Of all the tools that I used that got me through my darkest times, two stand out as the biggest, most important things.
The first was the phrase "no one is coming". This simple phrase, as painful as it sounds, gave me the clarity I needed to stop looking for answers outside of myself. There was no hero, coming over that hill to rescue me. I had to stand up, brush myself off and do it my damn self. At that moment I finally saw my hero, as big as life, in my mind's eye, literally coming up over a hill to save me. It was me. I was the hero I was waiting for. Dude was bad-ass too.
The second thing was something I came up with after watching Joel Osteen one day. He was talking about faith. He said this often, that God was all powerful and if you truly had faith you would thank him for answering your prayers instead of asking him to answer them. It was a leap of faith. He said that when you show God your faith, an army of Angels start heading towards you and all you needed to do was stay in faith, for they were on their way. I took this powerful concept, this leap of faith - and used it to create my own version of the serenity prayer. I could not say this twice through without feeling better, massively better in fact. And I spoke about this miracle in my life a lot at the time. I feel that maybe this would be a good time to start talking about it again. Try it, try to say this to yourself or out loud even, repeat it until you feel a change. Like I said, I never made it through this prayer twice without feeling much better. It is truly a miracle.
God, thank you for the serenity you have given me to accept the things I cannot change. I am so grateful.
Thank you for the courage you have given me to change the things I can. I am so grateful.
Thank you for the wisdom you have given me to know the difference. I am so grateful.
Serenity, courage, wisdom.