From Anxiety to Equanimity

There’s a cute childhood fable that most of us might still remember.

A rabbit is sleeping under a tree, and suddenly he hears a loud noise. It is so loud that he thinks the sky has fallen, so he starts running. On the way, he meets a deer and tells her, “The sky is falling. Run!” The deer becomes anxious runs with him.

They meet a tiger on the way and tell him, “The sky is falling. Run!” So, the tiger starts running with them. Then they meet elephants, wolves, cows, and soon animals from the entire forest are running. Suddenly, they see a lion standing facing them who stops them from running.

“Tell me what’s going on,” the lion asked. Everyone was anxious, “We must run because the sky is falling.”

“Who says the sky is falling?” the lion asks. “Everyone.” The anxiety is rising.

“Everyone?” The lion tracks it down and discovers it is the rabbit who started it.

“Show me.” The lion asked the rabbit to take them back to where he started.

The anxiety of the entire forests rises even higher. No one wants to go back because they are supposed to be on the run before the sky falls. However, in reverence to the king of the forest, they walked back.

When they arrive at where the rabbit slept, they discover it is under a coconut tree. After some forensic observation, the lion concludes that a big coconut fell from the tree and landed on the dry leaves, which made a loud noise. For a timid rabbit, it sounded like a sky fall.

Have you ever heard this fable before?

I think it depicts the reality of this world. Everyone is anxious to some degree, emotionally running around like crazy, especially after a prolonged pandemic and threat of global war.

The lion represents equanimity, the opposite of anxiety. Equanimity is similar to serenity, but serenity just means calm and peaceful, but equanimity means level-headed. The first part of the word gives us a clue “equa” means “equal.” So, equanimity means balanced, level-headed, and sober-minded.

Dr. Edwin Friedman called it “non-anxious presence.”

If you want to live happily in this anxious world, you must develop equanimity. Equanimity does not just allow you to resist the contagious anxiety of society but also enable you to influence others, just like the lion’s non-anxious presence that dissolves the anxiety of the forest.

In other words, equanimity gives you internal peace and external leadership. Today we will look at an example of equanimity from Jesus Christ and learn how to attain it. This is a very important message for all of us. Let’s begin!