Category: choices

choices, courage, design, determination, dreams

Beginning: Be an Invisionary

Christa Avampato

“Vision is the art of seeing the invisible.” ~ Jonathan Swift

“My favorite place is my imagination.” ~ ME

Every once in a while, I get a real fire under me. I’m not sure where it comes from, though it’s almost always linked to something I read like this quote by Jonathan Swift. And when this fire gets going, I feel the need to crack open my laptop and get this all down because I’m certain that the words I’m about to think are the words that someone somewhere needs to hear, right now at this very moment.

It’s easy to see what is right in front of us. What’s more difficult, though ultimately more rewarding, is to imagine what could be and bring it into being. There’s much talk in the business world about leaders of companies who are “visionaries”, and in business that has largely meant people who see the current situation with a slight twist that vastly improves value. Minimal work for a lot of pay off. There’s nothing wrong with that at all – masters of the 80 / 20 rule, they have been able to steer the companies they run through our economic storms of late.

Though I appreciate the work of visionaries, the people who really inspire me, who really impress me and motivate me, are invisionaries – people who see a whole new way of being to improve their own lot and that of others. They see things that have never even been thought of, much less acted upon. They attack challenges that most people run from. They look at big problems in the world and rather than turning a blind eye, stand firmly rooted into the ground and say, “I can make this better.” They are people of action, people who don’t hesitate. They don’t need all the answers, they just need the next step. They’ll gladly pave the road as they travel it. In actuality, they prefer it that way.

This is who I’m trying to be with the mission of Compass Yoga – an invisionary – and it’s what I want for all of you, too. I don’t want us to be limited by what’s here in front of us. I want us to tear down the walls we see in our lives. Climb over them, plow through them, dig your way underneath if you have to. Need a boost? Let me know, and I’ll gladly offer it up. Just get out there, and live the life you really want.

I know this work isn’t easy. I’m asking a lot of myself, and I’m asking a lot of you, too. And here’s why – there a lot of people who are going to tell you, “You must do X because long ago you decided to do Y.” These people will tell you that no matter what you want to do, you just can’t. Maybe these people are your family, your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers, or your boss. I want you to thank them for their opinions and then turn the volume on them off. I’m here to be the voice that tells you to roll the dice; the only thing you have to lose is regret for not living the life you want.

It’s tough to get people to see the world through your mind’s eye; don’t blame them. Many people are not invisionaries, and have no desire to be. They will plod along and be just fine. The people who do something really extraordinary with their lives, who make a difference, are the ones who are in this game every day courageously weaving the fabric of their own lives and the lives of those they want to help. Hold that as your ideal, your model.

Don’t take no for an answer. Open every window, swing open every door, and when all else fails get out your chisel and hammer and make your own way out of the box and into the light. If we can live like this, then we can live lives by our own designs. And what could be more gratifying than that?!

change, childhood, choices, commitment, goals

Beginning: Striving By Settling for Change

Christa Avampato

<a “Something has always come along to shake things up just when I am feeling settled. Maybe this is the fate of a striver, someone always trying to be ‘twice as good’.” ~ Condoleezza Rice

A few months ago I read the book Extraordinary, Ordinary People by Condoleezza Rice. It tells her own personal story prior to her very public life by paying tribute to her parents. Despite the fact that I was confused by nearly every foreign policy call she made while servicing in President Bush’s administration, I was enormously impressed by her personal story and the candor with which she told it. She’s also an incredibly likeable person.

Shake it up, baby
Of all the sound bites in the book, this one about the life of a striver has stuck with me. I regularly go through this same roller coaster. Just when I think I’m settled and I’ve got it all figured out, my reality gets turned on its head. This has happened to me enough times that I have learned to just roll with changes, big and small. And while this constant change may appear unsettling on the surface in actuality it’s made me so grateful. Because I know that everything will change, I appreciate each moment, good or bad, more fully. I’m reminded of my mother’s mantra, “This too shall pass.” Everything passes.

