Show Up and Stay | Sober Positive Workplace | Recovery Discovery

the "4 agreements" episode (feat. nathan van dyke)

• DeAnn Knighton • Season 2 • Episode 6

Share episode

A few years before I got sober I went to a Psych PA about the potential of starting antidepressants. After just a brief conversation with me she assessed that I had a value problem and needed to read "The Four Agreements".  She was VERY confident. She wasn't necessarily wrong, but......

In today's episode, Nate and I chat about one of our favorite accessible recovery reads, the Four Agreements.

  • Be impeccable with your word 
  • Don't take anything personally 
  • Don't make assumptions 
  • Do your best 

There are a  few problematic things that I speak to at that end, but overall this is an action oriented way of living that has some easily adoptable concepts.  Easy in theory,  not as easy in practice! 

References: 
Ruiz, D. M. (2001). The four agreements. Amber-Allen Publishing.

If you have questions or comments or would like to be a guest on the Recovery Discovery Podcast, send an email to:
deann@showupandstay.org

More information about our project is available at:
https://www.showupandstay.org/
https://www.soberpositiveworkplace.org/

For podcast updates, follow us on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/showupandstayorg/

Music and Audio Production by Katie Hare.
https://www.hare.works

DeAnn Knighton:

I am looking at a book with the subtitle, A Practical Guide to personal freedom. Wow, that is a big promise. Normally, I'm skeptical of any texts promising something as elusive as personal freedom. However, this was written in 1997. And there was a trend at that time, it seemed like bold statements such as this about personal growth, were the only ways to get things published. So we'll give it a pass. Let's focus on the heart of this book. And it's simple but rich wisdom. You can read it in one day, and begin application of the concepts immediately. Mastery. Well, I'm afraid that it's work that is bigger than our lifespan, but what the hell we can try. Today we dig in to one of my favorite accessible recovery rates This is the show up and stay podcast. I'm your host Deann Knighton. The Four Agreements is a book of Toltec wisdom. It was written by Don Miguel Ruiz, and Janet Mills. The agreements themselves are pretty straightforward and seemingly fairly self explanatory. Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. Don't make assumptions. And always do your best. Don Miguel Ruiz was born in Mexico to a family of healers. People who embody the legacy of their Toltec ancestry, Don Miguel returned to this wealth of wisdom later in life after a near death experience. At this point, he saw beauty in this wisdom and its applications and created this modern day classic. An agreement is defined as a harmony or accordance and opinion or feeling a position or result of agreeing. This book is about the excavation process, ensuring that the agreements that we are living our life by are indeed still the agreements we want to live by today. This is the path to being in integrity with ourselves. This is the process of taking all of the separate parts and putting them together in a way that helps us feel more aligned and more attuned. That the all theology and mythology of the Toltec is based on polytheism, which is a belief in many gods. Look, there are some crazy things in the Toltec history. As is the case with most history. There's happens to include human sacrifices. Nobody here is asking you to sign up for all the wisdom of the Toltecs.

Nate Van Dyke:

You think any kind of self help book is very, it's kind of like let's start with the eye roll. You know, of course, yeah, this is gonna like radically changed my life. Right, right. But like, in my case, this book actually did pretty radically shift my perspective of me and the world. And since it's

DeAnn Knighton:

my friend and go to recovery guru, Nate Van Dyke

Nate Van Dyke:

I wasn't it was in the right place at the right time.

DeAnn Knighton:

He is the current director for an intensive outpatient program, the one that actually started me on my own recovery path, Red Willow. You can hear some backstory about our connection and some great information that he provides about the impact of addiction on the brain on episodes 14 and 15 of the podcast.

