My Dear Fellow UUCP Members and Friends,
Your UUCP Board of Directors traditionally takes the month of July off from meetings, so although I haven’t run my first official meeting as your Board President, I’ve still been busy with quite a few details and issues that have popped up this month. You also may have been there for my very first chance to “play minister” and deliver the message for our church service on July 24th.
The topic I selected for that service was “Loving Through Conflict: and Loving the Unlovable.” When I spoke about tools I use that make it easier to love someone, I related information from the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Since several people asked me later for information about that book and the principles, I would like to share that here, in a very summarized version.
These are the Four Agreements:
- Be Impeccable with Your Word
Use your words with integrity and kindness. The more aware and the kinder you are with your words, the better received they will be, and the more loving you will feel. Words create thoughts, and your thoughts create your world.
Be careful when you make a promise or lead other people to have expectations from you. If you make promises you can’t keep or if you are dishonest, you lose respect for yourself, whether it is conscious or unconscious, and if you can’t love yourself, you can’t love others. If you are less than truthful or make promises and don’t keep them, other people will not trust you, and for good reason. Love and trust complement each other like (as Forest Gump said) peas and carrots.
Another way to be impeccable with your word or words is to express gratitude whenever possible. Communicating how much we appreciate another’s presence and actions not only helps the person we are thanking but helps us be happy ourselves.
- Don’t Take Anything Personally
Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally. We are all creating and living our own reality. What is said to you or about you, good or bad, is never really about you. No one totally knows you or how or what you think, and their opinions are not usually based on a complete picture. Because of this, other people’s opinions of you are never as valid as your own and may be completely off base. If your hair was blond, you would never have hurt feelings if someone said, “Your purple hair is really ugly.” Instead, you would just shake your head and wonder, “Where did that come from?” Keep in mind that each person you encounter has a history that creates unique filters affecting how they see and what they see. If they judge you, they are making assumptions and projections that are based in their own past experiences and personal reality. You can choose not to make their reality your own.
- Don’t Make Assumptions
Making an assumption is believing something is true without having proof or clear deciding evidence. Much of the time our assumptions are false: we may be misinterpreting or misunderstanding someone else’s words or actions. We make assumptions about our relationships, what others think about us, what they believe, what they know and don’t know, what they should and shouldn’t say or do or be. Our norms may not be their norms. Our customs may not be their customs. Or perhaps they are having a very bad day, week, month, or year.
Let’s say someone cuts me off in traffic. Some people get very angry about this kind of thing. Anger in this situation requires that we’ve made some kind of assumption. Was the driver not paying attention on purpose? Were they intentionally trying to harm us in some way? Maybe they scared us. Maybe they even caused an accident, but does anger really help? Maybe for some people, anger make them feel less vul- nerable, but usually anger only serves to escalate a bad situation and make it worse.
Most assumptions are judgements. When we make assumptions, we can cause conflict. Many conflicts result from people making assumptions, taking things personally and misinterpreting others.
- Always Do Your Best
Our best changes from day to day. Some days we’re making assumptions and judgments, not being very impeccable with our words, or taking things personally. Some days we are tired, sick, distracted, and unable to focus or perform as well as other days. On these days it’s very important to love ourselves, just as it is every day.
On other days, we do better. Here’s the key: Every day we get to begin again to do our best. Or, to quote Buddha, “Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
In Summary
So, every day, we can strive to be impeccable with our words, take nothing personally, make no as-sumptions, and do our best. The better we do with these four agreements, the easier it is to love ourselves and others.
Until next month,
Hope to see you at church!
Warmly, Laura