(This is the sixth post in the Serenity Prayer Series)

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” 

Leo Tolstoy

The courage to CHANGE the things I CAN.

This is, of course, where the rubber hits the road.  Where the oars hit the water.  Where our intentions either become actions…

or they don’t.

I first started thinking in earnest about the Serenity Prayer when Keira hit her really bad year and was freaking out that this was all her life would ever be and nothing would never change for her.  It was a year—after several years and tens of thousands of dollars spent looking up and down for answers and finding none—of dark and terrible grief for my once cheery and indomitable girl.

And for her mother, as well.

The result of six fruitless years spent bouncing from specialist to specialist in search of an answer and a cure—for either one of us—had left us both exhausted and defeated.  With no energy left to rally the troops and lead another charge, I did what we sometimes do when we get tired and overwhelmed—

I checked out and I went to bed.

Granted, SHE had already been in bed all along.  But when we BOTH took leave from our posts, the battle, for a season, seemed all but lost.

I don’t know what prompted the next round of, “Okay, let’s try this again”—it may have been the start of the New Year, it may have been spring, it may have been the sun actually shown for once in Central Ohio.  It’s hard to say.  But, as I was wont to do time and time again over the years, I grew sick and tired of us both being sick and tired and set out to, in the words of Eugene Peterson in The Message, “redouble my own efforts” and attempt, yet again, to solve the unsolvable puzzle.

My daughter, unfortunately, was not on board.

Maaaaaaaaaahhhhhhmmmmm… We’ve tried this already. It doesn’t work.  Nothing works.  NOTHING CHANGES.  I don’t want to do this agaaaaaaaain…

And she was right.

But she was also wrong.

As I thought and prayed and schemed and strategized about how to once again tackle the beast, I was reminded of a simple prayer.  So I taught it to my daughter:

Lord, 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…

This set us off on a new course of conversation—rather than trying to tackle it ALL, I started talking with her about there being things we COULD change right now and things that we COULDN’T.  So—at my prompting and prodding and pulling—we started trying to think about the things that we COULD change.

It wasn’t easy.  She resisted. I resisted.  It’s hard to make major life changes when you are in pain and struggling with fatigue and your immune system SUCKS and you’re constantly sick and you just want to curl up on the heating pad and sleep for a week.  Or TWO.  We wrestled constantly with what either one of us, on any given day, was willing to do.

Eat gluten free.  Take a daily vitamin regimen.  Go paleo.  Drink smoothies.  Take this supplement.  Take that supplement.  Take ALL. THE. SUPPLEMENTS.  Rub oils.  Inhale oils.  Ingest oils.  Go vegan.  Try this brand of vitamins.  Try THAT brand of vitamins.  Go sugar free.  Go caffeine free.  Go to this doctor.  Go to that doctor.

It was enough to make me crazy.

Again.

So we’d set off on our best attempt to make changes—but as we are both prone to overdo it and completely overwhelm ourselves, follow through was a challenge as we would grow more and more frustrated and frantic with each passing day of deprivation or pill-popping.

Willpower, unfortunately, has not run with a steady current throughout my life.  I suspect my daughter has inherited this trait—though I know, when I really take an honest look at our lives, that we truly have both accomplished pretty amazing feats, all propelled by some degree of resolve and self-discipline.  But, on the whole, willpower has more often come in fits and starts—sometimes for years, sometimes merely for days.  It is less a steady river that flows with constancy over the years and more of a faucet that turns off and on, often by a hand other than my own.

Needless to say, our attempts to “change the things we can” were not going well.

It is interesting, now that I’m spending more time living in the prayer, that the author of this prayer—Reinhold Niebuhr—uses the word COURAGE and not the word WILLPOWER.  Because when it comes to making changes in the way we live, we more often think and talk about needing willpower while there is normally no mention made to courage.

This is both a relief to me and a puzzlement.

Why does he propose it takes courage to change the things we can?  Why does it require more than sheer willpower, the virtues of which we Americans are so fold of extolling?

