How the Serenity Prayer Can Support Your Mental Health Journey
Leah Young is featured in this Verywell Mind article about how the Serenity Prayer can be used in your mental health journey. Young notes the prayer is, "a way of challenging our emotional reaction, allowing us to empower ourselves." While the Serenity Prayer was founded in faith-based practices, the article notes how it has evolved in recovery programs.
The Serenity Prayer is one of the most ubiquitous lines of wisdom, frequently mentioned in pop culture, faith-based practices, and mental health spaces. According to Leah Young, LCPC, Clinical Manager at Pathlight Mood & Anxiety Center, the Serenity Prayer “is a way of challenging our emotional reaction, allowing us to empower ourselves over the things we have control over, and letting go of what we don’t. It helps us to be realistic and not be driven completely by our emotional reactions.”
The prayer’s origins can be attributed to the American theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), who spent most of his career as a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.1 It’s believed the prayer was written in 1932.