Month: October 2010

meditation, time, wellness, yoga

Step 304: Souls and Grocery Stores

Christa Avampato

“What is a soul? It’s like electricity – we don’t really know what it is, but it’s a force that can light a room.” ~ Ray Charles

It’s easier to know the soul of others than it is to know our own. We can look at other people’s actions, the people they surround themselves with, and the issues that ignite their energy and understand where their souls are rooted. The difficulty of knowing our own souls is akin to being able to rise up above our lives and observe from an outsider perspective. It is tough work.

We can, and often do, run through life. We fill up our schedules, load up our to-do lists, and dart from place to place, hoping that somewhere along the way we’ll find the path we’re supposed to be on. What I’m finding in my meditation practice is that the only way to know our souls, our light, is to sit still, close the eyes, and breath. We won’t find our souls, our purpose, out there. We will gather ideas from the world, options, and possibilities. But the only way to know which path is the right one for us is to look around inside. If we’re looking inside and moving about, chances are we’ll get a blurry image just like a camera gets when it’s shaken while snapping a photo. The image becomes clear in the stillness.

I will be the first to admit that I hate to sit still. I run through all the things I should be doing, rather than just sitting there. I feel like I’m losing time. And then I think about the grocery store. If I sit down and make a list of what I need to get, my trip is faster and more efficient. If I just run out the door without a list, I find I wander around the store for far too long, all because taking the time to make a list felt like time wasted. The journey to know our souls is the same as our journey around Whole Foods. Take some time to be still and collect our thoughts, and it becomes an easier process to get where and what we want. Below is my favorite meditation, the one that actually expands the time in my day and the knowledge of who I am and who I mean to be.

My favorite still meditation:
Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position
Deepen the breath
Lengthen the spine
Imagine with each inhale we grow a little taller and with each exhale we grow a little wider
Relax the face and jaw
Smile slightly and envision a tiny light right in the middle of the chest that gets a little brighter with every breath cycle. It’s that small light that will reveal our souls as it strengthens

The photo above can be found here.

creativity, holiday, imagination

Step 303: Our Chance to Be Someone Else

Christa Avampato

I love Halloween, mostly for the candy but also for the chance to take on another persona. For one night it’s perfectly acceptable, and expected, that we take a giant leap outside of the ordinary. So maybe it’s not the dream of your life to be Lady Gaga, but for one night at a party it’s fun to think about.

Halloween asks us to stoke the fires of imagination and humor, to get creative and bust out of our day-to-day routine. We’re willing to see and enjoy the ridiculous, the clever, and the well put-together, and encouraging of others to do the same. The fun is allowed to grow and multiply with every new costume we see, whether we know the person wearing it or not. I always find that Halloween makes us friendlier. Somehow those costumes give us permission to laugh at ourselves and with others.

We all need a break from ourselves from time to time. Let the trick-or-treating commence and enjoy the holiday that lets us literally walk in the shoes of someone else. Happy Halloween!

books, community service, determination

Step 302: The Work of Giving Light

Christa Avampato

“What is to give light must endure the burning.” ~ Viktor Frankl

Yesterday I posted about not delaying our actions because we have more than we think we do, and what we have right now can do a lot of good for others. Sometimes, it’s harder to give of ourselves than we’d like it to be. I want to teach more yoga classes and I want to get a pilot of Innovation Station up and running. Both are taking more time to come to fruition than I’d like them to. Finding the right partners and carving out the time in our schedules can take a bit of fancy footwork. Sometimes it does take a bit of patience to find the right opportunity, and it’s important to keep searching.

I’ve been thinking of the Viktor Frankl quote as I’ve worked my way through Harold Ford Jr.’s book More Davids Than Goliaths. It’s an interesting read, particularly with mid-term elections next Tuesday. In his quest to serve, Mr. Ford met with many roadblocks. Yes, there were great victories but there were great defeats, too. And even in those defeats, he found shards of light that he could piece together. His expectations sometimes fell short, but he never had an ounce of regret about his very long journey.

