Category: dreams

adventure, discovery, dreams

Step 74: Canyons Opening

Christa Avampato

Since hearing about Columbia last week, I have been getting so many supportive emails, phones calls, texts, and comments. They mean the world to me and reaffirm my initial feeling that my path lay in another direction. My friend, Blair, wrote me a particularly beautiful note that I am going to take out every time I feel sad. Her message was, “I hope this clears out the year for you and opens gates and canyons, mountains and oceans to explore as you enter a new year.” My friend, Laura, sent me a similar message about 30 seconds after my blog post went up. My mom and sister followed quickly thereafter. Several people posted incredible comments to this blog that made me smile wide. You see why I adore them?

I can already tell that the canyons are opening, that the path is clearing. I felt it all weekend in yoga training. I’m even experiencing it as I’m sleeping. It’s as if I was released to dream a little differently, more freely, than I was dreaming before. It was like breaking through a cloud cover to find that sunnier skies laid in wait for me to arrive. My friend, Lon, didn’t offer me any advice or guidance. He just said “I can’t wait to hear what’s next.” That one simple statement made my answer, “I don’t know”, a reason to rejoice, rather than a reason to be afraid or sad or disappointed. He isn’t trying to tell me what I should do next; he’s just saying that no matter what’s next, his support will be there. And now you see why I adore him, too.

The thought that keeps crossing my mind is that the canyons are always open, the gates of the life we imagine are always swinging wide, welcoming us in. What makes the difference is whether or not we choose to see them, whether or not we have the courage to walk through. Life doesn’t go according to plan most of the time; sometimes the life we get is very different from the one we bargained for. And we have to remain flexible and open to possibilities, even if those possibilities were things we never imagined would happen.

When I got home last night, I read my horoscope from my local paper, and it seems that even the stars are echoing the exact words of encouragement that I’m getting from my beautiful friends, family, and blogging pals. “Trust that you feel a certain energetic relief, relaxation, and the growing sense not that you have enough, but that you are enough…it is fair to say that everything is about to change – in ways you would have wished for, if you could have ever predicted what was possible.” Now that’s a reason to jump out of bed in the morning. Open canyons, here I come! 1, 2, 3, leap!

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

dreams, movie

Step 60: Alice in Wonderland

Christa Avampato

“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” ~ Alice in Wonderland

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” ~ Saint Francis of Assisi

Tonight my friend, Dan, took me to see a screening of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, the journey that Alice takes on her second fall down the rabbit hole. In Tim Burton’s colorful, magical style, he re-creates a Wonderland transformed into a wasteland by the Queens of Hearts. The story unfolds as good battles evil, as a young girls grows into a woman, and as the repressed gain the confidence and courage to fight for freedom. It’s a story as old as time, and yet it’s something more, too. That’s why it’s my favorite book.

My favorite quote from Alice is the one about imagining impossible things. So often we spend our days saying why something can’t / won’t / shouldn’t work. We make excuses and justify inaction. How much of our time do we imagine impossible things, and then take them a step further as Saint Francis counseled us to do. Impossibility is an alluring things to strive for.

In Tim Burton’s re-telling, Alice is fighting the jabberwocky and to strengthen her own resolve, she begins to recite six impossible things. So I’m testing myself a bit tonight, imagining my own list of six impossible things:

1.) To ride the subway on a weekday morning with a car full of people excited for the day ahead
2.) A world where everyone has just enough of everything they need, and they’re content with that
3.) An education system that bases every ounce of learning on creativity
4.) Me doing advanced arm balance poses in yoga class
5.) A world that fully appreciates the wisdom of the aged, children, and animals
6.) A year full of days that feel like that first day of spring after a long, hard winter

dreams, yoga

Step 59: Ingenuity

Christa Avampato

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” ~ George Smith Patton

This weekend I began my yoga teacher training. After 16 hours over two days, my body is drained and sore, and my mind is full, in a good way. I gave my best at every moment. My mind expanded. Emotions long-buried surfaced in ways that surprised me. This is progress.

Sonic Yoga, where I am doing my training, is a classic Vinyasa studio with a relaxed, fun feel. The answer to every question is “it depends”. We are all treated as individuals, unique in our abilities to give and receive, unique in our needs and wants. And Sonic Yoga honors that individuality.

