Truthfully, I had never heard of this word before it was chosen as the POB word of the week. I looked equanimity up online and found lots of material related. I realized that I could never do the word full justice but I wanted to make the attempt anyway.
Definition from Wikipedia:
Equanimity (Latin: æquanimitas, having an even mind; aequus even; animus mind/soul) is a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity is extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies.
After spending about an hour reading about equanimity online. I now have a very high level interpretation of the meaning. Now to me it means - to have a state of mind where you have mental balance or stability of mind. Neither being attracted to or repulsed from experiences when they occur to you.
This does not mean you do not have feelings. It just means you allow yourself to experience what is occurring without reacting. For instance, if a fly lands on your hand, your normal tendency is to swat it away because you are repulsed by it. This is a situation to practice equanimity.
In the last weeks, most of us probably needed to be in a balanced state of mind during the falling of the crypto prices to levels not seen in a while. Were you one of the ones that were panicked and reacting to the fall? It was not a situation you could control or change so there was no reason to be in any other state but sometimes we just cannot control our mind.
Everyone needs equanimity at some point!!!