Cultivating Equanimity

Dr. Vago guides a meditation to cultivate equanimity - a tool for recovering rapidly from difficult emotions or stress. He also provides some of the neuroscience underlying the practice of equanimity undertaken by advanced meditators and how you can practice the integration of calm, concentration, and mindful awareness.

Transcript

Hey y'all,

It's Dave.

Good to be with you.

This meditation will focus on cultivating equanimity,

An even-minded mental state or dispositional tendency towards all experiences or objects regardless of their affective valence,

Which basically means their attractiveness as pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral.

Equanimity is often an essential quality to cultivate along with mindfulness as a tool for recovering rapidly from difficult emotions or physical stressors.

So let's explore the practice of equanimity in which you can use imagery,

Explore your potential emotional reactions,

And connect with your body.

Here we go.

Let's start by taking a few deep breaths,

Settling the mind and body.

Allow yourself to be relaxed but alert.

Feel free to close your eyes or keep them open,

Checking in with the breath.

Bringing your attention to the direct sensations of breathing at the nostrils or the belly or the feel of your whole body breathing.

Now that we've settled a bit,

I'm going to describe a couple scenarios for you to imagine yourself into.

Are you ready?

Okay,

Here's the first one.

You are sitting wherever you are,

And suddenly you hear a door slamming nearby.

How would you absorb the sound?

Would your heart jump?

Would your muscles clench?

How quickly would you recover?

Would you be indifferent?

With equanimity,

You are poised to let the salient and intense stimulus arise and pass,

Not resisting the experience or needing it to be different in any way.

Take a few moments to imagine and explore this now.

Okay,

Here's another scenario.

Imagine you are driving in a car on a major highway,

And you have the intention to bring in mindful awareness and equanimity into the experience.

So you might be aware of thoughts or emotions that pass through your mind without getting lost in them.

You might experience the flow of sensory and mental objects with an impartial yet caring attitude.

Now into this mindful scenario,

Imagine another driver suddenly cuts in front of you in a dangerous way.

Fear or anger may arise as you automatically hit the brakes and honk your horn.

But instead of reacting with perhaps road rage or panic,

You bring your attention to the quality of your breath.

Is it stable and smooth?

Are you fighting any thoughts or feelings that may arise?

Are you welcoming the experience?

Equanimity offers us a container in which to hold the full range of our experience.

Try sitting with any tension that might arise in your body in response to this scenario.

Focus on your breath and see if this helps the tension melt away.

Okay,

Let's drop all attempts to focus your attention and just completely relax.

You no longer need to consider any challenging scenarios,

Thoughts or sensations.

You can completely let go and enjoy a few moments of rest.

Try this now.

Okay.

Okay.

One major study demonstrated that in response to emotionally charged stimuli,

In this case people screaming and babies crying,

Meditators show increased activity in parts of the brain responsible for generating a stress response,

The amygdala specifically.

While also showing activity in frontal regions.

Which basically means that the meditators were experiencing negative emotion while also showing some element of control.

Now if a neuroscientist saw this relative increase in amygdala activity,

They might think that the meditators are not regulating the emotion very well.

When in fact the meditators were experiencing the emotion fully with composure and without suppressing the experience.

Continue staying focused on settling in the body and coming back to your breath.

Okay.

When we cultivate calm,

Concentration and mindfulness,

We are less likely to be blown about by the worldly winds.

And at the same time,

Equanimity becomes an inner strength and a kind of composure that keeps us balanced in the middle of all that is.

Okay.

Okay.

Equanimity is sometimes described as standing in the middle of whatever is happening with balance,

Strength and stability.

There is a strong presence of inner calm,

Smoothness,

Wellbeing and integrity that can keep us upright like a ballast keeps a ship upright in strong winds.

Meditation teacher Gil Franzdal describes it like this,

As inner strength develops,

Equanimity follows.

Okay.

Okay.

When you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

Take a moment to notice the room and reconnect with the world around you.

Practicing this kind of baseline equanimity can help us develop more resilience and more confidence in our body.

And this kind of baseline equanimity can help us develop more resilience in all areas of our life,

Not just in dealing with a moment of frustration or sadness,

But in the larger landscape of our emotional life and our capacity to feel happiness and contentment.

Thanks for giving this a try.

Thank you.

Reviews

Excellent. Thank you for the air to breathe as you gave your instruction. So simple and so precious.

Lovely way to start the morning. Building resilience,staying with the breath gives me a feeling of emotional strength.

Eye opener, better said mind opener, a great way to start the day balanced, namaste 🙏

I really enjoyed this. I will be studying my equanimity. Thank you for sharing. 🙏💕

My first time, found it relaxing and insightful. Thank You

This was a really nice meditation, I woke up feeling a bit all over the place like my mind wouldn't switch off and now I feel calmer and more relaxed after this. I enjoyed the moment of silence where I could sit and just focus on my breath.

This was a beautiful blend of science and connecting with the deeper self! I look forward to listening to more of your meditations!

Yes. Thank you for that lesson! Explained well and thoroughly. Easy to understand and put into practice.

Well done. Informative and actionable. Thanks for sharing!

Remarkable and readily displayed in day to day life

Thanks for this. I appreciate that this practice included exercises for how to manifest equanimity. The visualization was spot on, as was the explanations. I also liked how you offered some quiet non-speaking time for me to absorb and reflect. Thanks so much!

Great reminder to stay firm like a tree while accepting & handling what goes around us.

Laid back and wonderful. Just what this secular meditator was looking for.

Very helpful with the examples he provided and the various descriptions of equanimity. Love the quote in there by Gil Fronsdal too :)

I had Reached a point in my life where I meditated daily and realized that deep breathint and focussing on that can truly bring you into the moment, at ANY moment.

The Pandemic hit me hard Psyche wise, getting back into the swing of things shows me that I missed (and unknowingly practiced -back before covid -) equanimity.

Thanks. This is truly life changing stuff

🙏. Very helpful, imagining stressful situations and feel the reaction in the body.

The driving scenario was one that resonates with me. It was what I needed. Thank you.

I appreciate that the teacher allowed four times of silence. This helps during my meditation to avoid overthinking.

Thoughtful and wise approach to finding the “middle path”…

I think this should be under beginner and advanced! Knowing the science behind meditation and real life relevance is a great tool for all meditators. I really enjoyed this anc will be sharing.