Prepare Your Heart

How prepared is your heart for whatever might happen next?

Psychologist and author Tara Brach says that we must prepare our heart for anything and everything. In other words, we must learn how to access stillness and evenness of mind regardless of the situation we face.

This is true equanimity. 

Wouldn’t that be nice? To take whatever comes with grace and composure, no matter how challenging it might be?

Mmmmm.

When stressful things happen, I usually want to jump into action. I get defensive. Or I want to blame someone else. 

I am most definitely not calm. Inside, I am thinking, “Flibberty gibbets and poppycock! Oh, for the love of cheese puffs!”

But in more colorful words.

My heart was not prepared for my mother’s cancer.

Or to be in relationship with an addict.

My heart was not prepared for my father’s head injury, which put him in a wheelchair for the last six years of his life. 

Or prepared for my son to struggle in college. Or to have him move 1,500 miles away. 

My heart was not prepared for those layoffs.

But somehow, we figure it out, right? 

Somehow, we find our ground and things move on. 

Here I am today, on the other side of those things. But even as I learn to be stiller and quieter inside, my mind is always asking, “What is coming next? What shoe is to drop in the next year?”

In other words, what else might I need to prepare my heart for?

I sometimes get an anxious feeling in the middle of the night. My brain in that 2:00-4:00 am hour never seems to imagine anything good. Sometimes when I awaken in those hours and can’t go back to sleep, anxiety begins churning as if a giant shoe is preparing to drop and I don’t know what that shoe is.

A few friends have lost their spouses recently—quite suddenly. Or had a significant illness in their lives. Some have had to put a beloved dog down recently. And my cat Kevin is 17 and is getting really, really thin. 

How do we prepare our hearts for these things?

We can’t always expect the worst. That’s basically seeing the glass as half empty. Negativism. Expecting disappointment. Pessimism sets our sights too low, creates exactly what we don’t want, and generally can make us not fun people to be around.

Instead, to prepare the heart for anything, I think it means expecting the best. But still being ready for the worst. 

In other words, we might want to consider, “What is the worst thing that could happen?” And then note what it is pointing to, in terms of preparation that may be needed or conversations that might be had. 

But our imaginings cannot start and end there. We must expect the best too. We must consider what is the most amazing thing that could happen? What is possible from here? What might emerge if I believed more powerfully in it?

And how might I then be with whichever path I end up on?

We can prepare to be with whatever comes. This is true equanimity. If we learn to connect with stillness inside, we can handle whatever arises.

Where do you find stillness in your heart? What are you doing when you are the most at peace and calm no matter what is swirling around you?

I find stillness through meditation. Yoga. Writing. Hiking. Biking. Traveling to new worlds. Doing things that bring me joy.

To find that quiet, you might find visualizations help. Or keeping a journal to track your emotions. Or deep breathing! Or some kind of art. When we are stressed or overwhelmed, focused breaths can calm the nervous system. Or taking mindful breaks. 

We can also remind ourselves that even when unpleasant emotion arises, those emotions are temporary visitors. They do not need to be permanent residents.

This is basically what it means to be human: Happiness touches our lives now and then. But we will also always experience suffering. And there’s not much else we can do but hop on the roller coaster of life. We must learn to be with the highs and lows and experience them all. But the key is to be with joy and sadness without being swept away by any of it—that’s the real challenge.

This preparing the heart that Brach talks about is about developing a balanced relationship with our emotions. It’s about creating inner space that is vast and powerful enough that we can experience emotions without ever being completely consumed by them.

Dhammapada, Buddha’s collection of sayings, includes, “Touched by happiness and then by suffering, the sage shows no sign of being elated or depressed.” 

This is the challenge, isn’t it? 

To be touched by joy and then by sadness, but to remain the calm “you” throughout. 

This path to preparing the heart is personal and unique. What works for me may not be what works for you. You can’t tell someone else how to connect with equanimity. All we can do is experiment. Be kind to ourselves. And approach this journey with curiosity and compassion. 

I know I can be with sadness.

I have done it before.

And I always welcome joy.

We’ll see what comes next, won’t we?

And we can learn to welcome all of it in with open arms.

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