Category: dreams

dreams, hope, inspiration, nature, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Castles in the Air

Christa Avampato

“Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

This is my 365th day of actively seeking out and writing about hope. This was my one New Year’s Resolution for 2009: to feel more hopeful and record what I found here on this blog to help others feel more hopeful, too.

On this day last year, I had no idea that my life would look as it does today, in any respect. I can say with great confidence that this has been a year filled with more change than any other year I have had. Part of me wonders if that is actually my doing: did I precipitate all of this change or did the change just happen to me? I suspect it’s a mix of the two. I can also say with great confidence that today I feel exponentially more hopeful than I did one year ago. And I hope that these 365 blog posts have made others a little more hopeful, too. If so, then I achieved what I set out to do in my writing in 2009.

There are so many reflections I have on this year of writing about hope, so many things I’ve learned about myself, about others, about my community, and about the world as a whole. However, one revelation stands far above the others: when I actively, passionately search for something, I will inevitably find it because I will not give up until my task is done. And the truly remarkable thing is that yes, if I span the globe I can find millions of pieces of hope “out there”, though the pieces of hope that mean the most to me are with me all the time. I carry them inside of me.

Now what will I do next? I’ve got overflowing buckets of hope; how can they be put to the best use? My pal, Laura, asked me this question about two months ago while we were at dinner. Without missing a beat, I told her that for the next year I’d do one thing every day that used all that hope to build an extraordinary life. The answer just sprang from my mouth, no thought required. It was a wish my heart made.

So here we go: beginning tomorrow, I will write a post every day in 2010 that will describe the one thing I did that day that put me one tiny step (or one great leap) closer to living an extraordinary life. The wheels of change are well greased from the events of 2009, so I expect more big changes in 2010. My friend, Kelly, has had a mantra all year of “begin again in 2010.” She’s a wise woman, someone who is both a friend and a mentor, and I’m taking her advice.

The final thought I have as I close out this year relates to nature, a topic from which I’ve drawn a lot of hopeful examples. It’s a butterfly analogy, though not the stereotypical one of beautiful re-birth. When a tiny caterpillar wraps itself up in a cocoon, it purposely constructs the cocoon to be very tight so that the butterfly has to struggle to emerge. It has to wiggle and turn and twist, completing exhausting itself inside the too-tight casing. There are oils on the inside of the cocoon and when the butterfly struggles the oils are distributed over its wings. It will not be able to free itself until the oils are distributed evenly over its wings. Those oils build a layer over the butterfly’s wings that keep the wings from breaking apart when it flies. Without the oil coating on its wings, the butterfly would break apart the moment it tried to fly.

I think about my own struggles, and the struggles of the world, through the lens of the butterfly. The twisting and turning is a painful process. It wears me out, and yet that struggle is so necessary to my development and success. I would never be able to fly without the distribution of its lessons throughout my life. I have struggled long enough and my struggles have done an excellent job of building up the foundation of my life. So let the flight begin toward my castles in the air.

art, career, dreams, writing, yoga

My Year of Hopefulness – The Center

Christa Avampato

“The artists’ role is to do what’s honest for them. So if you’re in New York and everyone is looking at the floor, you can look up. It’s not your role to follow the others. It’s your role to go to your center and then reflect that, not just to be a mirror to what’s happening.” ~ James Hubbell

Here is a tricky balance to keep: how can we be mindful of what’s happening around us and also learn to follow our own hearts? It’s easy to get swept up in the moment, in the emotions and circumstances of others. In its best form, we know this as empathy. In its worst form, we know this as distraction. How can we see the whole picture, and also our own role in it? How can we see both the forest and the trees? The role of the artist, in any medium, demands this balance, and that balance is our Center.

Our Center is an elusive thing. We clearly know when we have moved away from our Center: it’s apparent in our lack of energy, enthusiasm, and joy. Finding and holding the Center, particularly in our daily adventures in chaos, is a tough thing because it sometimes requires that we disappoint others to be true to ourselves. It requires that we believe in ourselves and in our own abilities more than we believe in anything else. It asks us to take our future into our own hands.

There are three ways to know if we’ve found our Center:
1.) It makes time pass by so quickly and effortlessly that we barely notice how long we’ve been there.

