Category: courage

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

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

courage, fear

Doing the Impossible

Christa Avampato

This post is available as a free podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face. … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

“Are your projects as “Mad” as the Mad Times demand?” ~ Tom Peters

I went to interview for a freelance project a few weeks ago. When I dug a little deeper, the project being sold was not a project I wanted though just going through the process of applying gave me an interesting insight. For a moment at the beginning of the conversation, I began to wonder if I could really do the project I applied for. Maybe I didn’t have quite enough experience yet. Maybe I needed to gain just a bit more knowledge than I already have.

I do this a lot. I go to my edge and then get frightened that I’m in way over my head. But it’s those moment when I was way under water that I learned the most about my capabilities and where I gained the most confidence. The mad ideas, the ones that really out there are the ones that made a difference; they’re the ones that gave me the most joy because they were the most fun. They also appeal to my internal rebel.

To really live, to be in this world for the sheer experience of being alive, requires a certain fearlessness in the face of everything we should be afraid of. We live in wild and crazy times, and we need wild and crazy ideas to make any headway. Living at the edge and pushing the boundaries is the only way to grow. We aren’t born with a slip in hand that tells us what our potential is. We won’t know our potential until we really test ourselves and begin the very projects that we think we cannot do, the ones that we think are much too big.

What are the dreams that you think are too mad, too far out there, too difficult to accomplish? Put your energy there.

The image above can be found here.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

care, courage, dreams, education, inspiration, integrity, story

Further Thoughts on MLK Day

Christa Avampato

This post is available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” ~ MLK via CharlesMBlow

Charles M. Blow is The New York Times’s visual Op-Ed columnist. His column appears every Saturday.

“Dr. King delivered the “I have a dream” speech at age 34 and lived only 39 years.” ~ via Drew Allen

I read these two tweets on Monday morning with so much gratitude and then so much awe for the person Dr. King was and the person that he asked all of us to be. He was the age I am now when he delivered the I Have a Dream speech and his life was cut far too short only 5 years later. Those two pieces of information weigh heavy on my heart, particularly when I consider how far we still have to go to create a more peaceful society where everyone, regardless of race, creed, gender, personal economics, or upbringing, can advance through hard work and determination.

Coincidentally I am now reading Condoleezza Rice’s book, Extraordinary, Ordinary People, which reminds me of how much hope we have in our society. While I don’t agree with her politics, the inspiration of her story can’t be denied. She grew up in pre-Civil Rights Birmingham and rose to be one of the most influential people in the world because of her hard-won education. She has a quote in the book that hit me like a ton of bricks because of the courage and passion it coveys. She says of her parents, “Somehow they raised their little girl in Jim Crow Birmingham to believe that even if she couldn’t have a hamburger at the Woolworth’s lunch counter, she could be President of the United States.”

I understand her fervent belief in education. I grew up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money but believed in education. I studied hard, worked hard, and pushed myself, sometimes far beyond my limits, because even at an early age I knew that my education would improve the quality of my life in the long run. That bet, that long, sometimes-difficult-to-believe-in bet, paid off. My education, and the will it took to get it, are two things that I am incredibly grateful for every day. I live a really good life as a result of my education. I like to share that story, particularly with children, through my volunteer work. It gives them some hope to meet a real life person who understands where they are and where they can get to by working hard.

In the spirit of Dr. King, we need to share our stories through every channel we’ve got. We must continue to talk about what’s important to us and what matters. And we must do so without ever really knowing how or when or why it will affect someone else. Martin Luther King Day reminds us why it is so important to speak our minds and then live accordingly – because it makes a difference.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

choices, courage, creativity, curiosity, decision-making, design, work

Step 351: Beauty – One of Life’s Non-negotiables

Christa Avampato

“I think “beauty” has a (prominent) place in every project.” ~ Tom Peters

I’d go one step further than Tom Peters and say if you are living somewhere, doing something, or learning something and you can’t find any beauty it, then move, do something else, and pick another topic. I know that this week I espoused about how life is long and we have more time and space than we actually realize. But your life and the amount of time you have is not enough to warrant the wasting of it.