On disappointment
Another happy side effect of the acceptance of change is that disappointment has less of a sting. My friend, Sara, recently asked me how I manage to work on so many projects at once. For better or worse, I was raised to be productive. My father’s one ask of us is that we never do anything to embarrass him; ironic given all the times he embarrassed us. Still, that stuck with me and to me meant that if I attempted to do anything it had better be done well. It was made very clear to us that we are here on borrowed time and that we were expected to make a contribution to humanity.

My father’s life was tragically cut short at age 61 with most of his life’s work left unfinished. The lesson of how fleeting life is sticks with me; I think about it every day. The most enlightened point-of-view of this lesson is that I have very little time to feel badly about disappointment. I have to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. In many ways, to keep going is the only way I know to deal with disappointment.

A belief in karma
I’m a walking contradiction, and truth be told I like it that way. A big believer in free will, I’m also just as passionate about the concept of destiny, karma, and a predetermined path. One of my favorite quotes came from Steve Jobs when he told a group of graduates that life could only be understood in reverse because it’s only in reverse that all of the seemingly disparate pieces of our lives fit together. As I work on the direction of Compass Yoga, I realize why I need all of my life experiences, good and bad, big and small.

Welcome, Change!
In an effort to make all of these experiences worthwhile, to make them mean something in the grand scheme of life, I’m glad to put myself in the camp of strivers. In the end I want to be able to look back on my long life and realize that it was twice as good as I ever thought it would be. This is a tall order given that I have very high expectations. And if change is the linchpin that makes that dream possible, then I welcome it with open arms and often.

choices, happiness, opportunity

Beginning: Choosing Light

Christa Avampato

“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” – Maori Proverb via Tiny Buddha

Yesterday I expounded upon my love for Daily Good’s daily email that inspires me on a regular basis. Another site that I love for its flat-out joy and love of life is Tiny Buddha. I found my way to Tiny Buddha via MJ, a tremendously loyal and helpful member of the Christa in New York community. Lori Deschene, the creator of Tiny Buddha, is another one of those sources who delivers tidbits of delightfulness to my inbox and always seems to find exactly the right words exactly when I need to hear them. The quote above is an example of that.

The light is closer than we think
This Maori Proverb made me think of a picture of someone looking down at the ground, searching for some positive sign, searching for some kind of light and hope, never realizing that all the light they could ever want is just above them. If only they would take their gaze up, they would be able to find all the signs they could ever ask for. I have a friend like this. She is someone who has been blessed with so many riches, material and otherwise, and yet is never happy. She often says, “I really just need something to go right in my life soon.” What she doesn’t realize is that she has the ability and the power to take her life in the direction she wants to go. Great things aren’t going to happen TO her; they are going to happen when she brings them into being.

A life of light or darkness is often a matter of choice
And this is true for us, too. We can choose to live in the shadows – goodness knows there are enough of them in the world and in our own pasts. We can also choose to acknowledge the shadows for what they have to offer us, take their learnings, and then turn toward the light. Those shadows will stay with us as reminders, as teachers, but they don’t need to hold so much power over us. We can take another road. Once we change our minds, we change everything.

adventure, choices, goals, yoga

Beginning: The Long and Short of Achievement

Christa Avampato

sciencedaily.com
“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~ Rumi via Daily Good

By nature, I am a goal driven person. I put a big, audacious, ambitious goal out into the universe and then I work like heck to bring it to life. I love nothing better than progress and the feeling of spending my time on a worthy achievement. I fiercely maintain my abilities to be self-sufficient and independent – it’s why the mindset of veterans makes so much sense to me and why I seek to work with them in my yoga teaching.

Daily Good’s post is a part of my every day regiment. The fine folks who run the site put together a poignant, inspiring post every day. It always resonates with me. Their recent post inspired by Rumi’s quote made me start to think differently of how I work to achieve my goals. Is my focus on the goal itself misplaced? Could I actually be more efficient (which I love to be!) if I focused not on the goal itself, but on the barriers that I need to hurdle over to get to the goal.