In our two hour practice this morning, our instructor, Jeffrey, said something during the midpoint of a particularly challenging pose for me. “Dance on the very edge of your practice.” That idea sat with me as I twisted more deeply into Parivrtta Trikonasana (Revolved Triangle Pose). It’s out on the edge, on the very fringe of our existence and our abilities, that we find out what we’re really made of. It’s when we are pushed to our limits, physically, emotionally, and spirituality, that we hear those life-altering truths that are so hard to hear amidst the hubbub of our every day existence.

Jeffrey got the best from all of us, 22 women strong, not by telling us what to do but by telling us the destination. Go to the edge, just a little further than you ever thought possible. That edge will be different for all of us, but the intention is the same. Go out there and live, really live. Whether than means twisting more deeply into a pose, taking on a job that seems a bit beyond our abilities, or chasing a dream that seems just out of reach, it’s amazing what we can achieve if only we focus and extend and keep aiming for the edge. Our own ingenuity never ceases to surprise and delight.

The image above is not my own but it sure makes me laugh. It can be found here.

career, childhood, dreams

Step 46: Closing the Heart-Mind Gap

Christa Avampato

“The greatest distance in the world is the 14 inches from our minds to our hearts.” ~ Agnes Baker Pilgrim

On Friday, I had my annual physical and for the first time the doctor performed an EKG. I had these little electrodes placed all over my body. Even the slightest movement, even clearing my throat, caused my heart rate to change. Its beat is the center of our existence, and yet we spend very little time actually considered the needs and wants of the heart, or rather our minds spend a lot of time dismissing the heart’s needs and wants.

How do we close the gap? How do we help our lives sing out from the heart while being informed by the tremendous cognitive abilities pulsing inside our enormous brains? I just finished reading Michael Pollan’s excellent book In Defense of Food. Pollan points out that we actually already know how to eat; we don’t need any scientist to tell us. What’s happened is that we’ve allowed “nutrionism” and food science to lead us astray. He advocates for getting back to our roots to help us re-learn how to eat well. I think the same method could be used to close our heart-mind gap.

A few months back I wrote an article for Examiner.com about getting back to age 9 to discover what will make us the happiest in our careers. The trouble is that once we get too far beyond age 9, we allow too many people to tell us what is best for us. We let others tell us what to do with our lives so often that we actually begin to believe them. When we’re 9, all we can do is imagine what kind of life will make us happiest. That’s the only focus of a 9 year old. As a 33 year old, I want to have that same maniacal focus on happiness that my 9 year old self had. I deserve it. You deserve it. We all deserve it.

In a recent job interview, someone remarked that my professional experience was “weird”. (I ended up opting out of the interview process as a result.) By “weird”, he meant that I have always done what I wanted to do. In my career, I just follow my heart rather than some plan defined my someone else as a “good way to go”. My friend, Susan Strayer, brilliantly advocates for following your heart in her incredible book The Right Job Right Now. Susan asks her readers to look up and then look in to find out what they really want to do with their careers. It’s the only career book in my personal library and I consult it regularly to keep me leading my career with my heart.

I’m not saying it’s easy to get back to being 9. There are some things I do to put me in that frame of mind. This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it helps me and I hope it helps you, too.

6 Ways I get back to 9:
1.) Play on the swings in the park near my house
2.) Spend time with kids – getting back to 9 by osmosis
3.) I paint with watercolors, sing, and dance with wild abandon on a regular basis – even if it’s just in my apartment by myself
4.) I watch cartoons – who says there’s nothing good on TV? Sesame Street is my favorite show.
5.) I spend time in nature. As a kid I grew up on an apple orchard in a rural area of upstate New York. Getting out into nature reminds me of running around the woods with my sister, Weez.
6.) I read children’s books and fairy tales. Those words and feelings of the young characters still resonate with me, and remind me to celebrate all that I felt when I was that age.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

dreams

Step 35: Roses and Thorns

Christa Avampato

President and Michelle Obama often talk about how they start their conversations at the dinner table with their girls – Roses and Thorns. They each talk about the roses and thorns of their day, the good and the bad. For the past few days I’ve been thinking about this idea, and started using my little black book to record these experiences.

