Month: October 2009

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My Year of Hopefulness – In Love with Love

Christa Avampato

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” ~ Rumi

This year I’ve been very fortunate to bear witness to come of my very favorite people finding the loves of their lives and getting married. Some people will say that they hate going to weddings alone because it makes them feel badly about their own romantic situations, or lack thereof. Though I do wish I had been at these weddings with the love of my life there with me, I never for a moment would say that it made me feel badly to go to these weddings on my own. If anything, they left me feeling more hopeful and joyful about love.

Tonight I had the great honor to attend Leah and Peter’s wedding. They are friends of mine from college. I’ve ever been to a wedding where there was this much love so abundantly present; there was no way to pack even one more ounce of love into the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity without it bursting. It was a beautiful thing to see, and even more incredible to feel love in that magnitude.

As an institution, I find marriage slightly terrifying and as a result have shied away from it in the past. It’s only this year, and actually only in the past month, that I’ve been able to see that a marriage based on love and respect and kindness is quite possibly one of our greatest hopes for happiness. To see two people bring their lives together with so much courage and faith in one another is awe-inspiring. As Rumi says, it’s not about meeting our love, it’s about finding the love that has been with us all along.

Peter said it so beautifully to Leah in his vows: “I have been sailing home to you all my life.” And that line did it for me – that sentiment helped me make the leap, leaving fear behind. No wonder my friends who have gotten married this year haven’t felt scared about marriage. No wonder they could put their trust into someone else so completely. Love is about finding our way home, about providing a home for the heart of another. In its most authentic form, it is about being on a journey toward someone who has been journeying toward us. Here’s to love, and those brave enough to take up the journey.

The photo above is not my own. It can be found here.

change, discovery, stress

My Year of Hopefulness – Shifting Ground

Christa Avampato

“A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.” ~ Arthur Golden, from Memoirs of a Geisha

Lately, my life seems to be a little like an earthquake. I feel like I am always standing on shifting ground. Just when I think I get one part of my life settled, an aftershock throws me off balance. There are some amazing lessons to be learned when we are standing on uncertain ground. And while working through these circumstances is difficult, I am certain that once the dust settles I will be a far better person in every respect.

With shifting ground:

1.) You learn what you want, and what you don’t want.
Things I want: a career that contributes to building a better world, freedom to use my time with more flexibility, to be out and about in the world as much as possible, a close family, close friends, a feeling of connection to my community.

Things I don’t want: to wake up in the middle of my years and find that I didn’t do something because I was scared or because I was worried it would take too long to complete, to “dream” more than I “do”

2.) You learn who you want, and who you don’t want in your life.
People I want: those with commitment and determination. Those who do what they say and say what they do. People who show up, and love fiercely and fearlessly, and take big chances on big dreams. Those who hold at their core honesty, bravery, and empathy. People who know what they want and have the confidence to go for it. People who change the direction of the wind. Kind and generous and those who want to be at cause with the world. People who listen more than they talk.

People I don’t want: those who can’t make up their minds. People who are inconsistent. People who constantly look at what others can get or do for them. People who lack follow-through and commitment. “Idea people” who don’t have the ability or inclination to bring those ideas to life through the honest work of their own two hands. Those who spend an hour with me talking about themselves for 59 minutes and asking me how I’m doing for 1 minute.

3.) You learn to live with less material wealth, and greater purpose.
Last night I spoke to my dear friend, Amy, who is my inspiration when it comes to creating a purposeful life. She told me about a book called The Soul Of Money by Lynne Twist. It’s helping Amy to make the transition from the career she has, which carries a big paycheck and is not what she wants to do, to the career she wants, which has a less certain income stream and a tremendous amount of satisfaction. Twist advocates for our ability to build a meaningful, satisfying life with our own inner resources. It’s an idea we can all get behind – to be motivated by a personal mission, a reason for being, and not a bonus and an annual performance review rating. She shows us that wealth of the heart and mind is at least as importance as the wealth in our bank accounts.

