August 2021
Imagine you are watching a rather intense movie with a group of people and one of them sneezes. Immediately your attention is drawn away from the screen and you return to the present moment with someone saying, “ssshhh, or bless you”. In that moment you are aware of your surroundings: the darkness of the room, the layout of chairs, the faces of the crowd and then your attention is back with the movie. The interruption is nothing more than a brief thing that soon passes, like the upwelling of wind in the trees outside.
Then you are with a very angry member of your household accusing you of things you know you didn’t do, but they did. You listen to them rage at you, but you take a breath and recognize that their raised temper is their issue, not yours. You recognize that they are attempting to use you as a screen for their own projections, but you feel calm and composed and let them carry on until they lose interest or you simply walk away.
Then there is a child not doing what you want them to, but instead of screaming at them, you watch your breath and a passing surge of anger, breathe out and – creating space – become mindful of yourself and the situation and calmly choose a different strategy in being with the little one. You might decide to talk with him about what was going on when both of you are happy and calm, or not.
When we are caught up in the drama of it all and we react with anger we risk losing friendships, burning bridges, damaging our relations with children and partners, and fuelling the fires of our own discomfort and when they get too hot, we often project our antagonisms onto other people, thus repeating the reactive process.
In an equanimical space of calm, we can learn new ways of being. In that space, the projections of others feel like nothing more than pictures on a screen that we can respond to, or not, without automatic reaction. Here we are able to see what’s happening and why, and we can care about the other dispassionately (caring and not caring at the same time), and we become more resilient.
Caring, but not caring is to be dispassionate. It isn’t detachment; on the contrary, it is a deep engagement, a loving that isn’t arrogant nor aloof, nor self indulgent. It is a state of being mindful, without discriminating thoughts. From a dispassionate place we can choose right actions, right words as needed by the person and the situation.
We have choices. We can react in irritation, return anger with anger, or we can let that all pass. This doesn’t mean that we become passive and let things just happen to us, nor allow others to continue to abuse us. We can choose to speak up, and do whatever is actually required of us, or not. Our words and actions then come from a place of deeper understanding than mere reactivity.
Reactivity often comes from a place of feeling out of control, but sometimes it is habitual and a habit that developed within our family system: all the members of the family operated this way. We can choose to continue to behave like this, or break the cycle and do and be something different, something kinder to our own and others mental health. Rage doesn’t do us any good if that’s all we do.
We can learn to maintain mental calmness, composure, and evenness of temper, especially in difficult situations. This is what equanimity is. Equanimity brings us the pause to recognize we are wanting things to go a certain way and highlights our resistance to feeling out of control. Knowing when and what to let go of gives us peace as well as a better capacity to speak with other gently, firmly and caringly.
Mindfulness is key to all this. When we learn to monitor our reactions, slow them down through watching the breath, we have a means to the gift of equanimity.
