Ep.50/ Equanimity & Healthy Boundaries
Equanimity is loving detachment. This powerful, peaceful practice is one of the Four Immeasurables, Buddhist principles for healthy boundaries and happy relationships.
The other three "Immeasurables" are loving-kindness, compassion and joy. These attitudes work as a unit and teach us how to show up in with our best intentions and let go of the results. With equanimity as our guide, we learn that having good boundaries is about knowing what is our responsibility and what is the responsibility of others to manage.
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Boundaries in relationship or with other people could be seen very much like a metaphor for how we have boundaries around where we live. We could see our boundaries as being like our psychospiritual territory. So, if you live in a room or an apartment or a house, there are dividing lines between your space or property and that of your neighbors. And those boundaries may be very clear, like walls and doors. I happen to live in the city with attached houses, so I actually share walls with neighbors on either side, which is great to the East and really terrible to the West because I have really different neighbors on either side and we have fences in the backyard, so it is very clear with the boundaries are of what is mine and what is theirs.
I grew up in the suburbs with a yard where we did not have fencing in one whole side of the House, so the boundary line was not drawn out anywhere. But we all kind of knew where the property ended and where it started, and I would not cross the top of the Hill into the neighbor’s yard unless I had a good reason like a pet was up there or I was chasing a ball that got thrown. That was a pretty soft boundary, and it was not a big deal to cross it, but there was mutual respect of this imaginary line, so it was never a big deal. When my kids have lost toys over the fence to the neighbor to the East, I can just ring the doorbell and they will go get it for me. I actually would not hop over that fence without their permission, because that boundary is high. We only have a relationship because we are neighbors and in the city those boundaries are very clear, and it would feel a little bold to just jump over. If we lose a ball to the neighbor to the West, it has gone forever. I would never ring that doorbell.
Someday I will do a podcast on living in close proximity to people who are mentally ill, but we are not going to do that today. Although that relationship with my crazy neighbor has continued to teach me a lot about healthy boundaries, of which he has done. So, boundaries are agreements of what is mine and what is yours, and healthy boundaries is when we have an agreement about that, whether it is conscious or unconscious, spoken or unspoken, and certainly in relationship boundaries, can have a lot of complexity and flexibility.
Again, if we think of ourselves as a metaphor for our own house, you know my best friend. I know the code to her door. I walk right in. I would never knock. My mother-in-law love her dearly. She is one of my favorite people in the whole world. Got to have a nice walk with her this week in the park, although I would be free to stop by unannounced, I would always ring the Bell. My new friend Daniel, who has been bringing awesome bundles of wood to this beach bonfire we have been doing every week. If I wanted to go to Daniels House, I would make an arrangement with him ahead of time absolutely so that he knew that I was coming.
So those are kind of really simple boundaries and I think the underlying principle of boundaries is respect, respect for the other person and also respect for myself. And in spiritual psychology, I find it really helpful to hold the non-physical aspects of ourselves as if they had form. As I think of my house and my little yard as my property, psycho spiritually, my property is my thoughts, my behaviors, my emotions and my choices and the consequences are outcomes of those choices. And of course, my body.
And other people's property is their own thoughts, feelings, and decisions.
Ultimately, we are all responsible for our own life circumstances.
But it is much more complicated than that because we are not independent, isolated units operating separately. We really are all like cells in a great body, completely interdependent on the natural world and on each other.
I did a podcast on the illusion of independence if you are interested in delving a little deeper into that topic. So, we not only have to interact with each other, but we want to interact with each other. Or maybe we do not want to interact with each other.
So, the fences and doors and walls that we have on an interpersonal or relationship level are more like that imaginary boundary that we had between our neighbor yards when I was growing up. And how do we know when to crossover and when do we need to stay on our own side? And most dysfunction is about falling too far in one extreme or another of isolating myself within prison walls, or of having no boundaries at all and everybody is running amok. And I may not even be spending enough time caring for my own property because I am overly involved in taking care of yours.
So, part of self-awareness is growing in the knowledge of where you tend to fall on the spectrum of self-centeredness or other centeredness, and both can be pathological because optimally I think there is a healthy balance between caring for myself and caring for others. And I think that we are at our best when we find our own unique balance of managing both. I know for myself I tend to air on the caring too much for others and not caring for myself. And I have dated many people who fall in the exact opposite, where they care much more for themselves and not so much about others. And that is not an unusual pairing, actually. Where we are drawn towards people who have our inverse proportion in some place in our life seeking balance in that relationship, which is a totally valid path because you can learn a lot from people who are different than you. Or you can just be pissed at them and blame them and want them to be different and then it is not helpful. But when the futility and the frustration of trying to change others becomes too great, you can come back to look at yourself anyway, so it can all come out in the wash. Having done all of the above more than once.
So, I want to introduce you to the Buddhist concept of the Four Immeasurables. Buddhist just love numbers for things and the Four Immeasurables are loving kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity. So, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. And I mostly want to talk about equanimity because that is key to healthy boundaries, but I will define what the other ones are first. So loving kindness is active goodwill toward others or toward all. It is basically having a good attitude, trying to be helpful. Make the world a better place. Be nice to people.
