The Power of Our Word

Today is Groundhog Day, a day about being stuck in a paradigm of beliefs, causing us to have the same experience over and over. So how do we move out of the trap of repetition into newness? As Don Miguel Ruiz wrote in The Four Agreements, the first agreement is to be impeccable with our word. Our word is so powerful. When our way of being is lined up with our word, it becomes a potent and powerful experience. We need a great deal of courage to challenge our beliefs. Even if we know we didn't choose all of our beliefs, we know that we agreed to all of them. And so we experience feelings of blame, guilt, and shame as we start to go against "the rules". We need to be accepted and loved by others, but we have to first accept and love ourselves. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal. If we want to find a life of joy and fulfillment, we must find the courage to break these fear-based agreements that claim our personal power.