Living The Four Agreements or At Least Trying To

Hello and welcome to Shedding the Bitch Radio, where you can discuss, debate, and get advice on how to discover and shed the bitches of fear, insecurity, self-doubt, and negative mindsets so you can realize your dreams and life purpose and create and accelerate the riches you want in life. Join us here live every Tuesday at noon Eastern and dialogue with us at 818-572-2910. You can also chat with us at blogtalkradio.com/sheddingthebitch or share your stories on our website at sheddingthebitch.com. Whatever the bitch is that's holding you back from living your life to the fullest, it's not worth giving up the riches in life that you deserve. So call in now and let Bernadette Boas know what's holding you back.

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Good day, good day, good day everyone. How are you on this beautiful, beautiful day? Yes, I am. Bernadette Boas, and you are listening to Shades of Itch Radio. And I want to thank everyone, all of our new listeners, for finding us and actually taking the time to join in. We always appreciate that and absolutely would love your likes and your follows and your subscribes, also your comments, your ratings, whatever it might be, just so we know what it is that you interested in and how we can serve you to the best of our abilities. And as well, we love, love, love our returning guests, whether you're listening to the podcast on any one of the streaming services, you're even watching our video stream of the program out on our Shed the Bitch YouTube channel. So thank you for all of our returning guests and And thank you for also the likes and the shares and the subscribes and the ratings and the comments because it helps to get those new listeners, those new eyes and ears onto the Shedding the Bitch program. So thank you so much. Please continue to do so as we continue to work to grow our program and our, actually our whole community here.

In the SHED community.

So thank you so much for that.

Today, I had a very kind of interesting fatalis—

returning from vacation. So if there's any lag in my voice or my energy level from any time in the past, it's probably because I have those Monday, Tuesday, ramp it back up type of state of mind where you are coming off a vacation and trying to get back into the groove of things. And I was fortunate enough to be able to have some really good downtimes when it came to time off. Because some of us, especially if we work for ourselves, we tend to feel obligated to, to always be working, to always be on. And, you know, I choose, and especially this past vacation, I chose that I was not necessarily going to be on when it came to, um, marketing, networking, um, administrative type of work. I knew that I could put that aside and I can get back to it along with my team, um, on my return. But when it came to any 911 client work, um, and I emphasize 911 because I also work to manage my clients as well as I would recommend anyone to to kind of recognize, yes, I'm on vacation and therefore anything that we have scheduled, you know, we'll just reschedule for the week I return. Except when it comes to 911s, and basically those are anything, you know, of emergency, anything of urgency, anything of critical issue that needs to get addressed. And all they do is text me 911 and I pretty much drop everything, even to the point where I was going out on a whale watching boat cruise and did receive a 911 and was fortunate enough to have some time before we actually left.

It was a well-rested, well, much-needed downtime, especially when it comes to being with sisters.

And hopefully many of you can appreciate getting that family time apart from all the regular noise and the chaos going on around you. Excuse me, because I also tend to have a tickle in my throat right now as well, and have had for about a day. But I'm fine, I'm fine. Had a doctor's appointment yesterday, all is good with the world, just the allergies and the leaves falling and that kind of thing. But I did find it fatalistic, going back to what— how I opened— that in the last couple of days since my return I would— excuse me— I would keep in mind the Four Agreements, if any of you are familiar with the Four Agreements, as I was online. And it wasn't— the first time I saw it, it didn't really, you know, it didn't do anything for me. The next time I saw it, you know, I kind of said, oh, that's interesting. I wonder if it's just for the fact that once it pops up in your stream and all, I didn't interact with it, but you tend to see it again and again. It's almost like the ads, you know, once you click on an ad, all of a sudden the next thing you know all your streams, even your phone, will start seeing ads from like vendors if not the exact vendor. But in this case, you know, didn't interact with it. I just saw it, um, and then it came up a second time, and I would say that was yesterday, and I looked at it. I didn't do anything. I didn't click in, but, but up until this morning, I would say it came out 3 or 4 times.

This is interesting. And I did open it up, and you know, it was a—

it was, uh, one And for those of you that might be watching this later on our YouTube channel, I'll hold up the— I printed it out. I'll hold up the post that I came across. And it was, you know, just an image of the Four Agreements. And I, you know, I just was dumbstruck because, again, fate. I thought, okay, I'll post an image. So I have a lot of settings to and pay attention to this. And I did, and I posted it first thing this morning on our To Reach's group page on Facebook. And it was just amazing how many people came back and said, oh, I love it, I love it, thanks for the reminder. You know, I got comments, oh my gosh, it must be trying to tell me something because it's popped up in front of me multiple times, so maybe I need to pay attention to it as well.

