Our backpack of boulders: The agreements we make with ourselves

In conversation with my coach the other day, she likened our spiritual journey here on earth to that of hiking with a backpack full of boulders on your back.

Starting in childhood, and continuing through adolescence and adulthood, we accumulate beliefs, assumptions, fears, and anxieties triggered by both positive experiences, and hardships and challenges we face. These beliefs, assumptions, fears, and anxieties – like “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not smart enough”, “Losing weight is hard”, “People who have money are greedy”, “Trust no-one. People will always hurt you”, “Only some people get to be creative”, “I will never be successful”, “I’m attractive. My appearance is the only thing that makes me likeable”, etc. – are like rocks that we pick up and carry around in a backpack, with some rocks being bigger and heavier than others. Each of us has a bag of rocks that we have accumulated over the course of our lives and now carry around on our backs. Some rocks are small and can easily be discarded. Others are much bigger and more difficult to discard.

Rarely do we stop to remove some of these rocks; even when we don’t need them anymore. We carry this heavy backpack everywhere we go as if it is a part of us. Eventually we are sick and tired of all that extra weight on our back and in our lives. Our shoulders hurt. We feel like our back is breaking. Nevertheless, we continue to haul that heavy backpack full of rocks with us everywhere, when the simplest solution would be to stop, take the backpack off your back, open it up and start investigating the rocks you are carrying around.

Often, we resist looking at the rocks we are carrying. We just continue to carry them on our backs, telling ourselves that this is simply how life is. We all have our rocks that we need to carry in life… Sometimes, we even go as far as comparing the size of our backpacks with those of others, noting that at least ours is smaller than someone else’s, or gloating about how big and heavy the backpack is that we have to carry, compared to someone else’s.

Does this all this sound a little absurd to you? It does to me. And yet, most of us engage in this absurd activity every day. We keep carrying a bag of rocks and refusing to look at what’s in the bag, and we wear our bags as symbols for how much we suffer in life. Some of us become so obsessed with adding more rocks to the bag, that our whole identity becomes enmeshed with the size of the boulders in our bag. But going through life as a victim or martyr is simply no way to live. It’s simply an existence of pain. And here is the important part, you have a CHOICE. No-one is forcing you to carry the bag of rocks. You are choosing to do it.

Some of us are lugging around huge boulders that get in the way of our greatness. Everyone has at least one boulder they have to chip away at during their lifetime… It is something that will keep getting in the way and that you will have to keep facing until you are ready to start chipping away at it. It might take you all your life to chip away at the boulder you have put in your way, but the sooner you start chipping, the sooner you open up a path for moving forward…

For this reason, I want to urge you to stop occasionally, and look at what you are carrying around in your bag. Take out each individual rock and examine that fear, belief, or pain from your past. Ask yourself whether you really still need to carry that specific rock and if the answer is “no”, then put it down. Leave it by the side of the road and repack your bag without it.

Sometimes you might discover that you are not ready to put a certain rock down or that it still fulfils a purpose in your life. You get to keep the rock, but ask yourself, does it still need to remain the size it is, or could you get by with a smaller version of it? If you could do with a smaller sized rock, then start chipping. Chip away at the parts you don’t need anymore, before putting it back in your backpack. A smaller rock makes a big difference if we choose to continue to carry it around. It makes it easier to bear if it’s not pressing down on our backs so much.

It can be scary to put down our rocks. What if we walk away and then realise later that we need it? What if we don’t know how to be ourselves without this rock? Ask yourself who you could be without this rock? Imagine what your life would be like if you could just put it down next to the side of the road, leave it there, and then continue your journey forward… Who would you become if you no longer had to carry it around?

Some rocks only cause us harm and really serve no purpose. You get to decide how you want to release those rocks. Do you want to throw them in the river? Use a sledgehammer to crush them to dust? Shoot it with a gun so that it blows up into little pieces. Explode it with fireworks? What would resonate with you and would allow you to feel completely free from it?

After you are done looking at every rock in your backpack, put the backpack back on and see how it feels.  Does it feel lighter? How do you feel? What’s possible now?

Don Miguel Ruiz in his beautiful book The Four Agreements uses a different analogy to explain the process of how we accumulate values, beliefs and assumptions over time. He likens it to inflicting wounds on our skin. The more wounds we inflict, the more scars we have and the harder it becomes to reach out to someone or allow someone to touch us. The scars are too painful, so we avoid touch altogether, and become too scared to connect. We live in this constant state of fear and disconnection. Very much like what we are experiencing now with this global pandemic.

Ruiz explains that as children we are indoctrinated into “the dream of the planet” so that we know how we are expected to behave. Consequently, we don’t get to choose our family, our culture, our language, our religion or many of the beliefs we hold. We tend to form agreements with ourselves as we go through life about what we believe to be true. Often these beliefs are subconscious or unconscious, and we don’t even realise how they affect our lives.

What Ruiz suggests is that we look at the scars we carry – i.e. the agreements we have made with ourselves about who we are, who other people are, and how the world works. Ruize invites us to be honest with ourselves about the assumptions we make about ourselves, others and the world; that we really look at our beliefs and question whether they serve us or not. He then proceeds to offer four alternative agreements we could make with ourselves that could replace most of the other agreements we’ve accumulated over our lifetime.

Ruiz argues that if we are to live more peaceful and meaningful lives, we should adopt the Four Agreements to replace our outdated, and often negative, self-sabotaging beliefs. Note that these agreements sound simple, but they are actually hard to put into practice. They require self-awareness and consistent practice. The Four Agreements are:

1. Be impeccable with your word
2. Don’t take it personally
3. Don’t make assumptions
4. Always give your best

I would like to discuss each of these in a little more detail to share the insights I’ve gained from reading The Four Agreements, and from incorporating these practices into my own life.

