Equanimity is a beautiful concept that is central to Yoga, Ayurveda and Buddhism. Cultivating equanimity is possibly the most important thing that you can learn if you want to change and heal your samskaras or entrenched eating behaviours. Although this requires practice, discipline and commitment (tapas), it is so different to fighting with yourself, or trying to drum up willpower. In fact it is pretty much the opposite. The heart of equanimity resides firmly in accepting things as they are and allowing them just to be. This takes practice, patience and lots of self-kindness.
Of course what you eat is really important too, but how you eat is possibly even more important because your relationship with food dictates not only what, but when, how, where and why you are eating. And this relationship is directly determined by how much equanimity you have in general.
So what Is Equanimity?
Equanimity is the art of being with what is, without trying to change it, put a value on it or react to it. Cultivating this alongside loving kindness, compassion, and patience will help you to transform your eating habits. Equanimity can be developed directly through the practice of mindfulness meditation and development of witness consciousness.
When we learn how to be with discomfort or even pain during a meditation, we can learn how to be with discomfort and pain in life. It is directly transferable. A number of things can happen to our relationship with food once this starts to happen:
Instead of reaching for food as comfort or pain relief, reward or treat we can acknowledge the trigger but not have to follow through with the food.
When cravings come up, we get to just watch them and let them ebb away in the same way that they drifted into our consciousness.
If we just acknowledge any eating behaviour that we are not happy with and approach it with curiosity, kindness and patience, the equanimity magic happens. Powerful behaviour that has had a grip on us and has us returning to the scene of the crime over and over again will become neutralized once we just observe and stop reacting.
Meditation and mindfulness enable us to separate triggers or events from automatic reactions, and prevent further arrows flying into the same wound over and over again with outdated stories that we keep repeating in our minds.
Eating mindfully allows us to appreciate our food, stop eating sooner and begin to deal with big emotions rather than eating to push them away. We can start seeing the connections between emotions like fear, anxiety, guilt, shame, sadness or even happiness and particular types of food or eating.
Once we can deconstruct and demystify the behaviour patterns, they will simply fall away over time. This is not the same thing as analysing and excavating old behaviour and stories, it is just about being willing to be with whatever comes up without trying to make sense of it. From this place, the answers and connections will happen. At this point, new choices will become apparent.
Start with the cultivation of mindfulness in meditation, rather than trying to force yourself to eat mindfully. Let it be transferred naturally from your meditation cushion to the dinner table. Forcing yourself to chew more slowly or eat mindfully before you are ready can heighten anxiety and make things worse. If you find this happening, please respond with kindness and patience.
Mindfulness of eating is different to the dieting approach to eating. Instead of trying to perfectly adhere to external rules, mindfulness invites us to relax, enjoy and pay attention to the experience of eating and how the food makes us feel. Many people find that when they create lots of strict rules about eating, they stick to them for a while, but then when they break the rules, they end up having a massive binge or going completely ‘off the rails’ and eating mindlessly.
Mindfulness and equanimity help you overcome perfectionism.
This is why it is important not to use the principles of Ayurveda as rules that you beat yourself up with. Please don’t get all caught up in feelings of failure because you are not doing it ‘perfectly’. We are all on a journey and wherever you are is just where you are and that is perfectly fine.
There has been lots of research showing that when we practice mindfulness and meditation, over time, we develop new neural pathways. Equanimity literally rewires your brain and gives you the unbelievable chance to do life differently. Once we are able to be in one moment with equanimity, we can do two, three and more. Eventually, we can change anything, or more accurately, create enough space for new and wonderful things to unfold in our lives.