Cultivating Equanimity In The Turbulent Times for Therapists

In this episode, we explore one of the Four Immeasurables that feels profoundly essential for the world we’re living in right now: equanimity.

As global instability, the war in the Middle East, and the ongoing energy crisis ripple through our collective nervous system, many therapists are finding themselves holding their clients’ fears while carrying their own. This episode offers a grounded, embodied, and Buddhist‑informed way to meet these turbulent times without collapsing, shutting down, or absorbing everything you’re witnessing.

I walk you through:

• Why our nervous systems are more reactive right now
• How over‑empathy and vicarious anxiety show up in sessions
• The difference between equanimity, indifference, and spiritual bypassing
• The ocean metaphor: how to drop beneath the surface turbulence
• Understanding non‑attachment (and how it differs from avoidant attachment)
• How clear understanding of impermanence can soften urgency and reduce reactivity
• The “tablespoon of salt” metaphor from my teacher
• Expanding our internal landscape
• The 20% Anchor Practice — a real‑time tool for staying grounded with clients
• How equanimity protects against burnout, moral distress, and compassion fatigue
• Gentle mantras for returning to steady presence

This is an episode for therapists and health practitioners who are deeply feeling the world right now.

It’s a reminder that equanimity is a practice—one that grows each time you return to your breath, your body, and the truth that everything is impermanent.

Disclaimer:

