Category: creativity

creativity

In the pause: You are in bloom

Christa Avampato

“Don’t be so scared. My love, this is how you bloom.” ~ Evan Sanders, The Better Man Project

The process of becoming is uncomfortable, even painful. It requires so much stretching and reaching and growing. In the short-term, it feels safer and easier to keep our dreams and spirits small. Over time, that safety, ease, and comfort have a hefty price tag; they rob us of who we’re meant to be and the goals we’re meant to reach.

I’m in the midst of a big leap now. And though I didn’t choose the timing, I did choose the path. I put the wish out into the world, and the world responded. The response wasn’t what I expected but it did open the way that I needed to make my path a reality.

And so, here we go. Onto the twisting, uncharted road where I can only see just a few feet in front of me. I know the very next step, but not the one after that. Sometimes the fear, uncertainty, and stress feel overwhelming. And at those times, there’s always someone who says, “You’re going to be okay.” So I keep going. And blooming. I hope you will, too.

 

creativity

In the pause: Be here now

Christa Avampato

I knew the Year of the Rooster would be a wild one. But I didn’t have any idea what wild meant until these past few weeks. So much is shifting and changing. Every day I’m on a roller coaster doing my best to hang on and stay flexible. Just when I feel like I’m at my breaking point, I take a deep breath, call a friend, and find my center again. And so it goes. And so we go. One day, one moment, one heartbeat at a time. More than ever, I’m learning to be present and fierce. I’m learning what a gift it is to love and be loved and to smile. I’m learning that profound change can find any of us at any time. Be here now. That’s the only work we need to do.

creativity

In the pause: Don’t stumble over something behind you

Christa Avampato

“Don’t stumble over something behind you.” ~Seneca

Whenever I’m faced with something disappointing, I feel is deeply and and immediately. I strip out that phase of denial and move right into grief. While grief is a painful, my willingness to feel every ounce of it jumpstarts the healing process. Grief is a lens I use to refocus my energy and get clear about what I need and want. It’s not fun, but it’s necessary. The great benefit of this brutal process is that once it’s done, it’s done. I don’t look back; I let it go and move forward. I have many times in my life that I’m glad I’ll never repeat, and I’m also grateful for all of the learnings that those times held. They have given me empathy, strength, and courage, three of the things I value most.

 

creativity

In the pause: Train travel with strangers

Christa Avampato

Someday, I’m going to get on a train, sit in the cafe car, and travel across the country with a random and revolving set of travel partners. I’ll just sit down and see who sits down across from me. I’ll learn about aspects of their life stories in the snippets of the time we have together and then I’ll write about it. My guess is that we have far more that binds us together than separates us from one another. We’re all on Team Human, right?

creativity

In the pause: Invest in love

Christa Avampato

“Keep loving people. It’s the antidote to all that afflicts us.” ~ John Pavlovitz

I am holding this thought in my mind more and more as time goes on. With all that is swirling in my own world and the world at-large, I am focused now more than ever on love. It’s the energy that heals and comforts. It’s the force that binds us together, and being together is our greatest asset toward progress in all realms. Hang in there, friends, and hang in there together.

creativity

In the pause: Healing takes time

Christa Avampato

Friends, I have had a rough week. One of the roughest I’ve ever had. Truly. I have been struggling mightily on so many fronts that at one point, I could feel the walls closing in on me. There were a lot of triggering events and I felt like I was descending back down into the scary tunnel of my PTSD from many years ago. I couldn’t sleep or eat for almost 3 days. Eventually, somewhere deep down in the depths of my soul, something began to rise through all the sadness and fear and noise. It was my power. It was my voice.

