As the Holiday Season Revs Up, Wind Down With the Serenity Prayer!

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.
Reinhold Niebuhr

The Christmas holiday season is often chaotic at best. Malls are overflowing with crazy shoppers, office parties are filled with politics, the kids are going manic anticipating new toys, and we're busy psyching ourselves up for visits from our favorite dysfunctional relations. The more caught-up we are in this holiday whirlwind, the more we need to rely on God and the more we need to surrender to God what we are powerless to control. Steps 1-3 of the 12 Steps are a great place to start. These three steps are indebted to the Serenity Prayer. I consider them the surrender steps. 

Through Step One, we acknowledge and accept the fact that we are “powerless” over ourselves, our own dysfunctional behavior and our need to control the world around us. This marks the beginning of our willingness to let go and surrender. But to whom do we surrender?

Step Two answers that question. It tells us that there must be a Power greater than we are; a Being so great that this Being can do for us all those things that we haven’t been able to do for ourselves; a Being who can clear-out our cloudy, crazy thinking and lead us toward clarity, peace and a sense of completeness. Most people call that Being "God."

Step Three is the process of surrendering our lives into the control of that Being, that Higher Power. We may give that Power any name we choose: God, Universe, Jesus, Buddha, Spirit, etc.;and we must make the conscious choice to trust that Power. We must be willing to let go completely of our need to control every moment of our lives. We must also be willing to maintain conscious contact with our Higher Power so that we may know and follow our Higher Power’s Plan for our lives. And we must be willing to take the risk of following that Plan, even though it will seem foreign to our old ways.

The Serenity Prayer helps us to accomplish these Steps. It reminds us that “power” must be discerned clearly with the outside help of others, especially God. We need to know what in life we do have good, healthy power over, and what in life we have no power over. In this light, we can do for ourselves the things that we do have legitimate power to do or control, and we can let go of those things that we have no real power over; thus surrendering them to our Higher Power. In doing so, we are free of the overwhelming burden of trying to script every moment of our lives. Instead, we can breathe a sigh of relief and tune-in to the wonderful plan our Higher power has for us.

The Serenity Prayer is more than just discerning the issue of power, however. As the prayer continues, think how central “living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time,” is to our natural state of well-being. It is living in the moment, every moment of reality, instead of living in the non-reality of our heads. Or think how important “accepting hardship” is to our peace of mind and overall happiness. When we stop asking “why me?” and start accepting that everyone suffers, we stop fighting reality and stop giving our pain power over us. Acceptance brings peace of mind and peace of mind brings contentment of heart, warmth of soul and reasonable happiness.

Likewise, when we accept “this sinful world as it is,” not as we would have it be, we surrender all of our expectations to God. In doing so, we free ourselves from the disappointment and misery they impose on us. Instead of fighting reality, we learn to trust that our Higher Power will “make all things right” if we just allow it to be.

The Serenity Prayer and Steps 1-3, when practiced faithfully, will eventually set us free from the controlling mindsets that have held us imprisoned to our inner-pain; and will help us to be reasonably happy in this life-- despite the crazy shoppers, manic kids and Uncle Ebenezer!

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