Equanimity and Wellness

Equanimity and Wellness

When Medicine Box was first founded in 2016, it launched with several products and even an edibles line, most of which fell by the wayside. However, our Equanimity formulation always stood out, whether one lived on the lush shores of Lake Tahoe or not. Developed in collaboration with Northern Californian medical cannabis pioneer Michael Hollister (who came up with the name), this restful combination of herbs and hemp extracts soon became our best-selling product. Containing a blend of soothing herbs such as valerian, skullcap, and catnip already effective on their own, the addition of cannabinoids such as CBD and the sleepy-time molecule CBN made it a natural choice for those seeking a natural sleep aid. Breaking out to win Best Sleep Tincture at the 2019 Emerald Cup, it’s always been a crowd-pleaser, so it was a natural leader for our First Cabinet Healing Suite of Botanical Formulations, which we launched back in 2020.

However, there’s more than just an entourage effect of herbs and hemp which give Equanimity its unique ability to create rest and calm, whether or not you’re sleeping. A lifetime of setbacks and methodical exploration taught Michael just what inner peace feels like. Plant medicine, along with the proper mentorship, can help us achieve it. Active ingredients must mesh perfectly with a lifestyle that works with, rather than against, the message of nature. It’s this care and concern for the user’s experience which has always made Medicine Box stand out, and it’s something we continue to strive for with every product we make.

Cannabis leaves on a tea cup

Michael's lessons

We handled the initial formulation of Equanimity from the bottom up – make the product as well and as simply as we could, release it into the wild, listen and respond to feedback, adjust and repeat the cycle anew. Consensus developed around a few common uses. Some used it to aid after a long, hard and emotionally challenging day; others found a few drops afforded them better sleep. From there, we determined what worked best for people, eventually settling on the gel caps we now sell nationally.

However, we found once we embraced Equanimity as our flagship, we also learned equanimity’s primacy for the world’s collective well-being. And moving back to Michael’s lessons, it’s 100% holistic. You simply cannot expect Equanimity to come from simply one source in your life. Pretty soon, if you’re taking wellness and equanimity seriously enough, you have to develop balance in every single facet. Much of this comes from reintegrating oneself with nature. For those of us who live here in the Lake Tahoe/Nevada County region year-round, you can practically pluck equanimity from a low-hanging branch. 

However, for those we’ve mentored outside of Tahoe, these are the basic steps we suggest in re-achieving a balance within one’s life.

  1. Take nature where you can find it, whether it’s a park or even houseplants on your sill, 
  2. Support products that correspond to your social and spiritual values. If they’re doing it right, those brands can act as a powerful talisman for the qualities you wish to promote in your life. 
  3. Focus attention on the neglected areas of your life, making those key discovery that brings us back to the source.
Practicing yoga on the deck in the morning

Equanimity for stress relief

During his life, Michael was a craniosacral therapist who specialized in relieving stress and unleashing creativity in his patients. In his own life, he put great effort into understanding negative feedback loops that could entrap people and push them away from achieving equanimity. As a fellow brother in recovery, Michael lived “one day at a time,” and recognized that the answers one is looking for in life aren’t always going to be there when you want them. Learning how to handle that and still find comfort and peace was critical for finding equanimity in his life — a lesson we put into practice as a business every day.

Plant medicine doesn’t come with a usage label attached to its stalk, and life doesn’t come with a user manual either. Developing Equanimity meant harnessing collaboration and community along with premium hemp extracts and herbs to get at the right formulation that wins people peak rest and serenity. As we like to say at Medicine box, “WE Are the Entourage Effect.” It’s the effective concentration of nature, of soil and sun and love, grown straight out of the ground here in Tahoe, that brings it all home to you. That’s the mission, the product and the gift that you receive whenever you buy Equanimity and practice it in your life. May it serve you well.

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