Not in my hands….

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

I remember as a child, my mom taught me the Serenity Prayer; she learned it from Al-Anon, a therapeutic group for families of alcoholics. Last night, I couldn’t think about anything else to calm my nerves than to repeat the part of the prayer that says to accept the things I cannot change over and over until I was able to fall asleep.

As a perfectionist human being and one that suffers from anxiety, understanding and mostly accepting that there are things in this life that I cannot change has been a constant challenge. I consider myself a doer, meaning I make things happen in my life, I study hard, I work hard, I try to do good and positive things in my life so I expect things to change as I visualize them in my goals.

The Serenity Prayer also talks about having the courage to change the things that I can so I thought: I do have the courage since I have made things happened in my life so, what is the difference between the ones that I can and the ones that I can’t and how I can achieve the wisdom to know the difference?

Anxiety is a mental disorder, yes; we all have some type of anxiety because Mother Nature actually put it there to protect us from danger so anxiety or fear is triggered as an emotional defensive mechanism to survive the natural elements. A good example is the fear of heights that would prevent us to die falling out of a cliff if we were not afraid of it. But we also have internal fears, as the one of having our feelings hurt, the fear that others might have negative concepts about us or in general, the pure feeling of not having control over what happens in and around us.

As depression is caused by situations that happened in the past, anxiety is the product of the lack of control we have over our future and if you, as me get anxious because you cannot control your own anxiety, the circle cannot be broken and you have no way out.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy teaches us that our thoughts control our behavior and if we are able to understand that not everything is in our hands and that we cannot live our lives thinking we will always get what we think we deserve, anxiety symptoms can be reduced.

If you believe in a Higher Power, you need to believe that He knows best. To those of you that are parents, how many times have you told your child: I do it for your own good! And your kid is right there crying and your heart is braking in pieces because you know what is the best for him even if he cannot comprehend it.

I like to believe the same happens in life, we are all children compare to what a Higher Power might know what is best for us and I like to believe that part of that wisdom to recognize the difference between what we can or cannot do is to come to that moment when you are so hurt, so tired, so frustrated, so fearful and so anxious that the only answer is to Let-It-Go.

You can’t change everything about the future but you can change the way you think about it and your expectations; have goals and work to achieve them but know that manipulating all the pieces that might be involved in the process are not all in your hands so don’t put too much into thinking exactly what the outcome might be so, if you don’t get it, you will be ok and if you do get it, you will be up for the best surprise of your life!

Oh surprises, I forgot how much I love surprises!

#change #acceptance #anxiety #depression #life #present