Words can be daggers or wings. They can tear us down or help us fly. What you say now, not only to children but to all people, becomes a part of how they view the world and their place in it. Gentleness is as important as strength and honesty. Everyone should leave every conversation with their dignity intact.
Do you want to be someone who tears people down or builds them up? Do you want to be someone who becomes a pesky inner voice to someone that instills self-doubt or do you want to be someone whose words are a comfort to others in their darkest hours?
The answers to these questions fuel our words and actions. They are our legacy.
Yesterday, marked the 20th anniversary of my father’s passing. I’ve been alive longer without him than with him. To even fathom that 20 years has passed makes my mind numb. I remember that evening so clearly that I could recite my actions and thoughts of each minute. I think of it in frames of a film, a shutter action happening in between each. There’s some soaring music in the background that rises and falls in waves like water.
That night I was viscerally aware that I was literally closing one chapter of my life and opening another one with my bare hands. The door between those chapters was heavy and awkward. I knew that once it shut behind me that there was no going back. That feeling is lodged in my heart in a way that used to feel painful and now is just familiar. It’s become one of my oldest friends.
Nothing happens in isolation. As soon as my mind turns those events over a few times, it just keeps going and I follow it along as an audience member, as if I am watching a performance of Sleep No More. At first it slowly trudges to the wake and funeral, to high school graduation, to leaving my hometown, to college and everything that would unravel and then coalesce in that time.
The speed of the frames in my mind picks up rapidly after that. As a young 20-something I thought I would go into politics and instead opted for a career in theatre, moving from D.C. to New York to life on the road. That would lead me to Florida, back to D.C., on to graduate school in Virginia, and then back to New York where I’ve made my home for the past 5 and a half years. That journey flashes with so many characters and scenes and travels across the globe, some happy, some sad and everything in between. It makes me dizzy if I think about it for too long.
I used to feel so much a part of that narrative. No matter how much distance I got from December 1, 1992, I was still that character, playing that role. I was this way because my dad was that way. I played the victim card, the martyr card, the lost card, the hopeless card, the trapped card. I let the role write the script instead of writing it myself.
It took a long time for me to understand how that’s a clear and certain road to disaster. No one wins in that scenario, least of all me. And it took me even more time to realize that it didn’t have to be that way. The beginning of a journey influences its course but it doesn’t define it. It is within our power, responsibility, and right to own the narrative of our lives.
We can fold, toss those old worn out cards into the center of the table, and walk away. It’s okay to leave it behind and continue on in a different direction. It’s healthy to do so. It’s required if we intend to do anything extraordinary with our lives. We can honor our past, our roots, and not feel shackled to them. What happened, happened. There’s no changing it. What happens next? Well, that’s up to us. It’s always up to us.
Wherever my dad is now, I hope he folded his hand, too, walked away from the table, and set out on a new course that was brighter than the one that was here among us. Every soul deserves that chance.
“Love leads us into mystery where no one can say what comes next, or how, or why.” ~ Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
It’s amazing what love will get you to reconsider. Somehow it helps us to open up to new possibilities in a way that we likely wouldn’t otherwise.
It gives us courage and strength, confidence and the unexplainable knowledge that everything is going work out just fine. And it does this with no answers, no plan, no map, and no proof.
Oriah Mountain Dreamer is one of my favorite poets. I used to keep a poem of hers by my desk that asks the poignant question, “Do you like the company you keep in the empty moments?” She insightfully kind, a rare combination.
We have an incredible ability to endure, to persevere, to heal, and then to learn from that healing. No matter how the world bears down on us, no matter what obstacles encumber our path, we have everything we need at our core to rise to the occasion.
We are so much braver and so much stronger than we have ever give ourselves credit for being. And that strength and bravery is available to us at every moment. All we have to do is believe that it is there and it will appear.
“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now.” ~ Buddha
You are more than a title. You are far more than a job or a relationship or even a name. Your ability to grow and learn is something without measure. Your capacity to create and inspire is infinite. You need only pick a place and start. It is always possible to begin again and what you begin now does need to be related to anything you’ve ever done. All that is required is the will to do something new.
If you are looking for a blank slate, here it is. Begin to fill it. Take a big wide brush, dip it in the most vibrant paint, and go wild. This life is your chance to build something the world has never seen before and will never see again. Within you there is a great work of art that wants to be set free. So let it be.
You could wait. You could seek the advice of others. You could find someone whom you admire and do exactly what they’ve done. You could let the Universe decide.
I don’t recommend any of those avenues when it comes to creating your destiny. You are wonderful and divine. You know exactly what you want and why. You have the very seeds from which every dream of yours will grow. All they need is nurturing. Some attention. Some room to breathe.
Each of these seeds is as unique as you. No one can tell you how or when they will develop. No one can tell you which ones need your attention now and which ones can wait. No one except you.
Your destiny is your business. You are the one who will live it. You are the one who lives with the outcomes of your actions. You will always wake up to you, walk with you, and go to bed with you. And so you must be your own best friend. Your own best champion.
Care for yourself and care for those dreams because when you are at your best and you are fulfilling the destiny you created for yourself, the whole world benefits. We all get a chance to experience the very best version of you.
