Avalanche Moments: Soul-Sucking Sacrifice or Labs of Equanimity?
Friday Reflection (No.86)
You know the feeling: it’s fall in the Northern Hemisphere, and the calendar is a wall of unreasonably ambitious execution deadlines, planning cycles and unrelenting requests. New, unexpected commitments are converging into a sudden, unstoppable wave. It’s what I call an Avalanche Moment—those periods where the flow and volume of demands create the feeling of being buried alive. These moments can either be imposed on you or chosen by you, but one thing is certain: paying attention to your mindset can make a big difference during these times.
Leadership Principle: Avalanche moments are inevitable when you aim to have great impact. You have a choice to experience them as soul-sucking sacrifice or as laboratories for equanimity.
In Avalanche Moments, it can feel like the only way out is through an obsessive focus that sacrifices every other aspect of life. The anxiety that usually helps high achievers anticipate risks and plan ahead can escalate into overdrive, overwhelming your mind and leaving little mental capacity for anything else. This often leads to unskillful reactions, causing suffering for yourself and others through reactive anger, anxiety, or fear, or simply a lack of being present.
There is also a more sneaky unskillful reaction that masquerades as a skillful one - disassociation or plainly put, an all-consuming seriousness. In this state, you wear a mask of calm on the surface, but are numb on the inside - far from the fully alive state that we want at our core.
On a personal level, the cost of this serious, “nose-to-the-grindstone” mentality can vary. For some they are modest. And for others they are debilitating. But, when present in a leader, its effects are more unequivocally negative, eroding engagement in teams and organizations.
That said, it is possible to experience these Avalanche Moments without reactive energy completely consuming you: Reframe Avalanche Moments from soul-sucking sacrifice to laboratories of equanimity.1
Equanimity, a mental state and practice that is lauded in nearly all flavors of ancient wisdom, offers a path through these intense periods. As Joseph Goldstein describes in The Path to Insight, equanimity is “neutrality of mind,” a state where your mind remains unaffected by external events. The Christian tradition similarly speaks of “inner peace that passes all understanding…that guards our hearts and minds.”
Equanimity is often seen as something reserved for those who spend most of their days in deep thought. Because of this, you may resist the idea. After all, to to live a life of impact, you can’t just sit around contemplating consciousness, the cosmos and impermanence all day.
So how can we avoid unskillful reactions in Avalanche Moments AND operate in GSD mode required to dig out of the avalanche?
Convert your mind into a lab of equanimity.
Labs are where we perform experiments. Also, by definition, we make mistakes in the lab. If you are more like me and less like the Dalai Lama, then you’ll still have many times during Avalanche Moments where equanimity does not prevail. This is a normal part of the cultivation process. In fact, mindfully observing the self when you are in reactive mode is a form of equanimity practice.2
What I want to emphasize is that Avalanche Moments don’t have to feel like a martyr’s walk. With the right mindset and practices, they can become a powerful laboratory for building equanimity—helping you grow more balanced and effective in everything you do.
So what specifically can you do? (This is just a start…curious to hear more ideas)
Take Action: Practical and Proven Steps
Communicate and prepare. Let those around you, at work and at home, know that you’re entering one of these intense periods. Like a giant redwood tree whose deep roots allow it to easily withstand the avalanche, remind yourself what keeps you rooted - this is often our values, our confidence that we’ve made it through these moments in the past and our closest relationships. Set “appointments” for things like physical activity or time with those we love as they actually play an important protective role. Be intentional about asking for help to ensure you can honor these commitments.
Anchor yourself. Embrace the spirit of Gandhi’s famous line about meditation: on the hardest and busiest days, he meditated twice as long. Why? Because the more intense life becomes, the more you need to anchor yourself. Decide which grounding rituals you will keep in place and practice them daily (e.g., spending time in nature, movement, listening to music, journaling, or meditating). Unless you are already more centered than Gandhi, you need more energy devoted towards these rituals (not less) during the Avalanche Moments.
Listen for the “mindfulness alarms” going off. Notice when you get stuck in a reactive mindset. This is akin to having mindfulness alarms in your laboratory. You don’t need to do anything more than observe yourself: “I’m reacting anxiously.” or “I’m in overly serious mode.” Sometimes it can be helpful to find someone to share with when these alarms go off, but other times you’ll simply note it for yourself. Also, try relying on “in the moment” actions like mental noting or even breathing and pausing so that you can use these small moments contain multiple equanimity-inducing experiments.
Lighten up and physically shift. Inevitably, the lab of equanimity will shut down at points during Avalanche Moments. When this happens, pay attention to when you are disassociating or become overly serious as it’s a reaction that can surface more subtly. Then, follow Pema Chödrön’s advice: do something to break the pattern.3 Look out the window at nature, sing in the shower, read a short story that makes you laugh, splash cold water on your face, or even practice a physical motion like a wall angel —anything to reset your mind. Moreover, create space for laughter as this also has the potential to unlock another benefit - you’ll come up with better, more creative ideas to dig out of the Avalanche.
Reflect: Some Questions to Consider
How can you better prepare for your next Avalanche Moment?
What grounding rituals can you rely on during the Avalanche Moments? If none, what are one or two that you can experiment with?
What are one or two ways to get you to “lighten up” while still keeping your eyes on the prize during Avalanche Moments?
If this week’s Friday Reflection was practical or enjoyable (or maybe even both!), please share it with your colleagues and friends.
This week’s Friday reflection is as much for readers and my executive coaching clients as it is for myself. When I experience an Avalanche Moment, I find that I have all of these unskillful reactions - anxiety, anger and disassociation. And while I’ve made progress that I am proud of over the years, what this means for me is that I need to re-commit to my laboratory of equanimity daily and sometimes hourly.
That said, if you find yourself constantly in avalanche mode, then you may have a different challenge. In addition to doing work on your laboratory of equanimity, you likely also need to embrace the “Courage to Do Less.”
This concept is admittedly abstract and when misapplied can sound like rumination. I’ve turned to Thich Nhat Hanh’s reflections on this topic to gain further clarity as well as a simple way to put it into practice: “The essential thing is to not let any feeling or thought arise without recognizing it in mindfulness, like a palace guard who is aware of every face that passes through the front corridor." You can read his whole piece on this topic here.
Pema Chodron’s Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty is one of those books I go back to over and over again. Every time I read even a short section, new insights or applications emerge. I even use some of her slogans from the book with my son and I can tell you…listening to a high-energy four-year old recite “Rely on a joyful heart and mind” is a pretty powerful way to strengthen your roots during the avalanche. So don’t tell him…but I may be teaching him these things as much for me as for him…maybe even more for me than for him.