The Serenity Principle

by paulcline7 in Lifestyle Choices, July 25, 2009

The first key to serenity is to take control of yourself and your life. You must put yourself in charge of your own standards and life direction. In essence, you must begin the process of “inventing yourself.” There is no such thing as “human-nature,” a person can be anything and any way that they desire to be strongly enough.

Other times the solution is simply to change our procedure, rather than a rule. My wife Bernadette had a rule that the minute she stepped through the door I should run over and hug her and tell her a love her. If I don’t do this, she is somehow unimportant and unloved according to her rule. My rule was that I would give her a few minutes to relax/unwind when she got home and give her a hug when she came into the livingroom or kitchen where I was. This led to a silently disgruntled wife who, after about 3 months of this process, finally told me what she was angry every night when she came home because I did not run up and hug her (it took some prodding on my part). Once I knew her need, I simply went to her as soon as she got home and gave/received some wonderful kisses and hugs – everyone was much happier – based on new awareness and a simple change of procedure.

Start to look at your standards or rules. Are they serving you or hurting you? Examine them and change, remove, or add rules as you believe appropriate. Ask the question, “How am I keeping myself from feeling the way I want to feel?” “What am I currently doing (or believing) that is damaging my serenity?” “How can I change my rules to enhance my serenity?” “In what areas am I being too hard on myself?” “What would I need to change to make my life the way I want it?” “What am I not accepting?”

This is how you begin to reinvent yourself. There are many good books available to help you with this process , a few hours spent in study and reflection will result in great gains. Also, don’t be afraid to get some professional help and support. A good counselor can teach you in a few sessions what it might a decade or a lifetime to learn. In closing, remember that it is critical to make serenity your number one goal. If your thoughts, goals and acts flow from this philosophy, serenity will be yours in time.