Category: dreams

dreams, goals, healthcare, yoga

Leap: Our Goals Should Be Impossible

Christa Avampato

“To make your goals effective, you have to fail at them 50% of the time, or they didn’t stretch you far enough.” ~ Chip Wilson, Founder of Lululemon Athletica

Some people think my goal of wanting to dramatically improve the entire healthcare system in the United States through Compass Yoga is just crazy.

Sometimes they look at me with very sympathetic eyes as if to say, “Well isn’t that ambitious.” And then other times they raise their eyebrows in a surprised expression of, “Who does this woman think she is?” My answers are, “Yes, I am ambitious” and “I am someone who cares.”

One of the great blessings and curses of reading so much and spending so much of my time engaged with others is that the problems of the world are my problems. It doesn’t matter if today the problems of the world affect me directly. I know so clearly that eventually they will be my problem – the crummy economy, climate change, soaring healthcare costs, a failing education system. These will be everyone’s problems. We are too interconnected now to turn a blind eye. We cannot live in castles in the sky while their foundations are crumbling here on Earth.

It takes crazy people to bring monumental change. It takes people who take risks, who try and try again undeterred, who reject the idea of business as usual. Business can’t be usual any more. We have too many challenges that need creative solutions. And that goes for politics, education, the environment, international relations, energy policies, and yes, healthcare. What has been is not what can be going forward. We need more passion and more enthusiasm to find better answers.

So do I think impossible goals are worthwhile? You bet I do and I’ll chase my impossible dreams down with every bit of speed I can build. There’s just no way of knowing what’s possible until we give it everything we’ve got. As Nelson Mandela wisely said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Go further.

business, career, dreams, fear, feelings, wishes

Leap: Outrunning Fear

Christa Avampato

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry via Daily Good

Beginning is the hard part, and every project, idea, wish, relationship begins the same way: setting an intention. That is the hard part. Loudly and proudly saying, “World, this is what I want and come hell or high water I’m going to make it happen.” Getting up the energy and gumption to make that commitment is the very hardest part. It’s not that there won’t be challenges and obstacles to making it happen. Implementation is tough stuff, but just getting the courage to try is the very hardest part.

Why? Why is it so hard for us to give our wildest dream a try? Sadly, we don’t live in a world of unending encouragement. There will always be people, sometimes people very close to you, who for one reason or another will tell you that your dream is too big. We don’t take a first step because we worry that it’s the only step we’ll take, proving all those naysayers right. Our dream was too big. We couldn’t do what we set out to do, and so we’ll have to slunk back to where we came from to take our seat next to the naysayers who never tried to make their dreams come true either.

That’s the fear talking and the only way to get over it is to get it out. Write it all down. Every last fear you have about your biggest, wildest dream belongs on a piece of paper so it can be torn up into pieces and burned into ashes. That very first step requires only one thing – the ability to silence fear. Maybe not permanently, but at least long enough to give us the confidence to take a second step, and then another and another and another.

And pretty soon, before we know it, we’re running. One foot in front of the other, again and again. So fast and so strong, that the fear won’t even have a chance to catch us.

books, children, creativity, dreams, encouragement, hope

Beginning: Push Through In Spite of the Chatter

Christa Avampato
Shel Silverstein

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me … Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” ~ Shel Silverstein from Where The Sidewalk Ends via Dailygood

My friends Leah and Peter are having their first baby in January. (That lucky little one has two of the most amazing people in the world as parents!) I recently went to their baby shower and instead of a card we were asked to bring books to get their baby’s library started. I went to the bookstore near my office and by the end of it found myself with not a book but a stack of books after a solid hour in the children’s book section. (I finally settled on Goodnight, Moon and several Dr. Seuss books for Leah and Peter.)

I find this genre incredibly inspiring because it reminds me of a time when I fully believed that anything was possible – I could be an astronaut, a paleontologist (which was my childhood occupation of choice), or a brain surgeon. I could travel the world, live on top of a cloud, or discover an underwater civilization. There were no boundaries and books were my way of traveling across the universe. They still are.

Shel Silverstein remains one of my favorites for his optimism and eternal belief that we all have something to give. As we turn the page to 2012 and I turn much more of my attention to the work my life was meant for, his words will be comforting in the low moments and encouraging as I make my way up this “great big hill of hope.” And isn’t that what all our best adventures come down to – pushing on and pushing through despite all the mustnt’s, don’ts, shouldn’ts, impossibles, won’ts, and never haves? We have to continue to have faith in the idea that anything, absolutely anything, can be if it’s what we truly want and what the world truly needs.

