The Four Agreements is a best-selling book by Don Miguel Ruiz that articulates principles people can choose to follow to stay out of conflict with others. These principles are extremely relevant and helpful for parents going through a divorce or break up. I have written in the past about the Second and Third Agreements (The Second:
I will not personalize anything the other person says, does, thinks or believes; and the Third:
I will make no assumptions). This blog focuses on the First Agreement:
I will be impeccable with my word. The First Agreement agreement is the foundation of trustworthy and effective co-parenting communication.
To be impeccable means to be truthful. It means to speak with the intention of being respectful rather than negative, critical or hostile. It means to avoid spreading gossip, innuendo and half-truths. It is a commitment to not use words as weapons to attack and try to hurt another person. It means to only promise what you fully intend to follow through on.
At first glance, the First Agreement seems like the easiest, especially since most of us are wired to generally see ourselves as the “good guys”. We are always truthful, and all our co-workers find us reliable and respectful. When we’re not impeccable with our word, we are justified, right? We were provoked by the truly bad behavior of the other parent. We were just trying to defend ourselves from their endless snark. We were “just joking, for crying out loud.” We were finally standing up for ourselves, and isn’t that our right?
I get that our amygdalas have loud voices when another person has struck a nerve. But there are three filters to apply to non-impeccable words: do they help if my goal is to co-parent effectively? Do I feel like a better person for having said them? And most importantly: Could my giving vent, being hostile, being judgmental, smearing my co-parent or lying to my co-parent ultimately hurt my child? Too often the answer to the last question is yes, it can and it will.
Bill Eddy is a lawyer and social worker who co-founded the High Conflict Institute, LLC. Bill has been reaching out to family law courts and divorce professionals to equip them with tools to help parents follow the First Agreement during and after a divorce or break up, though he does not use the language of the Four Agreements in his work. One of these tools I often recommend to my clients is the BIFF (Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm) email protocol. BIFF emails can work wonders to shift acrimonious exchanges to those that are businesslike and productive. For more information and more ideas about how to become an impeccable communicator go to www.newways4families.com.
Some time ago I wrote about The Four Agreements from a book by the same name by Don Miguel Ruiz. Ruiz believes we can stay out of conflict if each person makes the following agreements with him or herself:
1. I will be impeccable with my word.
2. I will not personalize anything the other person says, does, thinks, feels or believes.
3. I will make no assumptions.
4. I will do my best each day with the energy I have been given.
The Second Agreement frequently needs to be reinforced in my work with families. To successfully make the transition from married couple to co-parents, parents must learn not to reflexively react to each others’ negative emotional states and behaviors. This is a complicated task.
Establishing close human relationships requires us to be sensitive to the feelings of others, and to form attachments. Early childhood development experts often refer to the creation of healthy attachment between an infant and caregiver as the “dance of empathy.” Though attachment begins in infancy with attuned parenting , it continues throughout a lifetime. Empathy is a building block of positive relationships.
However, empathy without clear boundaries can morph into co-dependence. When relationships become co-dependent, a person’s emotional state becomes enmeshed with the emotional state of the other. If the other expresses anger, his or her partner feels attacked and defensive. If the other expresses sadness, his or her partner feels blame and shame. The partner personalizes and thus assumes responsibility for the thoughts, feelings and actions of the other, and organizes his or her own thoughts, feelings and actions around the impossible task of changing the other.
Ruiz reminds us that each person has a choice about how he or she will think, feel and act in response to a given situation. The only power to change comes from within. Recognizing this reality allows one to detach from personalizing and reflexively reacting to the behavior of the other, and by doing so, staying out of conflict with the other. It can be hard work, but setting the goal of establishing new and healthy emotional boundaries during and after a divorce sets the stage for effective co-parenting in the future.
0In his book The Four Agreements, author Don Miguel Ruiz articulates four principles which, when regularly practiced, will enable people to avoid conflict and live a peaceful life. The agreements one makes with oneself are:
1. I will be impeccable with my word.
2. I will not personalize anything another person says, does, thinks or believes.
3. I will make no assumptions.
4. I will do my best today.
I teach my Collaborative clients about The Four Agreements and encourage them to read the book while we are creating their parenting plan. I help them recognize when their words or actions contradict an Agreement and get in the way of problem solving. I believe these are core concepts not only for effective interest-based negotiation, but for living a centered life.
One of the most difficult agreements to follow is not making assumptions. When two people live together in intimate circumstances, they pick up many cues about each other. Humans are wired to read cues and reach conclusions. Problems can arise if the conclusions are inaccurate or incomplete, especially if the conclusions are not checked out with the other person. This is especially the case when people are in conflict and already feeling mistrustful of each other, as is so often the case with divorce.
In a recent client meeting while discussing a sensitive co-parenting issue, I observed both parents making assumptions, and then getting into an argument about their assumptions. One parent assumed the other had become too absorbed with his own needs and was not taking steps to monitor their middle school-aged son’s homework and school progress during his parenting time. The other parent assumed the first parent had made disparaging remarks about him to their son during her parenting time. Both were responding to their son’s recent drop in grades and negative attitude. By making assumptions instead of asking questions, parents entered into a blame game that only served to escalate tensions and distract them from effectively understanding and addressing their son’s difficulties.
When I was able to talk with their son, I learned he was feeling overwhelmed by the demands of taking three honors courses while also dealing with the stress of the divorce and being on an elite soccer team (which he loved). He felt he was letting his parents down, especially his dad, and this made him edgy and irritable. With this feedback, parents were able to move away from their inaccurate assumptions, reframe their understanding of their son’s behaviors and, as co-parents, take appropriate steps to help reduce his stress.
