My Limiting Agreements | My Journal On Display

I'm set to identify my limiting agreements. I've been reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Something today really grabbed me. It was that we can break old agreements, negative patterns, but to do so we must replace them with the new, the good, the constructive.

It's a repeated spiritual idea. To paraphrase it: Demons seek out somewhere to reside, if they are pushed out but come back to find that the "house' is vacant, they will return.

As I list out my limiting agreements I have to remember that none of them will be replaced, quickly. I need patience, maybe a type I've never had.

I've had addiction to anger, frustration, negativity that doesn't serve any aim, gloom, self-pity. So here are my limiting agreements as I now understand them:

My life is dictated by my responsibilities as a father, employer, business owner, living situations, and to my past - the ugliness of the missteps. My efforts of today aren't as sweeping as they should be because of the impediments of the last few years. The lack of financial stability and freedom in schedule and in choices of career path. I let those who fundamentally scare me (by the feeling of them being in authority or further along the path with knowledge I don't yet possess) dictate how I act in the world. The opportunities I do or do not take and the way I express myself. The way I try to live out my aspirations and make my living along the way.

There are those with more experience, those older and those my age, that have the answers, or at least more of them. They have a better idea of which way I should go, a better idea than me. Anytime I feel challenged in any way, anytime I feel an authority questioning my thoughts and actions, I recoil and poison my self with negative feeling and destructive thought.

On the last sentence - Jordan Peterson has spoken on this. Part of becoming a man, of becoming an adult, is reaching a point where you realize your father doesn't know what's better for you and your life. No one knows. No one has the answers. No one knows better than you what's best for you, or best in general. As he says, it's a terrifying thought, but it's one that frees and calls out of you the best.