Serenity Prayer

HP grant me the serenity
to ACCEPT the things I cannot change;
COURAGE to change the things I can;
and WISDOM to know the difference.

We discussed the serenity prayer in our meeting last night and all the different ways people have used the prayer. It is such a simple and short, but powerful reminder to me. When I first walked into the rooms of Al-Anon, it was literally information overload for me! I had to focus on taking what I liked and leaving the rest. For the first year, I had to leave a majority of the program in those rooms, until I was ready to take piece by piece and apply to my everyday affairs. What I did take home each week was the Serenity Prayer, hope, and the wonderful energy from the group to survive another day and week. I'm grateful for the Serenity Prayer, hope and supportive wonderful friends in this program that helped me pull myself out of the sticky horrible mud of the family disease of alcoholism I was trapped in.

H and I would verbally box in the "arena" on a daily basis. He wanted me to react and I obliged at every opportunity. As the old patterns continued to repeat themselves week after week, I slowly gained the courage and realized that I could apply the tools I learned in Al-Anon to these situations with H. The Serenity Prayer was one of the first tools I was able to actively say and apply to many situations I wanted to detach and not engage in the unacceptable behavior. It was a slow process, but I slowly started seeing miracles by taking that second or several minutes to stop; breath; and say the Serenity Prayer word for word in those chaos situtations. One day, I realized H was dancing around inside the "arena" all by himself as I stood outside of it realizing I wasn't engaging with the unacceptable behavior from him or myself! I'm grateful for the awareness, acceptance, and action the Serenity Prayer and my Higher Power helped me find and apply to my life.