The 2-inch picture frame
In college, one of my roommates gave me a 2-inch dual picture frame. One one side, I have a picture of a row-boat – it reminds me of the importance of embarking on new journeys. On the other side, I have a picture of a park bench that has two sitting spots clearly worn through the paint – it reminds me of the importance of having companionship along our journeys.

Whenever I have a very large task ahead of me, that 2-inch picture frame reminds me to break the task apart into small pieces. I just need to work on the masterpiece of my life one 2-inch portion at a time, just as a painter or sculptor does. Each piece feeds into the whole, bit by bit.

Playing pool
A number of years ago I dated a guy who was a master pool player. I liked to play pool though I was pretty bad at it. I focused on the cue ball, and not the ball I was trying to send into a pocket of the table. Once he helped me shift my focus to the long-term ball I wanted to sink, my pool playing improved dramatically. In this case it wasn’t the task at hand (hitting the cue ball) that mattered most, but rather what I hoped that task helped to do for me in the long-run (sinking the ball in the pocket.)

Equal amount of attention on the details and on the grand vision
For a long time I thought the focus on short-term and long-term was an either / or decision, and for the most part I focused on the long-term. I don’t think this was a bad choice; it helped me to make some serious short-term trade-offs so that I could reach goals like putting myself through college and through graduate school, both of which yielded huge benefits on my life overall.

The quote by Rumi reminded me that as I take on bigger life goals, such as working on Compass Yoga full-time, making peace with my dad, and finding the guy who is going to be my partner in life, seeking to remove the barriers to my success is a viable and fruitful way to travel down the path.

choices, decision-making, faith, family

Beginning: Your Yesterdays Will Rise Again; Act Accordingly

Christa Avampato

“If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.” ~ Pearl Buck

Searching yesterday is valuable, difficult work. I take it on every day because I believe so fully in the process of continuous improvement. I know and accept that I am not perfect, that I will never be perfect, and that there is always a way to do something better. This strong belief is helping me to make peace with yesterday and to lay down the heavy backpack of perfectionism. Perfection is a losing battle, and I hate losing even more than I hate imperfection.

Even with this strong belief in continuous improvement, some yesterdays have a way of gnawing at me even in my best moments. Not all yesterdays are created equal. I try to be thorough, thoughtful, and well-informed. I am the decision tree queen. I’d be willing to test my pro / con list speed and dexterity against anyone. I’ve been at this game of choice and decision-making for a very long time and for me, it’s an art.

My last yesterday with my father
So it’s sometimes especially difficult when I wish I had handled a situation from yesterday in a better way. I wish I had gone to the hospital and said good-bye to my father when I had the chance. I wish I could have swallowed my pride and my desire to be “right” – it might have saved me a lot of heartache in the aftermath. It’s not that I didn’t say good-bye to my father that bothers me so much; it’s that I made the free-willed choice to not say good-bye. I had good reasons for making that choice, though I wish I could have just laid them aside, whether they were right or wrong, and just been there with my mother to bear witness at the passing of a life that gave me life. It is my greatest and deepest regret, and with the finality of death it is something that I will never be able to do better. I can’t go back and say good-bye to my father in a better way, or for that matter, at all.

Keeping and living the lesson
The night my father died, I lost in a big way. His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said, “When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” And in every day since my father passed I have tried to retain a very big yesterday lesson: when you walk away understand that you may not be able to retrace your steps.

Sometimes walking away is the best answer. Sometimes the only way you can really help someone heal is to remove yourself from the situation. Be very conscious of the downstream effects – for you and for that person – and understand that your decision in that moment has the ability to entirely alter your course going forward.

You will relive all of your yesterdays every day; act accordingly.

choices, clarity, yoga

Beginning: To Focus, We Need to Stop, Assess, and Choose

Christa Avampato

To move a project forward, focus is necessary. You can’t know what beat to march to unless you can hear the drum. Without at least a general idea of where to go, a lot of effort is spent wandering around aimlessly. I’m an efficiency junky and I hate wasting time, or worse yet having someone else waste my time, so focus is incredibly important to me.

