ACA Prayers
For creating a connection with our “True Self”
ACA for inner peace and serenity.
We share our experience, strength and hope with each other as we laugh together, cry together and know that we are home.
SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE
Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace, and people everywhere possibly could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has been, up to now, a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world. Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:
- A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than on fears based on past experiences
- An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment
- A loss of interest in judging other people
- A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others
- A loss of interest in conflict
- A loss of the ability to worry &this is a very serious symptom
- Frequent, overwhelming episodes of appreciation
- Contented feelings of connection with others and nature
- Frequent attacks of smiling
- An increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen
- An increased susceptibility to love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it
ACA Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change,
the courage to change the one I can,
and the wisdom to know that one is me.
From Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families (BRB)
– Chapter 14 – Taking our Program to Work
© Adult Children of Alcoholics World Service Organisation
A long version of an ACA Serenity Prayer
Loving parent, grant me the serenity,
to accept the people I cannot change,
the courage to change the one I can,
and the wisdom to know that one is me.
Grant me patience for the changes that take time,
An appreciation for all that I have,
A tolerance for those with difference struggles
And the strength to get up and try again
One day at a time.
Thank you.
Prayers that can be used in ACA meetings
Loving Parent
Dear Loving Parent,
I recognize you,
and I am depending on you
to help me be gentler with myself
and more accepting of myself.
Please challenge me to try if I am apathetic,
but also help me give myself a break
if I judge myself too harshly.
Help me focus on progress rather than perfection.
Thank you.
Higher Power,
Help me to be willing to recognize the Loving Parent inside of me.
Help me integrate my Inner Child more actively into my daily life so that I remain awake spiritually.
Grant me the courage to change the things I can.
Grant me the wisdom of my Inner Child.
Thank you.
Higher Power,
remove from me all my defects of character and integrate my survival traits,
which block me from accepting your divine love and
living with true humility toward others.
Renew my strength so that I might help myself and
others along this path of recovery.
Grant me wholeness.
Thank you.
Higher Power,
help me returning to my body and to become fully aware of it.
Help me with finding all the pieces of the puzzle to reconstruct my wholeness.
Thank you.
Higher Power,
help me to become my own Loving Parent and
with the healing of my traumatic childhood.
Teach me how to be a Loving Parent to myself.
Guide me to the child within.
Thank you.
Loving Parent,
help me reclaim my childhood innocence and
to live more gently today.
Thank you.
Loving parent,
grant me the serenity,
To accept the people I cannot change,
Courage to change the one I can
And wisdom to know that one is me.
Grant me patience for the changes that take time,
An appreciation for all that I have,
A tolerance for those with difference struggles
And the strength to get up and try again
One day at a time.
Thank you.
Loving parent,
grant me the serenity,
To accept the people I cannot change,
Courage to change the one I can
And wisdom to know that one is me.
Thank you.
Loving parent,
grant me the serenity,
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference.
Grant me patience for the changes that take time,
An appreciation for all that I have,
A tolerance for those with difference struggles
And the strength to get up and try again
One day at a time.
Thank you.
Loving parent,
Grant me the serenity,
To accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can
And wisdom to know the difference.
Thank you.
Gathered Together
Higher Power, gathered together we find great peace and serenity
We seek hope to become whole as we were created to be.
We find strength to deal with life as we grow in our program.
We trust that as we find courage,
we will feel free and secure.
We are grateful to have the support of our group who understands us.
We believe that your presence in our life will give us all that we need.
We close our meeting with a feeling of belonging and being loved.
Keep Coming Back!!
It works if you work It and
You are Worth It!
Fifth Step Prayer
Divine Creator. Thank you for this chance to speak
honestly with another person about the events of my life.
Help me accept responsibility for my actions.
Let me show compassion for myself and my family
as I revisit my thinking and actions
that have blocked me from your love.
Restore my child within.
Restore my feelings.
Restore my trust in myself.
Amen.
(BRB p. 171)
Seventh Step Prayer – Character Defects
God. I am now ready that you should remove from me all my defects of character,
which block me from accepting your divine love and
living with true
humility toward others.
Renew my strength so that I might help myself and
others along this path of recovery.
“I humbly ask you to:
“Remove my defect of _________
Amen.
(BRB pp.220-221)
Seventh Step Prayer – Laundry List Traits
God. I am now ready that you should
integrate my survival traits, which block
me from accepting your divine love.
Grant me wholeness.
“I humbly ask you to:
“Integrate my trait of _________
Amen.”
(BRB p. 221)
God,
When I look let me truly see.
When I listen let me truly hear.”
