EQUANIMITY.

Hello, and welcome to the Wednesday Weekly.

The painters are doing a fantastic job on my new house, but my conscience doesn't allow me to be a painter.

I really enjoy painting, and if I didn't have a book to finish I'd have done it myself gladly.

But that fine dust as a result of sanding that gets absolutely everywhere? I just couldn't do that to someone else.

No matter how many times you wipe it away, you so much as turn your back and it's settled right back there again.

And so it is I find myself contemplating the power of equanimity when the cheery painters bid me goodbye each evening, leaving me in what can only be described as a sand pit.

Don't get me wrong, they do lay down sheets, and covers, and tidy everything away when they leave, however, that very special dust that sanding creates I find on the sofa, in my hair, on the dog, in the dog, on every single edge of every single surface. 

Someone once said to me, in prison (it's a story for another email), that we're all only one bad day and a temper away from committing murder.

And over the past week I've had plenty of opportunities to practice equanimity; our ability to find mental calmness and composure when things challenge us.

I like to think I might be something of an equanimity expert by the time they've finished. Either that or the subject of a Netflix hit: Paint by Murders.

Like any mindset or behaviour change, it requires practice; catching ourselves doing it wrong so we can gently guide and correct to the desired alternative.

Don't be hard on yourself, or others, when you find yourself getting wound up or snapping about something; behaviour change is so much more efficacious and efficient when encouraged.

Awareness first > then composure > then an alternative behaviour > then reflection and learning.

Happy Wednesday.