Month: June 2011

happiness, loss, love, relationships, yoga

Beginning: Healing By Chance – A Story of Feeling and Transcending Anger

Christa Avampato

“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~ Paul Boese

I had an odd encounter on Friday that I wasn’t expecting, not at that moment, not ever. I was sitting on the steps of the main New York Post Office at 31st Street reading a magazine as I waited for my friend Jeff’s improv show to start that was playing around the corner. It was a nice night outside and I had just a few minutes to spend before heading over to the theatre.

A stranger I knew
A man stopped down on the sidewalk and stared at me. It was the guy I was dating when my apartment building fire happened almost two years ago. He was a gem in the immediate aftermath of the incident and showed is terribly ugly true colors not long after. His behavior and words were really hurtful; he kicked me when I was already down and out. We stopped seeing each other shortly after the fire, and I chose to completely cut off any contact with him. I was really, really angry with him and I had bigger issues to contend with. The last thing I needed in my life was someone like him, in any capacity.

He climbed the steps and asked if he could sit next to me, and then made a wise crack inquiring about whether or not my current apartment had caught fire, too. A very insensitive, cruel comment, especially given all of the trauma that unraveled in the months immediately following the fire. Sadly, I wasn’t surprised. Then he began his barrage of personal questions about my life, some I answered and some I left intentionally vague. I actually didn’t ask him a single question about his life because I didn’t really care what the answers were. I wasn’t happy to see him and I wasn’t unhappy to see him. I didn’t feel numb; I just didn’t feel anything. Not about him and not about us. All that anger was gone. I was shocked at how calm I felt. The conversation was only a few minutes long because I had to leave to go see Jeff’s show. We said good-bye – he went his way and I went mine – and I never looked back.

Automatic healing
Just prior to this chance encounter, I was talking to Brian about what I hoped to be able to give veterans and their families who I work with through Compass Yoga. Brian mentioned that I may want to focus on helping them heal to the point that they don’t even have to put themselves through the motions of yoga. The calm they gain through the practice with me would be with them always so that the stress response never even kicks in unless they truly need it to get themselves out of true danger. I wasn’t sure how this would work. though I told Brian I’d think about that idea.

After my brief encounter on the post office steps, I completely understood what Brian was talking about with the veterans and their families. If I had this encounter a year ago, it’s likely that I would have felt nervous, that I would have felt the need to meet his snarky comment about my fire with a snarky retort. Instead, I just told him a few details of my life in response to his questions. I was polite and detached, with no feeling about ever hearing from him or seeing him again. I was so angry with him for a long time, and I realized in this instant that I had found my way to the other side of anger as a much better person. A friend of mine once said, “You really know it’s over when you have nothing left to say.” True statement. I had moved on, completely.

The sweetness of healing found
As I walked toward the theatre to watch Jeff’s show, I thought about our immense capacity for healing every wound, no matter how deep, no matter how long it’s been with us. I found a way to feel anger and then transcend it in a powerful way. In the past year I’ve spent so much time caring for myself and building a life I truly love. It happened so gradually and with so much hard work that I’ve never taken the time to really reflect on just how much healing I’ve done, just how different I am. “You’ve come a long way, baby,” I thought to myself. “A long way. And it feels so good.”

family, forgiveness, relationships

Beginning: A Lesson From My Dad – The Only Advice You Can Really Take Is Your Own

Christa Avampato

In the last few months, I’ve been thinking about my father a lot. I had a very poor relationship with him and he passed away in a very unfortunate manner before I ever had the chance to build a better one with him. That was 19 years ago.

All this time later, I am still trying to make sense of it all – his own path and how it has influenced mine. The pieces are starting to come together as I make my way forward with Compass Yoga, but we have a long way to go and because he’s no longer here, I am left to figure it out on my own. Someday when it makes sense in my own mind I’ll tell you about it – why our short and sad story unfolded the way that it did and all the good that came from the hard lessons I learned along the way. Until then, I have just one lesson he taught me that plays over and over again in my mind: the only advice you can really take is your own.