(BRB p. 274)
Set Aside Prayer
God, please set aside everything that
I think I know about myself, my brokeness,
my spiritual path and You,
for an open mind and a new experience with myself,
my brokeness, my spiritual path and especially You.
Amen.
Consent Prayer
God, I offer myself to You,
to build with me and
to do with me as You wish.
Relieve me of the bondage of self,
that I may do Your will.
Take away my difficulties,
that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your Power, Your Love, and Your Way of Life.
May I do Your will always!
Amen.
Transformation Prayer – St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;
That where there is hatred, I may bring love;
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
That where there is error, I may bring truth;
That where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
That where there is despair, I may bring hope;
That where there are shadows, I may bring light;
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
To understand, than to be understood;
To love, than to be loved.
For it is by self-forgetting that one finds;
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven;
It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
Amen.
ACA Beautiful Prayer
(By Macrina W, Seasons of Your Heart)
God, help me to believe the truth about myself –
no matter how beautiful it is!
Healing
My Creator, I am now willing that You should have all of me, good and bad.
I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character
that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows.
Grant me strength as I go out from here to do Your bidding.
Amen.
Fourth Step Prayer
Divine Creator.
Help me to be rigorously honest and
to care for myself during this Fourth Step process.
Let me practice gentleness and
not abandon myself on this spiritual journey.
Help me remember that I have attributes.
(BRB p.171)
We version – Serenity Prayer
God. Grant us the serenity
to accept the things we cannot change,
the courage to change the things we can and
the wisdom to know the difference.
Beyond our wildest dreams.
I put my hand in yours,
And together we can do,
What we could never do alone.
No longer is there a sense of hopelessness
No longer must we each depend
Upon our own unsteady willpower.
We are all together now,
Reaching out our hands
For power and strength greater than our own.
And, as we join hands,
We find love and understanding
Beyond our wildest dreams.
(Rozanne S, OA 1968)
Six Essential Recovery Tasks
1) Recognition
This task centers around our recognition of dysfunction including physical responses, cognitive problems and interpersonal difficulties in social situations and with significant others. The fellow traveler’s task is to encourage this vital recognition of the signs of distress in a way that builds trust and creates the sense of unity needed to continue in the recovery process.
2) Recollection
This task involves uncovering and embracing the hidden dissociated parts of the self. Because of traumatic conditioning, these hidden parts of our selves perceive, evaluate and respond automatically as independent operating systems. Each system holds a specific set of memories, beliefs and related habits that maintain dissociation. The fellow traveler’s task is to provide assurance that recovery is possible and the return of memories and sensation will not be self-destructive.
3) Disobedience
The basic belief in a traumatizing family is that the practice and
support of destructive behavior by adults should be tolerated and accepted without protest by the children. Children are threatened, punished, and coerced into keeping the adults’ behavior secret. They also incorporate the adults’ dissociative and destructive patterns into their own being. Disobedience includes breaking these habits of avoidance and denial and relinquishing our beliefs about maintaining destructive behavior. This may require detoxification from addiction
to exogenous substances and the deconditioning of habitual body tension and cognitive hypervigilance. The main subtask is to disobey irrational authority by challenging the belief that we need to continue these behaviors.
4) Retaliation
The motivating force being inhibited is the talionic response (direct eye for an eye retaliation for abuse [Reik]). This instinctive rage toward people who have caused us harm has been forcefully inhibited and is often directed back toward the self (retroflexion – going against the reflexes) or displaced onto
others. Unblocking this energy and safely expressing the talionic response opens us up to feel other inhibited emotions and accelerates the process of mourning and grief. The primary subtask is learning to discriminate hostile introjects that have been pounded in and swallowed whole from the people who first caused us to live in fear and to stop displacing rage onto symbolic stand-ins in the present. The fellow traveler can support the differentiation process and the appropriate expression of talionic rage which strengthens reality testing about expected retaliation.5) Separation
The task of separation is to distinguish between what has been termed “me and not me“ (Sullivan). This includes recognizing the internalizations and confusing beliefs of people who hurt us, as well as considering the concept of locus of control and the possibility of independent thought and action.
6) Independence
This final task centers around completion of reflective grieving (mourning the loss of possibilities, opportunities and self-actualization), learning to reparent ourselves, and mastering developmental stages that may have been missed or poorly negotiated. The fellow traveler can assist in the overall process by encouraging the development, rehearsal and implementation of effective social skills and self determined actions that increase self-esteem and selfworth. Most importantly, completion of this task establishes the capacity for genuine intimacy and successful present-directed, goal-oriented living.
Courage to change
to your
“True Self”
All ACA groups or online meetings that would like to join ACA Fellow World Travelers – ACA Intergroup IG#728 for mutual help and support are more than welcome