The Four Agreements Part 2 of 5: Be Impeccable With Your Word
January 13, 2009 by dr. lam · 11 Comments
The first agreement is the most important agreement that you must have with yourself; it is at once the most powerful but also the most difficult to keep. We must struggle with it on a daily basis but we must not let a failure from yesterday influence our decision to continue with our fulfillment of this agreement. Many times we live either in the past or in the future, but we must live in the present moment so that we maintain each agreement as a daily renewable contract with ourselves.
Words are magical. The words that we use reflect more of ourselves than of those we speak. In the Gospel of John, it says, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word is God.” The words we choose to use can either be pure magic filled with love, compassion, and generosity or be black magic that casts a spell on all those who hear it. One man in Germany stirred up an intelligent nation to commit the most grievous atrocities and acts of violence 70 years ago simply through the use of his word.
To be impeccable with your word means to be without sin in your use of words. Impeccable comes from the Latin “im-” meaning without and “peccatus” meaning sin. We sin against ourselves first and foremost but we sin against others when we use words in a harmful way. When a child singing beautifully hears her mother say, “Stop singing! You have an ugly voice.” That child carries that agreement, or belief system, for the rest of her life. Even though the mother may have been irritated by any voice in her proximity no matter how angelic, the child will bear the burden of not wanting to sing forever until someone might break her spell with a new agreement, “Wow, you have the most amazing voice! Why don’t you sing for me?”
When we call someone “stupid”, we are not being impeccable with our word. If someone called you stupid in the past, and you are living with that legacy, you must make a new agreement with yourself to free yourself from the chains of another’s black magic. That person calling you stupid, uneducated, foolish, or whatever is pointing his or own finger at himself not at you.
The most emotionally poisonous black magic that we can throw is gossip. When we speak ill of someone else around us, we cast a terrible spell. If you are impeccable with your word, the spell cannot be cast on you no matter how black the magic the person uses. Being impeccable with your word creates an aura of love and acceptance that does not accept the black magic of the other person’s word. But you cannot be impeccable with your word if you cast that black magic. Using words to demean others reflects more on the person that speaks it than it does on the person against whom the words are used.
This first agreement must be made with yourself. It is an agreement to leave your own self-imposed hell. It allows you to only use words in an impeccable way. If you fail, do not abandon your quest. But begin anew. Be impeccable with your word.
The Four Agreements Part 1 of 5: The Fog & The Dream
January 12, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Well, this week we move from the wisdom of the Far East to return to our hemisphere to learn from the ancient tribe of southern Mexico, the Toltecs, who practiced a not explicitly religious but nevertheless spiritual path to guide one’s life in a profound yet practical way. The wisdom from these blogs comes from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements. Today we will introduce the idea of what state we are in in our lives so that you can understand the necessity and the method of applying the Four Agreements over the next week.
The Toltecs looked at the way that we perceive ourselves as dirtied by a thick fog, which they called mitote (pronounced mih-toe’-tay). The belief systems that we have are instilled in us as a child, which we then carry forward for the remainder of our lives most oftentimes unwittingly. The Toltecs framed life as a 24/7 dream with an external dream and an internal dream. The external dream is what others have created in us as Ruiz argues through a process of “domestication” starting with our parents. If our parents say, “Son, you are no good.” We carry those limitations with us and we believe in those words even though it hurts us to do so.
Ruiz, a Toltec himself, posits that humans are the only beings that hurt themselves a thousand times for the same mistake. We also tend to hurt others for that one mistake that was made, whereas animals make a mistake and move forward. We allow others to abuse us, to judge us, and to permit ourselves to be victims because that is the domestication that was handed down to us. In fact, we can maintain relationships that are painful so long as that pain of abuse does not exceed our level of self abuse and self hatred. If you hate yourself to a certain degree, and someone else treats you worse than you treat yourself, you will divorce yourself from that person’s presence. However, if you are filled with self loathing, then even if the person treats you badly if it is less than your own self perception of abuse, you will tolerate that abuse and allow it to be perpetuated indefinitely.
In The Four Agreements, Ruiz uses ancient Toltec wisdom to help an individual break free from these draining belief systems, or old agreements, to create new agreements that emanate from one’s own personal dream to influence and shape the external dream. Why subscribe to the four internal agreements? Simply put, so that you can free yourself from your own personal hell and create your own dream of heaven. So that you can reduce your own internal pain and free yourself since no one else can do that for you. As you break these old agreements, you will see that you won’t be drained but you will be filled with a newfound sense of energy that will then feed itself to provide you even more energy, as you pursue your dream of happiness. What are these four agreements? Well, we will cover one each day over this next week. I hope you find this ancient wisdom as enlightening as I have in my personal quest for self improvement and self actualization.
Path to Joy III: Laughter is the Best Medicine
October 15, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
Oftentimes, we see things too grimly because we simply can’t see the humor in something. We are faced with financial issues, a departed loved one, health problems, spiritual crisis, whatever it may be. As the third and final installment in creating a path to joy to rid our soul of the shackles of fear, let’s look at the beauty of laughter.