So I pulled it down thinking, okay, I need to, to look over it. So I did.

And if you're not familiar with The Four Agreements— excuse me— and it's from Don Miguel Ruiz, and I hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly. If you are not familiar with The Four Agreements, they are basically four basic agreements that really cover all the critical aspects of life, of being. Of state of mind. And, you know, and it basically asks you that should you agree to these 4 areas and behaviors, then you will find great joy and great happiness and a fulfilled life. And so coming off of a vacation where you have some time to really reflect on, you know, what it is that you're doing, what it is you want to be doing, it is you want, you know, your life to look like, especially in a crazy time like we've had, you know, this past year. But actually, even through this past, you know, week to 10 days while I was gone, you know, the election was going on, for instance.

And even though we didn't pay attention to it until probably about Saturday because we didn't want all that noise interrupt our downtime, stillness, our quiet time, our family time.

Uh, you know, it did, you know, it still was sitting out there. And so I put, when I printed it off and I started looking at it this morning and, uh, reading the, the four high-level agreements that one would make, I was screaming at me what, what it was, um, looking for me to pay attention to. So I'm going to provide you, in case you're not familiar with it, I'll provide you what those Four Agreements are. And then I want to touch on the one that really was jumping out at me, and it turns out that it is the most important one, as Don Miguel emphasizes, that one should focus on and work on and, and practice time and time again because we're human and we fall short and we misstep and we totally kind of bastardize any one of these agreements.

I want to touch on just this morning.

So the Four Agreements, to make you more familiar with them, are: be impeccable with your word. Be impeccable with your word. And basically he describes that it's speaking with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.

And use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

So that's number one. And we're going to come back to it.

Number 2 is don't take anything personally.

Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality. When you, when you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. That's beautiful, isn't it? Uh, the third one is don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions, to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. And the last one is always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment. It will be different when you are tired as opposed to when you are well rested.

Under any circumstance, simply do your best and you will avoid self-guilty judgment, self-abuse, and regret. Now what I love about these Four Agreements—

and I've been familiar with them for years, as many of you probably have—

what I love about them is they are focused internally.

Because as we talk about here in, uh, Shedding the Bitch and in our Shift to Riches, uh, programs and our Goals to Riches challenges and, and, uh, launches, is it starts internally. It starts with what is going on within you. How are you talking to yourself?

How are you, how are you believing in yourself?

How are you trusting your— in yourself?

How you're treating yourself and acting towards yourself?

