Imperturbability

52 Weeks of Steiner – Week 33  
(This is part of a weekly serial started on Michaelmas 2023. To see the other entries, please see the post linked HERE and scroll down to the bottom for individual links)

Isn’t that a great word? Imperturbability.

It is a word to describe Steiner’s third exercise, equanimity, sometimes referred to as balance in feeling, control of feeling, detachment, equanimity in feeling, or as above, imperturbability. It’s focus is on building the inner force to have balance in our feeling and not to be over-run by them.

The student must work his way upward to the realization that his thoughts and feelings are as important for the world as his actions. It must be realized that it is equally injurious to hate a fellow-being as to strike him. … We must admit that our every feeling produces an effect, just as does every action of our hand.

Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds
GA 10, Lecture Four

Balance in feeling is not about eliminating or diminishing your feelings. It is more about taking a pause so that you can bring consciousness to your feeling. Feelings come without warning. “That feeling came out of nowhere” is a common phrase, and what this exercise helps us do is bring consciousness to our feelings so that we can monitor what we put out into the world and if it fits the situation.

When people use the term detachment to describe this exercise, I kind of cringe. I know that what is meant is to for detachment from the event so you can collect your feelings, but that word to me feels like it is disengaging, not having the feelings. And in my experience, this exercise is about going deeper, not detaching. It is about connecting to your feeling, instead of living within a mess of habit responses that are sometimes too big and sometimes not big enough.

I like to refer to this exercise as “the pause”. Pausing for a moment to see what comes through the feeling realm, and then making a conscious decision about what you give to the world.

This is an exercise you practice in your everyday life, so no need to make special time for it. When I review myself, I know there are time when I overreact or underreact and when I set the intention to pause before I add to an event, it filters through so many instances in my day. When you first start, you might not remember until after the moment, or you might remember in the middle of the moment, or you might remember before but get carried away and forget in the moment. The important thing to note here is that you DID bring consciousness to the impulse, now it is just a matter of working the will to bring consciousness at the correct time.

Making the choice to pause before responding, especially in a world where instant responses are expected, can really help with bringing consciousness to our feelings. And sometimes it gives us the opportunity to not engage, engage more fully, or to wait to engage until some time has passed. It really is about turning inward so that we can give the world something more than a reaction. Each time we do this, take time to sort out our feelings, we give the world a gift of our present selves.

Last week I worked on Initiative in Action. It was to tap my nose at 8pm each night. I got the timing correct once, but I found that throughout the week, I reminded myself often to finish tasks fully, or to not stop half way through to do something else and come back to the first task later, to be really present in what needed to be done. Just carrying the impulse, much like the control of thought exercise, brings forth initiative in my entire life, not just at 8pm when I’m meant to tap my nose.

I’m very interested to see how this week progresses with imperturbability (I’m totally only ever calling it this from now on!). I’ve got a BIG week ahead with many events, a long weekend and big garden goals to be accomplished, so it will be interesting how I bring consciousness when I’m feeling the effects of the unusually big week.

Will you be joining me?

Until next time,
Marina