Monday, April 21, 2008

RELEASE THE BRAKES

I was on the way to meet my sister for lunch the other day. I was speeding along the parkway (don’t tell the park police) and had gone about a half mile from my house when I realized that the car was shaking a little. I looked to the dash to see if there was anything amiss. The parking brake indicator light was shining like a blinding flash of the obvious. Sure enough, the brake handle was sticking up between the seats and I hadn’t even noticed.

HMMM…doesn’t that seem like real life sometimes? We are traveling at break neck speeds toward some particular goal without taking the parking brake off. We start to hear the clicks, the clatters and feel the shakes just a little at first and then more and more pronounced as the trip continues. Sure, we normally seem to get to the destination, maybe even on time…but what is the wear and tear on ourselves in the process?

Thus, Today’s entry is to urge you (ok – it is really to urge myself) to release the parking brake.

It is amazing what a smooth ride I had once I released the brake. Releasing the brake wasn’t hard. The real trick was in noticing that it was still on. But, even then, all I had to do to was listen to the subtle differences from when the ride is effortless, efficient and maybe even EASY and then started to investigate the potential causes.

On a twist of the old saying we teach kids for crossing the street, I listened, I looked and then I stopped the behavior that no longer made sense.

That is what we should do in all aspects of our lives. 1) Listen to the inner wisdom for information, 2) Look for potential causes or solutions, and 3) Release the obstacles, old patterns or anything that is putting brakes on the actions that will get us efficiently, easily and effortlessly to our true destination.

What brake do you need to release today?

3 comments:

Rose Rosetree said...

Lori, that's a fascinating point. Once I spoke with a garage mechanic who told me that he noticed that women's cars were much more likely to need brakes than cars belonging to men.

Why? He explained that women often brake while we accelerate.

You could say the parking brake relates to subconscous mind but the other brake relates to your conscious mind. Male or female, surely we can avoid both kinds of self-sabotage.

MS said...

Hi Lori, I enjoyed this post and can definitely relate. My experience with changing my awareness is that I can detect sooner when I'm getting off-track, which helps me correct course sooner. Or let go of the parking brake faster!

I AM Lori said...

Rose, you always give me more to consider!! Here is to clearing both the conscious brakes and the unconscious ones. Guess I better go meditate! NAMASTE. Lori