I hope when my time here is up that I’ve lived a life in which I laughed too loud, loved too much, and felt more than my fair share of every emotion, the good and the bad. I hope it’s been filled with confusion that turned into wonder. I hope I’ve been truly wowed by the great depth of the human spirit. I hope I leave with far more questions than answers. I hope I leave confident that I could live 1000 more lifetimes and never learn all that I want to learn. I hope I am just as curious about life as I am now even when I’m at the very end of mine. I hope I give everything away in time to see all the joy in the faces of those who receive whatever gifts I have to offer. It all goes by so fast. I hope I never forget that because I want to make sure each day bursts with realized possibility. I hope I look back on that long and winding road and say, “What an incredible ride! How lucky I was to have it and to know all of the gorgeous minds, spirits, and faces who made it possible.”
Category: Life
Beautiful: Cookie Monster Lives in the Moment and Has a Back Up Plan
Beautiful: How to Survive a Quarter Life Crisis
I am a trendsetter – I was having a quarter life crisis long before it was in fashion. 25 year olds, I hear you. I know exactly how it feels to be sitting at your desk that you busted your ass to get by working hard in school and plunging yourself deep into student loan debt, and be haunted by the thought, “Is this it?” (For the record, there are plenty of people of all ages in companies large and small who are thinking the exact same thing and they don’t have any answers wiser than yours.)
Now that you’re 3 years out of college, you may have officially established a fair amount of distance from a friend circle that is literally next door. People get busy. They change. And sometimes we don’t change with them. This is an awful truth about aging of any degree. Times change us.
Maybe you’re in a great relationship, a bad relationship, or no relationship at all. Unfortunately, we’re bombarded in our society by images of happy couples that have no problems and are eternally in love, expect of course in all of the tabloids that we can’t get away from that show love is miserable for everyone. Either way, we’re getting really ugly messages about love and they’re causing us to have unrealistic and harmful expectations, both good and bad, of ourselves and others. In 37 years, this is what I’ve learned about love: we can only expect to get what we give freely.
Add all of this up – the job, the friends, the relationship – and who wouldn’t have a quarter life crisis?
I’ve got one magic bullet for you and you’re not going to like it but it got me through my quarter life crisis (and my 1/3 life crisis, for that matter) and I hope it helps you, too. Stop everything. Put aside your work, friends, relationships, family, bills, responsibilities, worries, disappointments, and fears for 5 minutes every day. Close your eyes, one hand on the heart, one hand on the belly. Breathe so loud in and out through your nose that you drown out the noise of your brain. Get lost in your breath and the absolute f’ing miracle that is you.
Your parents, friends, teachers, the media, and even our President have told you can do anything you want to do. They told you that you can be anything you want to be. And you can, but here’s the part they didn’t tell you – no one is going to make it happen for you. You have to make it happen for you. Don’t bet on someone else to help you get the life you want. Betting on yourself is a much better bet. You can create it with your own two hands. And that process begins by slowing down.
I know this is not the answer you wanted. It’s certainly not the answer I wanted because it was going to take too long, be too hard, and no one seemed to be willing to guarantee results for me. But I tried everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else, and it didn’t work. Peace is a daily process; we must constantly tend to it and the only thing that makes that possible is to go in, slow down, and listen to our breath and the beat of our hearts. It’s still the only thing that works for me even today, many years post quarter life.
From one quarter life crisis survivor to another, just try it. Try it for a week. See how it feels. And if you’ve got questions, contact me. Seriously. I want to hear from you and I want to help.
Beautiful: The Beauty of Spring
I love this photo. It makes me want to crawl inside this scene and take Phin for a long, winding walk under a canopy of pink petals. Beauty matters. It wakes up our senses. It increases our awareness. It inspires our imagination.
Spring is slowly making its way toward us, bringing with it warmth, color, and new beginnings. Life is about to manifest in a big way in the world around us. And so it goes within us, too. After a long, cold, dark winter, we’re ready to shrug off that blanket in search of the new, untested, and yes, beautiful. Spring is a time of action, movement, and growth. It’s a time to start again, unencumbered by the past.
