From the book by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements:
“All our natural inclinations are lost in the process of domestication. And when we grow enough for our mind to begin to reason, we learn the word ‘no.’ The adults say: ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ We rebel and say: ‘No!’ We rebel because we are defending our freedom. We want to be ourselves, but we are very small, and the adults are big and strong. After some time, we begin to feel afraid, because we know that every time we do something the wrong way, we receive punishment.
Domestication is so powerful that at a certain point in life we no longer need a tamer.
We no longer need mother or father, school or church, to domesticate us. We are trained so well that we become our own trainer. We are a self-domesticating animal. Now we can domesticate ourselves according to the worldview installed in us and through the same system of punishments and rewards. We punish ourselves when we break the rules of our belief system; we reward ourselves when we are a ‘good boy’ or a ‘good girl.’
The worldview is like a code that governs the mind. Everything in this code is our unquestionable truth.
We align our judgments with it, even when our inner nature protests. Even moral laws such as the Ten Commandments are installed in our minds in the process of domestication. One by one, all these agreements become part of the code and govern our dream. In our minds there is something that judges everything and everyone, including the weather, the dog, the cat—everything.
The inner Judge uses the content of the code to judge everything we do and do not do, think and do not think, feel and do not feel. Everything is subject to the tyranny of this Judge. Every time we do something that breaks the code, the Judge declares us guilty, deserving of punishment and obliged to feel shame. This happens many times a day, day after day, throughout all the years of our life.
Another part of us is the one that is judged, and this part is called the Victim. The Victim bears the accusations, the guilt, and the shame.
This is the part of us that says: ‘Poor me, I am not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, I do not deserve love, I am suffering.’ The great Judge agrees and says: ‘Yes, you are not good enough.’ And all of this is based on a worldview we never chose. It is so powerful that even years later, when we encounter new concepts and try to make our own decisions, we find that our beliefs continue to guide our lives. Everything that goes against the code creates a strange sensation in the solar plexus, and it is called fear. Breaking the rules of the code opens our emotional wounds, and our reaction is to produce emotional poison. Because everything in the code is taken as true, every challenge to your beliefs fills you with insecurity.
Even if the code is wrong, it makes you feel safe.
That is why it takes great courage to rebel against your own beliefs. Because even if we know that we did not choose them, the truth is that we agreed to all of them. The agreement is so strong that even when we become convinced of its falseness, we feel the guilt and shame that arise when these rules are broken.”**
Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements
It is impressive how a non-psychologist like Don Miguel Ruiz can describe so precisely a fundamental inner dynamic of the human psyche—namely, the vicious circle of judgment and self-judgment, which has its roots in the conditionings of society (collective consciousness).
The advantage of his description lies in giving precise names to our inner enemies—the Judge and the Victim. These are the voices inside and outside us that we listen to and whose truth we do not think to question. In the vicious circle of guilt and accusation, they represent mutually conditioning beliefs—if we manage to deal with one of them (for example, constant self-blame), the other automatically loses its power.
Don Miguel’s book The Four Agreements is, to a high degree, a form of cognitive psychotherapy. If a person becomes aware of their beliefs based on judgment and self-judgment and replaces them with beliefs and thoughts based on trust and understanding, this can lead to a radical positive change in their life.
And this effort is a higher form of love—both toward oneself and toward others.
Note: The quoted passages are translated from Bulgarian.