The content discussed in this podcast is for inspiration and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision, and our time together does not constitute a therapeutic relationship. Please seek professional support if you are in need.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey! Welcome to the Practitioner's Hut, offering practical Buddhist wisdom for therapists and healthcare workers. If you are keen to deepen your practice beyond the theoretical understanding of Buddhism, if you're finding it hard to calm your little active mind after therapy work, I welcome you to join me to dive a little deeper. Each episode, I'll be sharing some common issues that therapists may face when integrating and practicing awareness, compassion within themselves, and also supporting clients. I'll be sprinkling some pearls of wisdom that I've learned from my master and teachers that will be helpful as internal resources. I'll also be interviewing other therapists who are on this spiritual path together to share their experiences of how they practice wisdom and compassion in their daily lives. I want to let you know that you're not alone, you are part of a bigger community who aspire for greater soul alignment, growth, and awakening. That we can strike a balance of juggling our busy modern life as therapists with a clear mind and an open heart. I hope to inspire more practitioners to explore deeper spiritual meaning and purpose on our path to enlightenment. I'm your host, Po Gan, a psychologist, a Buddhist practitioner, a parent of two children, a fellow human being with a busy mind, but with a great inspired vision for collective awakening. Let's begin. Whether you are walking, commuting, washing dishes, or sitting quietly, take this moment to be here with me. Let's take a moment to arrive and join me in this episode. Just notice the breath, the air at your nostril. Just notice your body and where you are sitting or standing on. Just allow something inside you slightly soften and allow it to be here, right here, right now. Today's episode is one that I feel deeply to share because the world has been quite heavy these few weeks. The war in the Middle East, the instability, the energy crisis that will be felt by many, and this collective fear rising and falling just like unpredictable waves. And as therapists, we don't sit outside of these world events unaffected. We are actually right in the middle, swimming in the same emotional waters as our clients, so to speak. So, what I thought today I would like to share is about one of the four immeasurables equanimity. It is a quality that feels deeply important right now as we face a world filled with collective trauma, instability, and this sense of uncertainty existentially. So you might be affected just consuming the news every day, and perhaps your nervous system is feeling and sensing that stress and tension and the pressure of keep showing up for other people while carrying on worries, and perhaps you're absorbing all of that in as well. So we are going to explore how cultivating equanimity can support us to stay grounded, not the touch, not numb, not indifferent, but steady enough to continue helping others without losing ourselves. So maybe let's start with what we do in the session. When we are sitting with a client, perhaps you will notice that a lot of our sessions these few weeks, our clients may be talking about them being anxious about the escalating war. Maybe their flights or holiday plans get cancelled and having to deal with that repercussions. Or maybe some of the clients might be anxious about losing their job because of the energy crisis affecting the industry. Maybe they are overwhelmed by the news. Felt like the world that we know is kind of falling apart, so to speak. Something inside you shifts. Perhaps you feel that contraction in your chest. Maybe you feel your breathing change, and your mind starts to grasp for ideas and solutions. At the same time, you're feeling that hopelessness alongside with the else. You might even feel that sense of guilt knowing that you're moved and like you can't be grounded. But at the same time, therapists are human as well. We feel the world, we feel our clients, and we feel that cumulative exhaustion of living through this sustained at this time, it's about two, three weeks in that sustain uncertainty. So this emotional storm isn't just happening in your clients, but in yours as well. We are scrolling all the time, trying to catch up from the constantly changing, updated news, holding that fatigue and that emotional intensity session after session. Your nervous system is absorbing, responding, compensating, and trying to cope. This macro environment is pulling us into this over-empathy, emotional absorption, and vicarious anxiety and increased reactivity. Our nervous system can become quite hyper-attuned, and we're probably more likely to carry people or the content of the sessions home in our minds after the sessions. We may feel responsible for things that we can't change. So it is more likely that if we are not being careful, that we may carry more compassion fatigue or moral distress. So recognizing this is the first step to reclaim that steadiness. In Buddhism, equanimity sometimes gets confused with withdrawal or spiritual bypassing. Equanimity is caring deeply without collapsing, being touched by suffering without drowning in it, seeing clearly without getting pulled into that reactivity. Here's a metaphor I often use that imagine a vast ocean or a deep lake. On the surface, the wind stirs up the waves, and perhaps there will be some storms. Storms come and go. The water can sometimes on that vast ocean sometimes will be choppy and sometimes it will be still. Actually, the deeper you go, the more stable and quiet the lake will become. So that deep stillness is the equanimity. It is about anchoring yourself in that deeper waters of awareness. So I guess it is different from withdraw. And it is a kind of freedom, freedom from being tossed by the changing weather of life. Imagine inside us, our inner world gets stirred by the changing weather, and the equanimity is that ground that helps us to hold steady. No matter what the weather is, it is an active stabilizing force. It's a form of inner refuge. I wanted to clarify that equanimity is not motionless, is not just serene and like sitting on a mountaintop and perfectly still. In its essence, equanimity actually doesn't mean just stillness and no movement. Amidst the movement, that you can become even-minded. In the Latin words, equis means even and animus means mind or spirit. I think it's important to know that the mind can continue to move fluidly, the mind can continue to shift perspectives, it doesn't get stuck in one narrative, one perspective, one emotion or one outcome. It actually means flexible stability. It is open-hearted steadiness with this inner strength that allow us to encounter each experience, whether it is joy, pain, or fear or surprise, that you're holding those emotions, those emotional experiences, but without getting pulled by them. Indifference means that it is cold and disconnected, whereas equinity is actually a warm and connected and a wise steadiness. It is not to suppress or bypass them, it is to feel clearly you feel them, you feel them with honesty, with openness, but not being thrown off-center. That's why in Buddhist psychology or in Buddhism, equanimity along with loving kindness, compassion, and sympathetic joy are the four immeasurables that actually allows the bodhisattvas and Buddhas to continue to come back lifetime after lifetime to carry out their compassionate vows while being with people around them. Cultivating equanimity actually allows us to stay compassionate, continuing to do the things without burning out. It prevents love from becoming possessive. It keeps the joy from turning it into envy or jealousy. It is a foundation quality that all of the other immeasurables can flourish from. And the other companion to equanimity is non-attachment. Let's talk about non-attachment for a little bit more. In the Buddhist sense, non-attachment means engaging fully without clinging tightly. It means that you're still in the relationships with people around you wholeheartedly, loving fully, showing up fully, while having this clear understanding that things are temporary and impermanent. So it is different from the avoidant attachment in the attachment theory. Non-attachment is not about distancing away, pulling like being away from people and community. It is not about shutting