Anxiety is an experience that almost everybody has been forced to face, whether it turns up uninvited in moments of quiet or during significant life challenges. Not only can it be overwhelming and stifling, but there is not always a clear-cut way to manage it.
While many people think of prayer as a purely religious thing, that is not actually the case at all. The Serenity Prayer is regularly used by groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, giving a person a set of words that they can fall back on when they are struggling with serious anxiety. But how does it help, and why is it so widely used?
What is the Serenity Prayer?
While the exact wording of the prayer can change depending on the version a person is using, the whole idea is simple – it is a mantra or invocation that reminds the speaker that there is a difference between things that they can and cannot change.
The whole idea is to accept that some things can’t be changed or fixed immediately – and therefore are not worth worrying too deeply about – while focusing on what you can change. For example, AA members often use it to avoid dwelling on their past alcoholism and focus on keeping themselves sober.
For many people, anxiety stems from over-worrying about things that you have no control over, and this prayer is a direct response to that problem. This makes it a common sight in many twelve-step programs and other recovery processes since it promotes a very future-facing mindset.
Why Does The Serenity Prayer Help?
While the point of the prayer might seem obvious from the explanation above, it is important to remember that anxiety is usually an irrational response. Being anxious about a big event makes sense. Still, many people’s anxiety will flare up about small things or even things that are incredibly unlikely (or, in some cases, completely impossible).
The point of the prayer is acceptance. It is understandable to be worried about something that you need to change in the future, but obsessing over unchangeable decisions or past mistakes only makes anxiety worse without actually giving any kind of benefit.
By accepting that some things can’t be changed, you can focus more on the things that you are able to impact. To use the AA example again, a former alcoholic who broods over their past drunken mistakes might not focus on changing themselves for the better in the future.
Using a prayer for anxiety can be a very powerful habit, even if you are not a religious or spiritual person. The purpose of the prayer is just to be a memorable phrase that you can fall back to when things get tough, or when you need to remind yourself to push forward instead of staying stuck in the past.
The Serenity Prayer is only one of many methods used to help with anxiety, so it is not a perfect answer for every situation. Even so, it sees frequent use in a lot of different contexts, with multiple variations to suit specific niches or recovery styles depending on who is using it.
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