Serenity Prayer

When I attended ACOA or ALNON meetings, we began by reciting the serenity prayer. Until recently, I didn't truly realize its power and meaning. Today, I understand how important and necessary I need it to recover and move forward.

"accept[ing] the things I cannot change" - for me this is so crucial. I need to cease wasting energy trying to change the past, I simply can't.

"courage to change the things I can" - I can only account for my behavior, hence if I dislike speaking to my parents, and since it is apparent, they won't change yelling and harming me (can't change them), I can remove myself from these situations as hard as it may be. Therefore, I comprehend it does indeed require "courage". Saying NO MORE to my parents is hard as I still deeply want to feel part of a family. Though with courage, today I must remove myself from harm.

"wisdom to know the difference" - I am grateful that today I gain knowledge to discern that indeed hoping my parents will change and apologize is only setting myself for disappointment. I need instead to work on what I can do: HEAL myself.

In the past year, I worn myself out. As I accepted my own defeat, I could not fix everything that seemed so out of control in my life, I slowly relayed on this serenity prayer to help me through the process of my recovery.

I strongly suggest to anyone who is struggling with their past as it invades their present to surrender and ask for guidance: to gain the wisdom to see the difference between what you can change and what you cannot change.

I think it is fair to say that many in this world struggle with anxiety. For me, I came to understand that my anxiety rose from the things I could not control and was fixated on fixing. What I came to learn is some things are meant to be left alone to sort themselves out. By interjecting myself when I thought I could fix it, I only was avoiding the real issue at hand: it was not working FOR ME. I was avoiding the real concern at hand. My anxiety was a clue that something was NOT WORKING. If everything had been, I would not feel so anxious. By "attempting to fix" it, I was not actually listening to what was happening. I was instead avoiding the whole problem by keeping myself busy, it brought me nowhere, instead brought more anxiety and desperation as I saw no progresses being made. For instance, I asked my spouse to join me in marital counseling since last December, I made several attempts to get him to a meeting, I "begged" literally with no real success. I felt frustrated and not heard. I finally accepted that I could not make him go if he didn't want to. I was trying so desperately and fiercely to make him go that I wasn't looking at how I felt. I simply thought if I could fix him, everything would feel better. I was so wrong. Instead, I finally realized through wisdom that there was no point in persisting, I needed to surrender to the truth: he didn't want to make changes. I could though, I could work on myself as to prevent feeling "anxious", "scared".... What I came to understand as I accepted the truth that he wouldn't work on himself is that I needed to work on myself. As much as I care for my parents and my husband, I also live in fear of them, of their behavior toward me. I also felt so much anguish at how I "reacted" to them. I needed to cease "reacting" and I needed to see the truth: "they were not willing to change"and "I could not force them". If I felt pain, I needed to listen and remove myself from such situations as to not feel hurt.

In other words, this Serenity Prayer has been something I had to work on and to learn from as to gain personal growth. I urged anyone out there in pain to ask yourself what you can and cannot change in your painful situation. If you believe the problem involves another loved one that you persuade yourself if he would compromise, meet you halfway.... would fix the issue at hand, then I urge you to accept the truth: are they willing to change, you cannot force anyone to work on themselves. You can only make changes yourself, though it is not an easy task: it requires that you accept your truth. I assure you that if you learn to understand this prayer and how to apply it, you will gain "serenity".