Firstly, being impeccable with your word includes both what you say about yourself, and what you say about others. Ruiz encourages us to speak from love instead of fear. Similarly, Albert Ellis encouraged us to screen our self-talk for negative, irrational chatter. Ask yourself what kind of words you use when you describe reality? Do you lie and say hurtful and poisonous things about yourself and others?

To be impeccable with your word, is to be truthful and to say things that have a positive influence on yourself and others. It means showing yourself some loving and compassionate kindness by reducing the noise of the Inner Critic, and replacing your negative self-talk with positive, loving and affirmative statements.

Being impeccable with your word also means that you abstain from gossip about others. When you do speak about others, focus on what you appreciate about them. And if you can’t think of anything you appreciate, or you feel anger or disappointment in that moment, then refrain from saying anything. It’s much harder to heal a broken relationship from things said in anger, than to simply say nothing and wait until you’ve cooled down enough to engage your rational mind, and find constructive ways to be in conversation with someone who has disappointed you in some way.

Secondly, don’t take things personally. We all do it; often without even realising it. The first agreement suggests that we avoid treating others hurtfully. The second agreement provides us with a way of dealing with potentially hurtful treatment from others. Because each person sees the world in a unique way, the way that others treat us says as much about them as it does about us. To not take anything personally is to acknowledge that people have subjective realities, and that their views do not necessarily describe us accurately.

Most often when someone reacts in a hurtful way towards you, it’s because they feel triggered on the inside. They are telling you something about them and their world view, not about you. My challenge to you, is can you be in loving acceptance of what someone brings, regardless of how they behave? This requires noticing when you are triggered, questioning why you are triggered, then spending time doing the inner work on yourself, so that you are no longer triggered by specific events or people.

The people in our lives that trigger us, enrage us, “hurt” us, are offering us the gift of self-reflection and inner work. They are simply mirroring to us what we are doing to ourselves, or what we feel we lack, or what we yearn for. Doing the inner work of asking what values are being triggered for us, or what we are being called to grow in ourselves, frees us from the rocks we are unintentionally carrying around. People who trigger us, invite us to unpack our backpack and question what is happening inside. What value is being triggered? Why is this important? We then get to choose whether we put the rock back in our backpack or take it out and put it down.

You will know that you’ve put the rock down, if the person or situation that used to trigger you, no longer does, and if you can be in loving of the person or the situation, regardless of how they show up or what happens. You know you are no longer carrying that specific rock, when it no longer hurts. And, it can stop hurting, if you are willing to chip away at the rock that you are choosing to carry on your back.

The third agreement urges us not to make assumptions. Often taking things personally and making assumptions go together in making us miserable and causing conflict in our relationships with others. Assuming that you know what other people are thinking or feeling about you, is a limiting thought that Aaron Beck called “mind reading”. It is a cognitive distortion that doesn’t serve us, because we react on a “reality” we’ve created it in our minds, instead of checking it against objective reality.

Obviously, none of us can read minds. When we try to engage in mind reading, we will often be wrong. The antidote to mind reading is to ask for evidence before concluding what people are thinking or feeling.

By assuming we know what someone else thinks or feels, we close ourselves off from real connection and from learning something new or gaining a different perspective. To gain insight into a problem or situation, we need to invite others to contribute their voices to the “shared pool of meaning” – as the authors of Crucial Conversations call it. The more information there is in the shared pool of meaning, the more clearly we can see the situation from different perspectives, and reach a solution that works for everyone.

Lastly, Ruiz encourages you to always do your best. By doing your best, you avoid what he calls the “internal judge” or the Inner Critic. The Judge or Inner Critic criticizes you for not doing enough, or being lazy, or procrastinating. However, it’s important to recognise that your best will vary from time to time and is dependent on how much energy you have at a specific point in time, and what demands are being placed upon you. Your best effort on a day when you’ve had a traumatic experience, of when you did not sleep the night before, or when you are in physical or emotional pain, will be very different from your best effort on a day when you feel rested, energised, inspired and motivated.

Additionally, Neil Fiore reminds us that no-one can be productive and energetic all hours of the day. Our energy fluctuates. Striving for perfection, pushes us to procrastinate and not do our best. Aiming for our best human effort, frees us up to try. Taking one small step and doing what you can do on a specific day, is better than putting it off simply because you cannot deliver perfection.

Giving your best – whatever that may look like on a particular day – frees you from guilt and self-hatred and the need to be perfect. If you’ve done your best, no-one can ask more of you. If you know you have not given your best, and you could have done more, then next time do more. But, if you know you gave it everything you had, then let it go. Failure is not related to self-worth. Failure is simply another step on the road. It’s an opportunity to learn and an invitation to try again.

These four agreements sound simple. They sound almost self-evident. That is because they resonate with universal truths. However, common sense is not always common practice. Cultivating a new way of being in the world requires a willingness to look honestly and with curiosity at the rocks you are carrying, and a commitment to put some of them down, and embrace new agreements that help you become the person you want to be, and live a life of freedom and real value – a life that speaks of love, not fear.

References:

1. Breytenbach, C. (2020). Getting to Know your Inner Critic. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/getting_to_know_your_inner_critic/
2. Ellis, A. (1999). How to make yourself happy. California: Impact.
3. Fiore, N. (2007). The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. New York: Tarcher Perigee.
4. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R. & Switzler, A. (2011). Crucial Conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high. New York: McGraw Hill.
5. Ruiz, D. M. (1997). The Four Agreements: A practical guide to personal freedom.