Dear loyal Natural Awakenings readers, 

Let me take a moment to share with you lessons I have learned while making my way through life. I hope this helps. 

The turning stones of life happen. Unexpected change can shock us and sometimes paralyze us with confusion. Our direction, our plan, our future is altered by change. 

The trigger of change may go unnoticed or is thought to be trivial, yet suddenly unwelcome change happens. There are several responses we can choose—we can worry, short circuit ourselves, create internal and external panic. Or we can choose acceptance. 

Controlling what we can control, dealing with the rest, and making decisions one step at a time. Letting go, surrendering to what is, and as they say dealing with it.  

How we deal with it matters.  

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

Being in recovery for over 30 years, today I still rely on the Serenity Prayer that helped save my life. Many additional principles and people contributed to putting the puzzle of me back together, but the Serenity Prayer was my rock. It quiets my mind from projecting off into the future of fear. It comforts me with its simplicity and common sense. In some ways it is my foundation of thinking, not only in my everyday living, but especially in a crisis. I say it a thousand times a day when my mind wants to go to worry, fear, panic. For years I have said it every night before bed, rarely missing my prayer of gratitude and this simple but powerful prayer.

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

People saved my life by helping me, by nurturing me, by encouraging me, but most of all by loving me.  Now more than ever it is a time for us to show the strength, the compassion, the will to love ourselves through this change. 

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

In peace, love, good health, and much gratitude,

Joe Dunne

Publisher