Category: change

change, choices, time

Leap: Much-needed Endings

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“The wind that causes real change is the wind that consistently blows in the same direction.” ~ The I Ching

Distraction is everywhere. It’s easy to get sidetracked from the things we care about most because the world has a way of encroaching upon our to-do list. All of a sudden we find ourselves invested in things that don’t bring us joy and fulfillment. We go places and do things because we think we should, not because we want to.

I used to be guilty of this behavior more often than not. When I left my job in June, I also made an about-face in a number of other areas of my life. I only invest my time and energy when and where I can give my whole heart. Though this sounds easy, it was difficult to make these changes because a number of things had to come to an end. I let go of some relationships that sapped my energy. I withdrew from activities that felt more like obligations and less like joy.

Saying goodbye and breaking old patterns is not easy. During the times that I feel sad about these endings, I remember how much they’re needed. They create space for the people and activities that really matter. They give us an opportunity for something and someone new that better aligns with who we are.

If we consistently focus on generating more happiness and it will become easy to see what parts of our lives need fixing. Sometimes to get to the fun stuff, we have to go through the tough stuff first. It’s worth the effort.

blogging, change, community, entrepreneurship, social change, social entrepreneurship, social media, writing

Leap: I Will Be Live Blogging the Social Good Summit at 92Y

Christa Avampato

I am very excited to share the news that I will be live blogging the Social Good Summit at 92Y in New York City from September 22nd – September 24th. Huge thanks to the networking groups Ladies DC and Ladies NYC, and especially to Anastasia Dellaccio of the United Nations Foundation, for inviting me.

The Social Good Summit is a three-day conference where big ideas meet new media to create innovative solutions. Held during UN Week, the Social Good Summit unites a dynamic community of global leaders to discuss a big idea: the power of innovative thinking and technology to solve our greatest challenges. The most innovative technologists, influential minds and passionate activists will come together with one shared goal: to unlock the potential of new media and technology to make the world a better place, and then to translate that potential into action.

This year’s Social Good Summit will be more engaging than ever. People from around the world, in both the developed and the developing world, will unite in person and online to participate in The Global Conversation – the world’s largest conversation on how technology can grow communities and improve life for all of us as we move toward being a networked society.

On September 24, 2012 the Social Good Summit is coming to China and Kenya. Key leaders and citizens of Beijing and Nairobi will unite and explore the same themes that inspired the birth of the Social Good Summit. You’ll hear directly from these countries via Livestream, and can witness the live intersection of New York, Nairobi and Beijing on Monday morning from the stage of the 92Y in New York City.

The 2012 Social Good Summit is brought to you by Mashable, 92nd Street Y, the United Nations Foundation, Ericsson, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

There are plenty of ways to follow and participate in the conversation, no matter where in the world you live:

Follow this blog for updates and to leave comments on my posts http://christainnewyork.com
Follow my Twitter stream at http://twitter.com/christanyc and use the hashtag #SGSGlobal
Watch the Livestream of the event
Attend or organize a Social Good Summit meetup in your city
Buy a ticket and attend in person
Follow the Social Good Summit website for updates

I look forward to all of the conversations!

change, learning

Leap: Listen, Learn, and Change

Christa Avampato

“When you listen, it’s amazing what you can learn. When you act on what you’ve learned, it’s amazing what you can change.” ~ Audrey McLaughlin

We spend so much time asking for a sign of where to go and what to do, and yet the signs are all around us. The Universe is constantly whispering to us, providing us with wisdom, if only we will stop, sit, and listen. It’s not any more complicated than that but you can’t spell “listen” without “silent”. Stop the chatter, even just for a moment, by committing to learn and soon you’ll find yourself buried in inspiration, hope, and the knowledge that it all begins with you.

change, choices, creativity, New York City

Leap: The Best Way to Build Cities

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“Each detail in a city should reflect that human beings are sacred.” ~ Enrique Penalosa

If I say “city”, what’s the first word that comes to your mind?

Skyscrapers? Concrete? Traffic? Crowded? Busy?

What if the answers were more like “Parks”, “Community”, “Opportunity”, or dare I suggest “Ease”?

Why is this second set of answers so funny? Why can’t we have cities that are beacons of a peaceful, productive, and harmonious way of life? I’m not convinced of the impossibility of this wish. I think in a city we can have the very best of the natural world and the human made world. I believe that the two can co-exist.