Over the past few days, this practice is helping me to find the bright spots and celebrate all of the smalls wins, even on days when it feels like I’m finding mostly thorns. When I look closely, I am amazed by how the universe will guide us down one path rather than another with the use of roses and thorns. The thorns are keeping me from getting complacent, constantly encouraging me to stretch my wings, and fly to new experiences and opportunities. They are protecting me from losing sight of my dreams. The roses point the way to my best future.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that nothing is as good as it seems or as bad as it seems. That balance, that ying and yang, in every day keeps our feet on the ground and our eyes on the stars. Roses and thorns is about reminding ourselves of the positive circumstances that are all around us (even on days that don’t seem so bright), while also showing us that there are always ways for us to improve ourselves and our circumstances. Who knew we could learn so much from a flower? Another example of biomimicry at work in the highest order.

comedy, dreams, gratitude, television

Step 26: We Could Learn a Lot from Conan

Christa Avampato

Goodbyes say a lot about someone. Does he walk away bitter and angry? Does she simply just shrug off the disappointment that comes with every experience, recognizing that all our experiences are opportunities for great learning? Does he leave grateful for what was, and hopeful for what will be?

This last sentiment describes the very eloquent goodbye given by Conan O’Brien last Friday as he bid adieu to The Tonight Show, his dream job that he wanted for most of his life. For 7 months he got to do this job, and in a series of unfortunate events, he lost the show to Jay Leno. I won’t repeat all of the bumblings and fumblings of this incident – you know them from the massive amount of press coverage it received.

Similar to every late night talk show host, Conan could say anything he wanted to on air, and certainly could say farewell to NBC, his professional home for over 20 years, and to The Tonight Show viewers in any fashion he saw fit. No one, and I mean not a single person other than NBC executives, would have blamed him if he really let NBC have it. He didn’t. Instead, he thanked them.

Some people have commented that Conan whimped out, that he was forced to say something nice. Not possible. Watch the final goodbye. It was heartfelt and sincere and gracious. He feels extraordinarily lucky that he got to have his dream job for 7 months. So many people never get to have their dream job at all. And the part that really got to me was his adamant dislike for cynicism. “I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere.Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. It’s just true.” Conan is living proof that this formula works.

I never watched Conan’s shows. His brand of humor just wasn’t for me. However, after viewing his final sign off from The Tonight Show, I’m going to tune in to his next program, wherever he lands. His fond farewell speech may have just brought him a whole new audience. Grace always works in our favor.

dreams, writing

Step 16: Little Black Book

Christa Avampato

On Friday I organized an innovation session at work to get a broad cross-section of my business partners to consider new product ideas that we should explore in 2010. Each exercise we did had a prize associated with it, and for one of those exercises I won a black moleskin appointment book. I keep all of my appointments in my calendar in my phone, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this appointment book. It’s much too sleek to let it go to waste.

I decided to record my daily “big thoughts” – inspirations for these blog posts, things I did especially well each day, and great opportunities for learnings. For the past two days, I’ve found myself recording new ideas and resources that I should tap for my various projects. This tiny black book has become a book of intentions.

For some time now I’ve been searching for and crafting the perfect filing system – a single place to keep all of my links, magazine articles, references grouped by project. I haven’t been able to find that place just yet. I’ve tried my own excel spreadsheets, my Google inbox, Evernote, a number of online resources, an intricate paper filing system, etc. It seems I’ve tried just about every option and each falls short a bit. With the entry of this little black book, I realized that maybe that perfect filing system doesn’t exist, and maybe it doesn’t have to. Perhaps items of interest can, and should, be stored separately.

I started to image this little black book a year from now, pages and pages filled with inspirations, or at least pieces of inspirations. I imagined myself flipping back through its pages and being inspired all over again by the notes and messages scrawled across its pages in my own handwriting. Perhaps to build an extraordinary life we all need a place to record our wildest learnings and dreams. Perhaps in our commitment to write down these dreams, we have the greatest chance of bringing them to life.

dreams, education, goals

Step 5: Your Sentence

Christa Avampato

My friend, Richard, just sent me this clip with Dan Pink’s advice on how to transform our lives in 2010 with two simple questions: “What’s your sentence?” and “Were you better today than you were yesterday?” The people I admire most can sum up their contributions to humanity in one succinct sentence stating a very specific contribution. This is also true of my favorite books, blogs, artists, writers, activists, and cause-based organizations. They all have a singular focus and purpose. Is a succinct reason for being the secret ingredient to every extraordinary life?

