Serenity: Definition & Mental Health Benefits​ - The Berkeley Well-Being Institute

Serenity: Definition & Mental Health Benefits​

By Charlie Huntington, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
Serenity is a state of being characterized by a stable and enduring sense of inner peace, a peace that lasts through all sorts of trials and tribulations.
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Two years ago, within the same month, my romantic partner left me and I had to make the choice to switch graduate programs. I went from being fairly confident about what my future looked like to wondering who my partner would be and if I would ever get to be a practicing, licensed therapist. My sense that I was in charge of my own destiny was profoundly shaken. 
I had to acknowledge that my best efforts to manage my own life had gotten me to this point: newly single and nearly unemployed. For a time, I was demoralized and adrift.

Two years later, I look back on that month with a great deal of disbelief. I am a practicing therapist and still pursuing all of my professional goals; I am actively dating and feel confident that I will start a new romantic relationship soon. What happened in the last two years? To be sure, I worked hard to build a better support network, tackle my issues in therapy, and cultivate better coping habits for my stress. But above everything else, I developed a sense of serenity. It’s not something I experience every day, but now I have a sense of peace about how my life is unfolding. I have faced plenty more bumps in the road since that fateful month, but they haven’t shaken me the same way because I have a felt sense that the world is working as it should, even if I don’t like it. This is one form of serenity; let’s look at the psychological science of serenity to understand it better.
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What Is Serenity? (A Definition)​

Serenity is a sense of inner peace that is not subject to the whims of the outside world (Roberts & Whall, 1996). For people who describe themselves as having had or currently experiencing a sense of serenity, this state of being usually follows from having had a spiritual awakening of some kind. In other words, people with serenity have realized that their lives are not within their control—and they’re okay with that. They know they are not supposed to be in charge. Instead, they recognize that some larger force is working in their lives, and maybe in all of our lives, to make sure they will be okay.
 
That, at least, is the understanding of serenity as it is commonly described by addicts in recovery (Roberts & Whall, 1996). Perhaps the experience of serenity is especially compelling to people in addiction recovery because they have experienced chaos and continuous fear for so long. But the concept of serenity is also relevant for people without addiction. This is because serenity is not simply a state of being, exactly. Rather, it is created by an assortment of healthy mental and spiritual practices (Connors et al., 1999). Active prayer and meditation, use of other mindfulness skills, coping mechanisms, and in particular the ability to accept life as it comes, letting go of and detaching from one’s negative emotions, are all key components of reaching a state of serenity.
 
My own experience of gradually increasing serenity certainly aligns with this conventional understanding. Although I have had many moments when I could serenely accept things that used to really hurt, I have still suffered a lot along the way. In other words, my own serenity is growing but inconsistent. I am still liable to get really frustrated if I can’t fix an appliance or traffic makes me late. It is just that my heightened response to these experiences is becoming less and less frequent. In the words of my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Wolf, who saw me for the budding perfectionist I was, I am “sweating the small stuff” way less. And even the big things I might want to sweat seem to be part of a bigger plan.​

Opposite of Serenity​

The opposite of serenity is chaos: chaos of the emotional, spiritual, and physical variety. Any parent of a young child or two can tell you that serenity is rarely present in their household; life can often seem to move from one unmet need or frustration or crisis to the next. When I was really struggling as a graduate student, I lived in this chaos, and it seemed that every thing I might do—even if I was really going to enjoy it—was just another demand on my time. I seemed to be juggling way too many balls in the air, with never a moment’s peace.​

Nowadays, I am juggling almost as many balls but with far less stress and anxiety. What has changed? I practice proper self-care, giving myself the rest and good nutrition I really need. And I make sure to carefully ask myself whether each thing I might worry about is (a) within my control and (b) worth worrying about. Serenity seems to emerge for many people from the acceptance that very little is within their control.

Benefits of Serenity

The psychological research is fairly clear on this: The more serenity people have, the better their mental and physical well-being. For example, one study found that people higher in self-reported serenity experienced more positive emotions and fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression (Kreitzer et al., 2009). Another found that people who were higher in serenity were less likely to ruminate, or get stuck in negative thought patterns, and therefore experienced less anxiety about their health (Wolfradt et al., 2014).

