Equanimity in the Midst of This Season’s “Surge”
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” Rainer Maria Rilke (from the poem “Go to the Limits of Your Longing”) Full Poem
While here in southwest Virginia we have thus far been spared any unexpected surge of the many circulating seasonal viral illnesses, over the past few weeks I’ve been experiencing a “surge” of a different kind – that of an unusual amount of negatively charged and emotionally draining patient interactions, which have left me feeling frequently frustrated and quite weary. In this instance, I hope I’m alone in this experience, but in talking with some other colleagues, I fear that may not be the case. Since I know that our psyches are hardwired to overemphasize the “negative”, I have been consciously attempting to counter that tendency, but these interactions have often overwhelmed my emotional circuits.
It is in times like this that I find it helpful to revisit the psychological posture of “equanimity,” which is powerfully demonstrated by a favorite parable I have shared in this blog before and for my own sake, needed to revisit this week. Perhaps it will be a good reminder for you as well.
The Parable of the Farmer:
A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away, and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, who was still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
The word equanimity comes from the Latin aequanimitās, meaning “with an even mind; imperturbable.” It was during my residency training that I was first introduced to this concept when my department Chair shared Sir William Osler’s classic essay “Aequanimitās” with me. Dr. Osler considered equanimity as an essential quality for anyone in medicine but cautioned that it would only be attained with intentional practice. In the essay, he made it clear that equanimity was not a matter of denying our emotions (a common misperception), but rather in our consciously “owning” them and choosing when and how to express them rather than having them control us.
In reality, any circumstance we experience has the potential to elicit a wide spectrum of emotions. How we interpret and express them, however, is up to us, remembering that no feeling is final. After all, it’s our story, not theirs, as the parable so wisely demonstrates. How might the wisdom of the farmer inform the stories that you (and they) are telling right now? Are you ready to take ownership of any negative emotional surges that may arise from them? Well, we’ll see