Serenity Prayer

I was talking with a friend the other day, and she told me that she is struggling to get certain parts of her life under control. She has just joined a support group that employs the twelve steps. She went on to say that while she knows she needs the help and support of the group, the Serenity Prayer, which opens the meetings, is a stumbling block for her. The wording just doesn't feel right.

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.

Her sentiments resonated with me. Last year was one of the most stressful of my life. In addition to the joy of having a baby, I was going through some intensely painful personal issues. One thing that I found helpful was the Serenity Prayer. Not just saying it, which I did over and over, but really understanding its meaning and trying to live it.

I, too, struggled with the wording of the prayer. It's not that I don't believe in God, although by my way of thinking, It's the Divine, or the Universe. The part of the prayer I take issue with, is asking a higher power to grant me a favor, if you will. I believe the power is already within me, and with this prayer, I am both acknowledging that and asking the Universe to help me muster the strength to use it.

The concept of the prayer really helped. So, I decided on this, albeit cumbersome, personal wording:

I ask the Universe to support me in calling forth my own power for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Now, some might think: that's a lot of new-age mumbo jumbo, or, that my wording is just semantics. That's okay. What I think, is that it genuinely means something to me, and that is:

#1 I can only do me. I have the power to decide to be the best me I can. That is not easy, nor it is necessarily going to get me everything I want. It is a heck of a lot, though. 

#2 No matter how much I want something to happen, or someone to change, it is not within my power to make it so. I have no control over what other people do, nor can I control the actions and beliefs of others.

#3 is the kicker: whenever I feel stressed, angry, disappointed, sad, etc. it helps to think about the points above and reassess how I approach any given situation and what I hope to get out of it.

It serves me well to remember all of this. It helped me through a very difficult time. The prayer didn't make the situation better, nor did it take away the pain and sadness. What it did, is help me understand who I am, who I want to be, and that in the end, that is what is in my control. It gave me perspective.

Even though things did not turn out the way I had hoped, I am steadfast in my faith that things will turn out as they should.

If you're searching for some Yogic wisdom on this topic, these two Yoga Journal articles are a good place to start: Spiritual Surrender and The Practice of Surrender.

No matter what you call it - Serenity Prayer or Ishvara Pranidhana, it's all Yoga to me.

How has prayer helped you?

Photo credit: Robert Kiss

Things change, yoga remains

Things have changed around my house. My eighteen month old son, Josias, has started to sleep through the night. With a bit of gentle encouragement on my part, he now sleeps from about 8pm until four or five in the morning. This represents a HUGE change for us. Previously, he had been waking up four to six times per night to breastfeed. Obviously, that meant Mama was up four to six times per night and not getting a heck of a lot of sleep.

Eight o'clock is also a later bedtime for Josias. He used to go down at 7pm. By the time I got him breastfed and asleep it was usually about 7:45 and I had time to get in a short yoga practice before collapsing into bed. Now, though, he's not done breastfeeding until about 8:30, and since I have to get up at 4am, when he gets up, I just can't stay awake any longer to practice yoga.

I've been experimenting. Sometimes I get in 20 minutes before Josias goes to bed, while Papa spends time with him, or if Josias goes back to sleep after his 4am breastfeed, I'll try to get up and practice for a little while. BUT, I'm only able to practice about three times per week, whereas I used to fit it in five or six times a week.

I am so thankful that Josias is sleeping longer, for our whole family's sake. It is just a temporary downside that I can't practice yoga as much as I'd like. I know how important yoga is to my well-being and to my life. So, I am grateful if I get to practice three times per week. This also gives me the opportunity to reflect more on the other seven limbs of yoga (asanas or poses being only one limb), and to know that I have the opportunity to practice yoga every day of every week of every precious moment of my life.

It has also been an opportunity for me to examine my samskaras or negative patterns. I am a person who likes a schedule and a fixed way of doing things. Some might even call me a tad rigid.  Josias' change in sleeping schedule has allowed me to reflect upon my commitment to a home yoga practice.  Can I be flexible enough to change when I practice and for how long? So far the answer has been, yes, sometimes!

Has anything in your life required you to change your schedule or examine your commitment to yoga or anything else that is important to you?  How did it go?

The bread and butter of yoga

Now that I've talked a little bit about happiness, and how yoga can help us feel happy, I thought I'd have a little fun and share some of my experiences with yoga that might be described as more, "out there," perhaps even call my sanity into question by non yogis, or just garner a few snickers.