How?

It is up to us to make it so. We have to choose it and choose leaders who believe in it. City life is becoming the American way of life, the global way of life. Over 50% of the world’s people live in cities and to make this trend tenable, we must transform city living into healthy, happy, and sustainable living for all people who choose it. The answer is in the details – the green space, housing, transportation, etc. – and those details should honor our creativity, ingenuity, and generosity.

change, fear, time

Leap: The 3 Year Anniversary of My Apartment Building Fire

Christa Avampato
My friend Blair sent this to me and said “thought of you………. you ARE fire!” How right she is.

3 years ago today, I scrambled down 3 flights of stairs through blinding black smoke after a fire in my apartment building burned through 3 floors and was on its way into my kitchen. I was one person when I ran from the wreckage and another person when I emerged on the street. In an instant, my life and perspective was forever changed. I didn’t know that at the time but with the gift of 3 years of hindsight, I see how critical that fire was on my path.

It was the turning point. It was a new birthday. It gave me the courage to eventually make the Leap into a life of my own design.

When I quit my corporate job 2 months ago to craft my own career through Chasing Down the Muse, I really quit being afraid. In that instant, I became the person that fire made me become. Heat is a tool of transformation, and in a very visceral way, that fire was a spiritual kiln for my soul. It left an indelible mark on me and I am grateful for it.

In the past 2 months, many people have asked me how they could do the same thing. Here’s my 1 simple piece of advice to everyone who wants to take a Leap of any kind: dig down, way down deep to your core, and ask yourself what happens if everything falls away tomorrow. Is where you are where you hoped to be once this game was all over. If tomorrow the book of your life has the two words “The End”, has it been a ride you’re happy with?

I faced this very grim possibility 3 years ago and my answer was a resounding “No”. I knew something had to change; I knew a lot of somethings had to change and that it would take time. I had to get going. I needed to create a new direction.

I thought I was scrambling down 3 flights of stairs but what I was really doing was crawling through the window of possibility toward my very best self. In that moment, my Leap was set in motion. To quote Sondheim, “that’s where I began being what I can.”

change, friendship, home, moving, relationships, social media, social network

Leap: Social Media Provides Us With Room To Move

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

As I think more about my potential move to a new city in the coming year, I realize how much freedom social media provides. I’m able to connect with friends and friends of friends to ask questions about potential new homes. And when I do make a decision of where to move, I don’t need to feel like I’m leaving behind my friends in NYC. I won’t see them as often in person but we will still be close with the lines of social networks drawn between us. I also remember that a number of people whom I consider good friends are people I know through this blog and other channels. I talk to many of them daily in one way or another.

This ability to make and keep connections over long distances makes moving easier than it’s ever been before. Moving to a new city doesn’t need to feel isolating or lonely, even while we are in the process of reestablishing our physical social lives. These reflections make a move from New York a less scary proposition, an exciting new possibility, and they open the way for options that I never would have considered before. As the world gets smaller, individual opportunities expand.

change, choices, free

Leap: You Were Given Wings For the Purpose of Flying

Christa Avampato
From PostSecret – http://postsecret.com

Why do we stay stuck?

Our minds will rattle off a myriad of excuses about why we cannot change, why we cannot grow and evolve, why we must remain as we are, where we are. The mind is doing the best it can. It is trying to protect you and keep you safe.

The poor mind – it is going it alone. When we are stuck, the heart is not participating in the conversation. The soul remains a silent spectator. Your mind needs the heart and soul to be more active. It cannot and should not be expected to make all of the decisions. It needs balance and guidance to get the full value from its contributions.

If you want to free yourself from the patterns of the past, engage the heart. Engage the soul. Give the mind an opportunity to voice its concerns and receive help to craft those concerns into new ideas that will generate the circumstances for much-needed and long-overdue change. Freedom is a choice.

change, decision-making, opportunity, work

Leap: Make Room for New Opportunities

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“How beautiful can life be? We hardly dare imagine it.” ~ Charles Eisenstein

On a rainy Saturday morning, I made my way to this blog as Phineas was snoozing long past his usual morning walk time. A recent incident was weighing on me. Though I know I made the right decision in distancing myself from the situation, I still felt confused about why it came about at this time.

