May I Find Serenity: A Meditation For Addiction Recovery

So first of all,

Sit comfortably.

So upright,

But relaxed,

Not sit up straight at school upright,

Just sitting tall through the spine without any significant muscular effort.

It kind of,

With an upright spine,

You've got less chance of falling asleep and it's like setting an intent.

It's like I am about to begin the practice of meditation now by taking that stance.

Close your eyes if you're happy to do that.

If you'd prefer to meditate with your eyes open,

A soft downward gaze with the eyes so you're not taking in tons of visual information.

Let your hands rest comfortably in your lap.

And take a quick check in with yourself to notice how you're feeling at this moment.

So physically,

Just notice any sensations you feel anywhere in the body.

And trying to do this purely as a felt experience,

Not going into stories about it,

Just noticing what you feel rather than going into some internal dialogue about what you're feeling.

Notice your,

Pay attention to your emotional state as well.

Again,

Not describing it in the form of a bunch of words in your head,

But just feeling it.

And you don't need to change anything.

Even if things aren't 100% comfortable or pleasant,

Just the act of noticing is very important.

Just notice the underlying feeling tone of your experience of life right now at this moment.

Quite a simple but deep practice,

This business of checking in with yourself and noticing what the feeling tone is.

This is almost too many words,

But the idea of feeling tone is traditionally conveyed with words like,

Is there a sense of positive,

Negative,

Or neutral?

Or is there a sense of pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral?

But even that's too many words.

And the importance of this really is we can easily stumble through our lives with these underlying feelings,

Positive,

Negative,

Or neutral,

Without really noticing them.

And they can fuel our behavior in different ways.

For example,

If there were an underlying feeling of unpleasant that you weren't really aware of,

You hadn't noticed,

It could lead to behaving in ways that we can behave in a different way when we're not feeling good.

Same thing,

If there's an underlying feeling of pleasant,

It's easy to try and grab at making that last without realizing that's what you're doing,

Clutching at something to try and make the good feeling last.

There's nothing wrong with feeling good,

But it's worth noticing,

Checking in with yourself to notice how you feel from time to time.

So just sit with that for another minute.

Just checking in with yourself,

How am I now?

Let's take a short body scan now.

I will guide you through various parts of the body.

And all you need to do is let your awareness settle there for a few moments,

Notice what you feel.

You don't particularly need to change anything,

But there might be the possibility to soften through the body as we do this.

But it's the act of noticing that we're practicing here.

So first of all,

Bring your awareness to your eyes and your eye sockets,

The muscles around your eyes.

Just notice what you're feeling there.

And if there is any possibility of softening around the eyes a little,

Allow it to happen.

Come to the jaw now.

Notice if there's any tension around the jaw.

Feel what that feels like.

Maybe there's no tension,

Feel what that feels like.

And is there any possibility of softening a little around the jaw?

Come down the neck and into the shoulders and upper back now and again.

The same investigation,

What do you feel?

What sensations are present in the shoulders,

The upper back?

Is it possible to release a little,

To soften a little?

Let your awareness move down through your arms into your hands and let your awareness rest in the palms of both hands.

Noticing the sensations of your palms,

Your fingers,

Whatever they are,

Sensations associated with the temperature of the space you're in,

The tinglings and pulsations that come with being a human with a body.

Your body,

Whatever you feel,

Just notice.

Bring your attention into your belly now.

Notice,

Is there any tension in your belly?

Are you able to soften a little in your belly?

Allow your body weight to settle a little more deeply into your seat.

And then lead your awareness down through your legs and into your feet,

All the way down to the soles of both feet.

Notice the contact between your feet and the ground.

It doesn't matter if you're wearing shoes or anything,

Just be aware of the fact that your feet are making contact with the ground beneath you.

Be grounded.

And notice the sensations you feel in the soles of both feet.

And then let the awareness of your body just fall into the background of your awareness.

I'm going to say the whole serenity prayer now and just let the words land however they land and not trying to analyze them or think about them,

Just let the words land in your awareness and see how you feel as that happens.

May I find the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Just sit now and notice how you feel.

With those words,

May I find the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

How you feel.

With those words,

Kind of reverberating somewhere in your awareness.

Naturally,

As always with meditating,

Your brain does not stop generating thoughts and sometimes or maybe a lot,

You'll be dragged off by thoughts.

And this is the practice of meditation is when you notice that happen,

It's a very good result because it gives you the chance to come back to what you're doing,

Which right now is noticing how you feel in the afterglow of the words of the serenity prayer.

Never give yourself a hard time if you keep catching yourself wandering off with your thoughts.

It's the practice is watching that happen and returning over and over again.

May I find the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Take a quick check in with your body,

Sometimes in meditation,

Concentrating,

Tension creeps in.

Notice if that's happening and see if you can soften.

It's worth coming back to the body regularly.

We hold so much of our psychological stuff in our bodies and our tissues.

So for the next stage of this meditation,

We're gonna break the serenity prayer down into some components and look at them individually.

So first of all,

I invite you to spend a few moments reflecting on serenity.

Just first of all,

Just simply the word serenity,

What does it mean?

It means serene.

What does that mean?

It means calm.

And I think the word itself,

Serene,

Serenity,

Very,

The word itself is calm and calming.

Now I'm inviting you to bring to mind a place,

Anywhere in the world where you feel serene or where you have felt serene,

Where you feel calm,

Where you've felt calm.

Do your best to bring it to mind,

However that works for you.

And we all do this kind of work in very different ways.

Some people might be able to bring vivid images to mind.

Some people might just create a rich idea.

So however this invitation works for you,

Just let it land how it does and bring to mind in whatever way you can a place of serenity for you.

I mean,

Anywhere in the world,

Top of a mountain somewhere,

A beautiful beach somewhere,

Maybe even your own bed,

Someplace where you know or have known serenity.

