Week Twenty-Two: Impeccable Words

“Be impeccable with your word,” from The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, came up in our wonderful tribe meeting last night. I have these agreements posted in my home office, and I have referred to them for years. I especially have been thinking about these words the last months as we have made our promises to ourselves. I am so conscious of saying exactly what I mean to do and then being sure to do it. That alone is life changing.

But today being impeccable with my words is taking a new slant. Let me first back up. Our webinar on Sunday hit me between the eyes. Mark described how if we feel unworthy, we tend to put more and more on our plate. Then when we cannot accomplish it, it sends us on the cycle of feeling unworthy again. I felt like he was talking directly to me in that segment. Here is what I think my cycle has been. When I was little I realized that if I was perfect I would really help out my overwhelmed, overworked mom. I did everything I could to make everything right by being perfect, and actually it often did help, which kept me motivated to continue. Sometimes it wouldn’t help enough though, and I would inwardly chide myself to be better next time. This started my cycle of feeling unworthy, trying harder, and getting into a perfectionistic pattern with a very loaded plate. In fact, I think that every year I have lived has found me with more and more piled there.

I was already looking at this last week as I wrote about clarity of commitments, but Mark helped me see the cycle for what it is. I am getting off of that loop- a loop that is almost as much a part of me as breathing is.

Today I realized that it is my words that will change the pattern. I need to be impeccable with how I am speaking to myself! Martha Beck, in Diana, Herself, says “[this] is learning to use your verbal mind as the servant of truth, rather than delusion.” (pg 292) She refers to the work of Byron Katie, who teaches about reversing thoughts – like a mirror image. Now, instead of saying, “I am overwhelmed! I have too much to do!” I can say, “I only have one job which is to plant seeds in Universal Substance.” Instead of saying, “I have to be perfect in every area,” I first thank my perfectionism for strengthening skills, and then I say, “I am not perfect, but I am a miracle!” My past thoughts and words have been in error, and now it is my chance to gently tell the Truth. This Truth allows me to relinquish judgement, and in so doing I step into the vibration of the miracle that I am.