Shifting ground is treacherous. It is filled with doubt and uncertainty. It shakes us to our core, and in the process we find out what sustains us, what makes us glad that we woke up today, what motivates us to build a better tomorrow for ourselves and for others. This is uncomfortable work, though it’s the only way I can see to make the valleys of this journey through life worthwhile.

Disappointment is going to show up at our door at one time or another. People are going to let us down. And how we handle these disappointments, and what we learn from them, in many ways helps us to define who are and who we mean to be. They are teachers, twisted and odd as they may be. The way to learn from the disappointments is to hang on to those who build us up, the circumstances that make us strong, those who can support us in our darkest hour. They make all the difference, and help us climb back to those peaks.

This uncertain ground will pass. The aftershocks eventually die down. Life does get back to normal. And when it does, I know I’ll find that my ground has shifted in a favorable direction.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

change, leadership

My Year of Hopefulness – Pendulum

Christa Avampato

“One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life.” ~ E.M. Forster

Yesterday a friend of mine was talking to me about the idea of leadership as a pendulum. “Imagine that the leader is up here at the top of the pendulum. Even the slightest movement made by the leader causes huge swings down at the bottom. Leaders need to be conscious that when they make seemingly small changes, the repercussions for others are enormous.”

I had never thought of leadership this way and wondered how I might be able to apply that to leading my own life. It’s easy to play out the idea of what big changes can do to our lives; what happens with the slight changes, the ones we don’t put so much thought into? How do they add up and what kind of toll do they take, for better and for worse?

First, for worse: I’ve been trying to remember to breath. That’s right – remembering to breath. Earlier this week I was starting to think about everything I need to get done in the next month. I’ve made so many commitments – places to be, people to see, tasks I need to complete – that I began to feel overwhelmed. How could I get this all done in the time I had?

Thinking about all of this I was holding my breathe. I closed my eyes and I let it go. I kept reminding myself while I had a lot on my plate, 99% of it was fun stuff, things I wanted to do. We have to take one day at a time, one moment at a time. If we think about swaths of time that are too large, we naturally get overwhelmed. Bite-sized pieces – that’s the key. Small steps.

Now, for better: what are the small things we can do in our lives that make a big difference? This week, I’ve been taking a few minutes before I go to sleep to close my eyes and empty my mind. Last week I was having some bad nightmares. I wasn’t sleeping well. And it was effecting my energy and my outlook. It was eroding my hope. This week, I found myself being a bit more bold, able to articulate my point-of-view calmly and succinctly, especially under very stressful situations. All that I needed was a clearer, calmer mind, and that 5 to 10 minutes of meditation before I went to sleep made a big difference.

The next time when I see big swings happening in different areas of my life, I’ll raise my eyes up to the top of that pendulum. I’ll take a look at the small changes I made, or the small changes I can make, that yield big results.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

education, future, goals, happiness, passion, success

My Year of Hopefulness – Choosing the way

Christa Avampato

“To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.” ~ John Dewey

October has shaped up to be a fantastic month for me. A few dips here and there, though for the most part it’s been about exploring new opportunities, meeting new people, and getting a better handle on how my life is moving forward. In other words, I am deep into the first piece of John Dewey’s statement: “finding what one is fitted to do”.

Tonight I had dinner with my friend, Richard, and we were talking about this exploration. I suppose one of the reasons we’ve become such good friends is that we are natural explorers. This is true of so many of my friends, nearly all of them have gone down many different paths, learning a lot along the way, and eventually finding their groove. I’m the late bloomer in the bunch. It took me a long time before I realized how that I could build a life around the idea of a securing a quality education for every child, how adamantly I believe in Frederick Douglass’s idea that “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” I am a product of this idea and I am now at a point where I’ve been in the world enough to be able to fight for this principle in a thoughtful, compelling way.