2.) The activities we perform at our Center give us energy and we never grow tired of them.

3.) Our Center is the summation of the very best gifts we have to offer to the world.

For me, my Center is found in writing and yoga. I’ve been writing daily for three and a half years, and intermittently as far back into my childhood as I can remember. I’ve had a steady yoga practice for 10 years. Time has flown! These activities give me boundless energy and let me show my most joyful face to the world.

And so, I am taking James Hubbell’s: in 2010, I will go to my Center and reflect what is there. By the time 2010 is singing its swan song, I’ll find a way to make writing and yoga the Center of my life. I’ll find a way to earn my living through them. The ‘fierce urgency of now’ is calling me far too clearly to spend my life any other way.

books, childhood, Christmas, dreams, gratitude, Randy Pausch, writer, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Thanks for Making My Childhood Dream Come True

Christa Avampato

Last year I wrote a few posts about Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture. I first watched him give the Last Lecture on YouTube through tear-filled eyes and had to take myself for a long walk 3 months later when I read about his passing. His Last Lecture, devoted entirely to his pursuit of childhood dreams, reminded me of how important our earliest dreams are and how they shape us in adulthood. Randy Pausch reconfirmed my belief that childhood dreams, those daring, bold expressions of our deepest desire before we ever realize we have limitations, are some of the most valuable things we own. We should celebrate them and go for them with gusto, no matter what our age is.

This morning, I watched Lorelei, my two year old niece, open her gifts with wild abandon. She threw her head back and laughed with each one, regardless of how big or small it was. She liked the wrapping paper and boxes as much as the gifts inside. Watching her, I wondered how she would remember our Christmases together when she gets older. I want to do everything possible to make her childhood a blissfully happy period of her life, a time when great dreams were formed inside her beautiful heart.

Children change us, whether those children are our own, in our family, part of our friends’ families, or children we work with in our communities. We rediscover a sense of wonder and magic through their eyes, and Christmas magnifies that wonder. They use that same wonder about the world to formulate the ideas that will become their childhood dreams, and if we spend enough time with them we’ll find that they can help us formulate new dreams, too, while also reminding us of everything we dreamed of as children.

When I made up my list of childhood dreams, one of the big things I wanted to do was to be a published author. I thought that meant convincing a publisher that I was good enough for print. I never imagined there would be free (on-line) tools that would make this dream possible to achieve regardless of whether or not any publisher believed in me. I did spend a good amount of time worrying that no one would ever read what I wrote. In the past two and a half years writing this blog, I realized this incredible childhood dream with your help and support, and I wish I knew how to thank you all enough.

This Christmas, I am deeply grateful to all of you who have come to this blog to read about my journey. Your comments, emails, text messages, conversations, and face-to-face opinions and advice mean more to me than I could ever adequately explain. You made one of the great dreams of my life come true – you made me a writer. I hope you’ll stick with me, and that my writing will continue to be helpful to you. I hope we’ll be able to build some more dreams together. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, this year and always.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
Christmas, dreams, finance, holiday, wealth, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – I’m Rich

Christa Avampato

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions but in having few wants.” ~ Esther de Waal, author of Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict

Trish Scott, one of the readers of this blog (and a wonderful blogger herself), recently left a comment that got me thinking and connecting some disparate dots that have been showing up in my life. She asked me to consider how I might feel about leaving empty moments empty for a little while. Especially during this time of year, there is an urge and a propensity to fill up everything to the brim: stockings, large holiday dinner plates, space under the tree, our schedules, and the list goes on. Hurry hurry hurry – Christmas is only x number of days away and you’re in your house missing out on all the cheer outside of your door. No wonder we all settle down for a long winter’s nap on December 26th. We’re exhausted! So what if we could just sit, for a moment, and be glad to feel a little empty? What would that do for us?

This Christmas I didn’t make a wish list. For the first time ever I realized I am rich because there isn’t anything I need that I don’t already have. I’m now exactly where I always wanted to be in my financial life. I don’t want for anything; I feel steady and secure financially, despite that the economy is in constant turmoil. With this thought, I felt a tidal wave of gratitude. By Esther de Waal’s beautiful definition of wealth, I am rich. I sat for a moment today and took that feeling in. After so many years of working so hard, wanting so much to not worry about money, I realized I had arrived at my destination. Today, I got there. My heart started humming.

