Chapter 11
Be Equanimous
Equanimity develops as you train your mind, just as focus and clarity do. Equanimity is not something that you have full control over. Rather, you create the groundwork for equanimity to naturally arise in your life and in your experiences.
I described equanimity in Chapter 2, and I will expand on it more fully in this chapter. From an internal point of view, equanimity refers to accepting what is arising in your sensory experience without resisting or distorting it. For example, if you are angry, allow the sensations of anger to arise in your body—don't interfere with the feel, or the physical sensations associated with your emotions.
However, at no point should you act out of the anger (or other emotion), either verbally or physically. When you are equanimous with an emotion, you locate it in the body, notice where it resides, how it may be shifting, moving, growing, weakening, or whatever it's doing. By being aware of it and tracking it, you will loosen its grip on you. The result is that you can now decide how you will behave. By being aware in this way, you are in greater control of yourself. You are in a position to respond rather than react.
From this place of equanimity you will determine exactly how you will respond. The situation may warrant that you communicate your anger or displeasure, or you may determine that this is not the time to express any anger at all. Equanimity gives you freedom; the freedom to respond in the most appropriate way, as determined by you, in any given situation. A mindful leader does not behave randomly. From a place of equanimity, the mindful leader knows exactly what is appropriate. This knowledge comes from a place of wisdom.
You may be wondering why being equanimous matters. It matters because it means you don't suffer when you experience unpleasant feel. You experience the pain that is there emotionally, but you do not suffer. The suffering is optional. It's the resistance to pain that causes suffering. As counterintuitive as it may seem, when you give the pain permission to be, it dissolves. Of course, this takes practice.
But there is also another aspect to equanimity, and this pertains to pleasant experiences. I would not want to leave you with the impression that all you can work with is pain or unpleasant experiences. When you work with that which is pleasant and you allow it to be without grasping or attaching to it, you experience fulfillment. Imagine that your company has been pursuing a large contract. The competition was stiff, and you have just found out the contract was granted to your company. Undoubtedly, you will be experiencing joy and excitement. But if your mind goes to how you hope to get more of this kind of contract and how you hope you come through and perform well, chances are that the pleasure you initially experienced will soon fizzle and may even be replaced by stress. Now, instead imagine that you have trained yourself to identify and track feel, and you know where you experience the joy and excitement in your body. As you maintain awareness of the location of these sensations, you will become aware also that the pleasure or joy is really enhanced because of your awareness of it. In fact, the more skilled you are at having a full experience of what is arising in your body, the greater the fulfillment.
Remember, when you experience equanimity internally, you can then choose your external response. This can mean that you choose to change the external situation you find yourself in. It can also mean that you choose to change nothing at all.
But how does equanimity manifest externally? What does it look like to others? What people see in an equanimous person is a deep calm and an even tone and temperament. The person is seen to be in total control, with sound decision making skills and judgment. He or she seems able to take facts into account, even in the heat of the moment, and to respond by addressing the issues rather than allowing things to get personal. Equanimous people are not derogatory, sarcastic, or insulting. Even when they call it as they see it, it is always about the situation, not the person.
There is another important aspect about an equanimous response. If someone is responding equanimously, he or she is completely comfortable saying they don't know the answer or taking responsibility when having made an error. This in itself makes that person stand out among others. Very often people feel they need to have all the answers and, rather than acknowledge an error, they are likely to blame or not take responsibility.
A final note about equanimity is that it is not an all-or-nothing state. There will be times when you are very equanimous and other times when you aren't. The reality is that it all counts. Even a small amount of equanimity will reduce suffering from an unpleasant experience or generate a good measure of fulfillment from a positive one.
Mindful Makeover
The Scenario
Despite your best efforts and successes, the board decides to fire you as the leader of your organization.
Before
You are shocked by this and you blame certain board members, equity analysts, your team, your employees, the rating agencies, and the regulators. Your self-esteem takes a beating; you are angry, and you suffer greatly.
Because you spend so much time blaming others, you relive this very difficult situation over and over again. This deepens your suffering and does not allow you to heal. As a result, you are unable to learn from what has happened and move beyond the situation.
After
As a mindful leader, you are aware of how difficult this is. You are initially shocked, disappointed, hurt, and angry. You allow yourself to fully experience this. You know where the feel is in your body. You are aware of the talk and image in your thoughts. And you experience it all fully with equanimity. The degree of equanimity will vary moment by moment. Some moments you will be very equanimous and other moments only moderately so. And that is perfectly fine—this is not a game of perfect. This means that you allow all of the pain to arise and, naturally, it will be significant. But by not grasping at the pain, suppressing the hurt, or denying how difficult it is, you're less likely to fall into the blaming trap. By not resisting the pain that arises, you do not experience the suffering. In time, the pain will subside and eventually dissolve.
This way of handling a difficult situation enables you to more easily get back on your feet, learn from the situation, and move on from it. The equanimity allows you to experience the pain but not the suffering. You purify any negative patterns that you experience, change what is within your control, and accept what you can't change.
