The Fall season is a great time to review your commitments to yourself and bring in some new ones. We love the premise of Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements. These agreements are a great addition to your daily contemplative practices. We use this book in our Retreat to Spirit Mentorship program: Connect Your Yoga Business to Heart-Centered Service.
The agreements can be applied to your personal life and your business. They are:
Be Impeccable with Your Word
Don’t Take Anything Personal
Don’t Make Assumptions
Always Do Your Best
At first glance, they seem so simple that it is easy to ignore them and blow them off. Indeed, they are extremely powerful, difficult to follow, and adhere to at times, and as Ruiz states in his book, “we need a great deal of courage to challenge our own beliefs.” Using the agreements as a guide for our daily lives, not as religious dogma, but as a part of a meditation or mindfulness practice, offers an impactful code of conduct for transformation and healing.
As a certified yoga therapist and yoga instructor, Pamela Stokes Eggleston has used this code in her work with military families, veterans, and their caregivers. “Focusing on the second agreement, ‘Don’t Take Things Personally,’ is particularly arduous when dealing with a veteran with PTSD symptoms as a caregiver - the possible outbursts and acting out can take a toll on the veteran caregiver and have them questioning themselves. It’s like dealing with gaslighting, and I am not suggesting that you continue dealing with abuse. This has helped me as a veteran caregiver (and it is a continual process) by focusing on how I respond, how I breathe in that moment, and how to diffuse the situation.”
Retreat to Spirit Mentorship: Connecting Your Business to Heart-Centered Service uses Ruiz’s book to explore Part Two of the mentoring program, Building. “You cannot build a healing service business on a foundation of untruths, doubts, and fears,” says Stokes Eggleston. “Our mentoring protocol helps the participant unpack how they are getting in their own way and with compassion, recognizing this and chipping away at the obstacles once recognized.” It is a comprehensive and robust business mentorship that asks the participant to think outside of the box and simultaneously tap into the spirit.
If you would like to learn more through our mentorship program, please visit our website and sign up for our newsletter at www.retreattospirit.today.
(Reference: The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz and Janet Mills, 1997)
