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"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."

Don Miguel Ruiz
~ The Four Agreements

From: Patricia Ritsema van Eck
Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

Dear friend,

The other day Coen, my partner and my love, experienced a real set-back. I don't know if I ever told you this, but Coen is a percussionist and drummer by profession. He has a huge collection of African drums and once or twice a week he loads our mini-van with his instruments to give a workshop.

He also teaches drumming and last year another musician friend of his offered him a place to set up his drum-kit for regular lessons, so he wouldn't have to install it every time. Setting up a drum takes at least half an hour...

Coen was thrilled with he offer of course. It happened to be a really large warehouse and he also made an arrangement for African drumming lessons to be held here. It was real cheap as well. He only had to pay €10 an hour. Great deal!

Then one afternoon in May, the key to this place was no longer working. With about 15 kids outside expecting lessons, Coen was getting quite agitated. He tried calling his musician friend to find out what happened, but nobody answered the phone. Lessons cancelled...

It took him almost a week before his friend finally answered his calls and it turned out the owner of the warehouse had changed the lock. Why? Because his friend had never managed to pay the rent one single time...

Raving Mad Man In The House...

You can imagine Coen's reaction. He was furious. The more when he found out what the rent exactly was. The amount was so high, that even a pre-schooler could have figured that asking only €10 an hour for sub-renting the place was not going to pay the bill. I'll spare you all the words that flew around the house at the time. But I can tell you, it wasn't nice.

He contacted the owner to ask for an appointment so he could collect his drum-kit and other instruments. The owner replied that he was about to go on a holiday and he'd be in touch again upon his return. Which he never did. And Coen, with the summer holidays starting, postponed and postponed. With no lessons going on, there was no immediate need for his kit. However, the season is now starting again and last Monday he finally contacted the owner of the warehouse again.

Guess what happened...

All of his instruments were conviscated!

They're not sold yet, but will be if his musician friend doesn't come up with the rent real soon. And this person is in no position to do this. Living on welfare these days. I expected another ongoing rave for the rest of this week...

Much to my surprise, this didn't happen. Coen was very quiet for the rest of the day. He inquired about his rights with a lawyer friend of ours only to find out he didn't have any. But otherwise he withdrew and kept his mouth shut.

The next day I asked him why his response whas so unlike him. And this is what he told me...

"Be Impeccable With Your Words"

Coen had just finished reading "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. Don Miguel is a Mexican sjaman, educated in the old wisdom of the Toltecs. And in his book he speaks about how we humans have been "domesticated" to a type of civility which is mostly based on fear and anxiety. We live in a dream world. But it's not a pleasant dream. It's mostly a nightmare.

And the scary part is that at some level we all agreed to live in this dream. We carry a Book of Laws within us which state clearly what we can and cannot do. If we break the laws, we get punished. By our parents when we're young (that's the domestication process) and by ourselves when we get older. Which in most of the cases is even worse...

How many times have you told yourself:

• "I'm not worthy of love."
• "I'm not a good person."
• "I don't deserve this relationship."
• "I am a failure."
• " ... (fill in the blanks)

That's punishment for you. And the creepy part of it is, that we punish ourselves over and over again for the same mistakes. We only have to remember a time we broke a rule from our Book of Laws, and the nagging begins instantly.

Then, the other thing we do, is also say bad things about other people. As a species, manu of us are addicted to gossip. We like to talk about others and often in ways that don't make that other person shine...

Both when you are talking negative to yourself and when you are talking negative about others, your words become poison. You may take that quite literally!

Here's An Experiment For You

1. First you are going to make yourself feel really good. As good as you can be today. If you have your own method of pumping yourself up - do this. Otherwise, about someone you really love. Think about the nice things this person has done for you, how he or she helped you or just how lovely this person looks smiling.
   
   How would you rate your overall feelings on a scale of 1 to 10?
   
   
2. Now think about a person you really dislike. Take out a notepad and write down everything that's horrible about this person. The injustice you suffered at his or her hands. How bad he or she made you look that day in front of your friends. Every bit of nastiness you can think of and tell it to paper as if you were gossiping to a friend.
   
   How are you feeling now? Be really honest with yourself...
   
   

Get the point?

Before you read on, please repeat part 1 of the exercize to raise your feelings of well-being again!

We often lower ourselves to gossip, because for a fleeting moment it will make us feel better. Well, we think it does, because we can think a little better about ourselves by putting others down. You understand the illusion of this reasoning. It already looks foolish when writing this down. But these are unconscious processes.

Anger, irritation and jealeousy will do the same to your system as fear, stress and anxiety. I spoke about that in the last issue of Heart-2-Heart. How these emotions send shots of adrenaline and cortison through your blood. Remember? That's why it's poison.

Well, that's what Don Miguel Ruiz will tell you too, though he words it a little differently. And Coen was remembering these words after the phonecall and decided to remain impeccable with his.

Please take note of the fact Coen made a conscious decision here. At any time in your life, you have a choice to change the way you act and react to your circumstances!

Save Yourself Time & Energy

You can also ask yourself, where talking negative is taking you. Be it talking negative to yourself or about others, how does it contribute to the things you want to accomplish in life?

You already know it takes your energy level down. Would you agree with me that it's a waste of time too?

If you've treated yourself to the free Simple.ology 101 course I recently pointed out to you, you will know by now that to get what you want in life, you have to spend your time and your energy wisely. And gossiping is both a time and an energy "leach" (see lesson 16 of the Simple.ology Virtuosity book).

Coen brought this home to me really clear. I'm really proud of him!

He does really want his drum-kit back. But instead of writing a nasty letter trying to threaten the warehouse owner into giving it back, he wrote a really kind letter in which he expressed his sympathy for their situation and asking if in turn they can feel some compassion for his.

We'll have to wait and see what the result of this will be. But the intent was a positive one and that will do good at some level. Even if we never see the drum-kit again...

Happiness to you!

Patricia Ritsema van Eck
Founder of Hearts Unlimited
Connecting the Hearts of People

P.S.
If you missed my newsletter about Simple.ology and thus didn't get yourself this multi-sensory free 36 lessons eCourse on how to get what you want in life...

Simple.Ology - The Simple Science of Getting What You Want

It's a real treat. I'm loving it. So much even, that I've started a blog for it to share my personal experiences about how this course is helping me forward. But I'll tell you more about that another time...