I’m one of those efficiency junkies. I despise waste of any kind, whether the resource is tangible or intangible. I especially hate having my time wasted. I kind of self-implode without a vertical learning curve. Actually, I don’t know how to live without one so if I feel even a tinge of boredom, my mind is off and running. What never fails to captivate me is beauty, and I especially treasure ironic beauty – moment and places that don’t seem beautiful on the surface but with a little digging have a great abundance of beauty underneath.

In 2011, I’m not doing a single personal project that doesn’t have a kind of beauty that inspires me. Truly, I refuse to struggle through projects or experiences or someone else’s decisions that don’t make any sense to me. I can’t do that anymore. I’m done with dreading any place, or project, or event. If what I’m doing isn’t useful to me, or you, or the world at-large, then I’m going to find something else to do. The world needs so much help right now and we need eachother.

I have a lot to offer in the way of resources. We all do. Talent, time, experience, care, and concern (perhaps the most underrated resource of all!) We can no longer afford to do work that doesn’t matter. We are what we do.

The beautiful image above is not my own but I think it’s stunning. It can be found here.

clarity, communication, courage, feelings

Step 239: The Ease of Stepping Out and Up

Christa Avampato

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau, American Author

There was some little snap inside me this week. I’m not sure what it is – could be that the heat has just gotten to me. (After this blistering summer heat, I truly can’t wait for sweater weather!) It might have to do with some shifting tides at work – all good and different. Brian would probably say that finally, finally, finally I am trusting my gut enough to let it have its own voice. Or he might say that the prana really loves me and therefore uses me every chance it gets. Whatever the reason, this week, for the first time in a long time, I was unmistakably me. My friend, Col, also realized this trend and wrote about it on her blog this week.

I have what some people have termed as a bold personality. Though for the past few months I’ve tempered that, particularly in public forums. My friend, Blair, gave me the nickname “Scrappy” (yes, as is “Scrappy Doo”) some years ago. Lately, I’ve lost a bit of that spiciness. This week it came shining through on several important occasions.

On Wednesday morning I had a meeting about a new initiative that I’m particularly passionate about. A lot of people gathered around a table to offer up feeble, same-old same-old opinions. So rather than tuning out and going to my happy place as I often do in meetings with people who have fancy titles and not much to support them, I spoke up. There were some arched eyebrows around the table, a few sheepish looks, and while I certainly remained professional and courteous, I pointed out that doing what we’ve always done just isn’t working and we should do x, y, and z instead. And then I produced the data to back up my opinions. I think a few people left the room at the end of the meeting saying, “and who was that woman and what part of the company does she work in?” in a positive way. I do like to encourage curiosity and push people’s boundaries.

The funny side to my boldness is that I’m also a pleaser. I do like people to like me. I like to be helpful, to strangers and friends alike. And I’m good at sharing, listening, and empathizing. I paid attention in kindergarten and got a good foundation of social skills. But pleasers have a rather dangerous lot in life – as pleasers, it’s easy to lose ourselves.

There’s a balance between boldness and pleasing, to be sure, and in the past I have often veered too far to one side of the spectrum or the other. This week, I got that balance right, dead on. While I did want some new audiences to like me, I also made it a point, without even trying, to also have some tough conversations with those parties, not for the sake of being tough but for the sake of really helping them and making our interaction a valuable use of their time. It was easier than I thought it would be, certainly easier than it’s been before. I cared less about being liked by them, and more about helping them think more clearly and contribute in a more meaningful way.