Uh, it starts there, and that's where we have to focus. Not only focus initially, but always be focusing. Because what this is emphasizing as well is the fact that As I always say, you know, how you're feeling about yourself and the words that you're using with yourself and the beliefs and the actions that you're taking toward yourself is a direct projection of how you're putting yourself out in the world. It's a, uh, or a reflection of how you're projecting yourself out into the world. So if you can focus, you know, 95% of you and self-care of you, then you certainly will then feel that shift and that, that correlation how you're treating and speaking to and behaving and acting with other individuals around you. So I think it's, I think it's just, it is, as someone mentioned on my stream this morning, it is a great wonders us as individuals, as beings. And then we can, you know, kind of not even focus on, but we can see and watch and observe the shift and the adjustments that we make toward other people. Think about it. If you're, if you're confident and happy and excited and energetic and in love with not only yourself but with the the world around you and where you are right now in this present moment, then the world's going to look wonderful. The world, the sky's going to look blue even when it's dark. The sun is going to shine even when the clouds are covering it. And therefore, the way we treat other people is going to be a direct reflection of how we are feeling. And what a wonderful thing to focus on and work on each and every day is, you know, having that sun shine brightly even in the darkest of storms and, you know, feeling that warmth of the, of the sun on our skin even in the coldest of days because it's all about how we're thinking and believing and visualizing and then, you know, acting on. I wanted to focus though on the first one. Be impeccable with your word. And, you know, I talk a lot about words matter, and it may have come from just all my focus on this and these Four Agreements many years back, but I just, I do think that even those, even those, you know, kind of short snippy words that we kind of brush off you know, maybe what we're saying to ourselves, maybe as we're looking in the mirror in the morning and we're brushing our teeth. And, you know, I know this morning I was like, oh, I look tired, I look puffy from all the junk food I was eating and the, you know, more than typical alcohol that I was consuming all last week. You know, and I was having this kind of negative conversation with myself that seemed very innocent, seemed very, oh well, it's not going to have any any ingrained effect on my being. But you know what? It does. And I will say that it did. And not just that one instance, but it even starts with just what you're saying to yourself and how you're dreaming and how you're waking up in the morning. And then, you know, kind of then all the things that follow that, like, you know, as you're looking in the mirror and you're brushing your teeth, or as you're preparing your coffee or your breakfast, or as you're you know, getting the kids ready to go to school or, or go across the room and sit at their desk in today's world. But, you know, all, you know, every one of the current moments affect the future moment, which is just a millisecond, you know, away from where you are right now in the present. So getting a handle on the words that are being used to yourself in the present moment can help you then make the shifts needed to ensure that those words are more just like it— this agreement says, that they're more about truth and love as opposed to self-judgment or judgment of others or gossiping of others or demeaning of others or mistreating of others. So where it really became evident to me this morning that I needed to not only print it off— I had already done that and I had already put it up on my wall attached to my vision board, which I've talked about in the past with all of you. What, you know, but I knew that I had to do more than that, and I had to actually take time out of my morning routine and sit still and focus on that one agreement as it was, you know, kind of hanging in front of me at eye level. And it was because the fact that even my technology incident this morning. I happened to go away on my trip just when the storm had come through about a week ago last Thursday, and it took out a couple of trees in my neighborhood, one actually a couple doors down. And when the tree came down, it took— wiped out, you know, electrical and internet cables and lines and therefore service. And I was fortunate enough to be leaving that day and not necessarily having to deal with not having electricity and internet. Um, you know, my neighbors weren't as fortunate, but I came back Sunday and I noticed that my internet service was still very, very poor, and therefore the last couple days have been very frustrating. In handling, you know, getting back to work, getting back to doing, you know, my online, which requires not only good internet but very, very stable internet. And plus, just to, you know, kind of survive anymore, you need, you know, you need internet service. And yet I could not get— even up until this morning, I could not get my Wi-Fi internet service back working the way it should be working.. And all of a sudden my passwords were, you know, no longer working. Everything just seemed to have gotten rebooted and, um, and re-messed up. That's not a word, but I'm using it. And so then, you know, you're getting online trying to solve it yourself, you know, go to YouTube, go to Google, go to the, you know, Netgear websites, and you're trying to work all these things through and you're being as calm— or I should Bring it back to me. I was being as calm and patient as I could be until it just was getting to the point of being ridiculous that a simple, right, my Wi-Fi password is not working, let me just reset it. As simple as just being able to hit a button that says reset your password, it wasn't that way with the mesh system I had installed just about 3 weeks ago. And so I said, okay, I'll get on the line with them. So I stayed calm, cool, and collected.

Sat on a chat room line with them.

And of course, 20 minutes later, they're sending me to someone that has to call me. And then, so I'm sitting around waiting for that, and in the meantime, still trying to do my own, you know, work to get it fixed, trying to stay calm, cool, and collected, staring at this Four Agreements page that is sitting up in front of me. And he gets, you know, he calls, which I was impressed, like 10 minutes later, you know, I get a technician that calls And, oh, well, we don't have anything to do with your passwords. You know, you, you know, you can either just go into your own system and, and work to reset your passwords, or you can hit the reset button on your mesh system and just reboot it back to the factory reset status and start all, you know, start from scratch. And all of a sudden, just that, that casual attitude as if I had not just spent like 2, 3 hours trying to solve this problem and spend, you know, 20, 30 minutes on a phone, phone waiting for him to call me. Uh, you know, I just all of a sudden that casual, you know, just hit that reset button and that's all we can do for you type of attitude triggered me. And the next thing you know, um, not only was I telling, you know, saying to him, well, you know, and quite directly, well, you could simply put that on your website and save me, you know, 30 minutes of time, or the last 2 times I hung up on him. And then, you know, I'm sitting there kind of starting to beat myself up. I'm like, why is this so hard? Why, you know, Why do people need to make this so difficult? And then I'm still— all of a sudden, this piece of paper in front of me literally started flapping. Literally started flapping. Now granted, there was a, a fan over my head and the air conditioning had kicked in, but it was just very timely when this piece of paper starts flapping. And it again triggered me in a good way to to say, okay, I need to reset. And I kind of looked at the piece of paper and the first thing I see is the words, be impeccable with your word. And again, I'll emphasize that it says, speak with integrity, say only what you mean, which I felt like I certainly was doing that all morning, you know, voicing my frustration and my aggravation. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or no gossip or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Well, I fell into the—

I fell into not following the agreement of avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.