Those words – push through, push through – will be ringing in my mind over and over again every step of the way in 2012.

commitment, dreams, inspiration, music, television

Beginning: Decide to Marry the Night

Christa Avampato
Lady Gaga performing "Marry the Night" on A Very Gaga Thanksgiving

“What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it! / Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” ~ Goethe

Late on Thanksgiving night everyone had gone home and my parents were fast asleep. Phineas was cuddled up next to me snoozing, and I was pecking away on my laptop to draft a freelance writing piece. When I write, I usually have music or the TV on in the background. I flipped through the channels and saw that A Very Gaga Thanksgiving, Lady Gaga’s Thanksgiving special, was on. “Perfect,” I thought. “I love her empowering music and I won’t get distracted by a complicated storyline.”

So much for that idea.

I found Lady Gaga’s story incredibly compelling – her sense of family, the incredibly personal and unique inspirations behind each of her songs, and how she views real wealth. And there was one message in her interview at the end of the show that really stuck with me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Her song “Marry the Night”, her favorite song on her new album Born This Way, is about the decision she made a few years ago to fully commit to her work. Lady Gaga decided she was “going to tear it up”, make her work her husband, and never look back. “Marry the Night” is the musical manifestation of that promise to her herself.

Inspiration will find us in the most surprising ways – a unintended conversation, an chance meeting, a Lady Gaga TV special. Eventually, we will find that we can’t fight our purpose forever. During my vacation last week, the signs of a new life taking shape were abundant and abundantly clear. There was no mistaking them.

I need to commit to the work of my life – my teaching through Compass Yoga and to my writing. On Thanksgiving night, a switch flipped. The fear of this leap didn’t disappear, but it somehow became inconsequential. It now feels like there is a greater force moving me forward, a gentle hand at my back, as if the night may have chosen to marry me and I must go along.

Thanks, Lady Gaga. I needed the push.

books, dreams, food

Beginning: The Power of Food

Christa Avampato
A recent meal of whole foods I made in my tiny kitchen. From my photoblog: http://bornintocolor.wordpress.com

In recent weeks I have become mildly obsessed with cooking in my tiny stand-up kitchen more often. It started with the first board meeting of Compass Yoga. Two of the incredible board members, Amy and Rob, came to my house for dinner while the other two superstars, Lon and Michael, joined by phone. For Amy and Rob, I cooked up a superfood meal and they were so delighted with it that it gave me a warm, happy glow. Despite my tiny digs, I realized how much happiness could emanate from it when the food is made with love and honor.

This happy experience led me to start watching loads of documentaries about growing food via streaming Netflix. Some dogmatic and pejorative, others hopeful and empowering. It’s no wonder that I gravitated to the later and the best among that lot was a film titled simply Ingredients. It features titans of food like Alice Waters, one of my modern-day heroes, talking about how critical good food is to the preservation of our health and wellbeing. Though the concept is so simple, we are so addicted to “big, manufactured food” that it is literally killing us with unprecedented levels of disease and stress (both mental and physical.) A good deal of the film is set in and around Portland, Oregon and talks about the critical issue of preserving land use for farming, particularly as it relates to local, organic ingredients.

Local organic is nirvana for me. I grew up in a tiny farming town on an apple orchard. For most of childhood, the orchard was not active though I have a small set of memories from when I was very young about people coming to our orchards to pick apples. I remember climbing trees and exploring the land with my brother and sister and our dogs. It wasn’t lavish and it was never particularly well-groomed. But to me, it was always beautiful. Even today, there is a tractor-crossing sign across our drive way. Many of the people in the town farmed in some capacity, even if that just meant their own summer gardens. I remember walking out our front door to find baskets of fresh food dropped off by one of our family farmer friends. Local and organic was all we knew growing up – so much so that I didn’t have any concept of a vegetable or fruit existing in any other state. I had no idea how lucky I was in that regard.

On the plane back from a business trip to Phoenix, I found an excerpt from a forthcoming book, An Everlasting Meal, in the airline magazine. Immediately, I fell in love with the prose and it further heightened by resolve to eat whole foods, prepared well. This is what author, Tamar Adler, coins as “honest food”. Tamar is a self-made chef and a cook at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’ restaurant. (Alice wrote the foreword for An Everlasting Meal.) An Everlasting Meal will be published in October, and I have already added it to my “ship when ready” list on Amazon for a simple reason: Tamar isn’t giving us a food book in the traditional sense, filled with recipes and tricks of the trade; she gives us a gorgeously woven narrative about the art of practical cooking and how it is an allegory for a life well-lived. Her prose is stunning in its simplicity and truth.

All this thinking of food has brought an image to mind that has surprised even me: there I am in amply spaced and sunlit kitchen, cutely aproned, Phineas lying at my feet sniffing the scents of a home-cooked meal. The sun’s coming from a window looking out on a garden that appears larger than my current studio apartment. I hear a man call me from the other room but I can’t quite make out what he’s saying, perhaps because I’m so entranced by a simple pot boiling and the joy of letting its steam rise up over my face as the scent of its delicious contents fills my nose. This is certainly not New York; I’m not sure exactly where it is, but I mean to find it.

