By Tom P.
God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can and
Wisdom to know the difference.
I have prayed this prayer literally hundreds of times in meetings over the last 2 1/2 years and many more times on my own when looking for strength courage and peace.
Like many others fortunate enough to have found CoDA, I was relieved and excited to learn the Recovery Patterns of Codependence and begin applying the healthy thought patterns and behavior to my daily life. My most obvious issues were listed in the Control Patterns which I quickly dropped to the delight of my immediate family.
Here is where the recovery process got a little tricky for me. Everyone around me was feeling better and I was proud of myself for the positive changes I had made but something still wasn’t right. This brings me back to the Serenity Prayer. In my sincere effort to mend my ways, I had gone to the other extreme adopting many of the Compliance Issues including my interpretation of the Serenity Prayer.
Accepting the things I could not change meant to me that I should accept everything that comes my way without regard to my likes or dislikes, personal boundaries, or moral compass. This misguided thinking was reinforced by others using recovery jargon to convince me I was on the right track for their benefit.
I have come to learn that acceptance isn’t tolerance of the intolerable or giving up my true self in an effort to accommodate a relationship. For me, acceptance is seeing things as they truly are and accepting the reality of the situation. With this understanding, I can now make choices that work for me and allow others to be who they truly are.
Excellent post, Tom! Everything you said is so true!
I have learned acceptance has a lot to do with surrender of my self will, what I would have willed the story to be. I like how you said, “Accepting the reality of the situation”. I agree. When I learned to accept, not having to like the situation, I found that I could be grateful for the blessings of my altered story and move forward. Beautiful Tom, thank you for sharing!