Acceptance to paradise
Acceptance to paradise
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Beautifully simple. This invocation, known as the serenity prayer, has accompanied many on their journey to finding their own peaceful place: it is particularly woven into addiction recovery. However, acceptance and change are nestled cozily together here in a way that belies the contradiction of the two. Acceptance is giving in to where you are. Change is a rejection of where you are and the navigation to another place. How is it possible that these two states can coexist? Or in navigation terms, how is it possible to be in two places at once?
The key is in understanding a journey as a series of steps that are not all one-foot-in-front-of-the-other direct progress. In the serenity prayer there are three steps and only one of them, change, involves movement to another place. But, change is not the first step, acceptance is, because acceptance makes change, and wisdom, possible.
To start, in navigating from one place to another you must know your starting point. For example, let’s say you are living in an icy, inhospitable, desolate place and want to move somewhere warm, lush and full of fruit. If you are trying to journey to Costa Rica the directions will be very different if you are coming from the Arctic versus Antarctica. Moreover, if you are unaware, i.e. unaccepting, that you are living on the frozen end of the earth you might not even consider moving to a tropical paradise. Acceptance allows you to fully embrace the reality of where you are, take full emotional stock of its impact, and empowers you to make a fully informed decision— do I like it here?
And if not, where would I like to go?
Acceptance also allows you to clearly see your role in being stuck where you are. Perhaps being chilly is the only thing you’ve ever known and, though there is a fueled plane on the runway next to your encampment on the tundra, you choose the safety of the familiar, huddle in your bearskin and light another blubber lamp. Or, maybe you blame yourself for your frozen world without acknowledging the full story of how your Captain’s ego-driven recklessness, and a few stray icebergs, helped land you where you are. Acceptance allows you to tell the full story, where you are not responsible for all the bad that has befallen you, where your poor choices make sense in context, where you can take responsibility and take action without being doomed to failure. Acceptance propels wisdom.
Once you have begun to courageously navigate from one place to another, acceptance continues to play a critical role because no journey is completely smooth— there are no direct flights I know of from the Arctic to Costa Rica. When you hit the inevitable ruts and road blocks (hungry polar bears) you might be plunged back to your stuck state: why did I begin this journey; it was better and safer where I was; I’m off course again and it's my fault; I’m no navigator.
Acceptance allows you to keep going, take stock of your position and tap back into your courage and capability. Paradise awaits!
If this speaks to you, and you’re feeling stuck somewhere between acceptance and change, consider reaching out to Alex at CIC for support — wisdom grows best in safe company.
Meet Alex!
About The Author
Alex is an associate marriage and family therapist (AMFT134332) supervised by Jeremy Mast, MS, MDiv, LMFT, CSAT (CAMFT90961). Alex’s experience includes trauma work, psychodynamic training, crisis intervention, and providing therapy in private practice High School and correctional facility settings. In his free time, Alex enjoys surfing and writing short stories and poems.
