Hello and welcome to being well I'm Forrest Hanson. If you're new to the

podcast this is where we explore the practical science of lasting well-being and if

you've listened before welcome back. I'm joined today as usual by Dr.

Rick Hansen. Rick is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author who's spent over 35 years

teaching people the key lessons from psychology and contemplative practice that lead to a good life.

And I'm also happy to say that he happens to be my dad. So dad, how are you doing today?

I'm really good. You happen to be my son and it's kind of

irrevocable too bad. We all have our crosses to bear in life, you know, this one is ours.

Yeah, so inside of that lovely context, today we're actually talking about something that I know that you've been excited for.

We're going to be talking about equanimity.

And that's kind of a fancy word for something that we've all been facing this year, which is basically

the idea of staying sane in the face of a world that often feels like it's lost its mind a little bit.

It's one thing to use some of the tools that we talk about on this podcast when things feel stable

and are going kind of good enough. But it's really another to apply them

when the world around us feels really threatening.

So today, again, we're going to be talking about maintaining our equanimity.

Another way to put that maybe is maintaining our composure, our

presence of mind, and maybe hey if we can pull it off even our well-being

under challenging circumstances. So does that sound good to you? I love this topic because in addition to its

practical value it sits right at the intersection of very cool brain science and

very profound ancient wisdom. So I'm looking forward to getting

into this with you.

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