I think these are useful studies to know about because they are not focused on people with addictions, who are usually the population people associate with the concept of serenity. In other words, pursuing a sense of serenity in one’s life has the potential to help pretty much everyone, not just people trying to recover from addictions.​

Examples of Serenity

It might be helpful to get more concrete about serenity and provide some examples. Here are some of the characteristics often found in people with a lot of serenity in their lives (Roberts & Aspy, 1993):
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  • An inner sense of peace and security. People with serenity know that they are safe and good. Outside events may rattle the foundation of this belief, but they won’t shatter it. Serenity means a deep knowing that the world will be okay and you will be okay and you don’t necessarily have to change anything for this okayness to continue.
  • The ability to accept life on life’s terms. People with serenity understand that life will throw them curveballs and that many—or maybe even most—of their plans won’t work out. They don’t take this personally, because they know that trying to bend the world to their will simply doesn’t work. Most of them have tried that route many times over, and they have ultimately been left frustrated. So they let the randomness of the universe wash over them.
  • An increased ability to stay in the present moment. Because people with serenity are not constantly resisting “life on life’s terms,” they are able to be present much of the time. If they are feeling bad, they get curious about it and stick with the feeling. If they feel good, they feel grateful but try their best not to slip into worry about how long the good feelings will last. As many an addict would say, they try to take things “one day at a time.”
  • Trust in a higher power or energetic force in the universe. As we noted above, in most instances an experience of serenity comes paired with an awareness of a power greater than oneself. After all, if I am not in charge, who is? It is hard to imagine that all the things that have gone right in my life happened purely through chance; perhaps some greater force is behind this.
  • The capacity to get some distance from one’s own emotions. When people with serenity are accepting the present moment as it is, this includes their own emotions. They don’t get drawn into resisting what they feel—they let the emotions unfold. Maybe they say a prayer, call a friend, go on a walk, or take some deep breaths. Maybe they speak their truth to whomever is upsetting them. People with serenity have found skillful ways to respond to their emotions.
  • The ability to place oneself in the bigger picture. People with serenity know just how important they aren’t in the grand scheme of things. Yes, you read that right—people with serenity have egos that are nearing their proper size. They have a strong enough sense of self to know their worth and to resist being mistreated, but they are not self-centered enough to insist that the world revolves around them. They have accepted their rightful size in the universe, and they live happier lives as a result.

Serenity Prayer

When you hear the word serenity, especially if you have been in any mental health spaces or have interacted with people with addictions, the phrase “serenity prayer” has probably popped into your head. Written by Reinhold Niebuhr, the Serenity Prayer itself reads as follows: “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.” Despite starting with the word “God,” this phrase is used by religious and nonreligious people alike the world over as a mantra or prayer they can say when they need spiritual support (Campbell, 2015).

The power of this prayer is in its ability to point us toward two effective coping skills (Campbell, 2015). Is it time to keep trying to change the world around me, or is it time to let things be what they will be? Both choices are a powerful way to move through a tough situation. But we often are uncertain of which choice to make, so we ask for guidance from some source outside ourselves.​

The Serenity Prayer is an integral part of all twelve-step programs, the personal help groups for people with addictions or relationship issues (Ferentzy et al., 2010). People as diverse as gamblers, pornography addicts, and people stuck in codependent patterns with their loved ones all fall back on its guidance. It has the potential to be just as helpful for people who aren’t religious or facing a particular challenge though; many would argue that anybody in need of more spiritual peace can benefit from this prayer (Campbell, 2015). If you would like to hear some more about the power of the Serenity Prayer, I recommend watching this video:

Video: The Wisdom Found in the Serenity Prayer​

Serenity & Mental Health

The benefits of serenity clearly extend to the realm of mental health. People who are higher in what some psychologists call “dispositional serenity” seem to experience greater mental well-being and less stress (Soysa et al., 2021). The aspects of serenity such as humility, faith, inner peace, and acceptance were all found to be associated with these positive psychological traits.

Serenity in the Mountains

Many people find serenity being in natural spaces, with the mountains being one frequent example (Annerstedt van den Bosch, 2015). The scale of the mountains may be a particularly compelling aspect of this pattern, as many people find themselves pleasantly dwarfed by the vastness and ancientness of nature when in a mountain range.

Serenity in the City

That said, it is possible to have serenity in a city too. For example, one interesting study tracked how people use words related to serenity when posting pictures online of their experiences in cities (Wartmann et al., 2019). People were most likely to write about serenity when near water or when watching a sunset, suggesting that it is perhaps the merging of a cityscape with signs of nature that leads us to feel serenity.

Serenity & Wellness

Since serenity is so central to recovery from addiction, it must be part of the wellness that comes with healing from addiction too, right? Indeed, people in recovery subjectively report that serenity is an important part of their healing journey (Rushing, 2008), and surveys of hundreds of addicts in recovery indicate much the same thing—their mental health improves in tandem with their serenity increasing (Pekala et al., 2009).

Quotes on Serenity

  • “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." — Reinhold Niebuhr
  • “Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." — Thomas Szasz
  • “Serenity is the balance between good and bad, life and death, horrors and pleasures. Life is, as it were, defined by death. If there wasn't death of things, then there wouldn't be any life to celebrate." — Norman Davies
  • “In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish." — Simone Weil

Articles Related to Serenity

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:

Books Related to Serenity

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Serenity​

If you want more serenity in your life, you may want to try out some mindfulness or spiritual practices. Or just get out in nature. There are many ways to get more in touch with this sense of inner peace and groundedness that has improved the well-being of many people.

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