The Game Where Everyone’s a Winner, A Chivalry of Relationships
Based on the books by Miguel Ruiz and Jose Ruiz
Our relationships can be our greatest source of joy and also present some of the biggest challenges in our lives. Let’s face it it’s the challenging ones that send us off to the therapist or seeking some kind of peace and resolution. What if a simple game of cards, played with like-minded friends, could open up new ways of seeing those challenging relationships? No doubt you’re thinking it would have to be a very special kind of game, since any form of competition can often exacerbate difficult relationships.
Enter The Five Agreements Game – an inspired game in which every participant is a winner. Utilising the work of shamanic teacher and healer, don Miguel Ruiz and his son, this game promises to transform your relationships with others, with yourself and radically improve your attitude to life. The five agreements, around which Ruiz’s work is based, expose our self-limiting beliefs and present a simple yet effective code of conduct for life learned from Toltec ancestors. This game makes use of the alchemical power of the agreements in a unique and revelatory way.
The Five Agreements are:
- 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.
- Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
- Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstanding, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.
- Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to when you are sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.
- Be skeptical, but learn to listen. Don’t believe yourself or anybody else. Use the power of doubt to question everything you hear. Is it really the truth? Listen to the intent behind the words, and you will understand the real message.
Play for a moment now
Bring to mind someone you are struggling with. It could be a spouse, family member, sibling, work colleague, neighbour, someone in authority. Score your relationship on a scale of 1 to 10. Now read the five agreements above with this person in mind. Which agreement do you think would be best to work with in order to transform this relationship? It may be more than one, but which one comes out top?
Some questions you could ask yourself:
- What do I think, say and feel about this person?
- What is my inner dialogue like with this person?
- How do my reactions to this person’s opinion tell me how I judge myself in the same way?
- Do I allow their opinion to make me angry, sad, anxious or depressed?
- What do I assume about this person? What intentions do I project onto him/her?
- What if I assumed just the opposite of my first assumption? How would that feel?
- Am I doing my best with this person?
- Where and when do I tend to mistake illusion for reality?
Explore your relationship using the Five Agreements and some of the questions above, then set a new intent – about how you will talk, act, react, think, love, and so on, in that same relationship in the future.
Unless you choose to go and live life as a hermit, you are going to have relationships – with a partner, family, friends, boss, colleagues, neighbours.. In fact, even if you did choose a life of solitude you would still have a relationship: with yourself. Changing how we relate to others can be one of the most potent life-changers of all.
“This game is a beautiful window to the truth. You cannot play it without more clearly seeing yourself and how you create your relationships. You cannot play it without taking more responsibility for your life. You cannot play it without feeling more joyful and free. The Five Agreements Game is proof that transforming your life does not have to be difficult. It is a powerful way of finding happiness while having fun. This game is like life. If you play it with love, you are already a winner.” —don Miguel Ruiz, author of The Four Agreements
The Five Agreements Game, is authored by Olivier Clerc, Marc Kucharz and Brandt Morgan. The game comes with an easy to read 80 page explanatory booklet, the game rules, a notepad, 25 relationship cards, 5 agreement cards, 25 prize cards and 25 bonus gift agreement cards. five-agreements-game.com
About the Game : ISBN: 978-1-84409-617-6 Findhorn Press September 2014 (£19.99) Distributed by Deep Books