down or numbing out. Whereas avoidant attachment, it is usually motivated by fear and usually disguised as highly hyper-independent. But non-attachment is actually a clear knowing, a clear understanding that the true nature of all phenomena, whether it is externally in our physical world or internally, the mental images, our mind, our thoughts and concepts, our feelings, our sensations are impermanent. So there is no need to grip onto them too tightly. So you can hold them lightly, knowing that they are aggregation of complex causal conditions. Fundamentally, people act the way they do when they are attached to their own ideas, attached to what they want to pursue or possess, clinging to their greed, anger, and hatred. When they are deluded by all of these things that they are so attached to, the actions that they take are often unwise and unwholesome. They may harm others and themselves. Recognizing, have this clear knowing that these are all impermanent doesn't mean that you are minimizing the suffering. But it is speaking to that truth that this moment is not the whole story. That this crisis is not a forever thing, it's not fixed. And currently, when this fear shows up, it will not last forever. So by having this clear understanding, it will perhaps slow down our nervous system and soften that urgency in our nervous system that we need to like deal with this straight away, or we have to enter into fight or flight response or shutdown to fix the situation, to trying to cling on and trying to solve the problems. Because when our mind thinks that what is happening in front of us is a problem and there is a sign that we are not safe, then we keep dwelling into them and trying to find a solution to this problem. Whereas that non-attachment is recognizing that this is only temporary, it allows us to kind of open up a little bit more, holding them a little bit more gently, recognizing that these two shall pass. It is like I used this example a few times, and that in the 3D movie where we already know that there are just special effects, they are not real, then we don't really have to react to that 3D effects anymore, and we don't have to dodge the bullets because it feels like it's come right in front of us. So instead, you lean towards more of an open awareness, that open spaciousness, that inner steadiness that's in you that allows you to still do the thing, engage with the world, but without that whole holding tight feelings. So it means that when we are maintaining this non-attachment stance, we are able to work hard but not bound, not tied down by our expectations of the outcome. It means that we care for your clients, but you also know that these feelings or this intensity that they are dealing with right now is temporary without absorbing them as yours. So it is similar to middle way in Buddhism when we're talking about middle way, is that we are not getting into that extreme indulgence or avoidance. We are neither clinging on to the state or we're not pushing away those emotional contents that we feel. In that way, we will be less reactive but more responsive. Yeah. So both practices of equanimity and non-attachment shares that same quality of openness and that open awareness that allows us to continue to engage with the world without being bogged down by our experiences, is extending our internal landscape. I wanted to share with you this metaphor that my master once shared with me. If you put a tablespoon of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. It's very salty, isn't it? And when you put that same tablespoon of salt into a vast ocean, you wouldn't even taste it. It's unnoticable. So equanimity works the same way, non-attachment works the same way, it expands our internal landscape and widens our perspective. It helps us not get drowned and drawn into that tablespoon of suffering in front of us. Whether this suffering is from our internal world or from our clients. It means that we are here sitting in the presence, widening our awareness and softening our grip. So I guess it speaks to that process, the therapeutic process of open awareness and continue to stay engaged. It means that you're more resourced and more grounded and more available. How do we practice equanimity in real time? I wanted to share this powerful practice of the 20% anchor. This is the part where when you are reading the news, when you are in the sessions, when you are in the meetings, anything that you feel like you're pull off center, perhaps when you feel yourself getting emotionally hooked, where you notice your chest tightens, your mind Racing to find solutions, or like you know, trying to fix things. And when your client's emotional distress pulls you into that tension, bring that maybe 20% of your attention back to your breath. So focus on that air at the nostril where you are still relationally staying present with your client, attuned, paying attention to them. 80% of that is with the client, but 20% of your awareness is in the body, and where you feel that sensation of your breath moving, the gentle rise and fall, the inhale and exhale, it is like an anchor for the boat. So you're still here, you're still listening, but you're connected and you are anchored. So this shift, instead of like all on the thing that you're talking about, just creates a little buffer for you and the things that you're talking about, the things that you're noticing in the other person. It's a little quiet spaciousness, so to speak, to stay with that spaciousness, that openness. Equanimity is not a personal trait, it is a practice. You can continue to practice and practice and become more and more steady over time. When you are slowing down your breathing, when you are grounding your feet and being mindful of your body, when you are noticing your inhale and exhale, returning back to that present moment awareness, and noticing the urge to control and fix, but releasing certain things that you can't really control. Or when you are practicing giving yourself compassion, noticing your suffering, your pain, but allowing softness and compassion to soften this part of you that is in pain. And when you make a decision to pause before reacting, when you are out in the nature, when you're connecting to that sense of awe in the nature, that spaciousness, all of those things actually helps you to develop this steady sense of equanimity. So I think over time, if we continue to practice, it will allow us to recover more quickly in a difficult time. Your compassion is less of a mirroring of the other person's feelings that's so strong that you get triggered, but it is more of a steady awareness, so it will be less draining, and your body, your nervous system will be less reactive, and your mind will be more kind of closer to the quality of a pristine clear water. When we are in this fluid, flexible, awake state of mind, we are likely to hold different perspectives without getting too rigid. We can see that thoughts and feelings are transient and not fixed entities. We are less likely to kind of just react straight away. And hence it is a practice. So as we are here, I hope that you can start practicing cultivating this sense of equanimity in you every time when you can sense yourself feeling overwhelmed. Just take a deep breath. Perhaps put your hand where your body feels the tension, and perhaps just reminding yourself and a little mantra to say that things are as they are. I can meet this moment with steadiness, or I care deeply, and I can remain grounded, or may I stay open-hearted and balanced in the midst of this constant change and let your breath settle and feel that ground beneath you. That would then allow equanimity, that sense of steadiness to be your refuge in these turbulent times. There's part of you is always available to you. No matter how difficult the world has become. Take good care of yourself. I will see you in the next episode. As we close our practice for today, I want to thank you for sharing this time. If this episode resonated with you, the most meaningful way to support the podcast is to share it. Share it with a colleague or leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps our community to reach other people who need it. Until next time. Keep your heart open, keep your mind clear and steady. See your amazing self as you awaken yourself and others. Just a gentle reminder that our conversation today is for inspiration and education only. It is not a substitute for therapy or clinical supervision. And our time together doesn't constitute a therapeutic relationship.