What Can a Car Wash Teach you About Life?

If you are like most people you get in your car, start it and either adjust it from the "park" position and put it in "reverse" or "drive", right? You are either moving forward or in reverse. In much the same way in life, we are either moving forward, towards our goals, or being distracted by things which are coming between us and our goals. And sometimes, just as in driving, you may have to go in reverse in order to move forward.

It is worth noodling this through and holding ourselves accountable after all, we are in the driver's seat. We are faced with decisions daily as we "drive" through our lives. Try asking yourself when struggling to make a decision, "Will this feed the energy of what I want to accomplish & create... or detract from it?" This one question will help you say YES or NO with no guilt-- and with no apology.

This weekend, as I waited in line to get my car washed I was on my cell phone with friend and Success Television & SSI Expert Dianne Orwig. I paid, rolled up my windows and eased my car into the tracks of the conveyor that would guide my car (with me inside) through the suds and dancing strips of fabric that would soon remove winter from my car. Distracted by our engaging conversation I placed my car in PARK once I got the hand-signal from the attendant. Within seconds I noticed a huge rhythmic jolting of the vehicle and the look of alarm on the face of the attendant as he called out to me to put my car in NEUTRAL, not park!

Oops.

I was amused..
Dianne was amused.
The attendant, no so much.

I will allow the spiritual lesson of the car wash to be a guide today. Rather than driving forward or in reverse-- or sitting in park-- I will allow more time in neutral. Not because I don't want to move forward, but rather because I want to move forward with EASE.

You see, once I put my car in neutral, the conveyor carried me. I didn't have to DO anything at all to get through the car wash. In much the same way, we are so guided in life and sometimes we think we have to push forward-forward-forward...when sometimes you only need to let a force BIGGER THAN YOU, drive.

If you feel like you are paddling upstream you can change this exhausting act. And that does not mean paddling downstream either. It means, like putting your car in neutral, DROP THE OARS and let the river effortlessly carry you like a conveyor through a car wash.

(c) Rena M. Reese

**The author authorizes reposting on relevant sites as long as the content is not altered in any way and Rena's complete author bio appears with the article**