When times are tough in our lives we may gravitate to the words of the Serenity Prayer. This well-known prayer has been attributed to various spiritual leaders. That’s for good reason. It provides us with a trusted recipe for good mental health and a foundational mindfulness practice.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and courage to change the things I can..
Reinhold Niebuhr
The Serenity Prayer can be broken down into two distinct parts. The first is the ability to observe our lives just as they are. In a sense to let what is happening within and around us just exist. The second is the ability to also change our life circumstance when it is not optimal. This requires a sense of courage and motivation to go deeper and examine ways we and our lives can be different. A journey that is filled with vulnerability, patience and persistence. We need to be brave and open to the possibilities.
From the day we are born life throws challenges our way. Some of us are dealt with more than others. Those challenges that negatively impact our childhood such as loss, abuse and neglect have the most ingrained influence on our lives. They are deep seated in our memory and trigger us when we least expect it.
We are also blessed with different personalities and temperaments – some of us are more open, positive and accepting of life. Others find life harder to navigate. They may be anxious, extra sensitive, impulsive, frustrated or prone to negativity.
The additional challenge of negative bias
As humans it is easier for us to store negative stimulus and experience. In a sense we have a negativity bias – a learnt pattern for our survival. Our minds are constantly looking out for danger and we tend to over focus and overreact to negative stimuli that come our way. When our mind is triggered to a perceived danger the stress hormone cortisol is produced. The cortisol rush sensitizes a part of our brain called the amygdala like an alarm bell, alerting our body to danger. We feel it in our thoughts and bodily sensations. It takes the nearby hippocampus to tone down the amygdala’s reaction and tell our brain ‘all is O.K.’.
Bringing in a positive perspective
To let in positive awareness to our lives requires a more deliberate and conscious practice. It is possible to have a series of fleeting moments of positive emotion such as joy, happiness and contentment but without allowing them to be internalized their benefits can be easily lost. To make these experiences ‘stick’ requires more concerted effort to work with the mind. We need to slow down and truly savour an enjoyable experience so it increases positive neural pathways. Research has found that our brain has the potential for change via neuroplasticity – bit by bit incrementally changing the chemical pathways so our experience of life is altered. American psychologist, Dr Rick Hanson PhD, speaks to our learned ability to Take in the Good. We can do that by increasing our awareness and creation of positive experiences, then allowing them to be expanded and fully absorbed within our mind and body.
Building inner resources to allow us to change.
A good starting point is to live in the present moment, living each day one at a time. Our own ‘histories’ of past experiences need a degree of our acknowledgement and a sense of self compassion. Yes, some of our experiences were tough and difficult. We can, with our hands over our hearts, soothe our hurt and sadness. Things may have been difficult to bear and involved harm and personal suffering. We may have also harmed others in the past.
The change we can bring is to let go and decrease the negative impact of our past events. To begin afresh today, knowing we cannot change the script. Yet, like a garden we can tend to the weeds, beginning to decrease or eliminate their hold on us. Letting go of what no longer serves us.
We can also foster a variety of inner mental resources to face life’s challenges – resilience, self-reliance, confidence, patience, generosity, compassion and empathy, feeling deeply that we are cared for and loved, being emotionally balanced, feeling inner peace and calm, experiencing mental strength, resolve and happiness. As each of these resources are developed we become less vulnerable to life’s slings and arrows. We are also a better source of support and strength for others.
Life is not without its challenges. At first we can accept with self-compassion the circumstances that arise. Observing and acknowledging them. Experiencing both the good and not so good of life. This is the first part of the Serenity Prayer.
Yet we don’t need to stop there. It is also possible to change the circumstances of life by reducing our focus on the negative and in a deliberate way enhancing our experience of the positive. The potential to change, the second part of the Serenity Prayer, is available to all of us.