And that’s perhaps the most magical thing of all about food – its preparation and the happiness it invokes opens up our imaginations to follow dreams we have yet to know.

dreams, family, passion

Beginning: The Consequence of Pursuing Passions

Christa Avampato

I believe in dreams, big and small. I believe that the only way to live, and I mean truly live not just exist, is to find a way to wake up every morning and have your first thought be, “Thank you for the opportunity of this day.”

My father passed away at a young age, long before he accomplished what he set out to do in life. In John Lennon’s beautiful words, he died with the music still in him. I learned a lot of lessons from his passing, and the most important is this: time waits for no one.

It took me longer to learn the unintended consequence of finding what you’re truly passionate about: once you know your passion, you have very little desire to do anything else. All of a sudden every moment you spend on something else begins to feel like time wasted, time that could have been spent more wisely and productively on your passion. It’s as if there’s a beautiful piano sitting in the corner, cased in glass. Lovely to look at, though not easily shared and certainly of little benefit to anyone else.

To sit down at that piano and play is to make use of your passion. And this is true too of the dream you have to start a company or program, to paint, to write, to serve a cause that’s important to you, to love. To be of real value, dreams must be brought into being, not just thought of and then shelved.

There is certainly the fear factor. It is frightening to say, “This is what I stand for, who I mean to be,” because there is no going back. Once you’ve actualized a dream, once you’ve defined it clearly for yourself, you must go do it or it literally chews you up. It haunts you, follows you around everywhere you go. There is no way to shake it loose except to grow numb. And numb is a frightening state in which to exist.

When my father passed away, he was numb on the outside and raging on the inside. He died a lonely, disappointed man. And the saddest part is that he had no one to blame in the end but himself. Yes, he faced horrendous and tremendously difficult obstacles. He struggled and somewhere along the way, long before I was around, I do believe that he tried very hard to bring the life he wanted to fruition. Then the light died; it went out of him and he became a person who lost his way.

I wish I could ask him how and why this happened, why he let the world beat him down. I wonder why he ultimately didn’t have the strength to keep going, to keep dreaming. I want to ask him why he couldn’t wake up until it was just too late.

It’s hard to live with these questions, ones that will never be answered, so instead I make meaning of his life by infusing meaning into mine. By living my passion of building and fostering healthy systems, I not only fulfill my dream for my own life; I also get the opportunity to fulfill my father’s, too. The other unintended and delightful consequence of living our passions is redemption.

art, dreams, faith, free, work

Beginning: Let Yourself Get Carried Away

Christa Avampato
Illusion of Control by Brian Andreas

“If you hold on to the handle, she said, it’s easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it’s more fun if you just let the wind carry you. “ ~ Brian Andreas

The image to the right the latest piece of art gracing the walls of my tiny New York apartment. Brian Andreas is one of my favorite artists so I was thrilled to find this print of his at the new Housing Works store in my neighborhood just after writing a post about “Letting Go to Be Free”. It was like a universal affirmation telling me, “Hey kid, you’re on the right track. Keep going and have fun in the process.” Thank you, Universe. Duly noted.

I have often written about the illusion of control that came crashing down on us for a solid 18 months starting in 2008. The economy had been chugging along at a healthy clip for a number of years with only a few naysayers wondering just where on Earth all this growth was coming from. We wrote them off as fast as possible, covering our ears, smiling widely, and spending to our heart’s content. And we learned that the heart is never content. It always wants more so we leveraged ourselves to the hilt, the government included, and fooled ourselves into thinking that we were safe. The mind is a slippery place; we can convince ourselves of anything if we try hard enough.

Safety lies not in your company or your professional network. Both are as slippery as the mind. Like the girl in Brian’s painting above, you can hold onto the handle to maintain the illusion of control – after all, that’s what handles are for, right?

Or you could trust the wind, your own intuition. You can tune in to the circumstances around you in a very honest way, understand exactly the resources that you have at-hand (literally), and find the best way to get the two to mesh. The wind will carry you, like it or not. Try to fight those winds, and you’re likely to struggle to no avail. Recognize their power and give yourself a chance to steer them in a direction that works for best for you. Less struggle, more fun, more learning.

From one control freak to another, let’s hold hands and see where the ride takes us.

career, dreams, learning, work, yoga

Beginning: Wounds Can Be Made Into Wisdom

Christa Avampato

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

Opposites are a blessing. We gain new insight into joy through sorrow, love through heartbreak, health through sickness, success through failure. In this way, not getting what we want is a reason to be grateful.

