"An agreement is a structure for fulfillment."
--Matt Garrigan, LifeForce Education
The world and everything in it is dependent upon agreements.
There is great power to be had in making and keeping agreements.
When we reach an agreement with our self or with another,
we come into harmony about a course of action. When an agreement
is made correctly there is a clarity and an essence of mutual
benefit. Of course, the power of agreements is dependent upon
people keeping their agreements. If they don't feel they will
be able to keep their agreements, they need to renegotiate
them.
Agreements that are broken create outages that sap our strength.
Breaking agreements creates a state of being out of integrity,
of not being our word. It puts us out of integrity with ourselves
and it continues to sap our strength until we clean it up.
And it can continue to sap our strength over a very long period
of time, for years even, until we clean it up. An example
of this is when you have behaved badly with someone. When
I say behaved badly, I mean that you have behaved in a way
that is not consistent with who you are, It is out of integrity
with how you want to behave. As a consequence of this behavior,
you avoid that person and worry about what they are thinking
and feeling toward you. This just goes on and on until you
do something to clean it up. And every time you see that person
or are reminded of that person you are diminished, at least
a little bit.
Each small case of not being our word might not take that
much out of us, but they all add up. Years of being out of
integrity over and over again really take their toll. We may
not realize it, but it may be just these outages that create
in us the blockages that prevent us from getting what we want.
And these same outages may be just what create in us the impulses
that lead us into behaviors that we do not want. If we repeatedly
do behaviors that we do not want, that we do not value, then
we are out of integrity. We need to work on changing our behaviors
that are not consistent with our desires and values. And to
do this, we need to work on understanding what the underlying
meanings and motives are for these behaviors that we do not
want and do not value.
Just as it is important to clean up our outages from the past,
it is also important to be clear about the agreements that
we are making in the present. There are implicit and explicit
agreements. An implicit agreement, for instance, would be
when you try to call someone and end up leaving him or her
a message, and they call you back and leave you a message.
It is assumed then that you would continue to try to reach
them or call them to say, "never mind". An explicit
agreement is one that specifically states what is to be done
and by when, what day and time it is to be done. For instance,
when you agree to meet a friend for lunch at 12:00 noon on
the ninth of July that is an explicit agreement. If you can't
make it, changing the agreement means that you would call
ahead to renegotiate for another time.
Another sort of agreement happens when we choose to agree
with messages we perceive from others about who or what we
are. An example might be that of a child whose mother slapped
him when he was eight. He made up that she thought he was
worthless. Then he chose to agree with the notion that he
is worthless. He then lived his life in agreement with the
idea that he was worthless. We treat other people as though
they, too, are a part of this agreement. Certainly, the way
we would be in the world with this agreement will be different
than the way we would be in the world if we agreed that we
were worthy and beautiful creations. The fact is, at any time,
we can choose a new agreement with ourselves about who and
what we are.
When we have such agreements with ourselves about who we are,
we tend to operate as if they are true. We interpret all the
things that happen around us based on this perspective. We
have collected years and years of data to support these ideas
about who we are. It may require a lot of effort to overcome
this belief and to see our selves differently. There are many
tools that can help in this process. These tools range from
doing something as simple as repeating positive affirmations
to ourselves, to something as powerful and life changing as
addressing and revising our perspective through more intensive
personal growth work such as counseling.
Desired Outcome:
To become more aware of the power of making and keeping agreements.
To make more empowering agreements about who we are.
Discussion Starters:
As I think over my life and my behavior can I see the agreements
that are a part of everything I do? Can I see when I have
kept agreements? When have I broken my agreements and what
agreements have I broken? How can I clean up my broken agreements?
What is my plan for doing this? How might the idea of making
well-defined agreements be of use in my life? What sorts of
agreements did I make about who or what I was when I was a
child? What new agreement do I want to make with myself about
who and what I am?
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
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