So now the trick is the how, John Dewey’s second piece of the puzzle: how (and where) to secure an opportunity to do what I am fitted to do. On the one hand, I am fortunate that my passion has many different avenues for me to pursue. I could go back to a nonprofit that has a mission to help children. I could teach. I could do research in this area. I could pursue an advanced degree (and there are several types of degrees that would be suitable). I could go into government work. I could simply volunteer as I have been doing for many years. I could write. In actuality, I could do all of these things, and likely will. On the other hand, how will I make a choice among all of these options? What is the right way forward for me?

One thing that has amazed me is that it’s the first part, figuring out what we’re fitted to do, what we’re passionate about, that takes the most time and effort. Once that piece is firmly planted in our minds and hearts, and we begin to share it with others, opportunities to do what we love abound. People rally around us, support our dreams and efforts. Somehow, the way opens once we know what way we want to take.

This abundance didn’t hit me until I was speaking to Richard tonight. I was telling him what I was interested in and why. I am in the midst of researching doctoral programs in public policy and there is one in particular that just feels right, that lights a fire in my eyes and heart, the same way that the Darden School was the absolute right fit for my MBA. There are others that seem fine as well, though I just can’t seem to feel as excited about them as I am about this other program. And then a little panic set in. What if they don’t take me? Then how will I ever get this work done that I now know I am fitted to do?

I thought about this on the subway ride home, actually I worried about it. And I played it through in my mind. What if this program didn’t want me? What if the other programs didn’t fit quite right? What if this degree just wouldn’t be possible for me to get? I felt this way when applying to Darden, too. The only other program I applied to was Tuck, and after visiting Tuck, I knew that wasn’t the right fit, so Darden quickly became the only place I could or would or wanted to go. On my drive back to DC from Charlottesville, after my interview and visit to grounds, after I had fallen deeply in love with Darden and the prospect of being a student there, I wondered what I would do if I didn’t get in. I decided to do one of two things: I’d join the Peace Corps, also a lifelong dream of mine, or I’d move right back to New York where I knew I eventually wanted to make my home. That’s it. Very simple.

As luck would have it, I was accepted at Darden on December 1st. I distinctly remember jumping for joy, accepting over the phone, and breathing a great big sigh of relief. I got exactly what I wanted. So now, I’m at that same point again. What will I do if this one program that seems perfect for me doesn’t take me? Now there are many more options for this new road – maybe I’ll teach full-time, go back into nonprofit work, start my own business, write, and continue to be an active volunteer. Maybe New York City government will prove to be the way for me. Yes, I confirmed, I have lots of options.

I emerged from the subway a few hours ago with a lighter heart. John Dewey would smile knowing that there are so many opportunities I could secure to go about doing my life’s work. After all, he is the one who said we climb mountains so that we can see other mountains. From where I now stand, there are so many peaks in my landscape that a valley is scarcely able to be seen. With so many routes to happiness, the work for me now lies not in the finding but in the choosing. And that in itself is reason to smile.

The photo above is not my own. It can be found here.

career, change, love

My Year of Hopefulness – What We Love

Christa Avampato

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~ Rumi

So often we spend our time wondering what we should do with our lives that will make us successful, useful, and financially stable. What will bring us the greatest amount of happiness is always secondary to these other considerations when we think of our careers. We think “what can I do as a career so that it will give me the freedom to pursue what I really love down the road or after hours.” Today I thought a lot about how much more good we could actually do in the world if we approach our careers from a place of love first and everything else – success, money, utility – second.

This is especially on my mind today because another group of people I know lost their jobs. The news completely blind-sided all of us. It’s with a heavy heart that I went about my business today, wondering how I’d feel if I were in their shoes. How would I react? What would I say? Would I view the news as a great opportunity or an unfortunate circumstance? And then the question that caused me the greatest discomfort – who’s to say it won’t be me tomorrow? “Down the road” could very well be right now.

