As the leaves change and I feel the mix of delight at the beauty of the world and sadness at the loss of the light, I feel like mentioning Equanimity.
Such a quietly profound word, one whose meaning I’d never really considered. Generally defined as a calm and steady mental state, an emotional composure present especially when facing stress, pressure, shock, or difficult circumstances, I particularly liked one description I found that was ‘an evenness of mind’.
In a world full of disharmony, where we feel tension, conflict, longing, jealousy, grief and desire to varying degrees in an average month, our internal emotional compass is whizzing around unable to settle a lot of the time.
'An evenness of mind’ might evoke a promise of peace, a serene state that frees us from all our emotional stressors. But this is not a realistic promise in today’s world and this is not what Equanimity is.
Equanimity invites us to become curious about what we are feeling rather than pretend the feelings aren’t there. It insists on us stepping into our inner tumultuous world and developing a way to hold the tensions rather than turning away from them or trying desperately to resolve them.
My interest in it as a psychological state stems from exploring contemplation and how it positively impacts our health and wellbeing. This word Equanimity soulfully captures the intention of such conscious observation. For balance and harmony aren’t found in the quiet of a thoroughly peaceful mind and they aren’t found in consensus, they are found within the powerful tension created by the continually conflicting forces that create our daily lives. The ups and downs. The rights and wrongs. The draining and the nurturing.
The skill is learning how to compassionately hold this tension, to manage the scales that are always slightly tipping off balance, scales that are never static.
This ‘mastery of imbalance’ is what sits under many of the ancient practices, especially those from the East. Contradictory forces that are actually complementary and deeply interdependent. Contemplation allows us to hold within us both a level of stillness and an active awareness, so as to listen and make good judgement around what needs our engagement and what needs to simply be allowed to be.
And as always, we return to the Tea.
Drinking a delicious cup of Chinese tea is in fact an intentional act of equanimity as, through its impact on our brain chemistry, it puts us in a calm, even-minded state of being. This allows us to enter the space of healthy tension between the left and right brain, the active and the receptive, the calm and the wakeful. It allows our nervous system to relax, to feel, to regulate and to restore. Here we are well placed to hold the swaying tensions in a more harmonious way and thus move with more ease through life.
So here’s to tension and happy Samhain. Representing the threshold between summer and winter, life and death, light and shadow, why not drink a cup of delicious tea and sit in the fertile space between what was and what is becoming and see where your Equanimity dial is set!
Have a wonderful month and we look forward to speaking to you again in December.
Anne and Ric x