There have been times in my life when I’ve found myself having a hard time directing my thoughts from hurling backward in time, stuck in a loop of memory and trauma replay. This was not healthy or fun, and punctuated the several years after the divorce from my disastrous marriage to my second husband. Some small thing (or nothing at all) could trigger me and catapult me back in time. It was exhausting. I started repeating the phrase, ‘put it in neutral’ as a way to stop the backward motion. This came to me in a terrifying dream where I was driving backward through my life at full speed and could hardly control the car, knowing I would be destroyed if I didn’t stop it. My dream showed me the metaphor for my inner journey.
This little mindfulness snack is super easy and tremendously effective. Whenever you find yourself stuck somewhere in the past, tell yourself to ‘put it in neutral’ and take a deep breath. You can’t zoom forward until you stop moving backward. Neutral is sometimes the most powerful place to be, planning your next move, and free from the confines of the past. You can use it as a mantra to help you notice if you’re stuck somewhere other than the present moment.
