A Book That Will Shift Your Thinking

Photo by Benjamin Raffetseder on Unsplash

here is one book I happened upon years ago that changed my life. It had such an impact on me that reading it and implementing its wisdom altered my thinking permanently. It spoke to me deeply. But had it not been for what I was going through at the time, I never would have heard the message contained within its pages.

Sometimes the universe conspires to bring you the right book, teacher, partner, or friend when you need it, him, or her most. If you are open to what the universe has to offer, you will not squander the lesson the book or person brings.

There are about five books I read once a year or at least every couple of years to remind myself of my values and how I want to live, books that are both practical and spiritual teachings.

The one book that will change your life is The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by don Miguel Ruiz.

As the title suggests, there are four agreements by which to live.

Just reading The Four Agreements won’t be the magic bullet, and significant change doesn’t happen overnight.

You need to make these agreements a daily practice until they feel like they are part of your being.

If your resolve is strong to make these agreements a part of you, through habit, miracles will happen in your life, and transformation will be noticeable.

I wrote about the first agreement, Be Impeccable With Your Word last week

This week brings us the second agreement, my favorite of the four, Don’t Take Anything Personally.

Practicing just this one agreement will make the most significant impact on your life. Not that it is easy for most. It was hard to keep at first. But with practice, it is the agreement I’m most successful in keeping.

If you don’t take anything personally, it will free you.

It will free you from drama and chaos. You will not get tangled up with toxic people, you’ll be able to walk away from them and not allow anything they’ve said to take up any space in your head. If you practice just this one agreement, your life will change.

The Second Agreement: Don’t Take Anything Personally

Don’t take anything personally means, I live my life. I don’t live your life.

Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about us. — Miguel Ruiz

When someone insults you, cuts you off in traffic, belittles your talent — it’s not about you. Let me repeat that. It is not about you.

It is about them.

What they are going through and what their reality is.

Ruiz explains,

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one you live in.

When someone belittles you, takes their bad day out on you, dumps their emotional baggage onto you, you do not have to play along.

If you take what they’ve said personally, you are playing along. And then their emotional baggage becomes your emotional baggage. When you take things personally, it makes you easy prey for negative people and their unhealthy communication skills.

You’ll know when you are taking things personally when you feel offended and start defending your stance — you react.

Choose not to react.

Another sign that you’ve taken things personally is when you have to be right, and make everyone else wrong, again, defending your stance.

A lot of times, when we go into defense mode, there is a part of us that believes what we are being charged with by the other person. If you don’t agree with what someone is accusing you of, you would walk away. It wouldn’t matter, you wouldn’t have to correct the person insulting you because you don’t agree with them.

Defensiveness isn’t healthy communication and will only get you more entangled with the other person’s negative reality. You do not have to accept their judgment.

When you practice this agreement, you agree that other people have their own unique identity and their own reality that you don’t have anything to do with.

When you accept this, you recognize that the other person’s opinions of you do not necessarily describe you. Caveat: This applies to the good stuff they say about you also.

Taking things personally means you agree with what that person is accusing you of, and you don’t have to. You can choose not to allow it to affect you at all. You don’t have to give it any space in your brain.

Being the only one in control of your thoughts is freeing and empowering.

• Nothing others think or say is really about you. You are never responsible for the actions of others, you are only responsible for you.You can’t force anyone to change. You are responsible for what you say and do, not what other people do. It is not personal.
• Other people see the world with different eyes. When you can genuinely allow negative opinions and mean-spirited words slide right by you and can say to yourself truly inside, “this isn’t about me,” it is empowering and will change your life. There will be a more positive flow in your day-to-day.
• Everyone has a different truth. Your truth will be different than someone else’s truth. Whatever happens outside of you, has nothing to do with you, it is just the perception of the world around you. The only thing that matters is what you think of you.
• If someone gets mad at you, they’re dealing with their own stuff. That is their point of view, that doesn’t have anything to do with who you are.
• As you are the main character of your story, other people are the main character of their story. Stand in your own truth. Your truth of who you are is what matters.
• You aren’t in other people’s minds that much, and you’d be surprised how little people’s thoughts are about you. We sometimes think other people’s actions and words have more to do with us than they actually do. We are all the stars in our own movies.

How this agreement will shift your life:

When you don’t take anything personally, you will be more open and loving and less fearful of being vulnerable with those you love.

There will be a lot less drama in your life because you won’t be affected by other people’s opinions about you or what they dump on you. You will just shrug and be like, “OK” or laugh. This response will free up a lot more space in your life, and bring in a lot less negative energy because you won’t be reacting with negative words or emotions.

What you feed you get more of, energy flows where your attention goes.

But if you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of hell. Immunity in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement.

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