Compassion is feeling for another with understanding. Compassion is different than empathy. And I have a little podcast called the problem with Empathy, if you want to understand a little more about the difference between empathy and compassion.
Empathy is to actually feel another's feelings as if they were your own, which can be a sticky wicket and without equanimity, compassion can easily become empathy which can have some intrinsic problems in it.
Empathic joy is the ability to feel happiness for others and yourself. Whether you benefit from it or not, and equanimity is both an attitude and a feeling, which is kind of even mindedness, serenity, impartiality, but all four of these go together because equanimity is not indifference because the Four Immeasurables operate as a unit.
And it said that the cultivation of the Four Immeasurables has the power to create rebirth, that these are the attitudes of the gods. And if we contemplate and practice growing in our own ability to act immeasurably. That we will become God like not in a power and control kind of a way, but in a wisdom and peace and inner prosperity.
equanimity is the ability to detach with love. It is like that dynamic tension of staying on my own side of the fence, being willing to help you but letting go of what you do in your own yard and not just letting it go but holding it with compassion.
That if you are not some kind of suffering or having a problem, I can absolutely have understanding and compassion. I can act with loving kindness, give you my time, my energy, can continue to cultivate joy in my own life and be happy when things work out for you. But to keep coming back to this place of equanimity, of loving impartiality, that you have your own path and there is no way I can have the insight or wisdom to know what is actually best for you.
Ep.50/
Equanimity & Healthy Boundaries
You know, I have worked a lot in addiction and certainly suffered with many of my own and Alcoholics do not drink because the thirsty and addicts do not use drugs because they are bad people, they are medicating existential suffering and what it requires to actually stop using that medication is to face and heal those unresolved underlying emotional issues, can be quite intense. In fact, for a lot of people, the destruction and suffering of active addiction that can ultimately lead to jails, institutions, and an early grave is often preferable to facing the inner demons and terrors that the addict is medicating, and it is not ours to judge. And for a lot of people, and this is true for change in almost all things, both individually and societally, that we often do not change until the pain of where we are and what we are doing is greater than our fear of the unknown. And so, suffering makes us willing often to do things differently because change is hard, and although going into the unknown can be an exciting adventure, it can also feel frightening and hopeless.
One of the big problems of Co addiction and this can be applied to any boundary issue with people is we see people suffering and we want to help them. We want to relieve their suffering and that's part of loving kindness and compassion, but often what it takes for people to really be willing to change is to allow them the dignity of their own suffering. To allow them the natural consequences of their own behavior. So, it is very common to want to protect people from the suffering of their own natural consequences. Maybe you want to write the term paper for your high schooler because they are overwhelmed. Or you loan the brother-in-law $5000 because he lost it gambling or you cover for the drunk husband who cannot make it to work and that might feel like lovingkindness and compassion seeking for another person to feel the joy you want for them. It can also be not wanting to feel our own distress in the face of another person's distress. And when we rest in equanimity, there is a balance of allowing people their own souls path. That protecting people from the natural consequences of their actions is not always a loving thing to do. It can actually be enabling them to stay sick because authentic pain is such a great motivator. And our own ability to tolerate the life path of others from this place of loving detachment, that is often where we need to grow, when we talk about boundaries.
So, Equanimity's quite a mature principle and it really calls us to being a full grown up even with children or aging parents. There is still a life process that is intrinsic to each being knowing what feels in integrity or appropriate for us to express loving kindness compassion and empathetic joy toward others and still let them have their own process that I do not know what is best for you. That it is not up to me to play God in your life. My job is to take care of my side of the street to show up and tell the truth, and then I need to let go of the results.
I have done a lot of interventions with people. I feel like part of my job is to see what I see and to tell people what I see. When they are interested in hearing it, I have to know that it is always through my own lens. In my own perspective, I get to check out what my motives are, because if I want you to change so that my life is more comfortable, that is a problem. My favorite definition of love is to extend oneself for another's spiritual growth, and if I can hold that perspective, which is kind of like viewing things from 10,000 feet, then it can allow me to let go and trust the larger life process because no matter how well I know you, no matter how close we are, we each still have our own unique life path and I can never. I barely know what my own is. I can never really know what that is for you.
So many times in my life, suffering has been the catalyst. Bad decisions have been the impetus for really major positive change. And if people had interrupted those abilities to make those bad choices, I would not have learned what I needed to learn or move to the next place in my life.
Thich Nhat Hanh uses the term interbeing, and like cells in a great body, we are each responsible for the health of our own unique system as it is in part of the whole.
And we have this total semi permeable membrane where we are breathing in and breathing out. Not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually, relationally, sexually, creatively, professionally. All these areas of our life, we were in relation exchanging energy with other people. And how we exchange that energy, where we engage, when we extend or retract ourselves. Those are all our choice and responsibility and the Four Immeasurables are really grounded principles to help us develop our own unique road map that feels appropriate for us in any given situation.
So, I encourage you to contemplate or meditate on equanimity. Detaching with love. The serenity of impartiality and non-attachment which includes compassion, loving kindness, and empathetic joy. And we can apply that to the individual relationships in our life into the larger social, cultural, and geopolitical structures around us. Ancient wisdom with modern, practical application.