Brian told me that adolescence actually lasts into our early 30’s. Now at the start of my mid-30’s it’s no surprise to him that I’m beginning to rise up in every area of my life – personally and professionally. I do feel that after so much work of laying the foundations of my life, I’m now building castles in the air – exactly the opposite of the order that Thoreau discusses in his quote above. After this week I’m now wondering whether a good foundation naturally supports and builds a castle on its own simply because that’s what a foundation is meant to do. And by comparison, if we spend so much time working on who we are at our very core, all of a sudden do we step into the light just because that’s where we’re now ready to be?

change, choices, courage, discovery, encouragement, frustration, gifts, gratitude, loss, opportunity, yoga

Step 201: Obstacles as Path

Christa Avampato

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” –Alfred D. Souza

I keep thinking about the idea of “the path of least resistance.” I don’t know what that path looks like. I work and work and work, and eventually a pathway opens, but never constitutes taking the easy road. This quote helped me put this idea in perspective. When I think about the things I’m most proud of in my life, they all resulted from overcoming obstacles. It wasn’t always a fun journey, but the results were worth it.

I’ve written about Ganesha, the Hindu god of obstacles, and how much I learned about him during my yoga teacher training. Some people have interpreted his role as a remover of obstacles. That view is mostly right. It needs the addition of “removed of obstacles on our life’s path.” Sometimes, as Alfred Souza so eloquently states, obstacles need to be placed in our way to help us realize our path.

There’s no shame in having obstacles; there’s no need for us to bemoan their presence. They can be our reasons to be grateful. They show us our strength, and if we can recognize their gifts and their reasons for being, we can often find our way around them.

courage, home

Step 164: Hanging Art

Christa Avampato

Art makes a home. For several months, I’ve had my art framed tucked away against one wall of my apartment, wrapped meticulously in brown paper. I made every excuse not to hang it: I need a hammer; I need a picture hanging kit; I don’t have time; I don’t know where I want the pieces to go. This is the same art that I had in my apartment building that caught fire. Thankfully the pieces I really cared about survived; the frames did not. I tried to hang up these re-framed pieces several times back in January. I would get out the ladder, climb up to the top, and tear up. I just couldn’t get myself to make this apartment a home.

And then today, something shifted. Last night I went out with friends of mine to Apotheke, a bar I used to love that I went to with a guy I used to date. It was a truly horrible experience. It’s become yet another stuck-on-itself nightspot in NYC with a jerk working the door, donning a too-big ego, a fake British accent, and a cheap Blackberry that he checks incessantly. I was so disgusted and upset about the evening that it made me reconsider New York altogether. Was this a sign that nothing is the same here anymore? That I just don’t belong anymore? Maybe I’ve outgrown NYC, or maybe its outgrown me. Maybe I just don’t fit here anymore. Maybe 3 years has been enough time, and now I better get on to the next place.

I woke up this morning, looked at that art in brown paper, and realized why I’ve felt a little out-of-place in my life for the past few weeks. I’ve got this great shell of a life and I fill it up and empty it out, fill it up and empty it out. What if rather than running, I just painted the walls? What if I finally got out the art, hung it up (all excuses aside), and just began to really only take into my life the people, activities, and experiences I truly want. No sense of “I must do”, and only a sense of “this is right for me, today”.

Maybe the path to real liberation begins by climbing the ladder, tear and fears and regrets, and just putting the hammer to the nail. The walls may not be perfect, and they may never be like they were before, but at least they can show us how far we’ve come.

The image above is my favorite piece of art that I own. It’s a hand-painted canvas that I bought from a street artist in Soweto, South Africa in 2007. I am glad it’s back on my walls.

business, courage, entrepreneurship, yoga

Step 151: Shouting Dreams

Christa Avampato

Courage means being scared to death…and saddling up anyway. ~ John Wayne

Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow”. ~ Mary Anne Radmacher

These two quotes were used by two of my lovely yoga teacher training pals, Vivian and Courtney, during their practicums on our last day of class. They have stuck with me this past week, and I thought of them often as I considered what I will do now that we have completed our 200 hour training. My friend, Amanda, reminded me of them again when she wrote a blog post this week about prayers and challenges and courage. Amanda shouts out dreams in her post in her articulate, poetic voice, and that voice inspired me to shout my dreams, too.

