Interesting Day

Yesterday I went to "church" and our guest speaker was Don Miguel Ruiz Jr., son of D. M. Ruiz Sr., the author of "The Four Agreements". I found that what he was saying comformed almost exactly to Gestalt Theory; the re-integrating of the self into a whole from the split between the real self and the ideal self. The intent was to show that we create an ideal self in order to be loved...by others. We are not taught to love ourselves, that there is something inherently 'wrong' with being who we are and we are not loved unconditionally. We are taught that "if you behave this way I will love you, and if you don't, I won't". We are taught it is very important to be loved by others instead of ourselves; that we will be abandoned, and uncared for if we don't get loved from outside. So instead of being loved unconditonally and loving ourselves unconditionally, we instead create conditions for ourselves that we believe we must meet in order to love who we really are; and those conditions are what creates the ideal self is. Everytime we fail to live up to that ideal, we create one more reason not to love ourselves, and who we are as we are. And the fact that so many of us believe we "need" love, is a projection that we don't have love...inside. We want someone else to give us what we don't have inside, when it's acutally ourselves that we want to love us. I think true happiness is being happy with ourselves. To be more unconditional about who we are instead of who we're supposed to be. I think I'll work on that today. The Four Agreements are:"BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD" - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or gossip against others. Use the porwer of your word in the direction of truth and love.(I got this one right away as being about my self-talk and the four negative voices.) "DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY" - Nothing others do is about 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. (I feel this one is about the ideal self first, because that's the the most active self for me right now, and then the true self.) "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, drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely change your life. (I think this one is about 'mind-reading' others; and is even more important when it comes to learning to express what I want, to myself and others. I ran into this with my last entry with MGS1. I'm more willing to express what I want for myself now, like so many outspoken extraverts do to me. If I feel angry I will say so, so I'm not misunderstood; and I will not say no, I'm not, when I mean yes, I am.)  "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 circumstances, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse, and regret. (On this one I need to be careful, I can be obsessively 'best'. This may be in conflict with the commandments of  ideal self. I'll have to do more work on this one; or re-read the book, whatever. No sense in trying to be perfect about it. Right?)                                                                          - Don Miguel Ruiz    Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...