If you’ve ever pursued something with grand vision, you know there are more down in the trenches days than triumphant ones. If you’ve ever built something from scratch, you are familiar with the tedious process of starting over again and again. If you’ve started a project, taken a huge leap of faith, trusted your gut, you’ve gotten cozy with the sleepless nights of pondering regret and waking up ready to return to safety. If you’ve failed, publicly or secretly, you’ve dealt with the fear of being exposed, considered a fraud and maybe did a u-turn back to the comfortable and familiar.
Anyone that dreams ambitiously, bravely, and tenaciously knows what it’s like to have your fears sitting squarely between furrowed brows and hunched shoulders. You know what it feels like to coexist with fear and hope. What about the moments, when you just feel like you aren’t moving forward?
You’re sitting still. You’re spending time in neutral.
I recently attended a four part sermon series titled “Power Shift.” In the four part series, the pastor used the metaphor of a car and how it can shift between four gears: park, reverse, neutral and drive. The third sermon, “neutral,” stuck with me the most as it helped me make sense of the past three years. I haven’t been able to categorize them before but now I clump them together and call them my “neutral” years. Years parked in intense silence, looking back in deep reflection, moving slowly and methodically pondering what forward looks like.
We’ve all spent time in neutral.
Neutral is that uncomfortable spot where quite frankly you feel like you’re not accomplishing anything. The work is mostly internal, deeply introspective, and wildly uncomfortable. It’s a spot where you aren’t boasting about being booked and busy but in intense preparation to welcome what’s next. It’s a spot where you have more questions than answers. It’s a spot where you can’t quite articulate over dinner with friends, your inquiring parents or questioning partner all the while knowing there's a shift coming full speed ahead.
Neutral is a prolonged state of being still in order to welcome your next. And while being in neutral, you know you can’t move to your next if you haven’t done the work of becoming comfortable in stillness. In the age of hyper-productivity, it’s easy to rush through seasons of silence for fear of being left behind, for the fear of missing your turn or that you may just be forgotten.
How do you prepare while being in neutral and that in-between phase of knowing and not knowing?
Looking back, I found the most important thing to do was to return to activities that sparked my curiosity and inner-child exploration. You have to get comfortable with play, doing things that don’t make sense but are simple matters of the heart.
I remember doing a studio visit in New York with an artist. She told me that her studio practice was grounded in moments of play before and after she worked on a project for a client. She inspired me to purchase a mini watercolor palette, a small four-inch sketchbook, a little tin case of charcoal and a cute bag to carry it all in. For 90 days, I spent 20 minutes sketching in random coffee shops, outside in the sun, under an umbrella on the beach, on the balcony of a hotel room, and on long cross-country plane rides. This simple activity reminded me why I fell in love with art and creativity. It reminded me why I started my company as I had spent the past few years loathing its existence and whether or not I still wanted to run it. This practice restored my joy and allowed me to find the simple things in my work.
When sitting in neutral, you must make time to rectify the past and to have conversations with those you’ve hurt, grown apart or fallen out of love with.
I will never forget the three days in May 2021, I spent crying, mourning a love that I chose to hate and erase out of my life for seven years. Instead of running, I spent a few consecutive uninterrupted days alone with him. I canceled a flight, decided to allow myself to fall into our old couple-like rhythm, and really make space for closure. During those two days, we sat across from each other, poured out our resentments, talked through conversations that we were able to have with our therapists but not with each other, we said things we’ve always wanted to say, and we made love knowing it would be the last time our bodies would ever meet. The tears fell like a funeral. I was mourning the pent up anger that I had let dwell in my body for years.
I went on this apology, confrontation tour. It was dramatic, eventful, sometimes anti-climatic but always healing. Each tough conversation felt one step closer to freedom. I owned up to my mistakes, acknowledging my toxic trait of pressing “control - alt- delete.” “Control-alt-delete” is the act of erasing memories as if they were nonexistent. Too often, I dismissed my greatest teachers and found myself returning to situations because I am too afraid of healthy confrontation. Making peace with the past helped me slowly find balance in neutral. It also grounded me in gratitude for the ability to have the strength to admit my wrongdoings to people I once loved.
While in neutral you must make time for rest, make a lot more time for sleep, and make even more time for being alone.
You will need to rest from all of the looking back, looking up, below, and beside yourself. You’ll be exhausted but you’ll feel much lighter. You’ll be able to breathe more easily, knowing that who you are becoming is someone who always tells the truth.
You’ll feel the need to escape to somewhere quiet, somewhere where you can hear the birds loud and clear and hear the humming of the midnight coyotes. Your body will yearn for solitude, for moments of crisp air, early sunrises, and midnight baths.
Lean into it and make space for what your body is calling you to do. Don’t let distractions or the fear of running out of time hold you back from the necessary work of becoming more grounded and steady for your next marathon.
Because when the opportunity to sprint towards ascension becomes crystal clear in your pathway you’ll be ready to run full speed ahead.
Most importantly, you must make space for your ascension while in neutral.
The road becomes wide and vast instead of narrow and thin when you emerge from neutral. You move from having tunnel vision, blurred peripheries, and obstructed hindsights to wide vantage points and clear highways. Don’t miss the exit sign when it presents itself because it’s easy to stay too long in neutral.
You must stay alert and be aware that neutral is a temporary place. The lessons found, discovered and understood are not meant to pigeonhole you to past versions of you. It’s easy to look at mistakes, uncertainties as resting places of unworthiness. I’ve been there and have denied myself opportunities because I told myself I still have learning and growing to do. When in reality, that opportunity was the universe granting me a second chance and allowing me to try just one more time.
Your own voice and power become loud and present when you’re in neutral.
While in neutral, there will be people who you confront that will try to strip you from your voice, detach the light from inside you, flicker it off because they see you’re on the path to healing.
I’ll never forget the silencing conversations and the way my insides shriveled when I stood in a kitchen and was attacked with hurtful words. At that moment, I knew this person was hurt from a version of me from sixteen years ago and not the Tiffany who was standing in front of them.
Your voice will not always be met with listening and attentive ears. And those you meet won’t always be willing to sit with you while in neutral, soaking in the uncomfortable silence that comes with sitting in stillness. Your power will be tried and tested. You will sometimes shrink and cower because it’s easier than standing tall.
Neutral teaches you balance.
It taught me how to sway. It taught me how to retreat, it brought me truth in the morning dawn. It showed me that in due time everything, almost always, will make perfect sense.
This came right on time today. Thank you for your words and for sharing your life experience. It was very much needed and appreciated.