Neutrality Has A Different Meaning Today
Neutrality doesn’t mean that we don’t care or feel deeply. Practicing neutrality allows us to step out of a story or situation and become the observer of our experience through a different perspective. It allows us to pause, and see a cycle or pattern in our lives, so we can understand it and forgive ourselves or each other. It allows us to expand with new information and flow beyond our limited perspective so we can get fully in touch with ourselves.
How many of us have mastered reaching a calm state in the midst of a struggle, conflict, trauma, or transition? When a sense of balance is achieved, higher levels of information, awareness, and support become more readily accessible. It’s easier said than done, however, which is why we should experiment attaining a state of neutrality in our own way.
Imagine a recent stressful situation you’ve experienced. Did you feel angry, sad, disappointed, hurt, or deeply betrayed? How did you react? Did you throw an item across the room, yell at the top of your lungs, cry, or express your hurt to someone else, replaying the injustice you experienced?
All of this is very real—it’s how you felt at the moment. Do you know what your response pattern tends to be? The first step for me was to become aware of how I was hardwired to respond to stressful situations. This was when I realized I would often spend time rehashing my negative experiences with a friend.
How Are We Treating Life?
I started to understand that it wasn’t about how life was treating me, but how I was treating life that mattered. In his life-changing book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl shared, “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
A few years ago, a friend introduced me to a different type of neutrality—one we can each access. She explained that there’s another neutrality, which is referred to as “zero point,” or holistic, full-spectrum grounding. Any time I focused my energy on a problem or something I resisted; I was actually expanding it.
The best way for me to explain the pattern I saw around how I responded is relating it to bodysurfing in the ocean. When a big wave would come in behind me, I could jump and meet it and let it roll over me. When I fought the wave, it would hurt like hell and I could feel a burn throughout my body. When I was neutral and aware of the wave coming toward me, the wave would lift me, and I felt like I was floating on air with no resistance. It didn’t mean I was indifferent, but that I was aware of my ability to trust the currents.
We need a lot of patience when our reality becomes very demanding. But what if it demands that we persevere in the neutral gear, so we can be grounded, held steady, and remain firmly connected to the Earth?
Enduring through all the twists and turns, we can develop a relationship with our mind to trust and let life unfold. This is true, whether we’re orchestrating harmony in our professional lives or our personal ones.
Living in Neutrality Means We Are in Tune with Our Inner Compass
Connecting with the inner self promotes true harmony. We’re tested and challenged at different times in our life so we can adjust and transform. We unlearn only to relearn things differently. We reinvent in order to rebuild ourselves. We’ve been wired with an enthusiasm to explore and to question—and, along the way, we can discover our capacity for compassion and self-love.
This is where part of the issue lies. So many of us become totally focused on the goal, the destination, or the list of everything we must achieve. We become so busy climbing the ladder of success that we don’t remember why we want to be successful in the first place.
But we’re all taught to aspire to get there, and to add items to our bucket list with the promise that once we do, our lives will be worth living. And we may have that moment of glory, but it, too, is fleeting. Until we walk out into the unknown, the odds of fully experiencing the natural beauty of our lives are pretty low.