Nate Van Dyke:

It was introduced to this text early, early in my recovery within the first year of my recovery. It was a mentor of mine that pointed out this book, it kind of blew my mind, I read it really quickly and started immediately just almost experimentally to like adopt the concepts and the perspectives within the book. And then I was in a really raw place in my recovery where I was in a vulnerable enough spot where I could adopt new perspectives and new ideas about myself in the world. So I was grateful to be in that spot, but it really did kind of overhaul how I live my life. And how I see the world

DeAnn Knighton:

The Four Agreements is a really powerful tool I believe for reduction of rumination and helping us to focus on the present and what we can control. Today a quick story for you on this one for me, I don't know why this story makes me laugh. It's not necessarily funny. A few years before I got sober, I was obviously struggling in life, I wondered for a long time, like what was going on with my ups and downs and like how much depression was involved. So I did finally seek out some help to potentially be medicated for depression. And I walked into PA who was the prescriber to talk about the potential of getting on antidepressants. I'm describing what's going on and talking about the possibility of medication. And she says two things to me in in the form of kind of advice for my issue, the first thing she says is, well, you just have a value problem, your values in your head are not aligned with the values in your life. And you just need to reconcile that. Secondly, you need to read the Four Agreements. And she hands me a piece of paper that has like a little chart on it, I still have it of of some things, it's a few concepts. And then she, you know, says, here's the book and go get it.

Nate Van Dyke:

Here's your prescription, here's my book recommendations,

DeAnn Knighton:

exactly. Like she wasn't wrong. The only thing is, is that I was like, wait, I have questions. I am not there yet. Have questions. And then the second time was in IOP, you did a psycho educational component on this idea and these concepts. And it was a very different experience that time. And then obviously, following that I bought the book.

Nate Van Dyke:

Beginning of the book starts with something called the smoking mirror. And reading this, my interpretation of this part of the book is it's about interconnectedness, how we're all interconnected, and how we are all reflections of each other. It's kind of the idea of I watch you and I read you, and then I based my behavior based on how you react to me or what you say to me. And then his overarching concept in the smokiness part of it is that how we see ourselves becomes distorted, because how others are seeing themselves and others is also very smoky, very distorted. And that's because they're living by a certain set of beliefs or truths for themselves that are essentially based on lies is his assertion.

DeAnn Knighton:

Before we jump into the agreements, I have asked Nate to give us a quick overview on the key concept that opens the book. This is the domestication and the dream of the planet.

Unknown:

DOMESTICATION OF THE PLANET The idea of domestication, essentially, is that we're all born free, when we're young, we are more free human beings, and more natural human beings, then going through the process of domestication causes so the goal kind of, of the book is to get us closer back to our childhood selves. The domestication process is a learning that happens between a young person myself as a young boy, looking around at the older humans, the older humans are telling me things and they're offering their opinions, they're offering insights and ideas. And as a kid, I just take those things to be the absolute truth of reality. And then I adopt that into my belief system and, and the domestication specifically is based on a system of rewards and punishments. So just like a training a dog, if I did something wrong, as a kid, you know, there was a punishment. If I did something, right, there was kind of a pat on the back. Our guardians are the people that we look up to in the world as young people, they sort of do this training with us in the same way, we are trained to act in accordance to their belief system to how they believe we should act. As a kid, I had no reason to doubt that that was just the law. In the book, he starts to call this the book of law. So I start to essentially write a book of beliefs about myself about the world. And then I proceed into adolescence and adulthood, carrying those beliefs with me. And those beliefs are not necessarily based in reality. They're based on the reality of the people that I learned them from, which were also flawed, because they learned it from their older humans and so on and so forth up the ladder, but you know, it's all opinion and it's all based on individual experience. So So the big claim that he makes in this chapter about domestication is that 95% of the beliefs we have stored in our mind are essentially lies. And that our suffering is because we believe these lies, and that our normal humaneness and human tendencies get lost in the process. And we are, then in a perpetual state of searching for what is lost. Sometimes we don't even know, we just know something's missing. I don't, I'm not happy, I'm not fulfilled.

DeAnn Knighton:

Not all thoughts are facts. The longer we have them in our brains, the harder they may be to rewire. But there is hope. Once we get the substances out, this is a really key time to review what is going on in the order of the mind, for better or worse, what is serving us what is not, then we can change our relationship with some of those thoughts. FIRST AGREEMENT - BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD The first agreement is 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. From his words directly. We've learned to lie as a habit of our communication with others and more importantly, with ourselves.