And when I read further into what that passage means within—

in the actual book, The Four Agreements, you know, it's basically saying that, you know, stop and recognize where where is it coming from? Where is any negative self-judging talk toward yourself, you know, coming from? And when I looked at this situation when it came to technology, because many of you know, over the last 6 months I've had a lot of technology issues. Actually, it's been since about fall of last year. And so I kind of all of a sudden had to stop myself and say, okay, so here I'm beating myself up, I'm getting very aggravated, I'm like, but I'm deflecting everything onto other people. Like, why can't these people get it right? Why is it so difficult? Why do they make it so hard for me to find something on their website about how to handle this situation? And I started getting, you know, kind of very animated and very, um, short about it in the words with him toward myself as well to other people.

And I finally had to kind of say, okay, so what's your role in this, Bernadette?

Like, what is it that's not happening that you're not making happen in order for you, you to continually have these problems? Yes, technology issues, you know, can come up. And yes, people will say that certain service providers suck. And yes, you know, there are not, you know, Mother Nature, natural things that happen that would cause, you know, disruption and whatnot. But what role first are you having on it? Because certainly my getting frustrated and aggravated and angry about anything, therefore beating myself up and other people, is not going to solve the problem.

It's not adding—

what is it— truth and love to the situation.

It's not, you know, using honey instead of vinegar.

To work through and get through something. And I had to kind of say, okay, so maybe, you know, I haven't taken the steps necessary. Uh, like I didn't write down, for instance, I didn't write down when I was setting up the mesh system to begin with the usernames and passwords properly, or not even properly at all, to where then getting this constant, you know, passwords incorrect, passwords incorrect, passwords incorrect. Maybe, you know, I could have screwed up. Let alone, you know, let alone the, the manufacturer screwing up their initial reset default username and password. And, you know, so I had to kind of work through my role in the current situation, but also the self-judgment and the self, you know, kind of cruelty I was putting on myself, let alone then projecting that out onto somebody else. And so what I would just say to all of you is we all have those, those times. We all— we could practice this agreement or any other agreement, you know, we want to make with ourselves. Treat others with kindness and with respect and speak well of others, and don't get into the drama, don't get into all the chaos of things. And we can, you know, repeat and make those commitments to ourselves each and every moment or each and every day, and yet something triggers us that kind of sets us off. And I'd like to be able to say, well, we are human, that it's going to happen. But you know what, it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to. First off, I'll often tell my own clients, you know, using this technology example, It's not, you know, it's not world hunger. It's not world war. It's not, you know, something that is, you know, on the level of dealing with cancer or losing one's home or losing one's job and being out of work and not being able to feed, you know, yourself, let alone children. You know, it's there's things in life like technology issues that are just not worth all of a sudden going against your own, you know, agreement to yourself. And, you know, in the case of being impeccable with your word, it's not— it's not worth you all of a sudden self-judging and self-beating yourself, you know, beating yourself up, or yet let alone anybody else. So we just— I need to, and then I would just suggest, you know, you as well, just, you know, when those things get triggered, pause, get still, get quiet, start breathing deeply, and just really think through, you know, how, how can you kind of shift out of this state of agitation, which is not going to be working for you to solve whatever problem you're dealing with, and how can you move to a place of being very calm, cool, and collected, as they say, but also very logical to be like, you know. So I'll use myself as an example to all of a sudden be like, okay, you know what, I'm going to unplug everything, I'm going to hit that reset button, I'm going to get it back to as if I just brought it home in the box because it was certainly easy to set up. So I kind of recalled that very quickly about 40 minutes ago, and I said, okay, So what I need to do is just slow down, take a deep breath, get calm, you know, just, you know, hit that reset button, get it all reset back to, you know, the factory state. Although one frustration will be and is that it doesn't tell you that it reset. You know, you hit the pin in this thing and there's no indication that you actually hit it and it actually worked. So I'll work through that, but then put it even back in the box as if, yes, I'm just bringing it home for the first time and I have to start from scratch. That is a very easy, logical solution to solving the problem that I just spent about 2, 2.5 hours being very, very frustrated over, and that is what I am taking away from this kind of this fatalistic, but this constant reminder of being, of having Four Agreements put in my face the last 2 or 3 days. You know, it was asking me to slow down, it was asking me to pay attention, it was asking me to, you know, reconsider, you know, what I'm doing and how I'm going about things. And, you know, just take time to, to kind of find truth and love in the words that I'm using, as opposed to judgment or gossip or, you know, angst and frustration. And I, you know, I just have to take that as it was definitely someone was trying to, you know, send a message to me. So I would just, you know, suggest to you take a deep breath, get still, be intentional, go within, you know, if, you know, especially when other people are involved, slow down, you know, getting, you know, some people don't like people being in their head, but I would suggest in this case, get in your head and really pay attention to the words you're about to express. So if you are about to express anything but truth and love and kindness and respect, then you now have an opportunity to, you know, take that breath and shift those words, even shift the thoughts that are causing those words to come out.