The three experiences occurred during a period in which I had just started practicing meditation, one of the eight limbs of yoga.  My daily meditation practice consisted of sitting silently, cross-legged on the floor for ten minutes after my half hour yoga practice.  I had begun my meditation journey with five minutes per practice and added a minute every week or two.  It took me months to get to ten minutes! I would count with each inhalation and exhalation until I got to ten and then start over again.  I found that this helped me focus on my breath.  

I never really became what I considered "good" at it, because I wasn't able to still my mind.  Thoughts continued to race.  What I came to realize though, is that I was sorta good at it simply by virtue of doing it.  Also, although my mind often raced, I was paying attention to those thoughts and beginning to realize that they really weren't who I was.  They were simply thoughts and did not define me.  I tried to watch them float by my mind's eye, like clouds, instead of becoming attached or bogged down by my thoughts.  This gave me the sensation of being free.  It also did some wacky things, which are the three experiences I alluded to. 

Here they are:

1. I was laying in bed taking a nap, which is rare for me, and when I awoke the words, "don't think, just keep going," clearly came to me.  I did not feel as if I had uttered these words.  I felt as if they had come from some where else.  I didn't hear them, really, they just came to me.  Now, that might not sound all that profound as these things go, but it was so clear, and actually quite relevant to what was going on in my life at the time, and it was very contrary to the way I usually do things.
2. I went to bed one night feeling really down.  Things weren't going well at work, things weren't going well at home.  I was stressed out and worried.  When I awoke in the morning I felt this warm glow emanating from deep inside me and out through my pores, almost as if a light was shining from within.  I felt so happy I thought I was going to cry.  There was no reason for this happiness.  It was who I am deep inside.  It only lasted for about a minute, but I reveled in it.  It truly felt miraculous.  In my previous post about where happiness comes from, this is a perfect example of what I was talking about.
3. This is my favorite.  One morning while I was meditating, I was distracted by a lovely smell, but it was just outside my grasp in terms of being able to identify it.  The smell evoked a feeling of home and of childhood.  The next day, I smelled it again.  This time I knew what it was.  Melted butter on toast!  I thought to myself, "how odd that I can smell the neighbor's breakfast."  I smelled the exact same smell several more times.  After giving it some thought, I realized that I have NEVER smelled food from a neighbor's house, never mind the fact that it was 5am and nobody else in their right mind was awake.  What was going on here?  Who knows?  In my meditative state I was accessing some olfactory memory that made me feel at peace and happy. 

Pretty darn cool.

Since I had Josias I have not had the time nor space to meditate, and I have not experienced any of these wonders. Were they really the result of meditation?  I don't know, but I'm looking forward to the time I start a regular mediation practice again to find out.  Has anyone else experienced what they consider a bit outside of "normal" experience as a result of yoga?

Where happiness comes from

No sooner had I written the previous post, dated March 22nd, than the latest issue of Yoga Journal magazine arrived in the mail.  Yay!  I love Yoga Journal for the photos, and features about poses, but what I love most is the articles about the more philosophical aspects of yoga. 

This one was a doosie.  There is an article about Pantajali's Yoga Sutra and the explanation of avidya, or ignorance.  This is not the garden variety, Joe Smoe on the street kind of ignorance.  Pantajali is referring to each of us not knowing our true selves.  The author, Sally Kempton, begins by explaining that happiness does not arise from circumstances, relationships, etc.   True happiness only comes from deep within; it is our natural state of being. 

Not feeling so naturally happy?  The Yoga Sutra tells us why.  Avidya is our belief (or misbelief) in what constitutes reality.  For example, many people associate happiness with things, experiences, or relationships.  The Yoga Sutra explains that these are impermanent and only passing fancies in the mystery we call life; they do not and cannot add nor detract from who we really are: our true selves.  Most of us mere mortals, however, confuse these things as reasons for happiness or unhappiness.  Hence, our ignorance.

So, how does one access this kind of happiness? The answer is practicing the eight limbs of yoga.  I have personally experienced this spontaneous joy bubbling up from my true self through practicing asanas and meditation (two of the eight limbs of yoga).  It was only a momentary feeling, but it was there.  I have had a glimpse of what Pantajali is talking about and I am intrigued.

This might sound like a lot of mumbo jumbo, but I'm asking you to suspend judgment for a moment and humor me. I'm asking you to give it some real thought, even read up on avidya in this month's Yoga Journal. Then, let's hear what you think.

Are you still with me? Am I making any sense here?

These concepts are challenging enough to me as a person, but now that I'm a mother, what I'm starting to wonder is how this applies to parenting?