I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
I’ve been thinking a lot about this quote lately as I restructure my life and career this summer. My focus is to learn from my experience, understand where I am, and proceed with courage and faith exactly in the direction I want to go.
Tomorrow marks two important milestones: the opening night of Sing After Storms and my two-year anniversary of starting my company, Chasing Down the Muse. If someone had told me two years ago that June 18th my first original play would open in New York City with the talented team that’s on board, I would have laughed myself silly. When we take a chance, a really big chance, amazing things can happen. It’s all possible: yes, we can sing after storms, and yes, we can chase down the muse. First, we must have the courage to begin. Then, it’s a matter of daily dedication and effort.
We spend a lot of time raising kids to be proud of who they are only to spend time as adults trying to be someone we’re not. We broaden our kids’ horizons and then specialize ourselves right into a corner to get a certain job, to fit in with a specific group of people. Please don’t ever be less than who you are. We need you to shine as brightly as you possibly can because there are so many people counting on you to the light the way. Be there for them by just being you, all of you.
“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” ~ Blake Leeper, Gold Medalist 400m Relay, 2012 Paralympian, soon-to-be first double-amputee American Olympian, and yogi. He amazes, inspires, and motivates me.
Carolina Herrera, designer to the stars, took a big risk at 40. Prior to then, he was a housewife in Venezuela. When she turned 40, her children were grown and she told her husband she wanted to move to New York to start a new career as a fashion designer. She had plenty of connections and access to funds so that helped though without her drive, ambition, and impeccable taste, connections and capital wouldn’t have meant much.
She could have easily laughed off the idea, and stayed right where she was – comfortable, settled, and bored. Instead, she went for it and reinvented herself. Today, she’s still reinventing herself and her fashion line at age 74. She admits that she’s every bit as scared now as she was 34 years ago and she said that every year it’s harder, not easier, to do her work. However, she loves it so she keeps going.
We place so much emphasis on youth in our society that we forget that every day, at every age, we have the opportunity to reinvent who we are and what we do. We can shift gears and try new things. We can be daring and courageous. Reinvention is a choice and Carolina shows us where it can lead if we give ourselves the chance.
Matthew McConaughey was on CBS Sunday Morning to talk about his un-branding. In a world where branding in all its many forms seem inescapable, it was refreshing to hear someone talk about chucking it all out the window and what’s come of his efforts. Known as a guy’s guy / romantic lead, McConaughey is nominated for an Academy Award for his role in Dallas Buyers Club in which he plays a homophobic rodeo cowboy who is diagnosed with HIV and given 30 days to live. He meets, befriends, and starts an illegal business with a transsexual who also has HIV. In Texas. Based on a true story. What?!
While Dallas Buyers Club is now a contender for several Oscars, for a long time it seemed destined to never see the light of day. 137 potential producers turned it down over several years before it found the funding, and the week before shooting was set to begin, they still didn’t have all the money they needed. They pushed on anyway. They just wouldn’t give up.
McConaughey was committed to the making of this film and the remaking of his own career in the process. For two years he turned down everything that fit the image that made him famous because he wanted to send a clear and persistent message that he would only take challenging roles that scared him. He wanted a complete career shake-up. While that was a personal choice, he certainly didn’t want to be largely unemployed for two years. Yet, that’s what it took. Two years of no work to prove that he was serious about taking his career in a new direction.
When I first heard this I thought, “Big deal. He’s probably got so much money that if he never works again he and his family will be just fine. Was he really taking such a big risk?”
And then I thought about what a shark tank the world of work can be, to say nothing of the world of work in Hollywood. He could have kept right on doing what worked, what he was good at, and raking in the money in the process. No one would have batted an eye at that and he would have gotten plenty of pats on the back for a job well done. Instead, he risked failing in a big way and throwing away an image and a career that have served him well that couldn’t have been recovered. They just didn’t feel good to him anymore, so he tossed them in favor of the unknown, something that made him feel alive again. Dallas Buyers Club is the result of that work. Was it worth it? All signs point to yes.