It’s amazing that this paradigm of a single sentence describing an extraordinary life holds true no matter what great personality I consider. Thomas Jefferson penned his own epitaph with a single sentence. No copywriter, no editor. “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” This is the summation of his life in his terms. These are the things that mattered most to him. Nelson Mandela’s book, Long Walk to Freedom, remains one of the greatest influence on my life. I could only read a few pages of his story at a time because each word is packed with such emotion and power. His unwavering confidence in and passion for his beliefs is overwhelming. Very simply, his sentence is “I am the Father of a free South Africa.”

So maybe that’s it. Maybe we can all get to extraordinary if we can find our sentence and manage our lives in support of it. By the end of 2010, I want to write my one sentence. I’ve written some blog posts about how I want to be remembered when my time has come and gone, what lasting impact I’d like to have on the world. After 364 days of living a life trying to make each day better than the day before, I think I can get it down to one brief sentence. This is the initial sentence that comes to mind, in rough long form:

“Christa was someone who created a global education system that used creativity as the backbone for all learning, gave 1 million children a second chance at a better life, and offered an entire generation the opportunity to be job creators instead of job seekers.”

It needs some polish, but it’s a start.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

change, dreams, gifts, nature

Step 4: The Gift of a Fallen Branch

Christa Avampato

“Use the talents you possess – for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best.” ~ Henry Van Dyke

In that tangled tree diagram of life options, I had assumed that my life would unfold a certain way this week. Instead, the option I considered least likely came to be. The trouble, or perhaps the beauty, is that this unlikely branch is entirely under-developed. Beginning today, I get to imagine a future I didn’t think I’d have just yet.

Brian and I talked tonight about the idea of prana, the intelligent undercurrent of energy that makes itself at home beneath of the narrative of our lives. In times of authenticity, that current supports our actions. When we’re acting against our nature, living our lives to a lesser extent than what’s possible, our prana breaks through, making room in the world for our true selves to emerge. Try as we might to suppress it, our prana will not be kept down for long. Eventually, we will have no choice but to live our lives to the fullest. We have to show up in the world and be everything we are capable of being.

I was willing to take the other branch, to remain in a holding pattern that would delay where I really want my life to go. Today the universe took that option away. No more delays allowed. Sometimes not getting what we wish for is the best gift we can receive.

The photo above is not my own. It can be found here.

choices, dreams

Step 1: If

Christa Avampato

“If”: proof that glorious things can come in very small packages. Think of all the wonder wrapped up in this tiny, two-letter word. Imagination takes flight, dreams come to be, and chances of a lifetime are taken by its mere utterance. On his blog, Chris Brogan asked his readers to consider the three words of 2010 that they would use to shape their 2010 plans. “If” is my selection because of the great possibility it invokes.

“If” describes the abilities that make us successful in the truest sense of the word, in terms of the deepest and dearest meaning it has. What abilities allow us to live a life of great virtue? What abilities will make every possibility an option for us? “If” is the gateway to the answers.

“If-” is the title of one of my favorite poems by Rudyard Kipling, and one of my favorite lines of the poem asks us to “start again at your beginnings”. Today begins a new decade, and so it’s only natural for us to look back and remember where we began the last one. A few days after January 1, 2000, I took off for my first theatre tour. Previously, I had been working in a tiny theatre box office, and I needed to break out of it. The contract for the tour was only for four months and the pay was less than I made at the box office. I didn’t care; I needed the adventure.

And so began a decade that would lead me to travel around the globe, fulfill my dream of managing Broadway shows, and then send me back to school to take on the complex world of hard-nosed business. I became a published writer, and through that writing found my truest voice. I found yoga as a balm for my old soul, fell in love countless times, and learned to trust my own instincts above all others. In the decade that began with the year 2000, I discovered how I could make a meaningful contribution to humanity that would live on long after I am gone.

At the end of the decade, I was getting a bit too comfortable. I had gotten set in my new ways and lost sight of the adventure that called to me so clearly at the start of 2000. I too often trusted the opinions and instincts of others. And so, the world decided that a cleansing was necessary, a cleansing that would make it impossible for me to rest on my laurels by taking away the laurels altogether. In Kipling’s audacious terms, I was forced to start again at my beginnings.
Today, in this hour, at this moment, I am choosing to begin again using a map of “If, then” statements. It is a long and winding road, filled with imagination and dreams, a tortuous tangle of stunning possibility and hope. Cheers to the beginning of a very good year, and a very good decade!