The same should be true of our quest to serve, whatever form that takes. Finding the right place and right time to put our gifts to work is not always an easy task, but I can promise you it’s worth it. We have to take some wrong turns sometimes to truly appreciate the right opportunity when it appears. Don’t let this discourage you. Take a cue from Mr. Ford – there are more Davids than Goliaths, more people who want to help us than stand in our way. The key to finding them is continuously being willing to put ourselves out there, to never give up, and appreciate every victory, large and small.

choices, failure, future, opportunity

Step 301: Put an End to Waiting

Christa Avampato

“If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do for any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.” ~ William Penn

“Mantras you shouldn’t say: I don’t know; I’m not ready; I can’t do it.” ~ Yogi Tea

I’ve made excuses for why I can’t do good now. I need more experience, education, money, time. Truthfully, we will never have all of the resources we think we need to get something done, and the other side to that truth is that we don’t need as much as we think we do. I spent a number of years thinking I didn’t have enough experience to offer to be a teacher. In my writing, I kept seeing my age as a limiting factor. “I need to wait until I really know more before I commit my beliefs to writing,” I would tell myself. The actual reason why I put off too many actions for far too long – I was scared I’d get it wrong.

And then I tried and did get it wrong, and the world didn’t end as I had feared. I got opportunities to try again, and again, and again. As long as I’ve been willing to put myself out there, the world has given me opportunities to keep trying. We lull ourselves into thinking we just aren’t ready, that we had better wait to realize our full potential until some magical time in the future when the stars will align right before our eyes.

By waiting, we deny ourselves the power to create and align our own stars. We need to stop focusing on what we need, and recognize all that we have. We need to understand that achievement is based not upon what we have but who we are, and right now, in this moment, we are enough and we are all we truly need to make good happen. Pick up those mantras of “I don’t know; I’m not ready; I can’t do it” and chuck them out the window in favor of the mantras “I’ll figure it out; now’s the time; let’s get going.”

animals, dogs, love, luck, pets

Step 300: A Tribute to Animal Rescuers

Christa Avampato

When I seriously began looking for a dog to adopt, I went to an event in my hometown with my mom. I had missed the only dachshund they had by just a few minutes. I wished I had gotten there earlier – of course there was no way I could have known how close I was to finding Phin, the pup I later adopted from the Humane Society. I just knew that my dog was out there somewhere. My animal loving and rescuing friends kept reassuring me that my dog would find me. I just had to keep looking. I had my list of what I wanted and needed in a dog, and I refused to give up. It’s a process very similar to dating. (My canine love took only a few months to find. My other love is taking a bit longer to find his way!)

At the adoption event, I took the organizer’s card and emailed him to keep an eye out for me should another dachshund come his way. When I got home, I turned his card over and read a beautiful poem about animal rescuers by Annette King-Tucker. In that moment, I knew I was on the right path toward adoption. I put the card on my meditation alter in my apartment, hoping it would help the process along.

Now a month into dog ownership, I couldn’t be happier with Phin. As my friend Col so beautifully says, loving a dog is the honeymoon that never ends. So this poem is for my friends Col, Janet, Amanda, Trish, Blair, Alex, Kelly, Ashley, Kerry, my mom and the millions of others out there who open up their hearts and homes to these amazing creatures who offer us far more than we could ever offer them. They are our greatest teachers.

“I Am an Animal Rescuer
My job is to assist God’s creatures
I was born with the need to fulfill their needs
I take in new family members without plan, thought, or selection
I have bought dog food with my last dime
I have patted a mangy head with a bare hand
I have hugged someone vicious and afraid
I have fallen in love a thousand times
and I have cried into the fur of a lifeless body

I am an Animal Rescuer
My work is never done,
My home is never quiet
My wallet is always empty
But my heart is always full”

~ Annette King-Tucker, Wild Heart Ranch Wildlife Rescue

The photo above is Phin posing for his close-up. It was taken by photographer James Riordan

dogs, faith, loss, love, pets

Step 299: Letting Go Helps Us Find the Path We’re Meant For

Christa Avampato

“On my yoga mat, I ask myself what I can let go of & what I can let in to be more connected to the essence of yoga.” ~ Planet Yoga via Twitter

Dogs are resilient. They leave the past where it should be – in the past. They take the learnings they need from their experience and move forward. I’m not sure how they figured that out and left us to the task of reliving our pasts over and over again. I do know that we have a lot to learn from our canine pals.

