The Serenity Prayer and IBS

For those not familiar, let’s look at the first part of what is commonly referred to as ‘The Serenity Prayer.’ ‘God, please grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference.’ Pretty heavy, huh? The ‘Serenity Prayer’ is usually associated with Alcoholics Anonymous or other substance abuse recovery groups. I have lived with substance abuse issues, mental illness and physical illness (IBS, Gastric Ulcers and Gastritis). It’s a lot to manage, but I am very proud of the successes I’ve had and I try very hard to learn from my setbacks. It has made me a better human being. I would like to look at the first part of the ‘Serenity Prayer,’ and see how it applies to our struggle with IBS and the accompanying symptoms and illnesses that we struggle with.

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

What does this mean to you and your battle with illness? To me, it is about surrender, acceptance, grace, humility and, of course, serenity. If we dig down deep, I think these are all qualities that we all want to have. The path to finding these qualities within ourselves during times of struggle can be a rocky road, to say the least. It starts with recognizing the things you know you cannot change and then accepting these things with grace. Once we’ve understood the first part of the prayer, we can move to the second.

‘Courage to change the things I can.’

Wow. This is the hard part. Finding the courage to change habits, rituals, ways of life, can be one of the most difficult things we ever have to do in this life. IBS forces us to do this. We are successful sometimes, sometimes not so. It is the change, the action that we take, that defines our success or failure within a given struggle. Most of us believe that we know who we are, but that doesn’t mean that certain things along our road will not require some adjustment, some work and yes, some change. I know we all experience this issue after a diagnosis of IBS. We look at this monster and say, ‘Look at all the things I have to change.’ You don’t HAVE to change, but if you want to be strong enough to weather the storm that is sure to follow, change is sort of required.

Finally, the riddle. The wisdom to distinguish between the things that we can and CANNOT change. A close friend and mentor suggested to me that I had this part down cold…but needed a little help in the change/action part of the deal. I think some of us are great at taking action but may spend wasted time and energy trying to change things, they simply can’t. The ‘Serenity Prayer’ asks us to look at three very important aspects of the recovery process and more broadly; our lives. I think by praying, meditating, or just deep contemplation of the ‘Serenity Prayer’ that we can add to our box of tools that we can use in our quest to manage our illnesses. Just some food for thought today.