Yesterday I wrote an article for The Motley Fool on the economic impacts of this week’s nuclear deal with Iran. When I was offered the assignment, I hesitated for a moment. This topic is far outside my comfort zone and it would require a lot of research on my part with a very short timeline. I wasn’t sure I was cut out to write this kind of piece, though I was incredibly drawn to the topic so I went for it. When it published yesterday, it was one of my proudest moments as a writer. I conquered that little voice that said, “Don’t do that. It’s not your kind of thing.”
This little voice sneaks up on all of us. It will try to keep us confined. It takes a lot of effort to break away from it. We have to have the courage to fail, to give it a try knowing that if we fall we will have the strength to get back up. Understand that if something doesn’t work out according to plan, we have the ability to learn, adjust, and keep going. That’s the funny thing about talents. The more we stretch them, the more they grow.
“What matters most is how you walk through the fire.” – Charles Bukowski
4 years ago today, my apartment building caught fire and I lost almost everything I owned. I got out of the building just in time. A few moments later and I might not be here writing this post to you today. On that day if someone told me I’d be grateful for that fire, I probably would have punched them in the nose. Now I know better.
I’m more grateful than ever for that experience. Through that healing process, I found out what I’m made of, and I found out what so many other people are made of, too. I emerged from the other side of that grief a far better person than I was before. It was difficult, and many times it was awful and painful. A big part of me wanted to give up on remaking my life. A small part of me refused to give in. I listened to that small voice. I fed it, and eventually it grew loud enough to drown out the doubt. And if knowledge is power then I’m more powerful now than I ever dreamed I could be.
It doesn’t matter what challenges we face. What matters is how bravely we face them. It doesn’t matter how much nor how little we have, but how much we do with anything we have.
“I don’t want people to think I’m crazy so I won’t say, do, try…’x’.” How many times have you said that to yourself? I hear that recording running in my mind all the time. And I’ve learned to acknowledge it, thank it for its counsel, and then let it go. We have to release that thought if we are to do anything original. Our value, and the value of work, is found in what’s not obvious, in connecting dots that have been disparate.
That’s the place to go – into the dark corners, into the places that others won’t go. And don’t be meek about it. Hold your head up high, confident, bold, brave, and daring. Attempt to go so far in the direction of your dreams that you merge with them. Your life is an expression of what matters most to you – who you spend your time with, where you go, the actions you take, the support, encouragement, and love that you provide to others.
Don’t be discouraged if others can’t see what you see. It’s not their fault. They don’t have your vision in their minds. You have to build it for them. You have to bring along those who are interested in your path bit by bit. The expression you wear on your face and the light you emit from just being who you are, living your very best day every day no matter what circumstances you face, is all the proof you need.
Have you seen this sign around your neighborhood?
How about this one?
These are posters for my public participation projects. In my quest to help people let go of things that are holding them back and take more chances to live the lives they want, the sole purpose of these projects is to celebrate participants and to have their stories inspire others. These are promotional posters that I’ll be hanging up around New York City though anyone anywhere in the world of any age can participate. And if you’re so inclined to print them out and hang them in your neighborhood, I would love that! Just contact me through a comment on this post and I’ll send you the PDFs.
Here’s how it works:
Let. It. Go.
Let something go – it can be anything from a possession that is a painful reminder of something to an emotion like anger, greed, jealousy, disappointment – and then tell me about it at onefineyogi@gmail.com. You can let go of something very big, like an old, hurtful disappointment, or something very small, like forgiving the person who cut in line at the grocery store. This can be about something you just let go of or about something you let go of a long time ago.
Take a Chance
Take a Chance – it can be anything from saying hi to someone new to applying for a new job to changing anything about your life that you want to change – and then tell me about it at onefineyogi@gmail.com. You can take a big chance, like moving to a new city, or something very small, like having a healthy snack instead of an unhealthy one.
You can participate in either project (or both!) and email me as often as you’d like. Actually, I’d love it if you emailed me every single day with something you let go and a chance you took. The emails can be very short or they can include a story of any length. They can include photos, too. (I know this goes without saying – please keep all contributions clean.) I will respond to every email I receive. Your chances and things you let go will always be kept completely anonymous unless you specifically tell me that you want me to include your name or initials. I’ll use these contributions to populate a new online project I’m launching in the coming months. You’ll be notified as soon as the online site launches and when your contribution is live.
I hope you’ll join in these exciting new endeavors to celebrate and encourage you and your dreams.
Christa Avampato 