76. Say What You Mean
To be impeccable is to be without fault, to abide by the highest standards.
In 1997, Don Miguel Ruiz published a book called The Four Agreements. Derived from ancient Toltec wisdom, it outlines four rules for a happier, more expansive, more abundant life. The first of these four agreements, the one that all the others build upon: Be impeccable with your word.
To be impeccable is to be without fault, to abide by the highest standards. To do this with your word means speaking with integrity, calling things by their right name, only making promises you can keep, avoiding deception or gossip—in short, ensuring everything you say is above reproach.
This concept is at the deepest core of the great wisdom traditions. How often have we heard that honesty is the best policy? Or that you shall not bear false witness? Or that the truth shall set you free? In yogic practice, it’s called satya; in Buddhism, right speech. Your word has power, and you must use that power, as Ruiz advises, “in the direction of truth and love.”
Prompt:
Write about a time when you were NOT impeccable with your word.
Anonymous
As soon as Mae and George said the words, I knew I was in deep shit. We were watching “Feel Good” on Netflix Party. We were a three-hour drive apart, but it might as well have been an ocean because my family was isolating, and your family wasn’t. “Kate is typing” flashed across the screen. “Andrea is freaking out” would’ve been an accurate label for you to see in return. And then the message was there— “I will never break up with you,” you wrote, repeating what our favorite characters had told one another. I knew it was coming, but the words still slapped me hard across the face—You will have to be the one to hurt me was the core of the message. I refuse to break your heart, so you’ll break mine one day. I had to say it back, or else that would’ve been the end of it, this whole big thing we’d built together. So, I said it back— “I will never break up with you” —knowing with near certainty that I would.
I’m sorry. Maybe I should’ve told the truth right then. Maybe it would’ve hurt less to tell you up front, or maybe we would’ve survived with that honest uncertainty. I doubt it, though, and I’m grateful for the falsely certain final months we shared from afar. Maybe that’s messed up. Maybe I should’ve been impeccable with my word. Regardless, I’m sorry.
Danielle Leventhal
Location: Rye, NY
About: I'm a 26-year-old artist who procrastinates my painting practice by writing.
Age: 26
I’ve been taking a free course called The Science of Wellbeing online during quarantine. One of the first quizzes you take is through the VIA Institute on Character, and it tells you your top three character strengths. I was surprised to learn that my number one strength was honesty. The word honesty feels depleted to me at this point —like a pillar of being instilled in kids by the time they’re in first grade, and then tossed around constantly until it loses its value. But upon reading about this characteristic through the course, I learned that it’s more than speaking the truth. It’s also presenting yourself in an authentic, sincere and genuine way. It’s “acting consistently across the domains of your life...being consistently true to yourself.” That honesty forces you to take a look at your goals and values, pursue the ones that accurately represent you, and take responsibility for not just behaviors and words, but your feelings, too.
To be this impeccable with your word to yourself and others takes an enormous amount of courage. I am dancing around the prompt because, of course, there are so many examples of when I went against my word, but it takes courage that I don’t always have to admit it.
For a long time I created a narrative for myself as a survival mechanism that I was healthy, and that I could go to work every day and live life like a normal 20-something person. All the while I was getting chemo secretly for several months. The times and dates are foggy in my memory, because I wasn’t seeing or thinking clearly. I wasn’t being true to myself, and therefore expressed to the outside world with my words and actions that “I was fine.”
I was not fine or healthy. I was wearing thick scarves every day to cover my bald spots. I had headaches and bone pain that increased when sitting at work, painting and producing gifts at a 3 Michelin star restaurant. My job was to churn out personalized experiences for the restaurant’s guests into the wee hours of the night. I used a cooling cap during treatment to hang onto every last strand of hair I could, unable to accept that I might lose my hair a second time, that I was losing control again, slipping back into the world of the sick.
The black oxford shoes I had to wear to work were worn to the bone from my stomping around the city, up and down Manhattan in my suit uniform to purchase craft supplies. I was on a hunt for an absurd amount of fabric paint, shiny card stock, and obscure objects for centerpieces that I would later engrave or print on to make the guests’ meal memorable. I figured if I threw myself into the work and into making other people feel celebrated and happy, I could keep charging forward without addressing my own needs.
In a way I was in fight mode. I was using every moment to make, and go, and visit and see. But whenever I had the chance to be alone and rest, surely something my body was craving, I fought against that, too. It’s hard to pinpoint the moment I realized I
wasn’t being honest to myself, or others. But I eventually recognized that my lack of impeccable words, or words at all, was destroying me even more than the chemo. I don’t regret this period of time, because I think it was necessary to process slowly, and share with integrity when I was ready to use my words.
Once I spoke the truth, I ended up switching to part time at work, allowing some time and space to see clearer. Eventually, I quit altogether and started my painting practice full time. So much has changed since then, but cancer recurrence is no longer something I hide from accepting or sharing.
Today is my 26th birthday. My wish is to speak impeccable and authentic words to myself, but also to not get too caught up in a lack of courage in those words before I share them with others.
Denise Krebs
Location: Manama, Bahrain
About: I remembered a time as I child when my yes did not mean yes. It has been a long road to learning to be impeccable with my word.
Age: 61
Today is Monday, Day 111 in Bahrain's stay-at-home time, day 76 of The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad. Suleika gave us the prompt today inspired by Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements. The first agreement is "Be impeccable with your word." According to Ruiz this "is the most important one and also the most difficult one to honor." The prompt from Suleika: "Write about a time when you were NOT impeccable with your word."
Impeccability: the quality of being without error or fault; to be incapable of sinning
Being impeccable with our word is impossible based on the definition of impeccability. We will make errors. We will fail at times--as today's prompt suggests. Being impeccable with my word has a firmer foundation in my life now as I've gotten older and wiser and more redeemed. (I totally believe in the Gospel--the Good News that Jesus can save us from our fears, selfishness, power-hunger, greed and then help us learn to be impeccable with our word.)
I must have been about ten years old. I was a tomboy and never wore dresses outside of school. (Yes, dresses were required for girls in my school in 1968, believe it or not.)
Anyway, we had a neighbor who had a granddaughter who stayed with her at times. The woman shopped for the girl and when an item perhaps didn't suit her or fit her properly or whatever, she asked my mom if she wanted to buy it for me. I don't remember how many times this happened, but one time I especially remember. We went to the woman's house. There it was--a red nightmare, the hook of the hanger dangling it from the door frame. I held my tongue and bit my lip. It was handed to me, like a last meal before my execution. It was made of polyester, and it was backed in foam, more suitable fabric for a seat protector in an old person's car. When I tried it on, I looked like Po the Tella Tubby in a jumper. My skinny legs were the clapper in a big red bell. The foam polyester looked like it was strong enough to survive a nuclear bomb, and it could not have been uglier or more uncomfortable. Instead of being impeccable with my words, I answered, "Yes," although quietly and haltingly, when the inevitable question came: "Do you like it?"
Why, oh why, did I always feel I had to say what I thought people wanted to hear? It was part of my upbringing, to be sure. "Be cute at all costs," was the unspoken but highly valued life force in my family. That was evident in the fact that my mom, witness to all this ugliness, paid for the jumper and took it home for me. We both were not able to be impeccable with our word.
My mom and I never spoke of it. It hung in my closet until it was added to a future donation bag.
Fortunately, by God's grace I have learned to be more honest, but I have a boatload of stories like this I could have told about when I have NOT been impeccable with my word.