Nate Van Dyke:

Part of active addiction requires dishonesty. So it's sort of breaking that habit of dishonesty and moving into being impeccable with your word is being as true as possible in what you say to others, but also what you say to yourself, which was one of the really hard parts about this one. For me, one of the concepts that really resonated with me was that words are powerful things. And if we how we use words with others and toward ourselves carry weight, and have meaning and value and I can pollute somebody's world if I use words in the wrong way. And they can maybe adopt that opinion, or that observation that I use, that's a negative thing, and carry that into their world. If I'm coming from a place of self love, which, again, for me early in recovery, there was little to no self love. So I struggled with this. But he says in the book that being impeccable with your word requires a level of self love, so that you can then spread the word without polluting yourself and others and especially in the way that I talk to myself. So it was pretty eye opening to know that I even just had the permission to change up my internal dialogue, to see if I could have a different result.

DeAnn Knighton:

SECOND AGREEMENT- DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY 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.

Nate Van Dyke:

One of the beautiful parts of the Four Agreements is that all of these agreements apply to the external world and the internal world. So in considering don't take anything personally, I have to consider my interactions with others. I also have to, like consider my interactions with myself, like I kind of alluded to, I think what we do as humans is we're very self referential or self oriented creatures. So we have a tendency to make everything about me, we make an assumption. It's all about me, in the book in disagreement, he makes the assertion nothing other people do is because of you. It's because of them. So that one needed to sink in for a minute for me, I sort of always went through the world thinking the way that people acted toward me, or what they said to me, was about me, right? And so reversing this and considering, is that statement directed at me, or is it more about them? Are the actions that this person is perpetrating toward me? Are they more about me? Are they more about them? And so for me, I took this agreement and I just watched people and I watched my own interactions with people and did a reality test and found that, personally, my belief is that he's spot on that people, by and large do things for themselves, they act in accordance to what their beliefs are. And it's all about them, not whoever they're interacting with. So he uses the extreme example of even if someone were to walk up and shoot me, that wouldn't really be about me, that would be about the person who pulled the trigger, really thinking about that, internalizing that it can just apply that across the board, it was pretty profound for me. But also, going to the internal level, you know, I have to know that I have opinions about myself, that may or may not necessarily be true. So I can't take even my own thoughts and opinions personally. And so my mind does all kinds of things, because it's been trained and been through the process of domestication and learned, potentially untruths. And I have to not take it. So personally, when my head tells me, Oh, man, you're, you're such an idiot, I really need to first of all, not expect that my brain is going to always tell me the truth. And secondly, not expect that other people can tell me the truth, because they're also living in this dream of illusion based on the agreements that they've made, and the beliefs that they've formulated, that are based on opinions. I'm never responsible for the actions of others. I'm only responsible for me,

DeAnn Knighton:

one thing that was like a stepping stone to helping me understand it is to pull back into something like social media, because social media is this interesting world, where people are allowed to say things to us when they don't even know us. And if you've ever been in an experience of like online dating, or gaming, you've most likely had some experience where something that you said, was attacked by somebody who has never laid eyes on you and knows nothing about you, when I think back to it, I would still take it personally, I would have a very hard time not feeling like something's wrong with me. It's taken a lot of growth for me now to be able to say, and look at something like that, and not react to it inside and then not feel it in my body. Because I can say, objectively, who is this person to judge who I am and the life I'm living? What do they actually know about me? Why am I giving so much power to this person to be able to control me in that way? And that was like a really big stepping stone to now being able to, I think, understand this concept with people who are even closer to me.

Nate Van Dyke:

Yeah. Well, I think it's like we value what others opinions of us are, which is based in our childhood survival. You know, we, we care about what people think of us as a form of fitting in and fitting into the group and kind of having a normal experience. But then, you know, the way it goes sideways is that, you know, somebody on a dating app says, You're too ugly for me, sorry. And then I take that as truth. And I'm like, Oh, I must be ugly, or I'm at least to agree for them. I would posit that. That is all about them. There's something going on with that person that they made that statement that has very little to nothing to do with you. Right? Yeah, but this is hard. It's very hard. Yes. At least it is. For me,

DeAnn Knighton:

I can say this one is a hard one. It is a work in progress. Yeah,

Nate Van Dyke:

I think we all take things personally. It's part of our nature, because we care about others, we want others to love us. And taking things personally is kind of a way of wanting to fit in wanting to be loved wanting to receive love. But yeah, just backing out and being a little bit more objective is helpful. At least it has been for me.