When I read Planet Yoga’s tweet on letting go, I was reminded of how much we have to gain from release. We think of letting go as just loss, but there’s a flip side to it, too. When we release and empty out, we make room for new chances for happiness and fulfillment. We give ourselves permission to move onward and upward.

Hanging on to the past doesn’t serve us. I think about what Phineas’s life would now be like if he couldn’t let go of the heartbreak he must have felt when his first family mistreated him. What if instead of being his loving, friendly self, he had let the mistreatment make him bitter and cold? He may have never found his way to me, and might never have been able to enjoy the truly charmed life he lives now. What’s more, he ran away from his abusive home without knowing if things would be better. I think he just knew that his conditions were bad, unacceptable even, and somewhere in his tiny dachshund heart he knew that there had to be a better life waiting for him someplace else. He went it alone, and in a way based on nothing but faith.

On Sunday morning, the sun was shining and Phin and I were making our way up West End Avenue under the brightly colored leaves that line the street. I could smell hot apple cider from the street fair underway and there was a saxophone player entertaining us with a song that could have set up the opening credits to a feel-good movie. We passed by the beautiful brownstones of the Upper West Side, and in that instant life felt absolutely perfect. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of gratitude at the simplicity and happiness of that moment, and carried it with me for the rest of the day.

In order to have that moment with Phin, I needed to let go of the pain I felt when Sebastian passed away a year ago and Phin needed to let go of the family that had abandoned him. We both had to learn how to love again. I may have rescued Phin from the Humane Society, but he rescued me right back. Right then, I made a vow to let go of sadness more often in favor of letting in more light.

The photo above shows Phin and I at the 8th Annual My Dog Loves Central Park Country Fair. It was taken by photographer James Riordan.

faith, yoga, youth

Step 298: Someone’s Listening

Christa Avampato

“When you have come to the edge of all light that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or You will be taught to fly.” ~ Patrick Overton

In the past few weeks, the press has continuously covered the recent rash of suicides among young people across the country. To contribute to a solution, I’m reaching out to a number of youth organizations and schools to see if there are yoga classes I can offer that would be helpful and to see if Innovation Station might be used as a tool to not only build creativity, but to also build community and understanding and tolerance.

On Sunday, I met up with my friend, Sara. We we were in the same yoga teacher training class, and Sara is now studying to be a holistic health counselor. We got to talking about her journey over the past year and how she came to realize that she wanted a career in the wellness field. Once she discovered her calling, she found that the world started opening up possibilities for her to live the life she wanted. Every day she’s amazed by the new opportunities coming her way as a result of articulating her dreams. Universal consciousness is a wise and generous listener.

I wish I could gather together every young person today who is struggling, who doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, who truly believes that life cannot and will not get better. I want them to know what Sara and I have experienced. Yes, it can improve, but more importantly I want to tell them something even better – that someone, somewhere is always listening. They may find that hard to believe when everything around them seems so gloomy. I can tell them from my first-hand experience that I have been listened to and that the world’s energy sprang into action when I needed it most. If we have the courage to give words to our greatest fears and our greatest dreams, if we can ask for help and then accept that help, the world will offer up a way forward. Even in our loneliest, darkest hour, we are not alone. And never will be.

learning, yoga

Step 297: Back to Basics

Christa Avampato

The beginning months of the school year make me think about getting back to fundamental pieces of learning. As we move along our path, it’s easy to get caught up in perfecting our advanced skills that we have layered on to our basics. To improve the whole of our abilities it’s important to revisit what started us on our journey.