Dreams have their greatest power once articulated publicly. So here goes my professional dream: “By my 35th birthday next year, I want to earn at least half of my income from my own business.” And look, I didn’t self-destruct by making that proclamation; I actually brought it a little closer into being.

At the start of her teaching career, my yoga teacher, Johanna, worked so hard building her business though she completely avoided making a website, a key piece of her marketing plan. Later, she realized she had some pent-up fear about putting herself out into the world in such a public manner. Once she released the fear, she built the site (which is beautiful!) and she has a thriving career now. She saddled up when she was scared to death, and it paid off in spades.

I took a cue from Jo and built my website for my business, Compass Yoga, in a few days. I could have labored over it some more before flipping the switch, scrutinizing every word. I could have hired a copy writer, a professional web designer, and a graphic designer, delaying the launch and spending a lot of money in the process. Instead, I just used what I know how to do from my own blog, bought a domain for $14.97, wrote all of the copy myself, and stepped on the gas. It’s totally me, mistakes and all. As Dr. Seuss would say, I had to get on my way.

Thank you Jo, John Wayne, Mary Anne Radmacher, Vivian, Courtney, and Amanda, for inspiring me this week to just close my eyes and jump and shout from the hilltops how I want my career to unfold. I’m scared to death and it feels great!

Take a look at the Compass Yoga site and let me know what you think!

adventure, courage, yoga

Step 133: Souls Like Kites

Christa Avampato

“A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.” ~ John Neal, American author and critic

I thought about this quote on my yoga mat today as I kept practicing my arm balances. I’m not good at this group of postures – the entire weight of the body is balanced on the hands in different positions. It requires a lot of core strength and coordination – two things that I don’t quite have in abundance. So I keep practicing. Doing the prep postures, trying them on my back, giving it a go, falling over. Actually, today in handstand I did a forward roll, exactly what I was afraid of doing. And you know what? I was fine.

Arm balances are for me what wind is to a kite. They are a good challenge for me, especially as I work on building more courage and confidence. I try to get my very soul up against them and rise. Most of the time I lose, but I keep at. Everyday I get a few moments of that floating, fluttering feeling that arm balances provide. I feel the full strength of my upper body. Eventually my body will figure it out. Eventually it will learn how to fly. It’s what we were made to do.

The photo above was taken by David Martinez for Yoga Journal.

courage, fear, yoga

Step 122: Facing Fears

Christa Avampato

Since my fire in September, I haven’t been able to walk down the street where it occurred. I’ve taken a few steps, and then I quickly cross the street, averting my gaze and avoiding any chance of looking through that door. To look at the building now, you’d never know that a fire happened there. It’s been reconstructed with new brick, repainted, doors and windows replaced. Everything covered over. For me, that street has a smoky covering, an eerie, uncomfortable feeling. Yesterday, I finally needed to stare it in the face.

I got out of the subway and made the turn I’ve been avoiding for almost 8 months. Since it was the Beltane yesterday, a day that celebrates life in all its glory, it felt like an appropriate time to face fear. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I didn’t cry. I didn’t really feel anything until I got right up to the building, and saw to my right a giant statue of Ganesha above a psychic reading place. Ganesha is the Hindu deity who removes obstacles to our spiritual development. On occasion, he will place obstacles in our path for us to deal with so that we grow and evolve. He gives us what we need, even when we don’t know exactly what we need at the time.

In that moment, seeing Ganesha juxtaposed to that building where the fire happened, I realized how much I needed that fire. In the three years that I’ve lived in this neighborhood, I’ve passed that statue many times. I just didn’t know who he was until my yoga teacher training. Now, it has a special significance to me. Now, I understand what I’d been seeing all along. I guess life is like that: we look and we look and we look, and then one day, the clarity that has been staring at us all along finally comes in to focus. I wish it didn’t take us so long to really understand what’s in our line of our vision, but then again, if we understood everything on Day 1, what would we have to look forward to? Here’s to seeing more clearly and facing more fears in the days ahead.

The photo above is of the Ganesha statue next to my old apartment building.