Wherever your winding road takes you this Spring, I hope it’s a place where you can explore and experiment, a place that is as magnificent as you.
Beautiful: Be Like Water
I started a new morning routine on January 1st. Upon waking, I stretch, place my hands in front of my heart, bow my head, say thank you (out loud), and drink a glass of water.
The stretching reminds me that my body is a vehicle for action to create a world I am proud to call home. The focus on my heart reminds me that it is the best guide for my journey, whatever that journey is each day. I bow my head in reverence for the wonders of the world. I say thank you to remind me that every day is a gift and I’m lucky enough to get another one each morning.
That all sounds lovely, right? But drink a glass of water? What’s that about? you may ask.
Yes, it keeps me nourished and hydrated. Yes, it reminds me about the ebb and flow of life. But why make it part of this ritual? Is there anything spiritual about drinking a glass of water?
Water reminds me to keep it simple and to never underestimate the power of simplicity. This humble offering, a glass of water, keeps all of life moving. Without it, we would all perish. Without it, nothing around us would have ever existed. It offers everything and asks for nothing. It is the ultimate creative force.
Leap: Life Teaches. It’s Up to Us to Learn.
“Life offers its wisdom generously. Everything teaches. Not everyone learns.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen
No matter what’s happening to us, we have the opportunity to learn. Good times teach us gratitude and generosity. Tough times teach us about perseverance and dedication. Confusing times teach us about our priorities. Moments of clarity teach us that life doesn’t have to be as difficult as we make it.
Around every corner, there is a chance to meet wisdom, to take her into our lives, and make her feel at home. Just let it happen.
Leap: Pain is Rubbish
“I subscribed to the notion that to be able to express yourself in an artistic form in life, you have to live in perpetual pain. It’s nonsense…you don’t have to live it to represent it.” ~ Colin Farrell
The actor Colin Farrell gave this quote in an interview with Ellen earlier this year. As someone who used to work in entertainment, I sympathized with his former perspective. I used to share it and as I got older I realized that empathy went a long toward telling a story with honesty and integrity. Living a life based on method acting was tremendously flawed, less fun, and ultimately less productive than living life from a healthy, balanced perspective.
As a yoga and meditation teacher, I sit with a lot of suffering and pain. It is possible to feel empathy and compassion, without sending ourselves down into a dark spiral. There’s no sense in diving onto a sinking ship. We can’t help people who are drowning from that perspective. It’s far better for us to be on solid ground and offer a hand up and out of the water to those who need us. It’s actually the only thing that does any good.
Leap: The Importance of Pilgrimage
I recently saw The Way, a movie that records the trek of a grieving father, played by Martin Sheen, along the Camino de Santiago through the Pyrenees from France to Spain taken in honor of his son, played by Emilio Estevez, who died along the trail. It’s a beautiful story of love and loss, misunderstanding and faith, harm and healing. It made me think about the motivations behind pilgrimage and the importance of a purposeful journey. A pilgrimage provides a bridge that carries us from the life we live to the life we choose.
In a way, my trip to India was a bit of a pilgrimage in that I went there with a purpose – to better understand the practice of yoga by seeing its roots. I didn’t have a specific place I was trying to go, just a feeling I was trying to capture, a thread I was trying to find and weave into my living.
I would like to take an actual pilgrimage as illustrated in The Way, some kind of trek through the natural world that leads to a specific destination for a specific purpose. I’ve got some loose ideas but I’m taking suggestions, too. In this time of great change in my life, a true pilgrimage seems apropos.
Leap: Six Simple Guidelines to a Life Well-Lived Courtesy of Ernest Hemingway
These may be the only instructions for life we’ll ever need.
Leap: Tap Into the Miracle of You
“When we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.” ~ Mark Twain via Women Leading the Future
A miracle gave rise to you.
If we consider the unbelievable fact that all that we are and all that we will become originated in one tiny cell, we cannot help but be in awe of life. The greatest science fiction stories have nothing on the development of the human body. We are what we come from and if each one of us originates from a miracle, then why would we ever think that our lives deserve to be anything less than extraordinary? Harness that miracle of you and spread it far and wide out in the world. It’s what you were born to do.
Christa Avampato 