And recognize that, you know, in most cases you are not looking to intentionally hurt, demean, or judge anyone.

A lot of times it's just knee-jerk reaction, and yet we then tend to beat ourselves up afterwards. You know, I can't believe I said that, I can't believe I did that, especially when it comes to anything online. And this, it, the whole, this whole thing about being impeccable with your words actually started showing up, I'll say, when I was actually sun Saturday and Sunday when I started getting back into what was going on last week with the elections, because we did kind of step away from it for the week, and yet I was coming back to reality of life, so I thought, okay, I'll look into it. And online, of course, depending upon which way you were looking for the elections to turn out, both sides came out, one side all thrilled and the other still full of anger and full of judgment and full of hate is the only word that's coming up for me, unfortunately. And I was really close to getting sucked into it. I had not been in it for a week to 10 days, and I was really close to getting into it because there was some comments from people within, I'll say within my association, not within my family or immediate friends, but within my association.. And I did not care for, you know, how things were being, you know, positioned and how they were being stated. And so I was just about a fingertip away from jumping into that conversation with not-so-kind words— respectful, I will say respectful, but very direct pointers. And I said, nope, nope, cannot do it.

Do not want to do it.

You know, even if it is going to be respectful and it was going to be very unbiased, I, I'm just not going to get myself into it. And that's when this, this whole Four Agreements thing started popping in my, you know, popping up in front of me, uh, screaming impeccable words. It's not an easy thing. It's, you know, it's not an easy thing. We do have trigger fingers. We do have, you know, knee-jerk reactions. We do have things that set us off. Just day-in, day-out things. And yet, we'll really think about whether or not we really want to be putting truth and love and kindness and respect and happiness out into the world, or do we want to put out hate and disgust and, um, curtness and demeaning judgment. We really don't want to be doing that, you know, and I'm not saying that like you shouldn't be doing that. I'm saying that we're really not those people. I truly believe that. We are not, deep down inside, we are not hurtful, let alone hateful people. But things trigger us. And we are all human. And, but that is when we just need to get very still, quiet, intentional, and considerate of the impeccable word that we want to truly be using so we can express truth, love, kindness, and joy in place of all of that. And I would just, you know, suggest the same for, for anybody kind of not there yet, kind of not able to find that, that, that stillness and that quiet. And know that it is an everyday, it is an everyday discipline to be practiced. It does not all of a sudden happen overnight. At the same time, though, as you work through you know, really building confidence and security and self-love for yourself, it becomes so much easier. So much easier. And there's not, not even a thought toward placing judgment or hate onto other people. Because when you're in a good place and you're confident and secure and happy and joyful, you know, you're not thinking anything ugly and you're not wanting to feel anything ugly, let alone express anything ugly. So, you know, each and every day we can all just work toward making ourselves more confident and more self-loved and self-care for— cared for. And that in itself will take care of, of any— anything else that may not work in our favor and not serve us well. All right. So, I just thought I would share that with you today. It was a very last-minute thing. While at the same time, this will remain up on my wall and I will focus. My plan is that I would take one of these agreements per week and really focus on just one of them and then just cycle through them every 4 weeks. Coming back to, for instance, the be impeccable with your word, coming back to it every 4 weeks. Not to say that I'm letting it go the second, third, and the fourth week, But, you know, just one week fully, fully focusing on that and then kind of keeping that in my, you know, in the back of my mind as I focus on the next one, which would be take, don't take anything personally, and then focusing on that for a week, so forth and so on. And if you are interested in, in participating in the same type of, I will call it an exercise or practice to build up a discipline of of self-love and self-care for oneself, then just let me know, and, uh, I, I'll be happy to kind of even put a little pod group together where we could be all focusing on one of these Four Agreements and supporting each other. All right, uh, so, uh, I appreciate you being here. I appreciate, uh, you being part of the Shedding the Bitch community, and I'll look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time. Take care, everybody. Bye.

Thank you for listening to Shedding the Bitch Radio with Bernadette Boas. Join Bernadette every Tuesday at noon Eastern as she helps you shift your bitches to riches. And the dialogue is always going on at SettingtheBits.com. See you next week.