People are opinionated by nature, some of us voice our opinions louder and more clearly than others. We all have the ability to judge, and we exercise that ability often. Whenever you tell someone about an idea you have or the plans you’re making, there is bound to be someone who tells you that it just isn’t possible to do what you want. And to that, my father would certainly answer those skeptics with, “I know better than you because I’m the one who’s living my life.” For a long time, I thought this was a very pompous point-of-view. Now as an adult it makes so much sense to me. Our greatest wisdom comes from within and so we are our own best coach.

Certainly we can and should listen to the advice of others, whether we want it or not, if for no other reason than the voices of the skeptics will actually help us to refine our own opinions. What my father would caution us against is allowing someone’s opinion about our choices to become our truths. The only truth you can live authentically is your own. It comes from your heart and your gut. It is prajna, that knowing beyond knowing. It can’t be articulated or justified through logic, only felt. It is calm, collected, and without end. In Sanskrit we pay tribute to it with the mantra Om Tat Sat – all that is the truth. We access it by getting quiet, and allowing it to have its wise and thoughtful say.

So on this Father’s Day, I’m not missing my father but rather working on feeling grateful for what he had to teach me for the short time I knew him. All these years later, we are still a work in progress, he and I, and slowly I am beginning to find the great value that lies hidden even within our toughest experiences. I’m working on making them mean something, and not just for me, but for the world, too.

art

Beginning: How to Start Collecting Art

Christa Avampato

I’ve been thinking about dabbling in the art collecting world. Now, I’m not running out to buy an original Matisse or Picasso today, but I am looking into new artists who I think have real promise and a unique perspective. I have some art in my home and each piece has a special significance to me:

– an oil painting I bought on the street in Soweto, South Africa

– 2 small water colors I purchased on Karlov Most in Prague

– a print of orca whales from my trip to Alaska

– an impressionist style print that my brother-in-law (who happens to be a remarkable painter!) got for me in Chelsea

– a chalk drawing, Beast of the Forest, done by a 6th grader and gifted to me by the Crayola Factory after I did some work with them

– A tucan painted on a feather that I picked up in Costa Rica

– A small collection of photos I took during the month I spent in France before business school

I was surprised to realize that almost all of the art I have I purchased while I was traveling. It’s the best kind souvenir – art captures the essence of the culture where it was created and so it can transport you back to that place just by being in its presence. Though vacations are often filled with a myriad of activities, I always find that it’s the art of the place that I remember most. Incidentally, my framed art pieces were among my only possessions that survived my apartment building fire 2 years ago. I’ve always believed that somehow those pieces of art were supremely protected in an effort to support my own healing that I would need in the aftermath of that event.

In the last few months, I’ve thought about starting to collect art more seriously and went looking for some resources on how to begin. If you’ve ever been curious about taking up this venture, too, here’s what I found:

Jen Bekman
Art collecting has primarily been a pastime of the well-to-do, and there’s a pervading feeling tat if you have to ask too many questions about a piece of art, then OBVIOUSLY you don’t understand it. This is absurd, and Jen Bekman decided to change that. Bekman is a radical in the art world, meaning she didn’t follow anyone else’s road – no matter how well-traveled and time-tested it was – and decided to build her own path instead. At the ripe old age of 32, she opened her own gallery to support new artists and collectors alike. When she established her space on Spring Street in 2003, Jen wanted it to be a different kind of environment: one where everyone is welcomed as they enter and one that encourages people to ask questions.

Leveraging the power on e-commerce, she also started an online program called 20X200 that brings art to the masses wherever they happen to live. The e-commerce site continually rotates an exclusive collection of photography, prints and paintings, with prices that start at at $20. Makes good sense for emerging artists and collectors alike!

deviantART
I met the fine folks from DeviantART while I was speaking at SXSW last in March. They had set up a gallery space filled with so much beautiful graphic art that I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole into a world of vibrant color.

From their website: “deviantART was created to entertain, inspire, and empower the artist in all of us. Founded in August 2000, deviantART is the largest online social network for artists and art enthusiasts with over 13 million registered members, attracting 35 million unique visitors per month.

As a community destination, deviantART is a platform that allows emerging and established artists to exhibit, promote, and share their works within a peer community dedicated to the arts. The site’s vibrant social network environment receives over 100,000 daily uploads of original art works ranging from traditional media, such as painting and sculpture, to digital art, pixel art, films and anime.”