A blessing wrapped in disappointment
When I graduated from business school, I wanted to get a job in media. I had been out of the entertainment industry for a few years and I wanted to get to it more than anything. I interviewed at NBC and it proved to be a day of horrible experiences. I didn’t get the job, and even if I did I wouldn’t have taken it. The day of interviews was that bad, and I was horribly disappointed and hurt by the process. I have been a huge fan of NBC since I was a kid, and this was a dream job for me for as long as I can remember. With this opportunity gone, I had to get a new dream. And I did through Compass Yoga. NBC did me a huge favor in the long-run, even if I didn’t know that at the time.

A chance to show what you know
As life often does, I got another chance to enter the world of television. I recently interviewed for another large TV network whose work I greatly admire. This time I didn’t go into the situation with rose-colored glasses like I did with NBC. I was clear about who I am, how I like to work, and what I’m meant to do. This opportunity just wasn’t what I wanted, and so I opted out of the process despite the network’s strong plea for me to see it through.

That wound from my NBC interview provided me with a great amount of wisdom and the confidence to take control of my own career. It felt good to turn toward a path of my own making.

dreams, faith, free, work

Beginning: Letting Go to Be Free

Christa Avampato

by Thomas Spiessens
“A truth: the more you squeeze, the less you have.” ~ fortune cookie

I had dinner with my friend, Amy, on Saturday night and in my fortune cookie I received this message. Amy and I had just been talking about her decision to not renew her work contract after it expires in January. She’s wanted to pursue a career in the humanitarian field for a number of years and has been saving toward this goal. Now that she’s saved the necessary amount and has a back-up plan in place, she’s giving her dream a whirl.

Amy’s decision requires a lot of faith and flexibility. She needs to be open to a lot of possibilities and outcomes. As with every dream, there is some personal sacrifice that Amy will have to make – the hours will be long and the competition for the roles she most wants is fierce. However, Amy has so much heart and has been preparing for this moment for so long that I have every confidence that she is heading off in a beautiful and meaningful new direction.

To make this choice, Amy had to let go of a bit of her job security and take a road that she will have to build herself. Her greatest insight came when she realized she was holding tight to a job that is not her life’s work. The more we release, the more freedom me gain. As she sees time ticking by she feels an urgency, a call to action to at least give her dream a shot. The worst that could happen is that it won’t work out and she’ll find a new dream, fulfilled with the knowledge that she gave it her very best try. Her example is such a good lesson for me, and for all of us: an open hand can hold more than a clenched fist.

dreams, frustration, future, passion, patience

Beginning: Patience is the Partner of Progress

Christa Avampato

“Patience is the companion of wisdom.” ~ St. Augustine

Lately I’ve been itching to run, just take off on the open road of life so to speak and not look back. I’m not exactly sure where this feeling came from or why it’s persisting, but it is certainly familiar to me. It’s been a while since it’s made an appearance in my life, and I must admit that it feels like greeting an old friend who has been away for too long.

Someone wise once told me many years ago that change is good and I should embrace it, so long as I’m running to something and not away from something. When the running instinct showed up at my door a few weeks ago, I had to take a few steps back and really think about whether or not to let it in. Was I just so frustrated with certain circumstances in my life, compounded by the fact that I have such a clear vision now for Compass Yoga, that I was willing to do anything to feel like I was just moving, if not moving forward? Or were the options for change laid out in front of me truly something I wanted to embrace for their own sake? It comes down to priorities.

By nature, I am an impatient person. I see what needs to be done, what must be done, and I just want to go do it. I don’t want to ask permission. I just want to have the freedom to act by my own conscience. Having such a clear picture of Compass Yoga is both a blessing and a curse. It helps me channel my efforts straight to its purpose and it has become a very centering force in my life. However, it makes it very difficult for me to do anything but further its mission.

As of late, I’ve had some really incredible career opportunities cross my path, opportunities that even a year ago I would have given anything for. I wasn’t sure what to do, and so I sat in meditation, much longer than I usually do, hoping for an answer. And I got one. I turned them all down. All of them, in favor of putting my efforts into Compass Yoga. One of them was a dream business development job. I would have been a senior person in the organization charged with growing the company 20%+. I knew I could rise to a challenge like that, but the trouble is that if I’m going to grow anything 20%, it’s going to be my own organization, not someone else’s, no matter how great I think that other company is.

Patience is hard. We aren’t wired for it, but when we have a big audacious goal, we need patience and perseverance is equal amounts. I’ve been waiting for this moment to do my own thing, it’s almost here, and I was going to cloud it with someone else’s vision? No way. I’ve waited too long to have my turn at channeling all of my resources and experiences in the direction that I see fit. I can’t lose sight of that big picture now! This choice is part of the hero’s journey.

Like Hanuman, I am laying in wait for just a little while longer before springing into action. The opportune time is almost here – I can feel it with every fiber of my being. No sense in getting sidetracked now. My work, by my own definition, is too valuable to too many people. Focus is what’s needed.