The Four Agreements Helped Me Break the Beliefs That Kept Me Small ✨

There are books you read, and then there are books that read you.

THE FOUR AGREEMENTS by Don Miguel Ruiz was one of those books for me.

I didn't realize it at the time, but I wasn't just carrying trauma. I was carrying beliefs. Beliefs that had been handed to me by family, by culture, by religion, by relationships, and by generations of people who were simply doing the best they could with what they knew.

The problem wasn't that they existed. The problem was that I never questioned them.

I simply accepted them as truth.

For years, I believed my value came from how much I could give away. I believed that being a "good woman" meant sacrificing my needs, keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, staying quiet when something didn't feel right, and making sure everyone around me was comfortable, even if I wasn't.

I didn't wake up one morning and decide to live that way. It happened slowly. One belief at a time. One expectation at a time. One compromise at a time. Before I knew it, I had become someone who could take care of everyone else but struggled to take care of herself.

Looking back, I don't blame one person or one system. Yes, there are patriarchal systems that have existed throughout history. There are also family systems, cultural traditions, generational patterns, and even beliefs passed down from women to other women that teach us to shrink ourselves. Sometimes the messages were spoken. Sometimes they were simply modeled.

One of the agreements I unknowingly accepted was that a woman couldn't truly survive without a man. I believed I needed a husband to be financially secure, emotionally safe, and complete. I believed my identity was found more in being someone's wife than in becoming the woman God created me to be.

I never consciously chose that belief.

I simply inherited it.

Over time, I watched it.

I heard it.

I believed it.

Recovery gave me the courage to question it.

The truth is, women are incredibly resilient. We can build businesses, raise families, heal from trauma, make difficult decisions, and create beautiful lives. A healthy relationship can absolutely enrich our lives, but it should never define our worth or determine whether we can stand on our own two feet.

That realization didn't make me love men less.

It made me respect myself more.

And once I questioned that agreement, I started questioning all the others.

🔸 Don't be too loud.

🌿 Don't be too ambitious.

🌼 Don't make people uncomfortable.

✨ Don't ask for too much.

🌸 Don't outshine others.

🤝 Keep everyone happy.

💍 A good wife sacrifices.

👩‍👧 A good mother gives everything.

🌺 A good woman doesn't make life about herself.

The more I healed, the more I realized something.

Those weren't universal truths.

They were agreements.

Not agreements I consciously made.

Agreements I inherited.

Recovery gave me the courage to become honest. Sobriety cleared away the fog that had kept me living on autopilot for so many years. It gave me enough clarity to begin asking questions I had never asked before.

❓ Who told me this?

🤔 Is it actually true?

🌱 Does this belief still serve the woman I'm becoming?

Those questions changed my life.

Then someone handed me THE FOUR AGREEMENTS.

Suddenly everything began making sense.

The first agreement, BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD, taught me that words create worlds.

For years, I spoke to myself in ways I would never speak to another human being. I criticized myself before anyone else had the chance. I apologized for existing. I minimized my gifts. I questioned my worth. I doubted my intuition. Eventually I realized that healing wasn't just about changing how I spoke to other people. It was about changing the conversation happening inside my own mind.

The second agreement, DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY, freed me in ways I never expected.

For so much of my life, I believed other people's reactions defined me. If someone was angry, I assumed I had done something wrong. If someone criticized me, I immediately questioned myself. If someone withdrew their affection, I chased after their approval. Today I understand that people respond through the lens of their own experiences, fears, wounds, expectations, and beliefs. Their reaction is not always a reflection of my worth.

The third agreement, DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS, may have challenged me the most.

How many stories had I written in my own mind that were never true?

How many times had I assumed I wasn't enough?

How many times had I assumed speaking up would ruin everything?

How many times had I assumed my needs didn't matter?

Assumptions quietly become prisons when we never stop to question them. Today, I try to pause before believing every story my mind creates. That single pause has saved me from so much unnecessary suffering.

Then came the fourth agreement, ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST.

For years, I confused my best with perfection. I believed I had to earn everything.

❤️ Earn love.

👏 Earn approval.

🤝 Earn acceptance.

🏆 Earn my place.

Recovery taught me something very different.

My best looks different every single day. Some days my best is speaking in front of a room full of people. Some days my best is getting up, praying, making my bed, going to a meeting, writing a gratitude list, and trusting God with the next twenty four hours.

Both count.

Both matter.

Neither determines my worth.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned is this.

Healing isn't about becoming someone else.

Healing is about removing everything that convinced you that you weren't already enough.

As a feminist, I don't believe freedom comes from blaming men. I also don't believe every struggle women face can be explained by one word. Life is far more complex than that.

What I do believe is that many women, myself included, have lived under beliefs that taught us to become smaller than we were created to be. Some of those beliefs came through patriarchal systems. Some came through family expectations. Some came from religion being misunderstood or misused. Some came from mothers and grandmothers who were simply teaching us what they themselves had survived.

When I look back at my own marriage, I can honestly say there were seasons when I became smaller. I stayed quiet when I should have spoken. I accepted things that didn't honor my spirit. I believed keeping the relationship together mattered more than keeping myself whole.

But healing also required me to look in the mirror.

No one forced me to keep believing those old agreements.

At some point, I continued agreeing with them.

That realization wasn't meant to shame me.

It empowered me.

Because if I had the ability to continue believing those stories, then I also have the ability to stop believing them.

I don't carry anger toward the people who taught me those beliefs.

I carry compassion.

Most of them were simply passing down what they believed would keep me safe because someone had passed those same beliefs down to them.

Now it's my turn to pass something different to the next generation.

🎤 I no longer agree that my voice matters less.

💪🏼 I no longer agree that love requires me to abandon myself.

🚧 I no longer agree that boundaries make me selfish.

🌸 I no longer agree that my value depends on how much I sacrifice.

👑 I no longer agree that I have to stay small so someone else can feel big.

Those were never truths.

They were simply old agreements.

And the beautiful thing about agreements...

...is that we have the power to make new ones.

That may be the greatest gift recovery has given me.

Not just sobriety.

Freedom.

The freedom to question.

The freedom to heal.

The freedom to grow.

The freedom to become the woman God created me to be instead of the woman fear convinced me I had to become.

If you're reading this today, I want to gently ask you the same question I had to ask myself.

WHAT BELIEFS ARE YOU STILL AGREEING WITH THAT NO LONGER SERVE YOU?

Because the moment you begin questioning those old agreements...

...is often the moment your healing truly begins.

✨ Michelle Ann

#SHECHOSEHERSELF2012

THEHEALINGCHEFF.COM