I’ve been going to a Saturday morning yoga class at New York Sports Club for a few weeks. I’ve heard a lot of people down yoga classes taught at gyms. I first learned yoga through private instruction, but my first regular group classes happened as a gym so for me, a gym setting for yoga is perfectly natural. I kind of like the extra concentration I have to put in to drown out the clank of the weights just outside the group exercise room. Yoga classes are not as popular in New York gyms as they are in New York yoga studios so there’s always plenty of room to spread out at my class. I guess not so great for the gym, but plenty great for me!

Brian, my instructor, offers a comforting, easy-to-follow hatha class. No fancy vinyasa (flow) sequences. Some Sanskrit (the original language of yoga), a bit of meditation, and a focus on the breath. He’s kind and caring, and offers just enough challenge without overwhelming his students with options. He focuses on basic asanas (postures), which gives me the opportunity to remember why the foundation of our learning and our practice, in any discipline, is so important.

Focusing on basics in this yoga class reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, American Author. (This inspiration sparked one of my blog posts this summer about why it’s important to step up to a cause that calls us.) It’s fun to imagine wild and far out possibilities, to build ideal dreams. Brian’s class also helps me remember that the basics can be as fun as they are necessary.

career, work, writing

Step 296: 3 Things to Keep in Mind for Your Year-end Performance Review

Christa Avampato

“Let your manners speak, your deeds prove, and your delivery impress.” ~ Yogi Tea

Cue the music! “It’s about that time of, time of the year again…” Nope, not the holidays just yet. Performance reviews, one of my work requirements that I dread the most. I always fantasize about not following the company format but instead writing some pithy essay about why I don’t think performance reviews work. I was completing my self-evaluation on Friday, and in a moment of frustration at how long it was taking, I went to make a cup of tea.

The quote above was on the tag of my teabag. Yoga has taught me that the world often hands us the teaching we need exactly when we need it. I needed to hear this message today. I went back to my computer with a little bit of renewed energy. Maybe I don’t need to see these reviews as arduous and pointless. It is an opportunity to reflect on the year nearly behind us and to look ahead at how I’d like 2011 to take shape.

Given my recent introspective mood, it’s fitting to have this task on my to-do list now. Clearly, if the world is handing it to me, along with a bit of encouragement and advice via my tea, I must need what it has to teach me.

adventure, free, happiness

Step 295: Life’s No Fun Unless You Dance

Christa Avampato

“My violin teacher, the amazing Kato Havas, has a workshop visual that has always stuck with me. She leans on a table, holds it with both hands, and says ‘I am safe – I will not fall – BUT IT’S HARD TO DANCE!’ ” ~ Trish Scott

Through this blog Trish Scott has become a friend and mentor. I reviewed her book about animal communication last week after she gave me some brilliant advice about training Phin, my adorable dachshund who I adopted a month ago from the Humane Society. This week Trish left the comment above on my post about letting go of the need for certainty. I love the comment so much that I had to feature it in a post of its own.

It’s understandable, common, and perfectly normal to seek safety and security. And once we get to a place of comfort, particularly after we’ve been uncomfortable for some time, it can be tough to leave. Adventure makes us feel alive; it can also wear us out. We need to rest and recoup, and then we need to be prepared to dance again. Dancing, in one form another, is what we’re built to do.

Trish’s comment paying tribute to her violin teacher reminds me of the famous quote by John Shedd – “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” Our lives are meant for living, and in the process there will be disappoints and hurt feelings and frustrations. We won’t always get where we want to go when we want to be there. We’ll struggle and strive and work like crazy to achieve and grow and prosper. And once we’ve “made it”, there will be a great temptation to stay right where we are. After all, isn’t this place of security what we’ve been working so hard for?

In the very wise words of Haitian culture, “behind the mountains are more mountains.” There is always more to see and do and learn. That’s one of the things that makes our world such an incredible place. Hang on to the table and regain your balance. Rest a bit, and then get going again. You owe it to yourself, and to the world, to scale that next mountain that’s calling your name. Don’t worry about taking up the challenge – in the distance there’s another mountain, followed by another table and another time for rest. It’s a cycle like any other, so go ahead and dance.