Practice the Four Agreements: Be impeccable with my word/ Don't take anything personally/ Don't make assumptions/ Always do my best

Work, and certain people at work, are not to be trusted. It’s very difficult to practice the 4 agreements around them when I know they’re lying and scheming. I guess the Creator is giving me opportunities to practice.

I had a difficult time with the first agreement yesterday.

I picked up the Four Agreements book years ago and the agreements made so much sense. I do so much better when I practice them. I have a terrible time when I make assumptions, thinking that I know what people are thinking about me or my work. That is the way to misery.

I’ve since passed the book along to someone else but the agreements linger. I need to have this as a goal to help make my life so much better.

today it’s important for me to know that even though my ex is getting to know a woman completely different than me, it doesn’t mean that I’m not OK the way I am.

I’ve made a commitment to group therapy, and have been skipping some of my groups. For a few weeks it was mostly because I wasn’t feeling well, but I have a little more energy and less fog now, and I’m still not going to all of them.

I am reminding myself that keeping my commitments and doing something positive for my mental health are priorities for me.

I’ll get back on track by going to my Women’s Support and Growth Group at 2:00 tomorrow.

I’ve just been in this great big funk since that encounter with mom on Friday. I haven’t been keeping up with doing the stuff here, which, when I do it gives me a real sense of productivity, forward movement, satisfaction, and happiness even.

I’ve just been wallowing in feeling sorry for myself. Mom’s been gone all weekend, and I don’t know how I’ll feel when she’s back. She called once from the cabin, but only mentioned something about my brother. I had hoped she would talk to her friends over the weekend and realize I’m right.

There it is: I want to be right on this. It’s about my fears, my mental illness, my physical limitations, my feelings, and I want my mom to be on my side.

So here’s what happened in a nutshell (well probably a pretty big nutshell.)

A year or two ago, mom had near miss with a pedestrian while mom was on the phone making a left turn at a major intersection. At that time, we both agree we would try to remember not to use our phones when driving.

Mom took this very literally, and would make calls from stop lights, but the calls almost always took longer than the light did. She seems to have a hard time postponing making a call (she might forget) or telling someone she must call back later. A few times she has pulled over to a side street or parking lot, mostly to please me, and I don’t believe she does that when I’m not with her. Anyway, I don’t feel safe when she is talking and driving at the same time. I suppose I would feel the same if she were eating and driving or anything else that took her attention from the road.

A few weeks ago, she got a call from my brother while we were on the way to an event. We’d had some difficulty communicating earlier (mostly my fault) and she was in a bad mood and also in pain. After several minutes of her talking to my brother, when it became clear she was not going to make the call brief and call him back later, I asked her to pull over to the side of the road. She did, but kept driving forward at about 5mph. As this went on, I began to experience symptoms of anxiety (this is new for me—not the anxiety itself, but the recognition of the feeling). After another minute or so, I asked her to please stop the car until she was done with the call. She made sort of a disgusted face at me, and when she was done with the call, she started speaking angrily at me, and I dissolved into tears. There was more drama but it’s not pertinent to this story.

Then on Friday, it happened again: she took a call while driving. While she was on the call and for a while afterward I was thinking about how I could deal with this without asking her to change her behavior. So after a few deep breaths I plunged in. I told her I didn’t feel safe being a passenger in her car, that my anxiety was increasing when I did ride with her when she was on the phone, and that from now on, when we needed to go somewhere together I would drive there in my own car. (Asking her to ride with me isn’t an option. She likes to drive, and her car is nicer, including having working AC. In Tucson, driving without AC is pretty much awful.) I told her this would also resolve another problem of mine: my sensitivity to certain sounds. The sound her car makes when being locked or unlocked is jarring and anxiety-provoking for me. (Another thing I’ve asked her to be aware of, and she told me long ago that she was unwilling to lock or unlock the door from farther away to accommodate me.)

So I got it out, I was brief, I stuck to facts, I didn’t blame, all in all I felt like I was doing very well at using skills I’ve been learning lately.

And what Mom said in return was “I guess you haven’t noticed that I’m not making calls in the car like I used to.” And she’s right—I believe she has become better at that and I didn’t notice. What I was noticing was that she was on the phone, and not who made the call.

So that’s where I’m at. We’ve said about 4 sentences about my brother since then. I’ve been a slug all weekend because I’ve been so sad. She comes home tomorrow. I feel like shit. I don’t know how to not take it personally.

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.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

Everything we do is based on agreements we have made – agreements with ourselves, with other people, with God, with life. But the most important agreements are the ones we make with ourselves. In these agreements we tell ourselves who we are, how to behave, what is possible, what is impossible. One single agreement is not such a problem, but we have many agreements that come from fear, deplete our energy, and diminish our self-worth.

Today when I was checking out at the store, the cashier asked about my purchase, plastic shot glasses. “For alcohol or pills?” she wanted to know. I told her neither, and that I was going to be having weight loss surgery soon, and in the beginning, my food and beverages would be in 1 ounce portions. Then she told me that she knew several people who had had weight loss surgery and had had bad results. I was left speechless and turned to leave, when she yelled out after me “be sure to do your research!”

I was doing quite well with this when I started trying to stop taking things so personal. I still have days when someone says something and it gets to my last good nerver.

I’m doing better though but I doubt that I will ever be able to stop completely because at some time, someone will say something to attack me personally.. but I guess that’s another topic for another conversation.

This is the first agreement and the most important one. If you can practice this the other 3 agreements will come easily.

This means avoiding gossip, lies, empty promises and other ways we cause problems with our words. Say only what you mean, and realize that you can cause damage if you’re not careful with what you say.

This is a great recommendation. Many people don’t realize the power of their words and see the harm that can be caused with speaking carelessly, thoughtlessly or aggressively. Most of us are aware that screaming at someone may be upsetting to them, but subtle little digs at them, or gossip behind their backs, can hurt others more than we realize, and in hurting them, we hurt ourselves. This is an important, but difficult one to follow entirely. It’s a great goal to aspire to, though, and a good direction to work toward.
From about.com