Category: costa rica

costa rica, courage, writing, yoga

Beginning: Trust that Yoga Can Help You Find Balance On and Off the Mat

Christa Avampato

“Falling out of balance doesn’t matter, really and truly. How we deal with that moment and how we find out way back to center, every day, again and again – that is the practice of yoga…it’s about trusting that you will find your way.” ~ Cyndi Lee, Founder of OM Yoga

This month’s issue of Yoga Journal is packed with incredible articles and heartfelt quotes that made me stop mid-article and remember all of the wisdom available to all of us in this ancient practice. In yoga there is a disproportionate amount of emphasis placed on getting to a certain destination – a particular variation of a posture, an end goal of improvement in some area such as flexibility or strength, or the simple desire to stop the whirring of our minds. What I love about Cyndi Lee’s quote above is that she offers a goal accessible to everyone, at every level of ability. When we lose our balance, can we maintain our grace, learning from the fall, and find the strength to try again?

We all fall out of balance, on and off the mat, and when it happens there’s a gut reaction of frustration. We rant and beat ourselves up and immediately begin to draft up huge changes that we’re going to make so that this lack of balance never happens again. It’s a never-ending battle, this pursuit of balance, and here’s why: balance isn’t something we always have in a snapshot in time. Balance, sustainable and freeing, is something we have over long stretches of time, not in snippets. In a certain posture, we may find extreme ease and balance, but it the remainder of our practice, feels out of whack, that moment of balance in one postures won’t remain in our hearts. Conversely, if our whole practice feels balanced and we struggled at the edge of a posture here and there, then we feel more peaceful and grounded.

In our life off the mat our job, relationship, family, friends, or a particular project may require the majority of our attention. The next day, our focus may need to belong to something different entirely. The key is to think about life balance over many day, weeks, and months. Has it been too long since you’ve been out with friends or spent some quality time just taking care of you? Have you been consumed by one project while other activities that you feel passionately about languish on the vine? Balance is about tending to the part of our lives that needs us most at this moment.

The image above can be found at http://www.tiffanyyoga.com/index.php

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costa rica, volunteer

My Year of Hopefulness – Sunshine and Rain

Christa Avampato

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” ~ Nelson Mandela

By nature, I have a very hard time with good-byes. Today was our last day with the abuelitos, people I have grown to love in such a short period of time. How is it that in 4 days for a total of 12 hours, I have come to care so much about people whom I barely know? How is it that our hearts open up so freely to so many in this beautiful, foreign country?

We were encouraged by Oscar, the activities director, and Dona Sandra, the passionate owner of the Center at San Raphael, to say ‘hasta luego’ (‘see you later’) rather than ‘adios’ (a more permanent good-bye). I settled on a saying that I heard all the time when I traveled to Venezuela 15 years ago, ‘via con Dios’ (go with God), and I meant it more than anything I’ve ever said in my life. In my heart I knew that is was quite possible that I might never see any of these abuelitos again and I suppose that’s why the tears came so freely and quickly despite my desire to hold them back. Among people who love so freely and easily, I have found that in this week I have learned to love more freely, too. And so, the tears of good-bye were unstoppable, as were the smiles. In Costa Rica, the sun often shines as the rain falls, so tears mixed with smiles are only natural.

As predicted, the people here have offered up much more to me than I think I was able to offer them. I wish I spoke Spanish with greater fluency, and I resolve to do so by the time I visit again. I wish I had more time here. I wish I didn’t have so much debt from business school so that I could afford to give more money to groups like CCS to continue their work in communities like San Rafael. I wish I had more freedom to do what I want to do whenever and wherever I want. Travel, and international travel in particular, provides the distance and space we need to allow our dreams to take root.

I returned to the CCS home base with a heavy heart, with so much gladness and sadness – glad that I could be here, glad that I could be helpful, and sad that our time here was rapidly drawing to a close. My favorite part of the CCS home base are all of the quotes and hand prints that past volunteers have put on the walls. Volunteers choose quotes that encapsulate their experience here – the one above by Nelson Mandela was among my very favorites and really got to the heart of how I feel about my life now that I have been in this beautiful place for a week.

The quote I chose for the wall to accompany my hand print at the CCS home base is my favorite, a quote that gives me courage and strength and embodies this idea of “now is the time”. It’s by Victor Hugo, the author of the book Les Miserables, and very simply states, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” This idea of carving out the life I want, a life of freedom and mobility and generosity, in this strange and beautiful world is an idea whose time has come.

My time in Costa Rica has confirmed that yes, now is the time for me to go after everything I want in my life: my own business, more international travel, the opportunity to teach yoga and to teach at a university level, the ability to effect public policy to provide a voice to those who need our attention and care, a loving, committed relationship, and much more time with my friends and family. The opportunity for this life has been with me all along, though it took traveling many miles from my home to realize how much is within my grasp. It’s with much thanks and gratitude that I bid farewell to the abuelitos today. They changed my life more than they could ever possibly know and more than I could ever possibly tell them.

costa rica, travel, volunteer, yoga

My Year of Hopefulness – La Musica de los Ninos

Christa Avampato

Today I had the opportunity to visit a day care center in the morning. Maria, one of the other volunteers, needed some extra help with the kids and I raised my hand to go along. The children at the day care are between 8 months and 5 years old, and volunteers spend time playing with them and organizing activities. We made masks from construction paper and popsicle sticks, and played on the slides and swings. Monica, one of the other volunteers, and I spent some time cleaning out a very dirty refrigerator that had been donated to the center. It was full of mildew and mold. Dirty work, though so necessary for the children, and so we were glad to do it.

Later on I had the chance to do yoga with the kids. Teaching yoga to kids is a very different experience that teaching yoga to adults. It’s also very challenging because I have never done a class in Spanish. Thank goodness that Maria, who is originally from Spain, was there to translate! With kids, I find it’s easiest to have flashcards with pictures of animals and things that correspond to different asanas. Frog pose, airplane pose, monkey pose, etc. While adult classes many times focus on silence and on holding a pose for an extended period of time, classes for kids often involve laughing and moving about and making the noise of the very thing the asana is named after. There wasn’t really enough room for the class – the daycare center is a over-crowded – and we had a great time laughing and tumbling over one another anyway. It was the happiest I have been in a very long time.

What immediately struck me at the start of the class is that the sound of children playing is universal, regardless of the language they speak or the country where they live. The sound of laughter and joy is the same the world over. Again, I was reminded today of how much we are able to give to others with such a small amount of effort and time, and how much we receive in return. When we give, our own abundance grows.