This idea of impermanence keeps running through my mind. In my new apartment building, there was a fire on the 10th floor on the other side of the building. When I heard the news, I panicked for a moment. Last night I kept waking up because I could not get images of black smoke out of my mind. That awful scent seems stuck in my nose. I remember too clearly rounding the corners of those stairs in my old building, clinging to the railing, crouching and scrambling and praying, as I was passing by apartments that were burning just on the other side of those walls. I remember how lucky I was that I left that building when I did. A few more minutes and it would have all unfolded very differently.

This little fire on the 10th floor of my new building was successfully extinguished before causing too much trouble, though it’s as if the Universe is flashing a great big reminder at me just as I’m getting comfortable in my new surroundings. “Remember the important things in life aren’t things. You cannot afford complacence.” I wanted to reply, “Yes, thank you Universe, I hear you. I’m working on a new plan for my life right now and I’m getting all the details ironed out. Now could you please stop playing with fire in my presence? And by the way, it’s rude and cruel to be so threatening.”

All joking aside, I’m trying hard to live every moment of my life from a place of love, love for my self, and my community, and the people I care about. I want to take Rumi’s idea one step further and let the beauty of what I love be not just what I do, but also who I am. It’s easy to put on disguises; it’s easy to tell ourselves this is who I am at work or school or with this person or that person or when I’m alone. What I’m striving for is to be one kind of person all the time, to make “down the road” today, to make my after-hours activities my every hour’s activities. In short, I’m striving for authenticity. And it seems to me that the surest way to authenticity begins with always with knowing what and who we love.

The image about is not my own. It can be found here.

business, entrepreneurship, Examiner, food, health

My latest post on Examiner.com: Interview with Founders of Code Blue

Christa Avampato

Two weeks ago, I had the great fortune of spending some time with the founders of Code Blue, a recovery drink that is made for people who need to feel refreshed without caffeine, added sugar, or preservatives. In one amazing little can you’ll find an elixir that hydrates, replenishes, detoxifies and reduces inflammation. Oh, and it tastes good, too! Sweetened with agave nectar, Code Blue has a proprietary formula that contains prickly pear, Sustamine (an amino acid that promotes muscle hydration and electrolyte replacement), B12, B6, vitamin C, and potassium.

Not convinced that any drink can do all that and taste delicious? I wasn’t either so I sat down with the founders, Michael Sachs and Jeffrey Frumin, to have a little tasting of my own. Now I’m hooked!

For the full article, click here.

change, happiness, New York City, story

My Year of Hopefulness – Stories We Tell Ourselves and Others

Christa Avampato

Today was not a good day in the ordinary sense. I had a conversation that disturbed me on a very deep level, one that really made me question who I am and what I’m about and what I mean to do in this world. Luckily a friend of mine set me in the right direction – he helped me see that this conversation is a very good thing for me. It’s helping me to realize the next step in my life in a very clear way.

After work I went with my friend, Col, to the West Village’s The Bitter End to see The Moth, a group that does a themed open-mike night of storytelling. After my day, I needed to laugh and lose myself in someone else’s stories and The Moth provided just the release I needed. 10 brave souls took to the stage, after their names were drawn from a hat, and discussed their stories that revolved around the theme of disguises. They told us about experiences where they had to pretend to be someone they’re not to accomplish something – to earn a paycheck, to meet someone whom they wanted to meet, to realize who they truly are. They were all poignant and hilarious, and Sara Barron, the MC, is a brilliant comic.

Traveling home, I kept thinking about the stories from The Moth that revolved around people who put on a mask, sometimes literally, and then put down that mask to be who they really are. For some, it took an unhappy situation, like the one I experienced today, to make them truly embrace who they are. They had to be forced to pretend to be someone else before they could actually find their own true voices. And in their own true voices, they were able to tell their own stories, their own truths. It was exactly the lesson I needed to transform a tough personal day into a day of learning.

change, education, student, teaching, yoga

My Year of Hopefulness – Sonic Yoga

Christa Avampato

It seems that I just cannot resist the pull of being a student again. Some people can’t wait to get out of school and spread their wings. The moment I graduate, I’m trying to figure how to continue to be a student. Call it an addiction. Weez, my sister, tells me that my end goal in life is to figure out how to be a professional student. She, as usual, is right.

