{"id":10,"date":"2009-07-07T16:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-07T20:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/perspective_of_a_seeker\/2009\/07\/07\/open-to-the-experience\/"},"modified":"2012-02-16T22:18:55","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T22:18:55","slug":"open-to-the-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/perspectiveofaseeker\/2009\/07\/open-to-the-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Open to the Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>There are lots of strange moments in life, when you remember a moment that made you pause and think that you have discovered something really meaningful about yourself.  I had one of those moments in the middle of  a pedicure.<\/p>\n<p>My closest friend and I were at a local spa enjoying one of life\u2019s finest pleasures \u2013 a pedicure while chatting with a friend \u2013 and the pedicurist started telling us a story about her latest experience.  I\u2019ll paraphrase\u2026\u2026..She had traveled with a friend (a boy and potential boyfriend) to a wonderful location and was enjoying a fantastic vacation\u2026..however as the vacation came to a close, it was clear that there were feelings between them but she was too afraid to get involved\u2026..She lamented at the end that while he seemed so perfect, she was not sure he was worth the risk, worth the chance of getting hurt, worth the chance that it might not last.<\/p>\n<p>Much to my surprise, I blurted out \u201cWhat???? Are you kidding me???? What is more important than trying??  When you are my age, would you like to look back and say Wow, I have lived a safe and predictable life, never got hurt.  OR do you want to be able to say\u2026wow I lived, I tried it all, sure I got hurt a few times, made some crazy decisions but I really lived?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m not sure who was more surprised, her or me!  I reacted so strongly and in the moment found myself thinking hard about what I wanted to say about my life\u2026\u2026.Am I open to the experience?<\/p>\n<p>Wouldn\u2019t it be better to feel love, really get in the moment and give it your all\u2026..even if it means that you get hurt and feel the loss later? Is having the experience \u2013 good or bad \u2013 better than not having it at all?<br>\nThere are many things that I want to teach my children \u2013 to be good, to be kind, to be honest, to be spiritual \u2013 but when I think about all the things that I can give them, most of all I want to teach them to love and to live \u2013 even when it\u2019s scary \u2013 even when you might get hurt \u2013 even when it seems crazy.  It will be the experiences that define their lives and will create the memories that live with them forever.<\/p>\n<p>I hope that today \u2013 we are all blessed with an experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Cathie<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are lots of strange moments in life, when you remember a moment that made you pause and think that you have discovered something really meaningful about yourself. I had one of those moments in the middle of a pedicure. My closest friend and I were at a local spa enjoying one of life\u2019s finest [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,16,17],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-children","tag-experience","tag-risk"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Open to the Experience<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There are lots of strange moments in life, when you remember a moment that made you pause and think that you have discovered something really meaningful\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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