Stop and Get Clear
Compass Yoga is beginning to occupy a great portion of my life, which is what I’ve been working toward for the past 18 months. It’s very much the work of my lifetime, or many lifetimes, and it’s my legacy. I feel blessed to have found this calling so early on in my life and to have so much clarity on its direction and purpose. My yoga practice and teaching is very much focused on its therapeutic aspects and the relief it can provide us for both mental and physical wellbeing.

To get to this clarity, I had to really put aside to outside influences, get quiet, and listen. There were lots of people who wanted to send me off in different directions once I finished my first leg of yoga teacher training. I am very grateful that they were so interested, but when I really stopped and considered their advice, I just couldn’t follow their instructions and be authentic. I had to go my own way and forge my own path. It’s the message I received in my daily meditation practice and it’s the one that felt most worthwhile.

Assessment Time – Take Off the Blinders and Expand the Mind
Once I knew I wanted to have a therapeutic focus in my teaching, I took a look at the landscape of where to take further training and where to begin looking for opportunities to teach. I quickly realized that few training programs focus on therapeutics (which will be another focus of Compass Yoga once I build up the organization a bit more) and there is an incredible amount of need for it. I hit the opportunity jackpot with this road, and it dovetailed perfectly with my own unique personal experience with yoga.

I found my way to yoga for therapeutic purposes and it made a tremendous difference in my life. Finding this same emphasis as my teaching purpose brought all of my experiences, as challenging as they were, full circle. It gave them great value and purpose. Once I realized all of this available opportunity and all that I have to give in this realm, I felt like someone took off the blinders that I have been wearing for so many years. Now I see opportunity everywhere.

Choice – the Final Frontier
I quickly realized that I could easily spin myself around in a circle if I didn’t narrow down my business development efforts to a population or a cause that I feel most passionately about. There’s no end to the amount of work that can be done in therapeutic yoga and it’s easy to get caught up in wanting to help everyone. I’ve always found that by trying to serve everyone, you serve no one well. I had to choose, and choose I did.

How I chose to focus on helping veterans and their families
I found my way to yoga as a means of recovery – from trauma, stress, anxiety, and insomnia. By my early twenties, I found that my mind and body were sufficiently battered. Yoga helped me to pick up the pieces and put myself back together again. Over time, it helped to heal old and new wounds alike and continues to do so. It became so much more than an exercise I did on a mat. It became a way of life. I live my practice; it’s always with me and within me and that’s a powerful possession to have.

A Teacher Finds Her Students
My goal with my teaching is to help others like me, others who feel battered, beaten down, or lost, and want very much to feel independent and in control of their own lives again. When I hear and read the stories of veterans, when I hear the stats of how much help they and their families need, on some very basic level I understand that need. I have never been into battle as they have. I’ve never even held a weapon of any kind. I do personally understand the aftermath of trauma and what it does to a family, particularly to children. I understand profound, irreversible loss, grief, and guilt. I understand the feeling of not being whole, present, and engaged. I’ve been there, too.

Yoga, which literally translates to “union”, helped me to bring it all back together for me and I know I can use it to help veterans and their families. The practice gave me direction, discipline, and an outlet to process and feel my feelings so that I could move on, so that I could transcend. No matter what the cause, that’s what all people in trauma are looking for – not a way to forget but a way to move on and honor all that we learned in the process. Yoga gets us there. It takes time and patience, but the door is open if we have the courage to walk through.

change, choices, commitment, determination, Fast Company, impact

Beginning: Be a Positive Disruptor

Christa Avampato

“Look back and say, at least I didn’t lead no humdrum life. ROAM FREE.” ~ Wyoming Office of Tourism

The technology field helped restore dignity to the word disruptor. For too long “disruption” was equated with “distraction”, “bother”, and “nuisance”. Now the title of disruptor is sought after by every entrepreneur out there. They are upending markets and industries in the name of innovation and giving the people what they want. Authentic, creative, and endlessly optimistic, disruptors are the people whom I want to surround myself with; I like to think of myself as one of them.