And then I took a look at my busy December. I didn’t get to see everyone I wanted to see. I didn’t get to every outing I was invited to, nor every holiday gathering. I had to take some time for myself, and to do some selfless volunteer work which is so needed at this time of year. So I missed out on some experiences. And yet, I feel so extraordinarily lucky that I have so many incredible people in my life to spend my time with, that I have so many projects that I am happy to spend my time on, that I have places to be where I am needed and wanted. I sat for a moment today and took that feeling in. About this time 7 years ago, I decided to leave my job to settle in one place and start to build a life, a community where I felt like I belonged. Today, I realized I had gotten exactly that after so many years of building. What an amazing feat! My heart began to sing.

So now we wait indoors for the Blizzard of 2009 to arrive any minute. We’re supposed to be snowed in with 12 inches of gorgeous, puffy, white snowflakes. Let it be. Snow me in, world. Make me sit down and reflect on the many, many blessings I have in my life. Some of them were hard won, and others showed up like little miracles from thin air. For all of them I am thankful. So here I’ll sit for a bit today, sip some tea, listen to Christmas carols, light a candle that smells like cinnamon, and be glad to just be right here, right now, pinching myself to make sure that this rich and magical life I lead is real.

dreams

My Year of Hopefulness – Empty Moments and Shark Jumping

Christa Avampato

“What do you think is better: the store brand or Breyer’s?” And so began a conversation at my local Whole Foods this week. Breyer’s ice cream and the Whole Foods brand ice cream were the same price. Recognizing that clearly I am an ice cream connoisseur and that I know my stuff when it comes to the delicious frozen treat, a fellow customer was asking me for my opinion. Even for me, this questions was a toss up. I went for the Breyer’s – it had a nicer picture and I could see the black flecks of the vanilla bean in the photo. (For the record, I’ve never tried the Whole Foods brand, and it well may be much better. I’ll try it when I’m next in the store!)

This got me thinking about what names stand for, and how important authenticity is. A lot of people believe we need to strive for authenticity. Brian, my therapist, adamantly disagrees. This week I was telling him about some big steps I have taken in my life recently and how easy they were to do when I just got out of my own way. “That’s because the authentic self wants to come through and the only thing stopping her is you,” he said to me. I can’t argue with that – being authentic is so much easier than trying to be someone else, whether you’re a human being or ice cream. Authenticity is easy; being comfortable with personal authenticity is the tough piece because is demands that we stand up, make our case for who we are when every piece of veneer falls away, and then asks us to support that authentic self, lovely or not.

My friend Anthony opened my eyes this week to the concept of “jumping the shark”. When a TV series has run too long, and loses its way, those in the biz call that “jumping the shark”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark). Jumping the shark occurs at that point where a hit show gets away from what made it a hit in the first place and takes a turn for the worst. This idea made me consider how tough it is to stay authentic and be successful because we have this idea of what success looks and smells like. It’s too easy to let others define us, and before we know it we have to live up to some high ideal we didn’t create and don’t even want. Instead of just being Breyer’s, we now have to be Breyer’s and compete with Whole Foods. Instead of following my dreams and speaking my mind, I need to conform to an accepted ideal in every area of my life. Or do I?

This is the tough part – knowing when to walk away. When do we get off the circus train? When do we decide that being ourselves is much more important, and also more gratifying, than trying to be anything or anyone else? The truth is that we can get there so long as we discover what it means to be who we are when everything else falls away. Who are we in the empty moments?

courage, dreams, personality, psychology, relationships, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Moments that Made My Life

Christa Avampato

My friend, Josh, over at World’s Strongest Librarian wrote a post that is so beautiful and profound that I had to share it here. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it all day. He talked about the defining moments of his life in terms of when they happened, how he felt about them, and what they meant to him. It’s a form that I love so much that I created my own snapshots of when. So many thanks to Josh for inspiring my writing and my life. Here goes…

When I first saw my niece, I realized why it was so important to have children in our lives.

When my heart broke, I realized that it didn’t take as long to heal and love again as I thought it would.