Your power and your voice are always there. Always. I know it can be difficult to hear them. I know that pain stands up and demands to be recognized. And I know that healing takes time. But you will heal. Be kind to yourself. Be on your own side. Be your own best advocate. Be fierce. Know your truth, and don’t let anyone else tell you who you are. You know you. You be you. Because you are so much more than enough. It takes time to know that, too. Take the time. It’s worth it.

creativity

In the pause: Things have to fall apart to come together

Christa Avampato

Whenever something doesn’t work out the way we planned, we can feel cheated, disappointed, and sad. But what if we could look at our new situation from a different angle? What if things not going how we planned is the best thing that ever happened to us? What if that opens the way for things to go better than we ever imagined possible? Let’s try to manifest that and see what happens. Sometimes things have to fall apart to come together.

creativity

In the pause: Know who you’re writing for

Christa Avampato

April 18th is the deadline for my next round of edits for my novel, Where the Light Enters. Once I turn in that draft to my publisher, the editor will do another round of developmental editing followed by another round of line editing. A book is a long and winding road. Here’s what keeps going through the toughest of times—somewhere out there a little girl who thinks she is alone and isn’t yet sure of her own power will read this book and know her potential. I’m writing it for her. Who is your audience of one?

(Thank you to my friend, Pam, a fellow author with a new book coming out soon, who helped me to pause and think about who I’m writing for.)

creativity

In the pause: Use what you have

Christa Avampato

Monday night I met with the team over at Notion Theory, a fantastic design shop that specializes in being a CTO for-hire (among many other amazing specialties!) I spoke to them about my virtual guidance counseling idea. They could have quoted me an outrageous amount of money to build a proof-of-concept. Instead, they said it could be done for $0 and I could do it myself in a few hours with free online tools. Sure, it will be a little manual but for MVP, it can be hacked together. What I really need to focus on is finding a couple of schools with a small amount of students who are willing to let me test the idea on them. I think it’s pretty amazing for a design shop to tell me that right now I don’t need to pay them a cent. The time for a slick seamless interface will come, but right now I just need to find people who want my help. Given how much need there is, I can get started right away with what I’ve got.

creativity

In the pause: Gun violence on my block in D.C.

Christa Avampato

Screen Shot 2017-03-07 at 10.00.41 AMThat’s a bullet hole in the middle of a shattered window in my apartment building lobby. According to the DC Police Department, it was caused by an assault rifle, a military-grade weapon. By law, these weapons cannot be owned in D.C. by any civilian for any reason, meaning the weapon was stolen or sold illegally. The reflection in the window is the building across the street, one of the largest public housing complexes in the city, and the stage for that gun fight. The irony is not lost of me. I live in a glass house, with a clear view of the Capitol a mile away, where the divide between rich and poor across North Capitol Street is a chasm that just keeps getting wider.

Though I grew up in a rural area (there is a tractor-crossing sign across the street from the home where I grew up), I’ve lived in large cities, often in developing neighborhoods, for the majority of my life. I’m not blind to the level of crime and violence that exists in our cities. I have been robbed at knife point in a Philadelphia subway station and aggressively harassed, sometimes pushed and physically threatened, on the streets of New York and D.C. But this incident of a bullet into my apartment building is crime on a whole new level for me. It has already begun to change the patterns of my life and how I navigate my neighborhood. Constant vigilance now has a whole new meaning for me.

And here is the saddest part—I’m luckier than anyone who lives in the building reflected in my shattered widow. I can move when my lease is up. Most of the people who live in that building, many of them children, are good people. They are stuck, and their situation is about to made worse with cuts in healthcare and education. These are the very people who need to be protected and as a society, we aren’t protecting them. I’ve made a point to get to know them because I understand their situation on a personal level. My family had no money when I was growing up. I know what it means to be afraid, to struggle, to feel hopeless. It’s hard to see or find a way out, and certainly even harder when you live in a building where violence is often just a breath away.

As someone who has been down into the depths of PTSD, incidents like this cause to re-evaluate just about everything in my life. I understand the preciousness of our time. I understand it’s fleeting. I understand that it goes by too quickly. I understand that we spend too many days waiting and not enough days living up to our full potential. I don’t know where this new sense of urgency and reflection is taking me. I promise to let you know where I’m heading and what I intend to do to make this world a better, safer place for all people. I can also promise you that I will not waste this learning or be dragged down by it. I will make it my fuel.