PicassoMio
Is an online clearinghouse of sorts, curating a handpicked collection and offering assistance and guidance to new and seasoned collectors alike.

From their website: “Founded in 1999, PicassoMio is the world’s leading destination to discover curated modern and contemporary art and design. Thousands of art collectors have taken advantage of our hand-picked selections.

As the Internet’s most successful curated original art and design seller, we receive a monthly traffic of 1 Million hits and sales in over 50 countries.”

As I learn more on this new journey, I’ll share what I find. I hope you will, too!

family, risk

Beginning: Honor Your Ancestors, Pick Up Your Head, and Go Out On a Limb

Christa Avampato

Aftermath.com
“Don’t be afraid to go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” ~ H. Jackson Browne via Tiny Buddha

Our vibrancy as a nation is an unsung casualty in this latest economic downturn. I’ve seen too many people hiding their well-founded opinions, particularly if they aren’t “aligned” with senior management, for fear that they’ll be candidates for the pink slip and cardboard box line. I completely understand the fear. Over the past 3 years I’ve watched a lot of truly phenomenal friends and colleagues walk out the door, and not by their own choosing. Good people who put their hearts into their jobs and made enormous sacrifices of their own personal time for the sake of what was best for the companies that employed them. And then they had to suffer through the company talking about their release as a cost savings. It was de-humanizing to say the least, and I want us to productively use our anger over the situation to rise above our fear.

Are we becoming a nation full of people who keep their heads down? What an enormous step backwards. Take a trip over to Ellis Island and it’s easy to see (and feel!) that our nation was founded by some serious risk takers – people who came here with few possessions beyond the clothes on their backs and unable to speak the language. They had no employment, no place to live, and many of them didn’t know a single soul here. How frightening that must have been, and yet they persisted. I’m here because of that persistence. We all are.

To honor their legacy, the legacy of people who risked it all for our sake, we have to take up that same spirit. Start small. Take one tiny step out of your comfort zone. Attempt some audacious project that seems just a bit too big for you. Look around you for the most beautiful dream you can find, gather up your courage, and go out on that limb to get it. It’s waiting for you, and you’ll be better off for throwing the dice to see what happens. We all will be.

determination, dreams, work, writing, yoga

Beginning: Take it From Yoda and a Yogi – All You Have Are Your Actions, and They Are Enough

Christa Avampato

“Do or do not. There is no try.” ~ Yoda

“You are entitled to your actions, not the results of your actions. You leave the results to the Divine.” ~ Marco Rojas, Yoga Teacher

I went to dinner with my friend, Allan, on Saturday night and he asked me how I managed to teach yoga classes in so many different places this past year since I finished my teacher training at Sonic. Without even thinking about the answer, I said, “Because I cannot be deterred, Allan.” And it’s true. If I really want to do something, I’m going to find a way to make it happen.

Lessons from striking out
This is not to say that I never strike out or fall flat on my face. I strike out plenty, and I’ve fallen on my face so many times that it’s shocking I have a face left at all. The truth is in the past year I’ve sent out so many emails, made so many cold calls, and just flat-out walked in to so many potential teaching spots that I’ve lost count. Most of them never returned my calls, emails, or in-person messages that I left. Most of them didn’t hire me. Sometimes I felt disappointed at all of the rejection, but I just kept showing up. Showing up was the only thing I could really control. And every rejection helped me refine my pitch, and my style, a little bit more.

And that’s the trick to getting over and through disappointment: figure out what you can actually do, and focus on doing more of it. I couldn’t make someone hire me. I couldn’t make someone even look at my resume or give me an informational interview. I could keep searching, and I felt confident that if I knocked on enough doors, one of them, the right one for me, would open, and I’d find the students I was meant to teach.

Ignore the skeptics, or at least learn from them
Everyone will tell you that what you want to do is too difficult, that there are already people who do what you want to do, and that you should just try to do something that’s easier. I’ve got news for them: it’s all difficult. Everything worth doing takes effort, and a lot of it. I wanted to manage Broadway shows. I wanted to learn how to be a fundraiser. I wanted to be a product developer who works with new technology. I wanted to move to New York City, and I really wanted to live on the Upper West Side, which always was my favorite neighborhood in New York (and remains so today). I wanted to adopt a dog. I wanted to travel, teach yoga, and be a writer. None of that is easy; it all takes effort and a lot of people told me that each and every one of those things just wouldn’t happen for me for one reason or another. I took their feedback and kept going.

