Serenity Prayer
« God, give me grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace (...),
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender (...),
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life... »
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The Prayer of Serenity is among my favorite nectar in which I love dwelling once in a while, in times of challenges and, I confess, frustrations. I have used this prayer, creating my own version of it, to guide me towards an outlook of Life that is more allowing & accepting...and these days, this year, those words have special resonance.
Sometimes those words are not enough, for sure, in my subconscious needs to control (my) Life. Often, I reflect on how sometimes Life does not show up in the way you think it would have...I no longer count the number of «desire maps » or « dream books » I have designed or meditated on...with a variable degree of success...as Life can continue bringing us to an unexpected place else, unknown to the comfort of the mind & heart....Why?! I keep hammering in my days of resistance.
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I then have to remember trusting the reason that seems to be behind everything, even if it seems so far away from our dreams, from the Life we thought we would have....
This is where Yoga often meets us... right there in the place of resistance.
Our yoga practice could just about trust & patience in moments like that as we learn to ride on the flow of what’s here....simply because that this is the only thing that truly exists: the « here », the « now »...
The rest is always some kind of mind (or heart) projection travelling in the future or in the past.
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We could well ask: « how about our freewill? »...and rightly so, as indeed, we have often some kind of choice in the way we design our lives....However, it would arrogant to think that we can control everything. At times it feels like there is a « maha » will to anything, some kind of cosmic dancing with our own will....
In so many ways, my Yoga practice is about that dance, that flow between what I can control and what I cannot (i know that part sucks!), between what I know and what I don’t know, between my desires and Life’s unfolding, between what I know and what I might know one day, between what I call the «container» and the «non container».
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Less control,
More trust,
Less anxiety,
More serenity,
Less past and future,
More Now and Here.
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With our set of cards, given at birth, we learn to « play » the game of Life. Some call that play « Lila » as the illusion of the overall game Life is...And as we grow and evolve, we get used to the game until Life throws us a new card to « play » with and some cards will be lovely, some way less, right?
But this is still the same game, dance, play, whatever word we use to call Life.
This year, it feels like that new card given to our card decks. We are all given our card of challenge or emotion to navigate with...and how we will respond and integrate that new card into the Game is the invitation, as it seems.
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Less anger,
More empathy,
Less despair,
More sympathy,
Less arrogance,
More acceptance.
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And, personally, I use words of my own serenity prayer to help me accept what I cannot control, trusting that at some stage I will know better how to integrate that new card into the card deck symbolizing (my) Life.
Meanwhile, I dance (literally or metaphorically) on the wave of my freewill and cosmic will, the most gracefully I can, and that’s probably Yoga, in its pure essence.
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On a yoga mat, the invitation is to embody this prayer in the body, the forever field of sensations and explorations...If you fancy joining my mat based yoga practices during this time of confinement, please meet me online as I continue teaching....
This week at Yoga Flame on Monday 18:00 with a Flow class & Friday 19:30 with a Yin class....Bookings are done through the studio’s website.
To the teachings of Trust, I bow 🦋🤍