In 2004, I took a weekend course through Yoga Fit that gave me a very basic teacher certification. This was before Yoga Alliance became the true gold standard. I have taught free classes to friends and colleagues though now, after many years of practice, I have decided that I want to be more dedicated to my practice and to join the community of fully-certified teachers. For the practice that has given me so much, it is now my turn to provide the comfort of yoga to others through teaching. I’ve been trying out a lot of different studios in New York – we are blessed with many! – and doing research on different teacher training programs. While they have been amazing finds, none of them felt quite right to me until today when I stepped into Sonic Yoga in Hell’s Kitchen.

The gracious and masterful Johanna quickly put me at ease, put the entire packed classroom at ease. I knew I found my home. Sonic Yoga is not fancy; it’s homey, comfortable, and filled with so much positive energy and warmth. People laugh in class; it’s one of the few places in New York where you are encouraged to not put on a show, but to just be exactly as you are.

Today’s lesson was about surrender, letting go of the stories we tell ourselves, freeing ourselves from situations in life that just aren’t working for us. Johanna asked us to continue to repeat one of the following three mantra throughout our class – “I surrender”, “I don’t know”, or “not my will”. She asked us not to choose the one that felt the best to us, but rather to choose the one that bothered us the most. “I don’t know”. Those words haunt me. At one point during the class, they made my eyes tear up. I’m tearing up now just thinking about this. My life is on very uncertain ground right now. While I know what I want and have an idea how to get there, I am having to give up a lot of the stories that have sustained me in order to make the change.

I am now in the process of turning away from things in my life that just don’t fit. And I don’t care what anyone says – the process of good-bye is hard. Even when we know we need to let something go for our own good, it still hurts. There are dreams that have to be put to rest. There are people who aren’t good for us. There are situations that we must remove ourselves from. I’m now in the process of deciding what dreams, people, and situations those are. And while I have my eye fixed on the horizon of the new life I am so excited about, it means surrendering some aspects of my life now that I love. There are no certainties in life; there are many things that we don’t know, that we can’t know. We must learn to be comfortable with not knowing.

Throughout the 90 minute class, I would repeat to myself “I don’t know”. I kept reminding myself that I can do this; I can surrender, even if it hurts. Keep a stuff upper lip and just muscle through. And then Johanna said, “you don’t like those words, do you?” “No,” I thought, “I don’t.” And then as if inside my head, Johanna said, “that’s okay. Acknowledge how hard this is, how much it bothers you. And then keep going.” So I did the only thing I was certain I could do. I could keep going through the asanas. I could keep moving, even with tear-filled eyes, even with a heavy heart, even while saying good-bye, I could keep moving toward my beautiful life ahead.

education, election, government, politics, social media

My Year of Hopefulness – Teaching at Hunter College

Christa Avampato

“Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.” ~ Gail Godwin, American novelist

“If you have stage fright, it never goes away. But then I wonder: is the key to that magical performance because of the fear?” ~ Stevie Nicks

Today marked my first college class teaching. My friend, Jamie, teaches an introductory political science and an elections class at Hunter College. He asked if I would come in and guest teach on the topic of social media and popular elections. With a great amount of nervousness, I accepted and went this morning at 10am to teach 2 sessions.

I have a secret – I have an awful case of stage fright. I’ve been known to get sick to my stomach several times before making a presentation or acting in a performance. I have a few techniques I have tried over the years and only one really seems to work: quit whining and just do it. It’s amazing that once I get to the stage or the front of the room, I’m completely fine. It’s the anticipation of performance that brings on the butterflies.

And so it was at Hunter. I had made copious lecture notes and rehearsed in my apartment. I was wringing my hands a bit, and worrying. Would I add any value? Would the students think what I had to say was relevant? What if I couldn’t answer a question? And here’s the truly terrifying one – what if there was no reaction at all from anyone? What if all I heard was crickets amid a sea of empty, expressionless faces? Ouch.