The key is to be a positive disruptor with a focus on making everything you touch better than it was before you showed up on the scene. Luke Williams put together this piece for Fast Company on disruption that creates positive change. He implores you to become a part of it. Here are a few of his steps that particularly resonate with me, as well as some of my own personal examples in relation to Compass Yoga.

1.) Figure out what you want to disrupt, meaning what do you want to fix. Take a look around you – what gives you pain, what makes you angry, frustrated, sad, and confused. These emotions are great motivators to spur you to work for change. I was motivated to start Compass Yoga because so many yoga studios are inaccessible to people with serious health concerns, physical limitations, and little disposable income.

2.) Discover the clichés in your chosen area. This requires the ability to go from asking “why?” to “why not?” Why did yoga studios have to be so expensive? Why couldn’t people with physical limitation, the very people who need yoga the most, have access to top-quality classes? And why do so many yoga studios and instructors focus on exclusivity instead of acceptance?

3.) Bust up every cliché in your area. Now, the fun begins. This is your chance to be and build the change you want to see. Why couldn’t yoga be made affordable to everyone who wants to try it, whether that’s in a group class or a private session? Why couldn’t people with physical limitations take part in a comfortable setting? Why couldn’t yoga return to its roots of acceptance, generosity, and support for all people regardless of where they are along their own paths?

4.) Now scale. You are rare; so rare that there is no one else exactly like you. Your gifts and talents are incredible, valuable things. And honestly, you owe it to the rest of us to share them with as wide an audience as possible. Figure out how to get your work, products, and services to as many people as possible. You never know what it will inspire in others. The more people you can inspire, the more change you can create, and the more this world will begin to be a place you are abundantly proud and grateful to live in.

And here’s the best part – being a positive disruptor is a blast. Truly. You’ll have so much fun crafting your own path forward and you can revel in your own unique perspective. You’ll meet and connect with amazing people who will spur your creativity. You’ll do things you never even imagined were possible. Your energy level will go through the roof. As a positive disruptor, you will know how it feels to be truly alive.

choices, decision-making, yoga

Beginning: Bring Dreams to Life By Asking ‘Why?’

Christa Avampato

From http://www.flickr.com/photos/emagic/
“When the why gets big enough the how takes care of itself. ” ~ Universal Law

Chiroyogi, a reader of my blog, left the quote above on my post about my future plans for Compass Yoga. At first, I was struck by how simple this universal law seems and then after I reflected on all of the “coincidental” turning points in my life, I realized how true it is. In our society we focus so much on what we need to do, where we need to go, and how we’re going to make it all work. How often do we really ask ourselves why? Not often enough, even though understanding the why of our thoughts and actions holds all of the real wisdom.

In relation to Compass Yoga, I thought for a long time about how the company might be structured so I could work on it full-time, where it would be based, and who it would serve. I never really stopped to ask why. Or as yoga teacher Elena Brower so eloquently discussed at the Urban Zen event I attended this week, I wasn’t focusing enough on why my mission of serving the under-served is so important to me. I knew it was valuable, unique work to build a business around. I just wasn’t digging deep enough and therefore hadn’t recognized what really fascinates me about the under-served population: the complexity of their situations gets my blood pumping like nothing else.

I really love challenges that have lots of layers and dimensions. I am fascinated by revelations that slowly come into focus one small detail at a time and then the rush I feel when all of a sudden the connections between the dots are so clear. And this fascination, the why, helped me find a mission statement, partnerships, a staffing model, a business structure, and revenue streams that I had never even imagined as possible. The Universal Law stands: once I answered why I am so passionate about helping the under-served through yoga, the how fell right into my hands as if the Universe just gently placed the answers in my lap and then left as quietly as it had approached. It was eerie and beautiful and if it hadn’t happened to me with such precision, I might not have believed it was even possible.

