Living the Serenity Prayer as a Way of Life

God grant me serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference;
living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;
taking this sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it be;
trusting that You will make all things right
if I surrender to Your will;
so that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with You forever in the next life. Amen.                                              
The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr

Lasting happiness comes from within. It starts with intangibles like self-love, acceptance, forgiveness and gratitude. Nourished by these qualities, happiness gradually grows like a baby in the womb. Self-love helps us to accept the things about ourselves that we have always deemed unacceptable; forgiveness allows us to accept our mistakes and imperfections; and gratitude provides us with a sense of contentment. As our self-understanding and contentment grow, we experience a state of serenity and peacefulness that slowly blooms as happiness.
 
As we blossom from within, we learn to live “one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time.” Our lives move outside of our heads, and into the NOW of the real world. We start to feel emotions again. Walking in the rain, we notice a tingling sensation as the refreshing raindrops chill our skin. We understand how a flower is nourished to blossom from within, and we feel exhilarated as we reconnect with our bodies. In such ways, we regain the experience of momentary sparks of happiness that are available to us whenever we are in the present moment.

The more we nourish ourselves, the more we learn to accept “hardship” as a spiritual path to God and inner-peace. And our lives regain balance between good and bad, light and dark. We no longer feel like victims because we understand that hardship is simply a natural part of life and that everyone suffers. We stop asking “Why me?” and take responsibility for our lives. And our pain stops having power over us because we now accept both good and bad as forms of enlightenment; we embrace good and bad as necessary parts of our autobiographies.

This new level of acceptance cradles us in peace and contentment. It also helps us to accept the world around us “as it is,” not as we would have it be. In doing so, we surrender to God all of the expectations and rules we’ve tried to impose on others. We begin to accept people as they are. We choose to love them as they are. We no longer try to change or control anyone. Thus we are free from disappointment and misery. And we are one step closer to lasting “reasonable” happiness.

The more we blossom into self love and acceptance, the less we fight reality, and the more we trust God to “make all things right.” When we are able to keep ourselves from getting in the way, all seems well and we are free to be “reasonably happy” in this life, with ourselves, with others and with all creation.

We become less rigid; more playful, care-free and childlike. We explore more fully our inner-child and allow a balance to develop between our childlike natures and the social constraints of being  adults. The better we know ourselves, the more we find natural balance. We have fun being with ourselves and with others, and we are happy simply living life.

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