How to Continue Daily Serenity/Step 10

Is the goal for your life daily serenity–living in peace with yourself and others.  Facing the world with the understanding that failure and mistakes are part of the human experience.

How we choose to handle mistakes and failures in our lives develops our character.  Does a problem, failure or mistake keep us from behaving with:

Justice

Generosity

Selflessness

Sanity

Prudence

Honesty

Humility

Self-Control

Straight Forwardness

Nope, as Ryan Holiday says in his book The Obstacle is the Way, it does not. This list composed by Marcus Aurelius in the first century gives us guidelines for reviewing our daily behavior to find daily serenity.

Paul gives the same idea in Galatians 5:22.  Paul ends with the statement “against these (actions below) there is not law”–meaning nothing prevents anyone from acting on these attributes but themselves.

 

Both the first-century secular Roman world and the Christian world believed these to be helpful character building attributes.

What would it mean if you practiced them, too?  How would your daily serenity change?

Why Do the Tenth Step? 10 Step Ten Guide

Completing a 10th step daily changes your perspective on life.   Do you want to learn to meditate–do a daily tenth step?  Do you want to learn more about yourself–do a daily tenth step?  Do you want to keep a short list of your hurts, habits and hang-ups–do the tenth step?  Do you want daily serenity so you sleep well at night?  You guessed it, do the tenth step.

In the Joyous Family moto, Trust God, Tell the Truth, Clean House, the tenth step cleans your house.  A few minutes clearing the dishes, putting away toys, straightening the living room each day, creates order–outer order inner calm.

Same with the tenth step, a few minutes correcting the mistakes and resentments from the day, means a lot less cleaning for your next 4th step.

The tenth step keeps your journey to freedom on the right path.  It is the path to daily serenity.

Practical Ways to Complete the Tenth Step

Here are multiple ways to take the tenth step to enjoy daily serenity.

• Write a quick list of the positive and negative events of the day.
• Follow a Simple Guide
• Review the day in a prayer and bless the next day.
• Share it with an accountability buddy over email.
• Journal
• Use 10th Step phone app
• Be Peaceful At Family Gatherings with the 10th Step

 

The Path to Daily Serenity

Who wants to be angry and upset all the time?  Are you sure you want to give up this part of your identity?  Let’s test the waters with the first 3 questions of the 10th Step.

1.  Was I resentful?

2.  Was I dishonest?

3.  Did I promptly admit when I was wrong today?

Remember, in Step 8, we talked about a living amends.  Step 10 builds the framework for making an amends promptly.  This framework sets us free to experience “seranity”–Sanity + Serenity =”Seranity”, a simple equation that happens by reviewing the positives and negatives in your life daily.

Daily inventories keep the internal house clean.  Clean builds on clean.  Releasing the angry resentments and joyful daily loving full fills the scripture.

By practicing the 10th Step, you confess to God the issues of the day, decide on a course of action to correct them and move forward into freedom by making your life a place of internal peace.

Breathe deep! The weight of the day is no longer on your shoulders; not your love but His perfect love casts out all the resentments, fears, struggles of the day.   Now you can make a plan to make the amends tomorrow and rest in peace tonight.

You can try it for 21 days.  See if your loved ones notice a change in you.