I’ve heard the saying, “Every problem contains the seeds to its own solution.” To be honest, I never really believed that until now. The sayings in the realm of problem solving that have always resonated with me much more come from Albert Einstein: “Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value” and “It’s not that I’m smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

It’s no wonder that a man like Einstein, someone who uncovered so many Universal Laws himself, would have a personal philosophy that falls so perfectly into line with the Universal Law that Chiroyogi left in his blog comment on my post. Find the answer to why you’re moving in a certain direction by sitting with the question and focusing on making a valuable contribution to humanity. The answer is sure to arise.

career, choices, decision-making, friendship, time

Beginning: In Your Job Search, What’s Your Single Most Important Ask?

Christa Avampato

“The only universal resource is time.”

I’ve recently had separate conversations with 2 friends that followed the exact same path. Like me, Amy and Michael are putting financial plans in place to assure that in the future they work on the projects that mean the most to them. They don’t want to retire early in the traditional sense. They absolutely want to keep working throughout their lives. They just want the option to work on their own personal passions.

This is a different way of thinking about work and savings. The 3 of us have jobs that satisfy certain requirements, though none of us would call them the ideal roles for us. Truthfully, the only ideal roles for us are the ones we create ourselves, for ourselves. So what has been our search criteria for work? Time. Our #1 requirement in our job searches has been to have jobs that provide us with the time and flexibility to work on our own personal projects, the projects that feed our souls. And to use our jobs to build up our savings to make more of those projects possible.

Another friend of mine recently criticized this view of my job. “You are really wasting your time,” she said. “It’s really a shame that you don’t have a job that challenges you more.” What I thought was shameful is that she lives for her job for a very large company that really has no sense of loyalty to her. If anything, this recession has shown me that your top priority needs to be you and the people whose lives you personally and professionally effect. I have plenty of challenge in my life – I challenge myself with all of my creative projects that happen outside of my office building. They are the projects that truly mean something to me and to the world. They are the accomplishments I am most proud of.

To be clear, I appreciate the skills I’ve built and experiences I’ve had at my company. It’s provided me with a good living and a manageable schedule to make my yoga, writing, and personal life rich and meaningful. It’s helped me look at the world in a new way. It’s given me numerous opportunities to give back to my community, donating time and money to worthy causes. It serves a tremendous purpose, even at the times that it frustrates me.

If you’re searching for a new job, or even just contemplating leaving your current role, be very clear about your situation. What are you leaving, what are you looking for, and what needs to be there for you in the next pasture?

choices, commitment

Beginning: Where to Begin Healing and 3 Ways to Focus on the Long-term

Christa Avampato

The Healing Mandala
“Treat the fire, not the smoke.” ~ Dr. David Perlmutter

Getting to the root of an issue is so much harder than we’re willing to admit. We throw that phrase around as if getting to the heart of the matter is child’s play. It’s a difficult, trying task. Treating symptoms of a situation is the easy way out, in the same way that doing what’s modeled instead of what we know to be right is an easier path. We can see and feel symptoms. They’re real, tangible, and can be masked. Treating a root cause of a challenge is a longer term bet, and yet it is the very best use of our time and energy. It’s a slower but more sustainable process. It requires us to take the long view.

If we are truly interested in healing, in getting to the heart of a matter and building from there, how do we bring that about? How do we maintain our belief in the long view when short-term gain is the easier road?

3 ways to focus on the long-term:
Meditate on reputation – Buddha said, “What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” The reputation you have now is largely based upon what you’ve already done. This means that the actions you take today, tomorrow, and beyond will be the basis for your reputation in the future. What do you want to be known for? To make that happen in the future, you can start to take action against that today.

Chart your progress – what gets measured gets done. When you begin a new project or make the decision to take your life in a new direction, track your wins both big and small. This will also help you identify patterns of success that you can repeat.

Look to the stories of others for inspiration – the stories that stick with us are those of perseverance, those that describe how someone overcomes a great obstacle that seemed impossible. Nelson Mandela said that, “Everything seems impossible until it’s done.” Take heart that everyone whoever began any kind of healing, any kind of challenge faced odds that seemed insurmountable. You are in good company.