True to past experience, none of these things happened. The classes were engaged, interested, and interesting. I learned as much as they did in the course of the preparation and the class itself. Teaching is exactly like theatre with an added component of more front-loaded research, and theatre and research I know I can do. What surprised me most is how much I loved teaching a college class. Truly loved it. The time flew by, and when I was finished, I wanted to teach another session. Yes, the PhD-route is certainly the right one for me. Now I know that for sure.

In preparation for the class, I have had the great fortunate of amazing professors as clear examples. At Darden where I got my MBA, professors teach the case method. No lecturing allowed. The professor’s job is to draw students out, to engage them immediately, and keep the dialogue flowing non-stop for close to two hours. This is no easy task and for two years I had the privilege to sit with masters of this teaching method like Ed Freeman, Robert Spekman, and Alex Horniman.

I have also been watching and studying Michael Sandel, a professor at Harvard who teaches a wildly popular class entitled simply “Justice”. For the first time, the class is being shown on-line for free at http://www.justiceharvard.org. Every Thursday a new class is uploaded. Sandel, like my Darden professors, is a master teacher that manages to engage and facilitate discussion in a very large lecture hall. Watching him made me re-consider teaching as a profession, and reignited my interest in going back to school and getting a PhD. I must remember to send him a thank you card.

I have just created an account on slideshare.net and uploaded the presentation I gave this morning at Hunter. I build presentations as guides for a discussion and not stand-alone documents. I’m glad to walk anyone through the presentation if they’re interested!

kindness, learning, relationships, teaching

My Year of Hopefulness – Vermonty

Christa Avampato

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.” ~ Henry B. Adams

While Mr. Adams meant for this post to be about professional teachers, I’m learning that we are all always teachers, just as we are all always students. Every moment that we’re living, we’re teaching. What we teach to others says an awful lot about who we are and the significance of our lives. Just as we get what we give, we learn what we teach. What we teach is our contribution to humanity, and this is not something to be taken lightly.

What I try to be mindful of in every moment is that every action we take, every word we say has true lasting effects that we will never know. That applies to every stranger we meet, as well as everyone in our personal and professional lives. That means every personal interaction, as well as every anonymous interaction. There is no excuse for leaving out please, thank you, and a smile. There is no excuse for not doing what we say we will do. Being polite, courteous, gracious, and follow-through will get us farther in this world than anything else.

Years later, others will still be thinking about what we said and did and how we treated them. I’d prefer they think well of me than ill of me. And sometimes that requires swallowing my pride a little bit, and not saying exactly what I think all of the time. Publilius Syrus got it right when he said, “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.” I’ve learned that lesson many times over, the hard way. A little filter is good.

I’m not saying that this is easy to always remember or do. I try to get it as right as I can as often as I can. Sometimes I fall short and in the aftermath I feel a bit badly. I just double-down my efforts and try to do better going forward. At the same time that I accepted that we’re all lifelong teachers and students, I also gave up the pursuit of perfection – both realizations have helped enormously.

When I got into my apartment building elevator a few weeks ago, a man I’ve never met before stepped in after me. I had just gotten home from a rough day, and I wasn’t feeling particularly cheery. I could have looked down at my feet, lost in my own sad thoughts. Instead I looked up and smiled at the man in the elevator.

He smiled and asked me, “are you from Vermont?” I laughed.

“No, I’m not,” I said, “but I spent a summer there doing a theatre internship when I was in college.”

“Oh,” he said. “Are they nice there in Vermont?”

“Very,” I said.

“You just look like a very nice person. And I always associate being very nice with being from Vermont. You look very Vermonty.”

“Well, thank you,” I giggled.

“See – that’s what I mean,” he said. “So polite, those people from Vermont.”

He hopped off the elevator and bid me good night. A small interaction considering all of the interactions I had that day. I don’t know his name. He doesn’t know mine. I may never see him again. But weeks later, I’m still thinking of him. I smiled to myself. Vermonty – that’s a last impression I can live with.