In order to wrap my brain around the author’s choice of THIS quality as the one most necessary to our pursuit of change—this word that had more, I thought, to do with FEAR that with FORTITUDE—I did what I always do when I am digging into an issue.

I went WORD NERD.

(Don’t mock me. It’s a superpower.)

As I spent time sifting through definitions I looked for clues with which to solve this motivational mystery.  As always happens, certain words or phrases began to stick out to me:

• strength in the face of pain or grief
• the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty without fear
• the ability to do something that you know is right or good, even though it is dangerous, frightening, or very difficult
• mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty
• the state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution; bravery
• the ability to control fear and to be willing to deal with something that is dangerous, difficult, or unpleasant

Certainly, as we continue to explore, we see there are some similarities here to willpower:

• strong determination that allows you to do something difficult
• the ability to control your own thoughts and behavior, esp. in difficult situations
• control exerted to do something or restrain impulses

In light of these similarities, why does the author of this prayer choose the term that implies the existence of FEAR rather than the one that implies a necessity for SELF-CONTROL?

Why does he associate FEAR with CHANGING THE THINGS WE CAN?

I am reminded, as I write, of a quote I’ve heard and used often through the years, though it is unclear to whom it is attributed.  It goes something like this: when the fear of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of changing, you will change.

Again, change and fear are associated with one another.  But this still doesn’t tell us WHY.  Why do we FEAR making a CHANGE?

There are many answers “out there” to this question—the fear of the unknown, the fear of failing, the fear of succeeding, the fear of commitment, the fear of rejection, the fear of judgement—but I would argue, based on my own experience and on almost 20 years of counseling others, that these fears are truly secondary.  I believe there is a much larger concern that precedes these fears—a “Fear” with a capital “F”—and it is the common thread among them all.

We are, above all else, afraid to look in the mirror.

THIS truth is that for which we all need courage: in order to change the things we can, WE MUST FIRST TAKE AN HONEST LOOK AT WHAT NEEDS CHANGING.

And for some of us—I dare say ALL of us—the question of what we will find when we pull back the curtains of defensiveness and self-protection and mask-wearing terrifies us.

Or maybe it’s just me.

In a cursory examination of scripture, just now, I found at least TEN calls to self-examination, from both Testaments.   Here are but a few:

I considered my ways… Psalm 119:59

Let us test and examine our ways… Lamentations 3:40

But a man must examine himself… 1 Corinthians 11:28

Examine yourselves… 2 Corinthians 13:5

But each one must examine his own work…Galatians 6:4

Because our tendency, out of self-preservation, is to look at our face in the mirror and, after looking at ourselves, go away and forget what we look like, we neglect to be honest with ourselves about, among other things, those things which keep us mired in our own muck. That the Lord challenges us at least ten times to take a deeper look within indicates to me that the Lord is well aware of our tendency toward distraction, denial, and self-deception when it comes to our own shortcomings.

I’m just sayin’…

So why do we distract and defend and deny and deceive?

Because usually what needs changed needs changed FOR A REASON.

If we are going to consider which things in our lives are indeed within our power to change, we must first boldly examine why we’ve not yet changed them.

And THIS, my friends, is the just-plain-ugly place where COURAGE comes in.

If I’m going to work, just to pick an example, on changing my diet, I need to look honestly at why I resist the change and what keeps me from following through.  I need to examine why I haven’t made the change already, if it’s something that could honestly help me feel better.  I need to ask myself why I refuse to be uncomfortable in one area in order to gain true comfort in another. I need to consider what these changes signify to me that causes me to have such deep resistance and reluctance.  Just for starters.

And TBH, when I think about doing that?

I REALLY DON’T WANT TO.

The courage to change the things we can.

This is where change begins.

In the mirror.

In our journal

In the counseling office.

With self-examination.

With self-honesty.

With self-compassion.

There are indeed things we can change.

But, if we are to succeed, we first must dare to ask why we’ve NOT.

change counseling courage faith honesty messy self-examination spiritual growth willpower