DeAnn Knighton:

I have this good news. You are not special. There's something beautiful about getting some freedom from that and realizing that wait, this idea I have of how things do revolve around me might not be what I think it is. And then you can start to not take things personally. But you do have to accept that the world doesn't quite revolve the way yeah,

Nate Van Dyke:

a hard pill to swallow. It's

DeAnn Knighton:

hard. It's yeah,

Nate Van Dyke:

I want to believe that everything that everybody does around me is about me. Yeah. Part of me wants to believe that and learning that just inaccurate to the core. It's a blow to the ego a little bit. It's like, well, I've maybe I don't matter as much right.

DeAnn Knighton:

Now, let me go back and say you are special, and I am special. But good news. We're not special. Okay. Okay, we'll be right back. So much for the pink cloud. Season Two of the show up and state podcast is focused on me Deann. And my attempts to reconnect and recover some of the work that I did in my early months of recovery, not only because I want to, but because I need to show up and stay is a 501 C three nonprofit focused on recovery support, powered by a dash of technology, some science, but mostly just storytelling, and heart. Thanks for showing up. Now, let's get back to it. 3RD AGREEMENT - DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS Once you've figured out where things are landing for you, and you're working to not take things personally. Another key step to being able to make that circle work is to not make assumptions about what other people say, Don't make assumptions as well. 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.

Nate Van Dyke:

That sounds terrifying. It's really terrifying. Think about this also in the form of assertiveness. So because we have a need to know, things, if I know things, or if I believe I know the way things are, I feel safe. And the easiest way for me to just tell myself I know what's happening is to just make an assumption about it right? It's harder, and it's more effort and requires more work to go ask questions, and find out if my assumptions are accurate or not. And while it's harder, it will also lead to that same sense of safety probably a more realistic sense of safety. Because I'm asking questions, I'm being assertive, which for me, as an introvert is, has been a really uphill battle. But thanks to train really hard to adopt this agreement, I've learned how to be assertive. And if I don't understand rather than assume, I'll ask questions until I think I do understand. He uses the example of a romantic partnership like a marriage, you know, going into a marriage, I might assume my partner has the same conception of what a marriage looks like, as I do, like, that's just an assumption that I would make, because she knows me well. And I know her well. And that assumption on both of our parts might backfire, right? Because I may find out Whoa, her conception of marriage. And what that looks like in reality is not matching mine at all. You can trace it back to just, I assumed Yeah, rather than having a conversation about what does marriage look like for you, rather than having that uncomfortable conversation? I'll just assume and kind of go with the flow and then get divorced later.

DeAnn Knighton:

I have had a very interesting experience many times of having somebody say something to me about how they feel about me that is like more of a positive thing. And I have been like, really? You act that's actually how you feel about me? Because I would not have thought that Oh, okay. Brain brain does not always know your brain is sitting here thinking person is thinking something that they're not?

Nate Van Dyke:

Yes, like a lot of the time, it's good to kind of check what's going on in my mind against other people, I think because living within the confines of my mind, it's like a world unto itself and it is potentially a world of delusions. So I make lots of assumptions about myself, I may operate on those assumptions and then later on again, it'll backfire. So the key is to notice I'm making assumptions about me and to really question FOURTH AGREEMENT always do your best. So there, I don't know about you all, but inside of me, there's this little internal judge, that is watching everything I do and watching everything everyone else does and making judgments about that. He's causing me grief. He's a source of suffering and My life one of the biggest takeaways with always do your best is, if I'm always doing my best, it will shut up that internal critic can argue with the fact that, hey, I'm doing my best. I might not be living up to perfection, that internal judge might have perfection as an expectation. But I am doing my darndest, I am doing my absolute best, you kind of can't argue with that.

DeAnn Knighton:

Always do your best, your best is going to change from moment to moment, it will be different when you're healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best. And you will avoid self judgment, self abuse and regret.

