I never thought I’d write a post about washing my car, but when I was cleaning the house this morning I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I felt when I last cleaned my car so here goes……
It’s true most people are more likely to learn valuable life lessons from strongly positive or negative circumstances they experience in their life because it’s pretty hard to ignore something that’s slapped you in the face and said, “Hello, here I am, how did you like that!” And although that’s great if we are having strongly positive experiences, my point is that opportunities to learn and grow in our lives are everywhere, even in the most mundane of tasks that we may either dislike or do without much conscious thought behind it.
Let me back up a bit in time so we can get a picture of where I was, in relation to where I am now on the subject.
About 11 years ago I had a little SUV for 8 years that I absolutely loved driving. Being more of a fast driver than a slow driver and loving windy roads with music playing……. I just really loved driving her and often went on about it when talking with my husband.
Of course, my husband’s opinion was;
1. I drive too fast.
2. I drive far too fast around corners actually speeding up instead of slowing down!
3. I never washed my car which he ending up doing because he couldn’t stand it!
4. I should not let our young children eat food in the car.
5. I have the music up too loud.

(If you’re reading this Babe, I’m totally laughing right now……hehehe!!!)
Every time my husband cleaned my car which I greatly appreciated, he complained about me not doing it and said he couldn’t understand how someone who loved their car so much and talked about it as if it was an actual person rather than just a machine didn’t want to wash it themselves.
My excuses were;
1. It never looked that dirty to me because of the colour that it was.
3. I didn’t need to do it because he always did it for me.
4. It was not high on my priority list at the time.
5. It was not something I wanted to do.

Fast forward to 3 years ago and my husband chose a new car for me because I wasn’t sure what I wanted and thought I’d let him decide since he seemed far more excited about it than I was. The truth is I didn’t really want to get rid of my old car but she was getting old and was often needing work done, and then someone hit me from behind at speed pushing me into the car in front of me so all things considered it was probably inevitable we would need a new car sooner or later. You could say that the accident was literally a push in the new car direction.
My husband informed me the colour of my new car was black and it would need washing often if I wanted it to look nice. I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably need to take responsibility for keeping her clean.
Fast forward 3 years to now and I have been true to my word. Initially, I probably washed her every week due to roadworks but don’t need to do it that often now. To begin with, I didn’t love washing her but I did love how she looked afterwards so I continued. Now when I wash her I start to realise and feel the power of my positive focus and appreciation of her as I undertake this most mundane and initially unwanted task.

I love my new car as much as I loved my old car, but life happens and we get busy doing the normal business of living and sometimes our appreciation and positive feelings towards things can be diminished as we rush around getting things done instead of doing something and enjoying it as much as we can, even if it isn’t our favourite thing to do.

When we make the effort to orientate ourselves in this way on any subject in the world no matter how important or unimportant it appears to be, it isn’t long before unwanted, hard to do jobs become easier or even enjoyable to undertake.
There will always be things we feel we need to do that we don’t find very enjoyable. That’s the nature of being in a physical body in a physical world and becoming who we really are. It is possible to make these things easier to do and it comes down to our perspective on life and what our beliefs are.
We all have the ability to look at anything in any way that we choose to and whatever choices we make will directly affect the experiences we have and the outcomes we achieve. When we truly know this through observing our own lives, there simply is no real choice to make. Staying in a negative emotional place on any subject becomes an unacceptable place to stay when we know this will only make our experience more miserable, especially for things we regularly have to do. I know what I always make an effort to choose but at the end of the day, it’s each to their own……..

Well, after all that writing I think I better go and……..you guessed it, wash my lovely car!!!

And so I did……..