I did all of those things and then some, and not because I have some kind of extraordinary talent. I did them out of dogged determination. I was stubborn and I just wouldn’t give up. If I could stay focused on the action, then I knew the result would follow. Sometimes it took longer than I thought it would. Sometimes I got what I wanted, and then realized it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Sometimes I had to make trade-offs. But I tried and tried and tried again. No silver bullet. No magic formula. Hard work was enough; it always is. Eventually, even a mountain yields to constant, flowing water.

China, commitment, friendship, teaching, writing, yoga

Beginning: Commitment Gives Rise to Capability

Christa Avampato

“Capable people carry two brushes.” ~ Chinese Proverb

My friend, Allan, recently asked me to review an email he was sending off to an alumni contact regarding his job search. Allan had a lot of wonderful content in the email and I just brushed up the grammar and phrasing a bit. Allan’s response: “Brush is important. In Chinese, we call capable people someone with two brushes.” I’m guessing that this proverb must come from Chinese art in relation to calligraphy or oil painting. I love the elegance and power that it packs in a few simple words. All of Allan’s communications are like that – he is a product of his culture.

Work ethic
Allan is job searching after recently completing his second masters degree. I think of myself as productive, though his diligence and work ethic put mine to shame. I’ve never seen someone be able to sit and study for such a long stretch of time. He literally boggles my mind. I’m certain he is someone who always carries two brushes, and perhaps a third, just to be on the safe side.

Beijing to Charlottesville
Allan landed in scenic Charlottesville, VA directly from Beijing, China in 2005 when he started business school with me at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. He’d been to the U.S. for a few days once before (Chicago, if memory serves), and beyond that had never lived in an English-speaking country. His bravery to leave behind everything he knew to pursue his education and career aspirations (in a foreign language, which he speaks better than many Americans I know!) is a constant reminder to me of the power and magic that is born from commitment. We were in the same section at Darden so he was one of the very first people I met in Charlottesville. We were fast friends and remain so 6 years later despite hectic careers and lives.

How I started writing every day
I’ve actually never given Allan the full credit he deserves in my writing life. 3 years ago we went to dinner and Allan pulled out a copy of an excel chart that he had created that tracked the productivity of my writing on this blog as a percentage. During my first year of blogging, I posted often but not every day. Allan was really excited to see my productivity consistently around 90%; I was not. If I could be at 90%, then why couldn’t I be at 100%? Seeing those numbers in black and white spurred me to commit to writing and publishing every day for a year, just to see if I could do it. I’ve been writing every day for the past 3 years and now I couldn’t imagine not writing every day.

Embracing commitment
This was a poignant example in my own life of the power and magic of commitment. Practice made me a stronger, more confident writer. I used to think of being committed as being tied down, as being unable to change and grow. I was worried that if I committed, I’d regret the choices I made and then be trapped with a life I didn’t want. Now, I realize just how freeing and joyful thoughtful commitment can be.

Once I saw how much I gained from being a committed writer, I started to make other commitments in my life that have yielded amazing transformations. I committed to my yoga practice, which led to the creation of Compass Yoga. My relationships became more profound. New York City became my home. I adopted my rescue pup, Phineas. All of these changes gave me more happiness and they all found their roots in commitment. Doubling down on what mattered and letting go of what didn’t serve brought so much joy to my life that my only regret is that I didn’t learn this lesson sooner. It took me a long time to be ready for this truth: the right commitment breeds happiness.

I guess it is really true that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My thanks to Allan and to commitment itself for serving as 2 of my greatest teachers.

generosity, patience, story, success

Beginning: A Lesson on Generosity, Patience, and Building Our Own Road, Courtesy of a Grasshopper and a Snail

Christa Avampato

“AH gaining yet MORE wisdom grasshopper!!” ~ My friend, Anne, on one of my posts

When Anne left this note on my Facebook page, I had no idea what she was talking about so I Googled it and found the fable of the grasshopper and the snail. I highly recommend reading the story in its entirety here. Here’s the condensed version:

“A challenge
A snail with a lot of supporting friends challenges a grasshopper to a race. The grasshopper considers not accepting the challenge since it’s obvious that he will beat the snail and he’s worried that he will make the snail feel badly. However, after enough negative prodding by the snail’s friends, the grasshopper accepts.

