Sustaining Inner Peace During Early Recovery

There is a prayer that is often said at the beginning and end of the 12-Step recovery meetings known as the “Serenity Prayer.” It goes, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” This ”serenity” is an essential component of a healthy recovery. It is also an essential component of sustaining inner peace.

What Exactly Is Inner Peace?

Many people confuse “inner peace” with the elimination of all negative feelings and emotions. This is simply not true. Inner peace is about finding a balance between the good and the bad and finding a sense of serenity in knowing that both can exist in tandem.

We also gain a sense of serenity by understanding that inner peace is also about understanding that when we try to control everything (both the good and the bad), we are creating unnecessary pain and discomfort.

It is only by “letting go” that we can attain inner peace. In recovery, this is often referred to as “ceasing fighting everyone and everything.” We find inner peace by accepting the bad as well as the good and putting no greater attachment on either.

The Importance of Sustaining Inner Peace During Early Recovery

Early recovery can be a very raw time. It is also a time when many people start to feel the type of raw emotions that have long been subdued and numbed via alcohol and substances.

The management of these emotions may mean the difference between a temporary “fix” and potential relapse or long-term recovery and continued sobriety. So, how can we manage these emotions and attain and sustain inner peace in early recovery? Via a practice of healthy introspective meditation and prayer.

Utilizing Meditation and Prayer to Attain Inner Peace

Adopting a meditation and/or prayer practice can become an essential part of a recovery regimen. Often, people balk at meditation because they are unfamiliar with it or they have preconceived biases toward it. However, many of these same people tried meditation and prayer and soon found it to be a cornerstone of their recovery.

One of the reasons that meditation and prayer can be so helpful in meditation is that they can calm the “monkey mind” that is so quick to take us to a place of morbid self-reflection or unhelpful catastrophizing about the future. Also, meditation and prayer offer an opportunity for the essential action of acceptance.

Utilizing Mediation and Prayer to Sustain Inner Peace

Once a meditation and prayer practice has begun it must be cultivated over time to maintain its effectiveness and for us to sustain that essential sense of inner peace. It also helps us to continue the practice of unattachment to everything except our attachment to the soul and a Higher Power of our understanding.

A lot of the emotional pain that we feel (both those of us in recovery and out) comes from two scenarios. One is the fear that we are going to lose something that we have. The other is the fear that we are not going to get something that we want. Accepting that both of those scenarios are ultimately out of our control can relieve us of that pain and fear. This relief can arise from sustained inner peace.

Meditation and Prayer and Holding Acceptance

There is another statement that is often read at many 12-Step meetings known as the “Acceptance Statement.” It begins, “Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact of my life – unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake…”

Mediation also offers us the opportunity to break out of the negative “soul cycle” that we are stuck in and allows us the personal growth that is essential in early recovery. We must go inside so that we can grow on the outside.

Yahlight: Returning to Peace by Meditating With Jesus

At Yahlight, we know that connecting with Christ through meditation is one of the greatest ways to attain and sustain a sense of inner peace. The spirit of Christ awakens in us the mission to have the lives that we were always meant to have.

There is an oft-dropped portion of the Serenity Prayer that goes, “Trusting that God will make all things right, if I surrender to his will. That I may be reasonably happy in this world and supremely happy in the next.” This is where inner peace lies, knowing all will be okay when I meditate with Jesus and trust in God’s love.

Inner peace helps people in recovery manage stress and improve mental health. Inner peace is about holding the good and the bad at the same time and having faith that a Higher Power is in charge and is leading us to something better. In meditation, the bad may come up, but we hold it in acceptance, love, and peace. In prayer, we thank God for all the things that are good and positive. Using breathwork, we release a relaxation response in the body and awaken the heart where wisdom is located. When peace is disturbed, meditation, prayer, and breathwork are ways to return to peace when a trigger in recovery occurs. For more information, please reach out via our website.