Bring it to mind.

Perhaps you can see it or something like see it.

Perhaps you can bring to mind smells associated with this place,

Sounds.

Most importantly,

See if you can tap into the feeling you feel when you're in this place.

Be in this place in your mind right now for a short while and feel it.

The idea here is not so much to indulge in fantasy or anything,

It's to remind yourself what it's like to feel calm,

Even if it's generated through this practice of meditation right now.

Move on now to,

Let that fall into the background,

Move on now to contemplate things I cannot change.

And there are a lot of things in a life that we can't change.

So just kind of look at the idea of this.

There might be some obvious things like the weather.

You can't change what's gonna happen with the weather.

You can't change what,

You pretty much can't change anything external that might happen to you.

But in the context of recovery,

I think the big thing that a lot of us have is we,

We've done stuff in our years of using whatever it is we've used.

We've done stuff that we regret quite deeply.

We've heard people done some crazy stuff.

We've messed up our lives in various ways.

And it's very easy to hang on to extreme regrets,

Guilt,

Things like that about it.

And this is stuff we can't change.

We can't change the stuff we've done at all.

And part of the process of healing,

Of recovering is,

Is letting go of it.

I mean,

We make our amends and all that as best we can.

And then we have to learn how to not spend the rest of our lives beating ourselves up for the stuff we did.

This is just one example of stuff in your life you can't change,

The things I cannot change.

So sit for a short while now and just quietly contemplate.

You don't have to bring up every single thing,

But just maybe see if you can bring to mind one thing that you know you can't change.

And it might be painful,

So be kind to yourself.

Just look at it,

Contemplate it,

And be with that for a short while.

Notice the feelings it brings up.

And even if those feelings are uncomfortable,

Can you be with that without judging yourself?

Just notice what you feel.

And let that fall into the background now and bring to mind something that you might be able to change in your life for the better.

The courage to change the things I can.

Again,

Not every single thing,

Just bring to mind something that you might usefully change to further your journey of recovery,

To improve the quality of your life in some way.

And a lot of that kind of stuff's very often hard.

And I think we frequently end up saying stuff like,

Oh,

Well,

I can't change that.

And it might very well be.

And I think,

For example,

Just like a random example,

Perhaps a job,

Perhaps you're in a job you hate that's destroying,

Eating you up from the inside,

And you tell yourself,

Well,

I have to do this job because I'm not going to pay the rent if I don't do this job.

And in some practical way,

That might be true on some level,

But that is something you can potentially change.

Just one example.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that you should rush off and jack in a job you don't like,

But just acknowledge that there are things that might require you to have courage to change for the benefit of your life,

Your journey.

So just for a few moments now,

Just sit with one thing that you can bring to mind that you might be able to change and that might require a little bit of courage.

I'm not turning it into a great big analysis,

Simply bringing it to mind and noticing how you feel.

Is there a response in your body?

Whatever emotional response there might be.

Not judging yourself,

Not giving yourself a hard time,

Just feeling.

Being present with the feelings.

Moving on now to the very last piece of the prayer,

Which is,

May I find the wisdom to know the difference between the things I cannot change and the things I can.

And we've kind of touched on that,

It kind of,

With that example of the job,

How we can sometimes tell ourselves that something we can't change might actually be changeable.

And we might not be able to accept something we can't change.

And I'll just repeat the whole prayer again and we'll once again,

As at the beginning of this little meditation,

Just sit with it.

May I find the serenity to accept things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Once again,

Just letting that drop into your awareness.

And leave everything alone.

And bring your attention to your breath.

We'll just sit and observe the breath for a minute or so.

Wherever you feel the breath most prominently in your body,

Maybe your belly,

Your chest,

Perhaps you notice it at the nostrils,

Wherever you notice the breath most prominently,

Let your awareness settle there.

And feel the coming and going of each inhale and each exhale and returning to this when the mind wanders.

Trying to cover each inhalation and each exhalation with complete awareness.

Following the inhale and the exhale,

Following the inhale from its beginning to its end,

And following the exhale from its beginning to its end.

Another element you can add to this is noticing the little pause at the end of your exhale.

When you get to the end of the exhale,

There's a brief pause before the inhale arrives.

And maybe spending some moments covering that pause with awareness.

It's a quiet place,

That little pause between the exhale and the inhale.

And you can rest in it for a short while.

Not clutching at the inhale.

The inhale comes when it's ready to come.

And draw towards the end of this meditation.

Let's work with a small visualization.

And again,

It might not be a vivid image.

However,

Imaginative work works for you.

But imagine you are on a beautiful path,

Whatever that means,

Whatever a beautiful path might mean for you,

Any environment.

And you're walking down this path with intent.

Feel like you're knowing where you're going.

And you come to a fork in the path,

And you stop at this fork in the path.

And you know that this fork leads off.

It's a path that leads back to old ways that might not be so good for you.

Or you could keep going down the path,

Or you could keep going down the path towards healing,

Recovery,

And a better life.

So the point here is to pause at this point for a moment and just be aware of the power of choice.

You have the choice to proceed,

To carry on down the path of recovery.

And then make that choice decisively to carry on down the path of recovery with the power of the serenity prayer,

The message of the serenity prayer lodged somewhere inside you after this meditation on some level.

Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Hopefully walking this path with some serenity.

Start bringing a little bit of movement into your body now.

You might want to wriggle your fingers,

Your toes.

You might fancy a bigger movement.

You want to make a big old stretch or roll your shoulders or something like that.

You might fancy a bigger movement.

You want to make a big old stretch or roll your shoulders or something,

Just whatever movement you feel might be good for your body.

Just let that happen.

When you're ready,

Opening your eyes,

Let the light back in.

And that brings us to the end of this meditation.