I have long-believed in the idea of space clearing. Sometimes life can get too full. Like an over-stuffed garden, our lives also need tending and weeding so that the plants we want to grow have the freedom and room to do so. I used to think this was just a chore that happened once in a while, but as I get a bit older I realize that this process is continuous. We must be diligent in keeping up with it, especially given the pace at which life and change moves in our world. Otherwise, the task becomes overwhelming.

That’s not to say this chore is easy. Every change and every ending is difficult, no matter how much it’s needed, wanted, and warranted. Think of how much energy and effort it takes to pull weeds from the garden. Sometimes their roots are sunken way down and we must dig deep to fully excavate them. But the work is worth it. In the end, there is a freedom there and with that freedom we get the opportunity to plant something new, something beautiful, something we have yet to imagine.

change, courage, creative process, meditation, time, yoga

Leap: Only Actions Create The Future

Christa Avampato

“Actions are the seed of fate. Deeds grow into destiny.” ~ Harry S Truman

There’s a pesky saying that travels around the yoga world from time to time. There’s a call to stop doing. The seed of this sentiment comes from a good place. There’s a lot of value in stillness, in quietude. When we get quiet, our mind’s eye sees more clearly. When the chatter subsides, we’re able to solve challenges with more confidence and insight. In peace, we gain direction.

This place of stillness can feel so good that we are reluctant to come back down. Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could just stay in that meditative state for a good long while? Yes, and no. The power of yoga and its many benefits make little difference on that 12 square feet of sticky surface. Their value comes to bear when we leave our mats, when we go out there into that great big world and actually do something with our clear minds and renewed sense of purpose. It’s good to stop doing for a bit, but eventually doing is what life is about. To have an impact, we have to take action with a clear sense of focus and direction.

Think of all of the historical figures whom you admire. My list is topped by people like Nelson Mandela and Mother Teresa. It’s filled with people who are writers, artists, musicians, innovators, inventors, and scientists. I admire them because of what they did. Their actions inspire me every day to show up in this world in the best way that I can so that I have a hand in crafting a world I want to live in.

I’m all for rest and relaxation, but I’m also all for making that rest and relaxation purposeful. Purpose is found in the actions we take with our hearts, minds, and spirits united. We can’t think, nor meditate or yoga, our way into a better and brighter future. Ultimately, we have to do something with the peace that comes from what we practice on our mats.

change, commitment, determination, work, yoga

Leap: There is Always a Path of Less Resistance

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

Have you ever felt like you’re drowning in tiny tasks that somehow grew out-of-control overnight?

That’s how I recently felt with Compass Yoga teacher scheduling. Almost a year ago, I started to get requests from more library branches that wanted a regular yoga class in their programming. They had heard about the wonderful classes at the Bloomingdale Branch and once the word spread to one branch, many others piled on.

Of course, I was thrilled by the requests and wanted to fill them all. At the time, I thought the best idea was to find a lot of teachers who would be willing to teach these free classes to get experience. In New York City, there is no shortage of new teachers who need and want experience. So that people wouldn’t feel too overwhelmed by a regular weekly class, I decided to put together rotating rosters of teachers who would share the load at each branch. I also thought this would give the students a variety of teaching styles to keep them engaged in the practice.

These are really nice ideas and they kind of worked, but I completely underestimated the challenges. First, I did a very good job of driving myself crazy as I coordinated the schedules of 17 (!) teachers and then often hunted for last-minute subs. Second, teachers wanted to feel more connected with the students on a regular basis and having a regular weekly class helped them schedule their own lives more efficiently. Third, students wanted to get to know a teacher better rather than seeing 3 or 4 different teachers per month.

I was well aware of the first challenge but didn’t know about the other two. As a result, I began to wonder if we’d have to scale back the library program altogether in an effort to restore my sanity. I wrestled with this idea for weeks, changing my mind every other day. Then a really interesting idea surfaced once I found out about the second and third challenges described above: each branch of the library could have a lead teacher. That teacher may not be able to teach every week and may need to sub out occasionally, but the relative consistency would help me tremendously and would be more helpful to the teachers and students.

In the end, we didn’t need to scale back the library program. We just needed to find a smarter way to manage it. And now with this simpler teacher scheduling structure, we can grow to more branches to help more people. Every challenge has a solution and many times it’s far simpler than we realize. Once we have the will to make something happen (or change), the way opens.