How The Four Agreements Can Affect Your Yoga Practice
A guide to mastering yoga using Don Miguel Ruiz’s wisdom from the ancient teachings.
Your self-limiting beliefs are stopping you from becoming the best version of yourself.
In the book The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, bestselling author and spiritual teacher Don Miguel Ruiz shares four powerful, simple and highly effective ways to free ourselves of these beliefs and live our best life today.
As a yoga practitioner, I saw how these agreements can be used in how I view and practice yoga.
Agreement #1: Be impeccable with your word.
‘You can measure the impeccability of your word by your level of self-love. How much you love yourself and how you feel about yourself are directly proportional to the quality & integrity of your word.’
Yoga is known to many as a form of self-love. Giving time to ourselves equates giving ourselves the undivided attention and care that we deserve.
When our cup is full, we are ready to give. We can give love, undivided attention, and care to others because we have it in ourselves.
Agreement#2: Don’t take anything personally.
‘When you take things personally, you feel offended and your reaction is to defend your beliefs.’
According to the Yoga Mala, yoga should only be learned under the guidance of a Guru who knows the yogic sciences and is experienced in practice.
When you find your teacher, you have to submit and put your trust in her. Maybe she will raise his voice a little, maybe you will feel you’re a bad student for not being able to ‘perform’ well during class.
Remember, it’s not about you! You are not being given a special treatment nor are you the favorite student.
You are being taught to make your practice better, just like everyone else is. Nothing more, nothing less.
Agreement #3: Don’t make assumptions.
‘All the drama in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.’
Making assumptions is poison.
Never assume you know it all even though it seems that you do. That your practice no longer needs work. That you know better than your teacher.
Instead, take things by face value.
When you are told to work on your backbends because you do it the wrong way, try not to make assumptions and interpret it differently. When you receive adjustments or scolding from your teacher, take it with humility.
Agreement #4: Do your best.
‘ If you do your best always, over and over again, you will become a master of transformation. Practice makes the master.’
I found out that the more energy I give into my practice (not just asana practice, but also reading about Ashtanga Yoga, spending time with people I practice with, etc), the more I get out of it in return.
The effort is an indication of a student’s enthusiasm and commitment. Once you commit and practice consistently, transformation happens in the mind and body.
Your practice gets better and deeper. Doing your best means giving it your best shot every time.
Takeaway
Whether you are a beginner or a committed yoga practitioner, these agreements are useful to your practice on and off the mat.
Being impeccable with your word, not taking things personally, not making assumptions, and doing your best are the lifetime agreements we need to make with ourselves today.
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Odyssa is a writer, Ashtanga yoga practitioner, and a remote worker. Follow her tweets here. Subscribe to her weekly letters to hear her thoughts on Ashtanga yoga, shifting from the office desk to remote work, writing (of course) plus bits and pieces of her personal life.
