Mental Fitness Now™

In my previous article on “The eight factors for developing your mental resilience” I list the second factor as:

“Developing  equanimity – The ability to remain centered in the face of the four extremes of pleasure and pain, loss and gain, praise and blame, good reputation and bad reputation.”

Equanimity is essential for developing our mental resilience as it gives us a strong psychological core that is not easily pulled off balance by the changing circumstances of our life.

Implicit in equanimity is non-attachment the ability to maintain a certain level of distance in our mind between ourselves and objects, situations and people that we care about. Non-attachment enables us to maintain perspective when under stress, so that we do not find ourself living on an emotional roller coaster, at the mercy of the people, places and things that we are attached to.

For many people the idea of equanimity and non-attachment is difficult to commit to because:

- they confuse genuine equanimity with indifference

- and non-attachment with detachment.

What I want to do in this article is overcome this confusion by showing how these terms are different from each other.

Distinguishing equanimity and indifference

When you have equanimity it does not mean that you do not care deeply about a person or situation. It just means that your mind is big enough and stable enough to contain both a deep caring for life and an ability to respond rather than react to the situation at hand.

For example if my child is upset and acting up on me, if I have equanimity, this enables me to care and love my child whilst at the same time making sure I treat him/her appropriately, not being emotionally blackmailed or getting angry and flustered.

Equanimity deepens and broadens our appreciation of life and inner strength.

Indifference on the other hand is simply not caring about life or the situation at hand. Sometimes people purposefully develop indifference because the other option, caring, would be too painful for them to deal with (because they lack equanimity). Indifference is what happens when we close our heart to life and refuse to acknowledge our inter-relationship to it.  

Equanimity makes us strong enough to care about things and avoid the temptation of falling into indifference. Although superficially they may look similar, in reality they are very different mindsets!

Distinguishing non-attachment from detachment

Non-attachment like equanimity does not imply that you do not care about the situation or person at hand. It simply means that you are not totally controlled by your attachment.

Attachment to people close to us, life goals etc… is totally natural and unavoidable. Non-attachment enables us to feel and experience that natural attachment and yet not become a slave to it. If you are a slave to your attachments you will lack mental resilience, strength and stamina. Non-attachment facilitates that strength and stamina. It provides a stable foundation for the other factors necessary for mental resilience to emerge and grow.

Detachment (in the way we are using it here), like indifference implies that we have cut ourself off from the life situation that we find ourself in. It indicates that we have “checked out” of the situation, we no longer feel anything.

If we have a life goal such as a Masters degree that we are aiming to achieve, non-attachment will enable us to navigate  the attachments and challenges that we face in getting that degree without getting discouraged or underperforming due to over-attachment.

Detachment has no such power to help us in such a situation, as it robs us of the motivation that we need in order to pursue our goal (the Masters degree) until it has been accomplished.

Concluding thoughts: 

In conclusion, if you can understand the difference between equanimity and indifference, and non-attachment and detachment, then you will be able to fully commit to practising equanimity and non-attachment. You will have no fear that you are cutting yourself off from your life, or losing your motivation to be successful.

On the contrary, if you build these two qualities solidly in your mind, you will have the foundation for true mental resilience and all the success that it has to offer you!

For related articles on Mental resilence, please go to the Mental resilience category

© Toby Ouvry 2010, you are welcome to use this article, but you must seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@mentalfitnessnow.com