One of the most effective ways to work with equanimity is to simply allow whatever arises in your meditation to do so without pushing, pulling, denying, or suppressing it: if thoughts arise as you meditate, let them arise. If you are working with the Internal Awareness technique, then thoughts (image and talk) and feel (physical emotional sensations) are your focus of concentration. Notice them, possibly labeling them, but don't get caught up in them. Don't tell yourself stories about what is arising; just allow it to arise. Be okay with it. As you accept and allow whatever is arising, you are being equanimous. At first you will have to do this deliberately, making an effort, but with practice you will notice that much less effort will be required, and eventually the equanimity will arise spontaneously.
If you are working with External Awareness and thoughts arise, allow them to arise but make sure they remain in the background. They should not be the focus of your concentration. Instead, your focus of concentration is touch (physical sensations), sight, and sound, or a subset thereof. So when it comes to any thoughts or feel sensations in the body, do not pay attention to them or give them any energy. And it is equally important not to deny or suppress them. Think of them as background music; they're there, but you're not actively listening.
I find that there is a big misconception as to what meditation is about. Many think that it is about clearing or emptying the mind, and they become frustrated when that doesn't happen or even when thoughts arise. They believe there should be no thoughts at all, and that if there are, they have failed in their meditation or are doing something wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thoughts will appear and disappear, rise and fall, for everyone. The difference between someone who is just starting to develop a mindfulness practice or who has this common misconception and someone with experience is that the experienced meditator is not disturbed by the thoughts. Instead, he or she can experience equanimity with the thoughts being there, without getting caught up in them or pushing them away. The experienced meditator allows them to arise and then automatically releases them. If you don't grasp at thoughts, they are not a problem at all. The problem lies in your relationship with thoughts. The more you apply equanimity to what is arising, the more you will create the conditions for spontaneous equanimity to become part of your life.
Strategies for Mindfulness in Action
Life offers many opportunities to practice equanimity every day. For example, when colleagues or subordinates are not approaching a situation the way you would, you may find yourself getting impatient or annoyed. This is a great opportunity to allow yourself to experience that annoyance from a place of equanimity and to see if you can just let it go or if you need to intervene. In these situations, reflect on whether it's your need for control that is causing the annoyance or would the situation, project, or client really best be served by a different approach. Leaders need to be able to judge how they can add the greatest value. By approaching any situation with equanimity, they are more likely to respond without hindrances and deal exclusively with the situation at hand.
Another example might be at performance appraisal time. Imagine you are appraising the performance of one of your key team members and you have some tough news to deliver. You know that this individual will have a very difficult time accepting any criticism, and in the past you have been reticent about dealing with the issues head-on with this individual. If you approach your feedback from a place of equanimity, you will be very aware of your own hindrances and what is arising within you. Perhaps you are tempted to avoid the conversation, but this time you choose to approach it differently. When you look for the physical sensations, you notice your stomach is tight. You maintain awareness there and you see how those sensations shift, how they get stronger and weaker as you speak. And by doing this, you remain focused on having the conversation you intended to have, rather than avoiding it.
Perhaps in your personal life a friend tells you she has just received some bad news from her doctor. Sometimes that may be hard to listen to. You are uncomfortable or distressed for the other person, but if you're honest, you're also uncomfortable for yourself. Rather than trying to take your friend's mind off the bad news so that you don't hear the pain and suffering she may be experiencing, really listen to her. Allow yourself to be completely open to that pain, no matter how excruciating it is. If you are feeling uncomfortable, you'll undoubtedly be experiencing it in your body. Locate it and stay with it. This will enable you to remain present and allow your friend to say what she needs to say. That is the greatest gift you can give to other people: to be there for them without trying to change them in any way.
Equanimity can enable you to more easily master any activity. If you are practicing the piano and do not get frustrated when you have difficulty with a particular piece, you are more likely to improve your performance. If you experience equanimity you will not become impatient with yourself and as a result are more likely to persevere, without stress and strain, until you master it.
If you are painting a canvas and the mixing of color is not to your satisfaction, equanimity will allow you to experiment without frustration or impatience. Equanimity allows you to approach what you do from a place of refining your approach rather than from a place of something being right or wrong, good or bad. This causes less stress and brings greater joy to your leisure activities.
Equanimity can even help improve your experiences on the golf course. Say you have just made the most incredible shot. You were in very thick rough, you struck the ball perfectly, and now you are putting for par. You amazed yourself and your playing partners. You're really happy. If you are not equanimous, you will put pressure on yourself, thinking about the score and the next shot you need to make, rather than being in the moment and relishing what you have just done. On the other hand, if you are equanimous, you will be aware of what is going on in your body; in this moment you will be aware of the sensations that went along with the great shot and your experience of deep pleasure. And by staying with this, you will experience fulfillment. The deeper the equanimity, the deeper the fulfillment. In fact, this will help you with the next shot. By being in the present moment, you are not carrying the baggage of stressful thinking about how you may or may not perform for the rest of the round.
When you take care of this moment, the next moment takes care of itself. Accept what is, moment by moment. If you can change a situation and wish to, by all means do so. If you can't, then be accepting of it, knowing that it is what it is. Equanimity allows you to experience peace no matter what the circumstance. It is not circumstances that create happiness; rather, your happiness is created by accepting your circumstances.