Loosid Sober Tip of the Day November 22

The power of the serenity prayer.

Over the next three days, we will look at one of the most powerful prayers in recovery …and in life.

First, as mentioned in previous tips, it is important to clarify that the program of recovery is a spiritual one, not a religious one and when we say, ‘God’ that is whatever our conception of our higher power may be.

The first part of the serenity prayer is as follows:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.

We often notice that the first part of the serenity prayer, once we truly practice it, frees up the vast majority of our time.

So many of us in recovery (and in life) wonder why someone did this, why someone else did that, why someone else said this, or why someone else said that.

We also get upset when we get an injury, miss the train, get cut off in traffic, the list is endless as it happens countless times each day to all of us.

Here’s another one… why do we have alcoholism? Why did we become an addict?

When we don’t accept the things we cannot change, we waste energy foolishly.

If it already happened, why do we spend any energy whatsoever fighting what has happened?

Once we are able to truly accept the things we cannot change, we can free up our lives and focus entirely on changing the things we can.

Just for today, think about what you have been wasting your time on that has already happened. How much time have you wasted?

Once you recognize this and choose to let it go and move into acceptance, you should feel a feeling of relief that you have not felt in a very long time.

If you are open to it, share below your experience with this first part of the serenity prayer. What have you been wasting your energy on?

There are many people in the Loosid community who need to hear what you have to say.

With Love, Loosid :pray::heart:­

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This has allowed me to focus on what I need to do, and has saved my time by not forcing me to fixate on non issues.

It definitely is about our relationship to God, we just say that so people can still benefit from the program even though they were raised around hypocritical religious people and this don't believe in God .
Those of us who have direct experience with God find it plain wrong to not believe in God .
On serenity, once I started practicing not letting things bother me that were out of my control, people that let traffic or whatever they couldn't control bother them, those people seemed foolish and ridiculous. I still have things out of my control bother me sometimes, but actually working on yourself means I can change that and I do.
People that don't know how to love everyone and each other seem like dumb 3 years olds to me.
Thoughts?

Blessings and lots of love

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Why me? Why not?

This is the hardest part of my recovery. Practice is all one can do, yet becomes frustrating at almost 3 years into sobriety. This is where reaching out to my peers in the program helps most

Does accepting the things I can not change include not fighting for my marriage when my wife says she wants a divorce?

Man that's tough. I think approaching her with love and kindness is something you can do.

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