Be Impeccable With Your Word, #1 of The Four Agreements
Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.
At first, I thought “Be Impeccable With Your Word” simply means that I need to be a good communicator and watch what I say. However, there is a whole lot more depth here than simply speaking clearly.
First layer: use of the word “impeccable”. I’ve never thought to utilize it in such a context. Probably more like… James Bond wore a tuxedo of impeccable fit, the dinner table was set impeccably before him, and his ability to blindly taste and identify rare wines was impeccable. I would have not thought of this word in regards to spiritual wisdom. However, according to the New World Dictionary, impeccable means “not liable to sin or wrongdoing” and “without defect or error; faultless; flawless”. Uh, I might call James Bond “flawless” in many things, but I would never call him “not liable to sin”!
Okay, so obviously Ruiz does want us to aim toward perfect communication (not just good communication). He wants us to do it flawlessly and without wrongdoing or sin. Second layer: speak with integrity. I already know that integrity means more than just doing something morally – it means having wholeness. So, speaking with integrity and saying only what we mean refers to this sense of wholeness, of saying entirely what we mean and saying it in the context of doing the right thing.
The next layer really gets me: “Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others.” The part about gossiping about others is a no-brainer, right? My mom taught me to never say behind someone’s back what I wouldn’t say to their face. I’ve never considered myself a gossip, but sometimes I find myself sharing “news” from a third-party perspective. Is it okay when I say “of course, this didn’t come directly from the horse’s mouth” or otherwise attempt to qualify the story’s accuracy? Does this get me off the hook from being less than impeccable when writing and speaking? Nope.
Then there are the stories we tell about ourselves. Usually my stories are anchored in the past. Every time I retell my stories, I conjure up the power of those accompanying emotions and, in effect, bring the past to life. In truth, I live in the present and only in the present. To put myself and others anywhere other than in the present is to not be impeccable in my use of the word. It actually abuses the power of the word.
It’s quite the challenge to stop yourself before you speak and ask yourself if what you are about to say serves the higher good of all concerned as well as contains wholeness and perfection. For me it’s an ongoing challenge to ask myself if I know the full truth of a story before I tell it. Then I ask my fallback question, “What is motivating me to tell this?” Nine times out of ten, I realize I just need to change the subject!
That’s just the no-gossip rule of righteous living. This layer also contains a real eye-opener about speaking against yourself. For me, this part is mostly about negative self-talk. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s brilliant… if we talked to others the way we often talk to ourselves, we’d be accused of abuse. Oh boy, I know what they mean. The critic inside me is very strong. I’ve had some epic struggles in learning to treat myself with more respect and love.
When I delved deeper into Ruiz’ message, especially about self-love, I realized that his advice isn’t anything new. Jesus said we should love our neighbor as ourselves, which clearly means that we need to love ourselves to begin with (Mark 12:31). Chen Yu-Hsi, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Fo Guang University in Taiwan, says in his essay, The Buddha on Compassion: An Existential Approach, “The Buddha and many Western thinkers concur that loving ourselves is the foundation of love and compassion for others. As the Buddha observes, ‘You can travel around the world to search for someone more lovable than yourself, and yet that person is never to be found.’”
So, yes, loving yourself – that is, avoiding speaking against yourself – is using the word in an impeccable way. On the flipside, I see that Ruiz’ means speaking with integrity or, rather, truth in both directions. Does your ego ever get caught up in receiving pats on the back? I call those my “Little Jack Horner” moments because he represents false pride to me when he says, “What a good boy am I.” I really like what the professor goes on to remark about this: “Self-love, however, should not be confused with narcissism and ego-centeredness. It comes from a process of healthy personal growth in which the actualization of our personal potentials, especially in the service of others, brings us joy and happiness, and enhances our self-worth rather than self-conceit. To love ourselves is to be continuously in touch with this source of joy and happiness, and to learn to appreciate the goodness we have in us.”
Finally Ruiz advises, “Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.” To me, this is the actual interpretation of “Be Impeccable With Your Word”. It seems an airy concept without the middle layers or practical actions mentioned before, but it is a critical statement. We have power in our words and their accompanying thoughts. I recall the ditty from when I was a kid, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that words do have the power to hurt. That is they hurt if I allow them to hurt – both in the receiving and in the giving, and especially when I believe in their power.
These are all wonderful realizations, all these layers of Ruiz’ message. However, what I love most about this first of the four agreements is this: If you would become conscious of what you say, you would become conscious. In other words, the very act of becoming more aware of your words and the very act of purposely choosing more perfect communication, you, by default, become more awakened. Of course, this is a fairly easy concept to grasp abstractly, but not exactly easy to put into practice with a lifetime of programming to change. But change you must when you do the real work of being impeccable with your word, and just because something is not exactly easy to do, it doesn’t mean it’s not able to be done. As Antoine de Saint Exupéry wrote, “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