Nate Van Dyke:

Another key concept to understand about always do your best is that your best is not always gonna look the same. It's gonna vary based on your circumstances based on how you feel if you're sick. Or if you're well, if you're tired, or if you're rested. From day to day, my best is going to vacillate and change. And I need to be flexible about that. This is a helpful one because I'm a person that wants to do too much over exert energy to the point of wasting energy. I mean, I, I put so much time and energy and stress into things, and often then find out well, that wasn't necessary. It's that inner judging that perfectionism that I have. But if I always do my best, I don't have to try harder than I need to. And I don't have to spend more energy than is needed. I just need to kind of gauge what is your energy level? What is your best? Don't overdo it, mate. Like it's okay. Don't deplete your body to the point of being stressed and exhausted. Just do your best and don't go against yourself by by burning yourself out and doing too much within the circumstances and confines of the context that I'm in? Am I doing my absolute best and trying my very hardest? If it if it's an unequivocal yes, then I have to let go of all the extra, how is it showing up for you, when you

DeAnn Knighton:

hear just always do your best in and of itself, it can kind of sound like a lecture like do your best you know. But when you dig into the actual concept, like you were saying, there's a lot of grace in it. It is about self grace, because for me, so much of my life has been competing with other versions of myself, I have now learned through a lot of years and some help, that I have ups and downs. And I have periods of time where things are harder for me, and I'm a little bit on the depressed side. Or I might be dealing with a like some low level depression, or I'm dealing with anxiety, and I'm a little bit keyed up, and I'm in a different place. And I'm starting to work on learning who I am in those places, so that I can adjust this because what I've learned is that the thing that doesn't do me any good is to be down and to tell myself that I suck and that I just need to do better and that I should be matching who I was three months ago. And if I'm not that I'm failing somehow Oh, hey, this is my quick public service announcement and or what I like to call my Yes, and which is basically to say thank you, Don Miguel Ruiz for the Four Agreements. However, I have a few notes. I feel strongly if I'm going to be recommending any text to you that I also have a responsibility to bring up any drawbacks. And so that's what I'm doing here. There is discussion of God and spirituality in the text, not in a way that overpowers it or that it becomes a central theme. However, just to know to you that that is there. Secondly, there's regrettable use of the term black magic to describe the idea of using the word in ways that are manipulative or harmful to others. And even more regrettably the use of white magic to describe the proper use of the word. The author has come out, released a note in later editions of the book that there was no racial connotation to this use. However, in my humble opinion, why not just take it out plenty of other ways that you could have described this particular phenomenon. Lastly, and also very importantly, there is a sense for me in particular around a lot of the dialogue tied to how we can become addicted to our own suffering, how we need to overcome our past That, to me doesn't show the right level of compassion for somebody who has experienced trauma. This is one area that I have no problem being quite forceful about in my communication, which is to say quite simply that trauma doesn't heal by forgetting it or by picking yourself up by your bootstraps. There definitely is a proper process should be done in conjunction with a therapist, it's incredibly important work to the healing process. So I will admit, I have not read the fifth agreement. Nate has so asked me to tell us just a little bit about that, for any of you out there that are big fans and have read the whole series, we want to make sure we make note that there is indeed a fifth agreement

Unknown:

THE FIFTH AGREEMENT - or is indeed a fifth agreement, which is Be skeptical, but learn to listen. So this agreement is about not necessarily believing yourself or anybody else. It's that sort of about the power of doubt, and discovery of really what is true, and listening to the intent behind the words that others say and that I say to myself and trying to understand what the real message is. Now, I will be honest, that I found this book kind of a recapitulation of some of the concepts within the Four Agreements. So I wasn't blown away by the fifth agreement. I haven't reread it like I've reread The Four Agreements several times. But um, it might be worth a read. Yeah, you're gonna read it.

DeAnn Knighton:

I am now Yes, I'm on it. Okay. I hope I was just being impeccable with my word just been. I hope that I really well, hold on, I have to check in. I don't know, Nate, I'm checking in with myself. And I may not actually read it

Nate Van Dyke:

for being honest. I appreciate that. I rather then later on, you don't have to lie about it when I'm like, how was the fifth agreement?

DeAnn Knighton:

Right, right. So let's say it's a 50/50 chance I'll get back to you. Okay. I do have a lofty goal of a weekly podcast this year, and that means I have to put content out regularly.

Unknown:

suggestion. Yes. In doing the weekly. Just do your best.

DeAnn Knighton:

okay, I feel better.

email:

info@showupandstay.org | website: showupandstay.org |

instagram:

@showupanddstayorg Katie Hare Website (Music):

kate@hare.https:

//www.hare.works/