The First Agreement

The First Agreement: Be Impeccable With Your Word...

Your word is the power that you have to create. Your word is the gift that comes directly from God....

The word is a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life...

The word is the most powerful tool you have as a human; it is the tool of magic. But like a sword with two edges, your word can create the most beautiful dream, or your word can destroy everything around you. One edge is the misuse of the word, which creates a living hell. The other edge is the impeccability of the word, which will only create beauty, love, and heaven on earth. Depending upon how it is used, the word can set you free, or it can enslave you even more than you know...

The word is so powerful that one word can change a life or destroy the lives of millions of people...

Impeccability means "without sin"...

A sin is anything that you do which goes against yourself. Everything you feel or believe or say that goes against yourself is a sin...

Being impeccable is not going against yourself. When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself...

Sin begins with rejection of yourself. Self-rejection is the biggest sin that you commit....

If I love myself I will express that love in my interactions with you, and then I am being impeccable with the word, because that action will produce a like reaction...

Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy; it means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love for yourself. If you make an agreement with yourself to be impeccable with your word, just with that intention, the truth will manifest through you and clean all the emotional poison that exists within you. But making this agreement is difficult because we have learned to do precisely the opposite...

The truth is the most important part of being impeccable with your word...

You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good; you feel happy and at peace...

Taken from The Four Agreements: A Toltec Wisdom Book by Don Miguel Ruiz

Hi folks.....have been gone a while. Kenny thanks for all the notes checking up on me. This reading took on so much new and deeper meaning this past couple of weeks. The quality and integrity of my word has been disgraceful lately. I have learned a valuable lesson the very hardest way possible. As this reading says....my WORD is my gift from God. I have used that word to hurt many people in my life and especially myself. As the Big Book says on p. 62....."Selfishness - self-centeredness! That we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So Our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of Self-will run riot....." This has my name all over it.....I have made decisions of late that were based on self that have left me in a position to be hurt and I have hurt others too. So where do I go from here? All I can do for today is turn this all over to my Higher Power, rely on that strength, take actions to fix what I can, accept those things that can't be fixed, and most importantly take ACTION to be honest and impeccable with my word. The chips will fall were they will and through it all I have a choice......trust in my newly strengthened relationship with a power greater than me and accept that all will be okay so long as I make my actions match this principle or rest on my laurels and hope I don't end up in this hole again. I have come to that place in life where I'm tired of the fight, for it is no different than the one I had with the bottle everyday. I am ready to cross to the other side of the street instead of going down this one and hoping the I can get around the whole. So today I have be honest and impeccable in word and action and I plan to do the same tomorrow but will cross that bridge tomorrow. It also says in the Big Book somewhere that we will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it......so I know it's time to quit trying to run from it and make peace with it.