Every day that we are alive should be a joyous one. We are all too often consumed by our own self-doubts and concerns to look outward and simply have a good laugh. I definitely set the tone for the entire office. I really enjoy laughing all day with my staff. They are a real joy to me. I really simply love spontaneous outbursts of laughter. I heard this one patient tell me that she underwent laughing therapy in which a skilled professional actually helped her see even the grimmest thing she was experiencing as laughable.
Along that spirit, here is a short, 2-minute funny one from Monty Python you might enjoy:
Attitude Part 2
September 17, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
One of my lovely patients from Miami who flew in to see me with one of her friends last week, handed me a sheet of paper that she had photocopied and that meant a lot to her in terms of life philosophy. I consider what she gave me a continuation of a blog I wrote about a month ago on Viktor Frankl (click here to see that one) so I have entitled this blog, “Attitude Part 2″ and also is reminiscent of another blog on Shimon Peres (click here to see that one). This quote is from Plano native Pastor Charles Swindoll:
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important tha the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people say or do. It is more important than appearances, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company…a church…a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change the past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
Amen!
Having Perspective (Part 1 of 2)
September 8, 2008 by dr. lam · Leave a Comment
I just got back from Montréal and had an absolutely wonderful time and much needed repair of my soul after 3 continuous and arduous months writing my 5th textbook, Aging Face: The New Paradigm, which I just sent to my publisher in London last week. Hurray! Over this past week, an idea has been mulling about in my head that will take about 2 blogs to explore fully.
When I was in Montréal, I tried Poutines (gravy-soaked Belgian fries), tried Bavette de Boeuf, had lunch and dinner during which time all I spoke was French (that was tiring), walked through the Vieux Quartier of the city that reminded me in many ways of Soho in New York (the juxtaposition of 4-storied, old architecture with very new, modern interiors of hip restaurants and galleries) including a stroll along a rainy St. Lawrence River, a bowl (not cup) of café au lait (that reminded me in a Proustian way of the time I spent in France drinking those large bowls with fresh baguettes and jam for breakfast), etc.
What I am trying to get at is that travel can provide an individual with perspective. In the U.S. we tend to be very insular in our perspective (and don’t get me wrong, I love America!), where English is assumed and we don’t bother to learn another language or think in the manner of another culture. Having been born in Hong Kong and starting out in my infancy with another language, i.e.,Cantonese dialect of Chinese, provides me with a sense of perspective on life of others and of my own.
My aesthetic is truly informed by my time that I spent in New York, as I have developed a cleaner, understated, almost linear style when it comes to what I love. (I will be doing a series of blogs on artists who have influenced me and my perspective on art either later this week or next week or so.) When I built the 27,000 sq.ft. wellness center, I spoke with Gary Williams the architect and really conveyed my love of the Modernist era, specifically, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, etc. He got a sense of the clean lines and rich use of natural materials (limestone, wood, etc.) that I wanted without any reference to “Texas” or local architecture. That is not to say my building is somehow better than the architecture around me but it does reflect as a natural extension of who I am.
When I spent 6 weeks to study French during my Freshman summer in college in Provence, France, I stayed first with a wonderful family that had a grandmother, 2 daughters, a son, and a dog in a tiny home and they were fanatical Socialists in Avignon, France. I love them and loved seeing they had no dishwasher and really none of what Americans would now really take for granted. After that I studied for the remaining month in Nice, staying with a very wealthy director of a company who lived on a mountain and took in many visiting students from Europe and U.S. who wanted to learn about French culture. I had many long discussions with him in French about philosophy and politics. Needless to say, he was on the right of things. Regardless of political affiliation, the time that I spent in France opened me up to a new culture and way of thinking, especially since the entire 6 weeks was spent in another language and fully ensconced with the people who live there. Compare that time when I traveled with my sister and Americans in the hostel system in Europe: not full immersion but still immensely rewarding and wonderfully enlightening in its own way.
I then traveled about 7 years ago for 5 months throughout Asia to learn more about Asian cosmetic surgery. Having studied Tokugawa history at Princeton, I was fascinated with that era in time and saw the old castles of the Edo period, went to Deshima in Nagasaki, the only trading port that Japan had during the 250 rule of the Tokugawa and really only contact with the world during that time. I walked through the Hiroshima museum and was greatly affected by that experience. I traveled through China, Korea (visited the DMZ), Bali, Hong Kong, etc. It was an eye-opening experience.
When we travel, we can get a better sense of ourselves and who we are. I took all my staff to New York a month ago and I think they got a better sense of perspective, as NYC represents such an incredible melting pot of cultures. If you can’t afford to travel or don’t have the time anytime soon, think about going on the Internet (I assume you have a connection since you are reading this text), and try to explore another culture including their language, customs, idiosyncrasies, contributions, etc. I think it will help open your eyes and ears and perhaps give you a better perspective on life and yourself. Tomorrow we will consider another aspect of perspective.