When he passed away, I didn’t feel as relieved as I thought I would – it was then that I started down the very long path to forgiveness.

When I crossed that finish line, realizing a dream years in the making, I was more grateful for the strength of my body than ever before.

When I decided to keep loving through the hurt, I realized that on the other side there was more love.

When I graduated, I knew at that moment that I could do anything I set my mind to.

When I looked out at the wild surf of South Africa, I realized that I had traveled very far from home and still felt like I belonged.

When I stood in front of a classroom for the first time, I had much more to offer than I ever expected.

When I chased a dream as far as I could and it still wasn’t enough to make it real, I was amazed at my resilience to just get a new dream.

When I said a final good-bye to my dear and faithful friend, I found that not everything or everyone is replaceable. Some parts of our lives and hearts can never be reclaimed, and that’s okay.

When I first put my writing out into the world for everyone to see, I found that there was a lot more support for my ideas that I ever knew and much of that support came from people I didn’t even know.

When the curtain came down and I heard the applause, I knew I had been part of something much greater than myself.

When I almost didn’t get a tomorrow, I understood how precious every moment is and that dreams can’t wait.

When I lost almost all of my belongings, I found that I didn’t really need any of them to survive and thrive and for the first time in my life I felt truly free.

When I found the courage to tell my own story, I discovered that I had the ability to inspire the same courage in others.

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

Owning Pink Feature

Christa Avampato

I am so honored today to have my writing featured on Owning Pink at http://www.owningpink.com/2009/12/12/your-one-wild-and-precious-life/. I’m excited to see the response to the question: “What will you do with your one wild and precious life?”

dreams, family, friendship, future, thankful, thanksgiving

My Year of Hopefulness – More Thankful Than Ever

Christa Avampato

“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues.” ~ Cicero


This Thanksgiving is a particularly special one for me. All week I have been with my family in Florida, playing and laughing and cooking, grateful for all of this time with them. I’ve never spent this much time with them over the holidays. In a year that has been so difficult, in a year when I came very close to not being here at all, I can hardly think of something I’m not grateful for. This Thanksgiving was a big milestone for me because I have been using it as a marker to a time I wanted to get to, a time when I would be in a position to make some big decisions about my life going forward. And this week I have – applying to a PhD program, formulating my own business plan, signing up for a full yoga teacher certification course. Life is looking grand from this side of Thanksgiving.

Today I am very thankful for my family and friends and mentors, people who have not only been supporting me through this difficult year, but also encouraging me to get the most out of my time here.
Earlier this week Weez and I went to the grocery store to do some Thanksgiving shopping and we talked about the fire in my apartment building. I told her how that event really eradicated any fear I have about all aspects of my future; when you almost don’t get a tomorrow, every day is gravy so I might as well get on with doing exactly what I want to do with my days. No more compromises. There’s no sense in waiting. She agreed, as has everyone in my life that I’ve talked to about this experience. That fire made every day Thanksgiving for me.

I’m grateful for my health and my ability to imagine a new future with new dreams. Surprisingly, I’m thankful for all that I lost this year because it has made me so grateful for what I have. It cleaned out my life and made room for a drastically better future than the life I was living. It made me realize that a lot of good can be created from something terrible so long as we have the right attitude, so long as we embrace the idea that everything we live through can be an opportunity for learning, for strength, for love. It’s this learning, strength, and love that I am most thankful for and I plan to use this thankfulness to bring these new dreams of mine to life.
books, business, change, dreams, entrepreneurship, money

My Year of Hopefulness – Unquestioned Answers

Christa Avampato

While in Costa Rica, I continued reading Lynne Twist’s book The Soul of Money. So many of her sentiments about the use of money, sufficiency, and abundance have resonated with me. At the end of one particular chapter she challenges readers to explore not unanswered questions, but unquestioned answers. I have not been able to get this term out of my head. I spent a long night in Costa Rica, tossing and turning, wrestling with the unquestioned answers in my own professional life.

Since going to business school, I have been on a track – to pay back my loans, to believe that I must make a certain amount of money in my single paycheck, to climb, climb, climb as high as I can in the field of business. We hear so often that there are not enough women at the very top of business world, that people from my socioeconomic background are under-represented and needed in large corporations, as are those who embrace empathy and innovation and change. Up until now, I assumed that these sentiments were a given, answers to timeless questions and concerns in business, and that I must heed this call.