A realization
The race starts and rather than crushing the snail with his speed, the grasshopper spends a lot of time thinking about his life as the snail creeps along at a very slow, steady space. After all of his thinking, the grasshopper decided to let the snail win. All the animals cheered for the snail and looked down on the grasshopper as a slow poke, never challenging the grasshopper to another race again. No one appreciated the grasshopper’s generosity toward the snail. At first the grasshopper was very depressed that all the animals made fun of him but later he began to appreciate the chance to enjoy his life without any pressure from constant challenges to race. He could choose how to spend his time and make his own decisions in his own time. For the first time in his life, he felt truly free to decide how to spend his days.

A fork in the road, literally and figuratively
After his win, the snail becomes so cocky that he accepts a challenge from a lightning bug to cross the road. Upon hearing this, the grasshopper gets very upset because he worries the snail will get killed trying to cross the road at his slow pace.To protect the snail from this terrible idea, he decides to race the snail across the road, determined to beat him so quickly that the snail will turn away from the road and go home. The snail smugly accepts, convinced he will beat the grasshopper again.

A second chance
The day of the rematch, the snail starts to creep across the road at his usual slow pace. The grasshopper waits patiently for a safe time to leap across the road in one action. The snail makes fun of his patience, until the grasshopper finally sees his opening and makes the leap to the other side of the road. The snail, shocked and embarrassed, turns around after barely getting his start and never leaves his home again. The grasshopper, knowing the dangers of crossing the road, stays on his new side of the road and lives out his days as a great teacher of patience, generosity, and modesty.”

I was completely confused by this story when I first read it. “Slow and steady wins the race” – I understand that lesson. “Don’t be cocky about successes” – yep, that makes sense, too. But what was Anne saying by casting me as the grasshopper here? What could I possibly have in common with this guy?

I’ve known Anne for a long time. She’s bailed me out of tough situations, and more than once she’s given me a one liner that has snapped me back to reality after I’ve gotten too caught up in my own story. This is another one of those times.

For a time now, I have enjoyed being under the radar in a few different areas of my life. I’ve been waiting and watching patiently, stringing together different learnings and experiences, before I make the leap to go off on my own and create an unconventional career that breaks from tradition and what I “should” do. I feel fine with following rules as long as I’m the one who makes them and decides when to break them. And I do feel like my gift lies in teaching based upon my own experiences, positive and harrowing alike.

Anne was right, as always. I’m more like the grasshopper than I realized. It’s funny how sometimes we can look right into a mirror and not recognize our own reflection. It takes another passerby to connect the dots and awaken us to ourselves.

future, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Taking Compass Yoga in a Therapeutic Direction

Christa Avampato

“Therapeutic yoga is yours now. Take it out into the world and share it. This world needs so much healing.” ~ Cheri Clampett

On Sunday at 6pm I completed my therapeutic yoga training at Integral Yoga Institute with the incredible instructors Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal. I teared up a bit at our graduation ceremony because in the beautiful words of Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, I actually felt myself “crawling through the window of a dream.” I knew this was not an end but only the very beginning of a path that will unfold for me across many lifetimes.

After celebrating and bidding a grateful adieu to my classmates and teachers, who were all truly amazing and gifted, I turned my attention to the next item at hand: what do I do now? The Universe interceded some moths ago and showed me that I should take Compass Yoga in a therapeutic direction, that this was the work I was meant to do. I thought about this training with Cheri and Arturo for a long time and had been looking forward to it since the beginning of the year. Now that knowledge lives in my mind and hands, as if it has been there all along.

Over the last few weeks, a number of people have asked me how I plan to use this therapeutic yoga training and rather than answer them individually, I thought it might be more helpful to publicly talk about my thoughts to date. Your comments and ideas along this journey are always, always appreciated.