“This only is denied to God: the power to undo the past.” ~ Agathon
My sister, Weez, pinned this picture on one of her Pinterest boards last week. I love it because I love the story of The Lion King and I also love it because it is so damn true. I know you’ve had really crummy things happen to you. I have, too. Unless you have access to a time machine, you can’t undo what has been done. (And even if you do have access to a time machine, I wouldn’t recommend monkeying around with the past – history is a chancy business.)
What we can do is carry the lessons of our past, and the pasts of others, forward into our own future choices and decision-making. We can run from the past but we will never outrun it. It has a sneaky way of coming back to haunt us if we don’t honor its power to profoundly affect our future.
I know sitting with the past and accepting our own wrong-doing and the wrong-doing of others is unpleasant. But if we don’t do the work to excavate and understand what happened and why, then a) it was all for naught and b) we are bound to repeat those same mistakes again. What’s worse, repeat mistakes are more painful than they were the first time around.
None of us are alone in this process. Even the person with the perfect life on the outside has things in their past that made them crumble on the inside. We’re all scared to death to have our hearts broken, our dreams dashed, and our spirits crushed. That’s a journey we all take together every day. We all have a past. We all have baggage. And all of us wish it had been different, but it wasn’t. Our past went down the way it went down. The only story we can affect is the one moving forward.
Take those painful, heard-earned lessons and make them mean something. Take them into your own life and share your story so that other people can take these same lessons into their own lives. The only way any of us are going to advance and evolve is if we get together, share, and learn. Don’t let this learning go to waste. It all happened for one simple reason – we needed it.
Mission statements are great but nothing beats action.
We can spend all day pitching our skills, ideas, and intentions. We can talk about what we believe, but we will be remembered for what we did. If we want to be remembered as courageous, then we must be courageous. And if we want to be remembered as kind, then we must be kind.
Patterns are neither good nor bad. They just are and they set the stage for every impression we make on another person. We must decide who we want to be and back up those decisions with actions. Our reputation is not something that’s given; it’s earned.
“Connecting the mind and body is not just a health strategy. It is a movement of consciousness that can change the world.” ~ Matthew Sanford
This morning I read several news stories about the latest medical news on annual physicals. A number of doctors are now saying that annual physicals below age 50 are a waste of time and money, for individuals and for the entire healthcare system. I paused when I heard this information as I have been going for annual physicals my entire adult life. These medical professionals aren’t saying don’t go to the doctor nor are they saying don’t get recommended routine exams. They’re just balking at going to the doctor for the simple sake of going to the doctor. If you aren’t feeling well, get checked. If you’re feeling good, you’re fine.
Just after reading these articles, I came across Matthew Sanford’s quote. I’ve been a fan of Matthew’s since reading his book Waking a few years ago. He changed my yoga practice and informed my teaching through his words and experiences. The connection between mind and body, and it goes evenly in both directions, is critical to our health and happiness and has a tremendous impact on the world around us.
When we’re tapped into our essence, when we’re on our path, the world rises up to meet us. It supports us in our pursuits. We come into contact with exactly the people we are supposed to meet. We end up being in the right place at exactly the right time to learn exactly the lessons we are meant to learn.
When considering this pursuit, the question I most often hear is “How will I know when I’m on the right path?” I can only tell you how I knew. I knew it in my bones. My body could sense when I was going in the right direction. I overrode its wisdom for a long time until I was finally so tired and worn down that I had to sit still and listen. My mind was so good at covering up my tracks on the wrong road that I didn’t even know I was tired. I thought I was fine. And I wasn’t.
As I sat and listened, I could hear a whispering way off in the distant. It had an urgency but not the clarity I needed to hear its message. Over the course of several years, I had to keep sitting and listening. I had to keep getting quiet to get another small piece of the puzzle. I would hear that small bit of wisdom and then try it out to see how it felt. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it worked for only a short time, and sometimes it didn’t work at all. And still I would listen; I would wait for more information; I would tap in.
I offer to you the same opportunity. It’s there for all of us. All it requires is patience, curiosity, and perseverance. Your road is out there, too. It will call to you and when it does, you’ll be ready.
Next week is going to prove to be an interesting week around the office. There are rumors flying about changes in staff, strategy, and priorities. I’ve heard so many at this point that they’ve all cancelled one another out. Only one thing is for certain – the way it is now is not the way it will be going forward. But isn’t that always true? Change is part of life, every piece of it.
Not even a year into this work toward my new year’s resolution, and it may come to be bear without me doing much of anything. We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we always have the opportunity to choose what we do about it. Sometimes we leap on our own, and sometimes we’re pushed into taking the leap. We don’t always see the push coming, and many times there’s little we can do to stop it. The question is will be commit to this new trajectory being laid out for us or will we try to cling to the ledge of a cliff we don’t really want but feels familiar?
Words can be daggers or wings. They can tear us down or help us fly. What you say now, not only to children but to all people, becomes a part of how they view the world and their place in it. Gentleness is as important as strength and honesty. Everyone should leave every conversation with their dignity intact.
Christa Avampato 