With this latest economic downturn, these very things that I have held to be true without question are now up for scrutiny. Everything is up for debate. I went to an innovation conference several weeks ago, hosted by Roger Martin of the Rotman School of Business. My former boss, Bob, invited me because he knows of my deep interest in change and design. Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO and one of the panelists at the conference, discussed the dilemma of big business today as it relates to change. IDEO runs workshops throughout the year that are training sessions for business people to encourage more creativity within their companies. They are wildly popular events, and there’s only one problem with them. “Once people open up their minds to the world of design,” Brown said, “they can never go back. Many times, attendees of our workshops leave their jobs shortly after they complete the sessions. They can’t accept a life in typical big corporations anymore. They know better.”

Big corporations have been trying so hard to make innovation and change a part of the culture, or at least trying hard to pay lip-service to change. The difficulty is that only a handful of corporations really believe in the power and necessity of change. Target, Apple, Nike are among the few. By and large most big corporations just want to return to the good old days of fat profits, zero regulation, and big, big bonuses. Those individuals who really want change, innovation, and design to be incorporated into the fabric of a company get too frustrated with bureaucracy and the slow, lumbering gait of a company strangled by its own size. And so, they leave for smaller, more nimble, freer pastures. Who could blame them?

These are the brave souls questioning the answers that business has for so long assumed to be universal truths. Now, the truth is not quite so clear as it once was. The people who have long-benefited from business as usual (so much so that BAU has become a common acronym in their lexicon) are getting very nervous because their lifestyle is being threatened by those asking why, those who are questioning the ‘given’ answers.

For those brave enough to ask why, their dilemma now lies not in how to get their ideas heard by the ones who phone it in, but whether or not it’s even worth it to ask why at all. Many are leaving to build their own dreams, to bet on themselves rather than on a big corporation. The world of business should be afraid. To survive in this new economy, corporations need the questioners much more than the questioners need the big corporations.

I laid in my bed, realizing that these questioners are the next great breed of entrepreneurs, the next batch of people who are on the verge of jumping from the safe, secure cliff and changing the world as we know it. And then I asked myself the question, “Will I be brave enough to count myself among them?” I waited long into the night for an answer to come from the darkness, and with the sun my own heart rose up to speak a quiet, strong, clear “yes”.

dreams, faith, hope, vision

My Year of Hopefulness – Visions and Plans

Christa Avampato

“How could a vision ever be given to someone to harbor if that person could not be trusted to carry it out? The message is simple: commitment precedes vision.” High Eagle

In San Jose, we stopped at an artisan market to buy gifts for family and friends back home. The market was filled with stalls that contained crafts of all kinds from coffee mugs to home goods to jewelry. I found some things for my family and purchased a journal for myself, of course, handmade from materials from a coffee plant. I am using it to write down my dreams for each part of my life. On this trip, a number of paths rolled out before me and I wanted to make sure to capture them as they revealed their many details.

In Costa Rica I found the space to breath and dream, the space to craft visions of what I want my life to be going forward. Bringing these dreams to life will take some short-term sacrifices, financially and personally, though the long-term pay off is well worth it. Realizing what I can live without has given me so much freedom. I don’t feel weighted down by needs and wants. I feel lighter and feel that my life is both full and fulfilling. Many of the volunteers I worked with have taken this similar path, simplifying and downsizing their lives, taking a chance on big dreams. It was very inspiring and encouraging to be among them and to hear their stories. Like me, they were a little hesitant and a little scared, and they kept going anyway.

On the plane back to the U.S., I allowed my mind to wander. I didn’t multi-task the way I have on every other flight I’ve ever been on. I simply started down one vision, turning over every stone, concentrating on all of the beautiful little details, and recording them in my coffee plant book. Within the pages of this book, I have put fear aside and written down my wildest aspirations without judging them in any way. I let the visions show up, knowing that High Eagle was absolutely right – of course I have the ability to bring them to life. If I’m committed to building a better life for myself and for others, then visions and the ability to make them my reality will follow. It is invigorating to be grounded in so much faith.