Starting up a full private practice
While the real estate market in NYC is always on the nutsy side, commercial space for a small office is relatively easy to find and fairly inexpensive. With therapeutic yoga, private sessions and small group classes are very powerful because it gives the instructor time to the use of props to perfectly calibrate each pose for each student so they feel the full benefit of the practice.I’m currently looking into a few different spaces in Manhattan to rent for private sessions.

Joining an integrated medical practice or working closely with a network of doctors and therapists
1 in 30 people who now practice yoga in the U.S. are referred to the practice by their medical doctors. Rather than hoping someone will stumble into my class, I’ve been more proactive about connecting to the medical and therapeutic community for mutual referrals. Eventually I would love to truly connect with a  group of doctors and therapists as a part of a joint holistic practice in which therapeutic yoga is just one piece of a system to help treat a whole patient effectively.

Establishing residence within a yoga studio or network of yoga studios
Therapeutic yoga is often used for very specialized populations who are managing a specific illness, injury, or condition that has specific needs. I’ve put together a set of populations whom I’m most interested in working with and started to look for partner studios who are interested in providing the space for me to create these specialized programs.

Continue to provide yoga to underserved populations through nonprofit partners
This work has been some of the most rewarding of my life. To see someone bravely walk into my class who has never tried yoga before, and then to watch them feel the tremendous benefits, is a joy that I have a hard time fully expressing. It’s my hope that Compass Yoga will continue to provide this service to everyone who has the courage to take up a practice, regardless of their financial circumstances.

May the healing continue
I continue to be amazed by how much I learn and how much I heal every time I teach a class. What I give in my classes is nothing compared to all that I receive in return from my students. Their joy gives me joy. Their peace brings me peace. Their encouragement gives me more confidence and courage than I ever imagined I could have. The only way I can think of to truly thank them is to keep teaching as often as I can, to pay it forward as often as I have the great blessing to do so. Here’s to a world filled with more yoga, to a world filled with more healing. 

learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Practicing and Teaching Yoga Takes Great Courage

Christa Avampato

“People who practice yoga and meditation are the most courageous people in the world. They are willing to sit with their pain in order to heal it. I don’t know anyone who’s had an easy life. Do you? Trauma and suffering are part of the human experience. Give yourself over to explore it; go into it. We are so complex and so amazing.” ~ Cheri Clampett, Yoga Therapist and Teacher

At Integral Yoga Institute, Cheri talked with us about the power of guided meditation and how critical it is for us to create a safe space in our classes for all of our students. Yoga, the physical and mental exercise of processing the memories in our bodies and in our minds, can surface power emotions and we have to be so brave to sit with those emotions. I knew I was ready to teach when I had a very powerful experience in final relaxation pose. It started me down the path of reconciling with my father many years after he passed away. Someday I’ll tell you about that story – its very sad beginning, its long and winding path, and its peaceful resolution – that shaped who I am as a teacher and as a human being. Through that experience I learned that when you say a prayer with all your heart, the Universe responds with an immediacy and accuracy that will astound even the greatest skeptics. That is another post for another time. This post is a caution and encouragement for everyone who teaches yoga or hopes to do so. You have no idea just how valuable, loved, and necessary you are to the well-being of everyone you teach.

A word to the wise
In a yoga class you have to be ready for everything. You go right ahead and prepare your sequences, your intention for the class, and maybe even some of your specific comments and remarks. Then be prepared to chuck it all out the window because it’s not going down the way you planned. When you walk into a class, you have to be able to read your students within an instant, and change your plans accordingly. The class is about them and their journey, not yours.

While it’s very nice to have everything all laid out exactly how you’d like it go, what you planned on giving may not be what your students need. They will have mental and physical challenges to contend with. They are under stresses that you didn’t plan for. Your job, and in my opinion your only job, as a teacher is to create a safe space for all of them to just be, in whatever state they are in.  They will laugh, they will cry, and they will break down. And no matter what you have to stay with them; you have to keep all of your senses firing on full tilt so you can be supportive and strong without expressing pity. When someone’s drowning, they don’t want to grab the hand of someone else who is drowning, too. They want someone on dry land who possess the strength to help them through. In a yoga class, that someone on dry land is you, the teacher, and it is an awesome and intense responsibility. It is not a job for the faint of heart, but a job for those with the biggest hearts.

