained when leaders become mindful of the direction they are taking people ... and ... followers become mindful of their own feelings of where they are going.  Neither is expected to change their personality to be impeccable with their speech.  Both are capable of maintaining integrity and healthy boundaries in their relationships.

It starts with what we say.  Our words become our actions.  Our words set the tone of our conversations, our days, our lives ... 

We can transform our lives by replacing any negative agreements with the The FOUR AGREEMENTS.  The first agreement is ... 1.  KEEP YOUR SPEECH IMPECCABLE.  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?