(The following is a personal post from one of our members.)
Another member of our program was sharing about feeling a heaviness. That got me thinking about how heaviness contrasts with serenity. I definitely prefer serenity!
I've had plenty of years (decades) of heaviness before I found freedom in this program. Since I live with my wife, I have someone who observes me in as basic a state of being as I've got. And she tells me that she sees the difference in me that my years of sobriety and recovery have brought. I think sometimes I can't really see it myself, because it is happening to me "naturally" as I practice the principles of SA that I learned by working the Steps of the program with a sponsor's guidance.
Serenity is one of the things that has changed. Serenity is happening to me. The Serenity Prayer start out with "God, grant me the serenity...." It's not something I can conjure up in myself. It is a gift. It doesn't happen because all my circumstances just magically change. It happens while I am still in the midst of those circumstances. God grants it. The full Serenity Prayer talks about "accepting hardship as the pathway to peace", so circumstances may well be very difficult still. But serenity is still possible even then.
This reminds me that the whole point of this program is to bring me into a right relationship with God. Sobriety, recovery, serenity are all natural outcomes of a right relationship with God. It really is that simple for me. There really only is this one thing to focus on, and then everything else falls into place. And that includes accepting the things I can not change, having courage to change the things I can, and gaining the wisdom to know that difference. SA tells me that the Steps are the path to get there and that a sponsor can guide me. That's how it works.
