There is a Toltec Wisdom book by Don Miguel Ruiz called the Four Agreements. The book is wordy but the message is wonderful. Live by these four agreements and your relationships will be smoother and stress free. Your life will be richer. Sounds divine doesn’t it? The Four Agreements are:

1. Live impeccably by your word. (Say what you mean, mean what you say.)
2. Don’t take anything personally.(People live in their own snow globes, what they do or say has nothing to do with you. It’s all about their own baggage.)
3. Don’t make assumptions. (Don’t be a wussy, ask people what they mean when you don’t know.)
4. Always do your best. (And therefore skip regret.)

These seem really simple right? Easy to read. Easy to say. Hard to put into real life practice complicated by the complexities of real life relationships.

I think # 3 is the hardest for me. It’s hard for several reasons. First, I am a person who reads into EVERYTHNG. I analyze stuff to death. I can rip apart each persons action, reaction, and lack of action and read meaning into it. If I know a lot about their past, I am usually fairly accurate. When I don’t have lots of info… it’s sorta like garbage in and garbage out. And of course that doesn’t slow down my assumptions. I still react based on my assumptions. It’s all about thinking through the whys of why people act the way they do.

Secondly, I am awful at asking for help or clarification. Because that could show vulnerability or weakness. God forbid. And I guess I worry about people seeing me as weak. I am not as worried about being weak, but I am worried about seeming weak. And talking about feelings seems girlie weak. I can ask people what they *think*. But not what they *feel*. Obviously, I need therapy? Life would be so much easier if I would just put my own feelings out there. It’s ok to say “I have no idea how you feel… how ‘bout you tell me?” I guess I could talk a bit about risk here. Me volunteering how I “feel” is up there with jumping out of an airplane type of risk. Yeah, that about sums it up.

And thirdly, I worry what people think and, even more, what they feel about me. I moderate myself a lot. I don’t drill down into feeling stuff. Yet I like it when it happens. I am never just saying things like “You know when I have to initiate every contact it makes me feel like you don’t value me”. Or “When you did this, it made me think that you really didn’t give a rip about what was going on”. Or… even going for the holy grail of “You made me FEEL bad, happy, sad, thrilled, etc.” I just don’t go there very often.

Underneath this hard exterior is a marshmallow I guess. A thinking marshmallow like the tin man, (or Don Henley) that is looking for the Heart of the Matter. Ha.

I could close here with some nifty introspective comment about how I am going to implement the Four Agreements into my feelings and not just into my thinking. But let’s face it, it’s easier said then done.

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