Four Simple Game-Changers...

Why is it so easy to complicate things (concepts, relationships, plans, opportunities) and so difficult to keep things simple?

While in Durham one of the doctors recommended reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and so I picked up a copy of the little book expecting it to be "insight lite."

I was wrong.  The four key concepts are indeed simple, like the beauty of a rose is simple:

* Be impeccable with your word.
* Don't take anything personally
* Don't make assumptions
* Always do your best.

"Ho hum," I thought, as I read these four "agreements" on the inside front cover of the book.  "There isn't much depth to this at all."  And then I started trying to live them - one at a time - and discovered how profoundly difficult they could be!  Difficult - because these simple ideas challenge so many of the patterns of behavior that are part of modern life.  We make assumptions all the time, take a great deal personally, live with the concept of "truth that is fluid," and often do no more than what is expected or required.  What happens when we try to live by this guidance?

What happens when we accept that we have made agreements with ourselves, others and God that may not reflect the values modeled by Jesus of Nazareth...agreements that are rooted in fear, not freedom.  Instead of these four core agreements, we have many, many more beliefs that lead us in a very different direction - fear.  Facing fear and moving towards love isn't easy (and sometimes isn't pretty), but it is movement in the right direction.

I am in the process of confronting and moving through a fear that has imprisoned me for most of my life.  The fear is based in the life experience of a child who had every reason to be afraid.  But the fear - and the agreements that secure it - are not helpful to me as an adult.  I don't need to be afraid in order to be safe.  There are other ways...ways that lead to freedom.

I smiled as I noticed that the small publishing house for this book is in San Rafael, the town next to San Anselmo (where I go each January to work on my DMin).  Perhaps this January when I make my trek west I will meet some new kindred souls who are trying to release unhealthy and unhelpful beliefs in order to create room for these four transformative agreements.

Taking them one at a time,
Kim