I feel as if I’m come down from being drunk. Finished up the Four Agreements last night and I must say the first three I now see had been a real challenge for me.

#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.

I would constantly speak against myself and as it relates to this book that is the only sin. Pushing myself way too hard, trying way too hard and then beating myself up with words when things didn’t go as expected. I would scroll down my NewsFeed in my Facebook account and I’d not only be using my words to speak against myself but taking what others thought I should be doing and how I should be living to speak against myself some more. “Eat this Asherah Amyas”, “Do this Asherah Amyas”, “Be this size Asherah Amyas”, “Niggas be like” photos, “Bitches be like” photos. And I really feel like unless you have a means to clear Facebook each night…you take all of that negativity into your very being and it chips away at you, slowly but surely.

Last night was as if I turned a TV off and said…”no more”.

#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.

I took just about everything personally. My biggest thing was when I would say something to someone, seemingly harmless, and they would have an absolute emotional hissy fit. As I would try to calm them down, I would get more and more upset at them for “disturbing my peace” with their unrest. Isn’t that something? I was the one who was not at rest or at peace. Peace is not fleeting, its not here one day and gone tomorrow. It must remain balanced and it requires constant attention. You wouldn’t say to a child…”Ok you took your first steps, there’s nothing else I need to do now…Im gone.” The child requires constant attention and nurturing as do we all.

We are a living breathing Trinity. We have abundant rain showers on one side, endless sunshine on the other…and then there is me…you…the Peacemakers. We can not let negative comments or actions sway us into living a life of rainy days. We can not let positive comments or actions sway us into living a life of nothing but sunshine. We must maintain a healthy balance. When we take things personally we affect the Peacemaker, the person in charge of keeping balance. We must protect our peace at all times with Divine Love.

#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.

I applied this rule in software development but not much in my own life…how funny. In software development, we are almost always going to experience some sort of bug or error in our code. In order to successfully debug our work, we can not assume anything…absolutely nothing. We probe and explore every nook and cranny until we find the source and even then we don’t assume its the cause. We test, re-test and test again…until finally we can say…OK I got it. Now how often in our own lives do we take these measures for clarity? Speaking for myself? Not often at all.

One of my biggest hurdles was dealing with an answer no answer or “I don’t know”. My little mind went to town trying to figure out, for them, what the issue was. If their answer is “I don’t know”…leave it just at that. Let it go and free yourself from thinking for another person. *big smile* Don’t we have enough going on as a Peacemaker of our on vessels to try to be Peacemaker in another? *smile*

#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.

Its funny I think all four I didn’t have down…*giggle*. I think…well I know…I misinterpreted #4 and assumed (#3) meant to go hard! No…it simply means to give your best taking into consideration your best interest as the Peacemaker of your vessel.

Honey?! I would go hard no matter if I was sick or sad, happy or glad I have been going HARD! No more…after all of this. I know what best pleases my soul.

What a roller-coaster ride! *giggle*