A Perspective on The 4 Agreements and their shadows

I had the pleasure of reading the book 'The 4 Agreements' by Don Miguel Ruiz several years ago. It remains today as one of my favorite re-reads and consideration of application. I will be the first to admit that the practice of the 4 agreements is much easier than the perfection of them, of which one could argue there is no perfection.

It took me several moons and suns to learn to integrate these practices as my favorite defense mechanism, intellectualization, was a predominate foe. I settled for the conceptualization of them, not the application until the heart had her way and began to sink these further in to my very being. I do not profess to be a master of these by any stretch and my experience is uniquely mine. And as is yours. We are all on various paths and stages of life and the agreements will work their magic in various ways.

As I was thinking about the 4 agreements, I wondered 'what happened that we needed a call, a return to these four agreements'. Or to put it another way 'what agreements did we make that took us off course'. For the sake of right here, I will call these shadow agreements that were made as a result of unhealthy events and experiences. The effect of these shadow agreements can be varied and result in the perpetuation of unskillful means in our present world.

So, this is my experiment, my flushing out of what the shadow agreements might be and comparison to the identified four agreements. I have much respect for the skillfulness in which Don Miguel Ruiz presented these in his book and the following is in no way a summation of his wonderful work. I would encourage the reading and digesting of his work for each and every individual.

Agreement 1 -- Be Impeccable with your word. Key applications include do not gossip, speak with integrity, use your word to build connection and love

Shadow agreement 1 -- Be inauthentic with your speech. We learn to say yes when we really mean no, we use words to please others as a form of self-protection, we are encouraged to lie and cover up for others.

Agreement 2 - Don’t take anything personally. Key applications: others actions are their own and not anything you have done, others actions and words are their own projections

Shadow agreement 2 -- Its all personal. Without safety and connection around, we are left to internalize and 'figure it out' on our own. We begin to adapt an egocentric world view that pivots around us and our own existence. We learn to react to others instead of responding.

Agreement 3 -- Don’t make assumptions. Key applications: ask questions, ask for what you want, communicate clearly with others

Shadow Agreement 3 -- Assume. Always. Our experience may not lend itself to critical thinking and the courage to ask for what we want and need. Communication patterns may have also been modeled that were unclear and unskillful. We were left to assume behaviors and needs that created mindless actions toward others to satisfy a safety need and utilization of self-protection

Agreement 4 -- Always do your best. Key points: Your best efforts will vary from time to time and situation to situation. Avoid self-judgement and self-abuse

Shadow Agreement 4 -- Expend no effort. We may find ourselves trapped in continual cycles of self-abuse, judgment, and always falling short of perfection. Our experience may have told us that its acceptable to 'talk about it' but do nothing in action or build grace into the learning and growing process.

There is much more that could be written into these and various other perspectives that could be taken. For the sake of the here and now, this is enough to digest and process. For every light side, there is a shadow side and exploration of the shadow elements can help lead to a deeper understanding.