{"id":654,"date":"2010-07-07T11:10:42","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T18:10:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2010-07-08T12:06:20","modified_gmt":"2010-07-08T19:06:20","slug":"654","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"Day 31 – NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dearest Readers,<\/p>\n

Sometimes it’s a pleasure to experience the Healing Path in action, to see how much we’ve changed and witness the devoted work we’ve been doing on ourselves paying off. I got that chance yesterday.<\/p>\n

On an escalator going up (how’s that for a metaphor) a man began to speak to me. His clothes were dirty and, like a snail, he seemed to be carrying all he owned in the world along with him.<\/p>\n

Probably because I gave him a great, big, fearless smile he was soon flirting with me and jokingly saying he was coming with me wherever I happened to be going. He was acting as if he’d just fallen in love.<\/p>\n

Not long ago I would have taken my great big smile back and closed my heart, shutting the door on his advances to protect myself from something “bad” happening. I would have turned cold and made that man re-think his behaviour. I would have allowed shame to rule the situation.<\/p>\n

Not anymore.<\/p>\n

What I have learned is that no one can take away my power unless I willingly give it to them. That man could have made me feel small and vulnerable had I let him. Repeat: had I let <\/em>him.<\/p>\n

How about I don’t let him? How about I stay open and laugh right along with him? How about I hold my power and stand firm in it? How about continuing to smile that fearless smile?<\/p>\n

Now I’m not suggesting leaving ourselves open to harm. Those of you who read the blog I posted last week<\/a> about purposefully avoiding a potentially abusive situation know that empowering ourselves also means protecting ourselves. But if the situation is harmless and our safety is assured, a fearless smile and an unguarded attitude makes the world a better place.<\/p>\n

That man and I parted ways, smiling fearlessly and laughing joyfully. We’d reached the top together.<\/p>\n

Inspiring Message of the Day: <\/strong><\/em> I will open my heart and embrace my fellow human. I will smile fearlessly and welcome the harmless stranger. I will hold my Power while performing these actions knowing that no one can take It from me unless I give it away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dearest Readers, Sometimes it’s a pleasure to experience the Healing Path in action, to see how much we’ve changed and witness the devoted work we’ve been doing on ourselves paying off. I got that chance yesterday. On an escalator going up (how’s that for a metaphor) a man began to speak to me. His clothes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[443,358,325,442,317],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fearless","tag-healing-path","tag-inspiring-message-of-the-day","tag-nyc","tag-walk-through-your-fear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":658,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}