Try This: Set a timer for three minutes. Sit in a comfortable chair and study your hands. Let your eyes wander over your fingers, your knuckles, your nails. Trace the veins on the backs of your hands. Trace the lines on your palms. If you get bored, bring your hands together and make shapes with your fingers. When the time is up, kiss each hand and say, “thank you.”
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In our last post, we suggested that you don’t have to be happy all the time. That, in fact, part of living “free” means being okay with low moods. Accept reality, as yoga and meditation teachers tend to say.
But what about all of the messages from our culture that we need to be proactive in changing our reality? That if we’re not happy, we’re doing it wrong? That to accept a less-than-ideal situation is somehow weak? What do you accept and what you do you try to change? What level of happiness are you supposed to settle for?
JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO, you might feel like screaming.
Okay, says the Serenity Prayer, here you go: “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.”
There’s nothing like wrestling with what feels like a huge philosophical question and having some saucy little quote sneak in and answer it. But you can say the Serenity Prayer all you want and still feel stuck on how to apply it. Let’s break it down.
First, a prerequisite to using the Serenity Prayer: Before you can accept reality, you have to be aware of what your reality is. It’s hard to do that if your primary concern in life is escaping reality–through drugs and alcohol, gaming, shopping, eating, television, social media, exercise (almost anything can become a means to avoid reality). Too often, “pursuit of happiness” becomes “escape to happiness.” A constant effort to escape reality usually results in addiction. Here are some signs you’re not accepting reality:
- You always have something on your mind.
- When you stop moving or thinking, you feel empty, bored, sad, or scared.
- You’re often in a hurry to leave a situation or finish a task.
- You rush to suppress negative emotions in yourself and others.
- You get injured frequently (bumps, bruises, scratches, pulled muscles).
- You have frequent stomachaches or headaches.
- You often resign yourself to not getting what you really need.
- You’re forgetful.
- You eat/drink/ingest things that you know don’t agree with you.
- You avoid conflict and confrontation.
- You panic if you’re stuck waiting and don’t have something to do (book to read, phone to scroll, phone games to play, etc.)
- You have trouble sleeping–either oversleeping or insomnia.
Once you allow yourself to sit in your reality, to really be IN it and aware of all of its ups and downs, goods and bads, you’ll have a better idea of what can be changed and what can’t. You’ll also know what kind of help you need to make those changes. Therapy, addiction treatment, support from family and friends, a healthier lifestyle, a budget–help is available, and you’ll have the courage to ask for it.
Then, the focus of your life becomes serenity. Not happiness. Serenity. Does this mean you won’t have bad moods or get frustrated at roadblocks? Of course not. Will you feel “Zen” all the time? Unlikely. But over time you’ll learn that serenity is more of a practice than a feeling. It’s an ability to corral your moods and reactions, to honor them without letting them overtake you, and to return yourself to calm.
Can you be calm and angry at the same time? Yes. Can you be calm and excited at the same time? Sure. Can you be calm and sad at the same time? Yes. That’s what serenity is: a deep, peaceful river beneath all of your ups and down, a state of being you can return to every time.
Positive, lasting change begins from a place of serenity. Even the big, blow-up level changes can come from serenity. Changes like divorce, a change in gender identity or sexuality, or leaving a career might send the people around you into turmoil, your finances into turmoil, or your immediate future into turmoil. But serenity can run beneath the turmoil. You’ll have both courage to change and the peace of knowing, “this is what I need.”
Wisdom is a lifelong process. Serenity helps us accept that we’re not going to have all the wisdom all the time. We’ll make mistakes. We’ll set unrealistic goals. We’ll waffle in our decisions. We’ll get lost in a dark mood. We’ll relapse. Serenity is trusting that our lives, with all of their mistakes, still have meaning.
So, forget about happiness. Let happiness be an occasional by-product of a life that cultivates serenity and a sense of meaning. Know that life isn’t perfect, and be okay with that.