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Q: What does it mean to develop equanimity in everyday life?

A: Developing equanimity means staying steady while emotions, thoughts and situations change. It is not about suppressing feelings but meeting experiences better without being pulled into constant reactions with others who trigger you.

Who is coming to save you?

It’s all up to you how you eat cleanly, how you live and how you conduct yourself to reduce and minimise the pain the suffering or consequences of everyday life. It’s all down to you and no one else. You rescue yourself and don’t rely on anything else but yourself. You are the only being that can rescue you and no one else.

Equanimity is not about being calm all the time or pretending that nothing affects you. It is about learning how to stay steady when life shifts hard against you. Things will still happen and people will still speak harshly to you. Emotions will still rise fast and keen against you. Equanimity is the ability to remain in the now without being pulled apart by every reaction that appears in you.

Most people think equanimity means emotional numbness. That idea turns a lot of people away from it but in reality, equanimity allows you to feel more not less. You still feel sadness, anger, joy and fear. The difference is that you are no longer carried away by them. You experience them without becoming them anymore.

Developing equanimity starts with noticing how reactive the mind can be. A single snide critical comment can change your whole mood for hours. A look from someone can create stories that last all day or days. These reactions often happen so fast that they feel automatic and equanimity begins when you slow this process down and start seeing it clearly.

It starts with you. That people you live with or work with or people around you in public are filled with negativity and disorders or disturbances and knowingly or unknowingly find someone like you to trigger. In most cases it’s never about you. It’s most often the other person just discharging their need to upset someone else. This can be changed to live and feel better!

The body usually reacts before the mind finishes its new emerging storey. Tightness in the chest, shallow breathing, heat in the face or a drop in energy are common signs. When you learn to notice these signals, you create a new space. That space is where equanimity grows and without that space reactions take over.

One mistake people make is trying to control their or your emotions. Pushing feelings away does not create equanimity but creates tension in your nervous system. Real steadiness comes from allowing emotions to arise without feeding them with extra thoughts. You do not need to judge them or explain them; you simply let them pass by, by knowing they will pass.

Life constantly presents pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Praise, blame, success, failure, comfort and discomfort all come and go. When the mind clings to pleasant experiences and resists unpleasant ones, then real suffering increases. Equanimity is learning to meet both with the same grounded still calmer presence.

You can care deeply and still remain steady. In fact, equanimity allows clearer caring. When reactions calm down your responses become more accurate and you act instead of react. You speak with intention rather than impulse or reflex actions.

Developing daily equanimity takes time as it is not something you force. It grows through repeated exposure to experiences without avoiding things that appear. Meditation sits or practices can help but equanimity is not limited to sitting ‘just’ quietly. It is practiced in conversations, disagreements, waiting rooms, traffic and times of uncertainty or even stress related scenarios.

One helpful practice is learning to pause and living a more healthy naturopathic lifestyle, so before responding to any situation that is negative, take one breath and feel the body go limp inside. This small pause interrupts the automatic reaction that is micro arising.

If you’re serious about developing equanimity, then remember this as if with your life. That within a microsecond or a nanosecond there will be an arising of dislike and in that one second you have a choice to drop it and just observe it otherwise that nanosecond of dislike will soar and is the very seed, the very microscopic moment that turns to hatred and wars all round the world and all the dark of the world arises with that one nanosecond of dislike.

Did you ever stop for a moment to think that all the hatred of the world, all starts with a nanosecond of dislike and it is this which is developed and learnt in meditation by slowing yourself right down to observe that moment, when you see something you don’t like, a concertina of things opens up in your mind to join that dislike and then it turns into, judgement and anger and hatred and criticism in seconds and then grows worse before it subsides and all that arises from that one second of dislike.

Over time this pause becomes natural and you start to sense when you are about to be pulled off balance into that field of negativity.

Another important part is letting go of the need to be right all the time. Much of emotional reactivity comes from defending identity. When opinions are challenged the nervous system responds as if you or I am under threat and equanimity develops when you allow different views to exist without needing to win or score point.

Uncertainty is another area where equanimity is tested well as the mind wants control and predictability. Learning to rest with not knowing reduces anxiety and softens resistance. This does not mean giving up on action or self-defences, it just means acting without needing certainty in your feelings.

Pain and loss are often where equanimity deepens the most as these experiences strip away illusions of your control. When allowed they can teach a quiet strength. Equanimity does not remove grief but it prevents additional suffering created by resistance and self-blaming.

Equanimity also involves honesty as pretending to be calm in the face of another’s negativity towards you, when you are not creates inner conflicts that will grow. True steadiness includes acknowledging when you are unsettled as this honesty keeps the nervous system regulated and prevents suppression or burying things, which come back later.

Over time equanimity changes how you relate to others. You become less reactive to criticism and less dependent on approval. This creates healthier boundaries as you can listen without absorbing emotional charge, you can engage without losing yourself.

Equanimity grows quietly, daily. There are no dramatic signs as you simply notice that situations that once overwhelmed you no longer do and you recover faster. You take things less personally as you remain connected to yourself during changes.

Authors final thoughts!

Developing equanimity is a lifelong process of self-improvement and self-training. It unfolds through patience, practice and a passion to stay present without falling into external situations or being swept away by others need to dump their hurt and pain onto you wearing all the different masks got people put on in everyday life.

This article is human written!

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