You are precious beyond measure
You may not know what a gift this safe space called your class is. Your students spend their whole lives putting on a brave face, soldiering up to be someone playing a very specific role at work, at home, with their friends and family members. And even if they love playing that role, it is an exhausting load to carry around. They spend 99% of their time doing and about 1% of their time just being. That 1% happens in your class, and you can’t let them down. It took a lot of guts for them to walk into your class, leave the world outside, and go within. Within can be a scary place. They need you, even if they don’t know exactly why when they walk into the class.

Our bodies surprise us
That’s the funny thing about emotional and physical releases in yoga. We often don’t know they’re coming, making our seeking them out an even more courageous act. They catch us off guard, and that puts us in an even more fragile state. I know first hand. In my final relaxation posture that made me want to be a teacher, I had no warning of the release I felt. Truth be told, I didn’t even know I was holding on to so much grief, regret, and loss. My teacher could have easily come over to check on me, to give me a hug, to give me some kind of sympathy. She didn’t. She created the safe space to let me work it out on my own so that I could preserve my dignity and get the most from this experience which I clearly needed. In Arturo Peal’s words, she gave me support when I needed it and space when I needed it. I think of her generosity every time I teach a class, and strive to be as giving to my students as she was to me. She was strong when I couldn’t be. I still tear up when I think about that moment, and it’s been 7 years.

You have the ability to have this same kind of effect on someone in your class, everyone in your class. In Cheri’s beautiful words, “We are all healing on some level.” Your students show up so that they can heal in your presence. They have come to you as seekers and they need your support on their self-designed journey. Walk with them; be steady when they can’t be; give them the space to feel their feelings and celebrate wherever they are along the path. You never know just how big a part you can play in the evolution of someone’s spirit. This is powerful, courageous work. Give the very best you’ve got to your students, and they’ll astound you with how much they give in return.

dreams, New York City

Beginning: A Little More Air, Please

Christa Avampato
Perry Street in the West Village, New York City

“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.”
~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

When I have an intense day of activities I try to take lunch by myself. This is especially true when I’m in yoga teacher training sessions. I need that hour in the middle of a day of learning to just sit, be, and absorb with as much silence as possible. I find that if I can do that, I can be completely present with people in the morning and afternoon sessions because my batteries are recharged with that tiny amount of “me” time.

Falling in love again on Perry Street
I took some “me” time last Sunday, grabbed my lunch, and found a sunny spot along Perry Street, one of my favorite streets in New York. A few days ago I was watching Part 2 to the New York documentary series done by PBS. In that episode there is a discussion about Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman’s love letter to New York City. In hearing those words, I was reminded of how many people have come and gone along these streets, and how for everyone there is a new discovery of their New York City experience that mirrors what so many people have felt before. Those dreams with a light and airy quality are the ties that bind New Yorkers together across time.

Where did the air go?
A few days ago, I took a dosha test – a personality test of sorts that has its roots in Ayurvedic medicine. I was a little alarmed to see how much the “vatta” or “air” quality of my personality has been pushed aside. I’m grounded and action oriented, but a little bit more of that dreamer would be good for me. On Perry Street, I was able to remember that feeling of being very young and new to New York. Even though my love affair with this city has gone on for a dozen years, I still find something new here every day. Feeling my way through the development of Compass Yoga, and the therapeutic yoga training at Integral Yoga Institute in particular, I have been able to find some of that air again. I have a new skin, a new outlook on this city and my role in this community.

Somewhere in this 12 year relationship with New York, I’ve lost a bit of that dreamy, airy quality. I’ve been so focused on paying my school loans, striving, and achieving in a city that moves at an unstoppable pace that I’d forgotten how good it feels to just let the mind wander for a bit. It’s fun to see where it goes.

Dreaming helps the living
And the best part is that after even just a short period of dreaming over lunch on Perry Street, I could get back to the business of my yoga teaching training at Integral with a renewed, open sensibility. I could be more present with my classmates and teachers. My teaching was spot on and it felt amazing. So much for the theory of idle time being truly idle. In those dreamy moments, there is serious work going on that makes the rest of our time that much more valuable to those around us.