God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Often associated with AA, this prayer can be helpful for anyone, not just those in recovery from addiction. Its teaching is directed toward helping people reduce their desire to control things they cannot and find the balance between acceptance and change.

Accepting the universal truth that we can’t control everything is difficult for most humans. Culturally, we even endorse the notion that we can control things:

• We tell our children they can be whatever they want to be, when that’s actually not true. We are not all the same, with the same intellectual or physical abilities. We each have our unique gifts and abilities and some ideas we have about what we want to do in our lives will be a good fit with our gifts and some won’t.
• We are taught, if we want it badly enough and work hard enough for it, we can have whatever we want. This is also not true. We can’t control how another person feels about us, the choices they ultimately make. We can try to influence things, but we can’t control them when another person is involved, no matter how badly we want it or work at it. Maybe we’ll get that job and maybe we won’t. Maybe our partner will decide to stay with us and maybe not.

We can all struggle with knowing the difference between what we can and can’t control and struggle with recognizing the difference between the two when they appear in our lives.  Accepting and being at peace with the idea we can’t control everything and being able to focus on what we can change is a lifelong journey.

DON’T GET HUNG UP ON LANGUAGE AND MISS OUT ON THE WISDOM OF THIS TEACHING

There are words in this teaching that can be difficult for some and so they dismiss it. Words like “prayer” and “God” have clear religious connotations and can trigger negative memories, associations and emotions for some. If this is true for you, these are things you can control so change them and make it yours.

If “God” is not a word or concept that brings you comfort or that means anything to you, change it. Rather than ‘praying to God,’ you might begin: “May I find the Serenity”, “May I build/grow/create the Serenity”, “May I find peace in accepting”, or other such variations.

If the word “Prayer” is a barrier for you, change it. Words like “poem”, “mantra” and “meditation” work just as well.

The point of this prayer/mantra is to give you a tool to help remind you of this universal truth, to help you reset when you become upset by something, and to help encourage you to go forward in creating the best life you can, even when it’s uncomfortable or scary.