Merriam-webster.com defines equanimity as evenness of mind- especially under stress. I also refer to it as a discipline to pull up positive energy to present to people or situation regardless of  your  feeling or mood. So the requiredness of the situation trumps mood.

I used to think that being even-tempered would take away from what I was feeling. But the reality is that we feel things in the moment. Our mood is usually a reaction to or attachment to the feeling. Bart Anderson differentiated between emotion and emotional- emotion being the pure feeling, and emotional being the reaction to the feeling.

So feel the emotion fully. Express it. Move through it, and then open yourself up to the next feeling. And if a new experience presents it self while you are still feeling the last one, open yourself up to that. The feeling will come back soon enough if it needs to.

Bart used to teach that being active during grief and deep feeling is much more effective emotionally. It allows you to work through it- and it keeps the feeling to moving into a depression.

So back to the discipline of equanimity. When you interact with a person, it is the process of opening your heart and letting the natural excitement and anticipation of a new experience unfold. It is just a habit or skill that you develop like anything else.

Plus… when a new experince presents itself to you- it is your life live- where everything exciting and cool happens. Do you really want to risk missing it because you are in a bad mood? It may be when that thing you intended or prayed for presents itself to you.

To quote David Byrne and Talking Heads, “Don’tcha miss it. Some of you people just about missed it.”

Or… as Bart used to say to me when I was in a bad mood, “Get over yourself, Mike.”