Category: New York City

moving, New York City, travel, yoga

Beginning: Making Lemonade and Reconfiguring My Fall

Christa Avampato

The social summer is just about to begin this weekend, and already I was planning my Fall.

An apartment lost
I have been considering a move to a new apartment after my lease expires in September. I found one with my current management company and put in an application a few weeks ago. A completely gut-renovated 1 bedroom with a private garden. It was going to be spectacular. I’m sure it still will be, but it’s not going to be mine. For financial reasons, it’s better for the management company to accept another application from one of my neighbors who’s been in her rent-controlled 2 bedroom / 2 bath / formal dining room apartment for 27 years. New York real estate, and the current rental market in particular, is a business focused on cold, hard cash.

And relief found
I thought I’d be disappointed with the loss of the opportunity, and all I felt upon hanging up the phone with my real estate agent was an enormous sigh of relief. I felt free of a lot of burdens, some I didn’t even realize I was carrying. It was no coincidence that when I hung up with the agent, I found myself in front of my small Ganesha statue that’s part of my meditation space. (He is known in Hindu scriptures to be the remover of obstacles, and he and I have a long-time understanding that when I don’t get what I want it’s always for my own good.) I had put a number of other options for my Fall on hold because I assumed I’d be busy with packing and moving. Now that I’ll be staying in my cozy studio, all these questions that have been floating around in my mind were completely settled in one fell swoop:

1.) 300 hour yoga teacher training at ISHTA. I attended their info session a few weeks ago and was very impressed with what they had to offer for teachers interested in using yoga for therapeutic purposes, my intended pursuit with Compass Yoga. Now that I won’t be moving, I will be able to make the time to attend their September 2011 – March 2012 program, and my plans for Compass will be right on track.

2.) Volunteer vacations. It’s been about a year and a half since I went to Costa Rica with Cross-Cultural Solutions in 2009, and I’ve wanted to take another volunteer vacation since the moment I got back. I taught yoga in Costa Rica and spent time working with the elders and children in and around Cartago. I’m making plans to travel to Haiti in September to work with my friends who run the nonprofit Healing Haiti. There’s also a possibility with Cross-Cultural Solutions of being one of the first batch of Americans who can legally travel to Cuba again as part of their volunteer program there. More details to come.

3.) No packing means a chance to redecorate. Yesterday I was flipping through a few interior design sites and one of them talked about how important it is for your space to give you a specific feeling every time you return home. That feeling should be the basis of your decorating rather than focusing on specific colors or arrangements purely for aesthetic reasons. Similar to the realization of the power of the question, “Why?” when building dreams, I had the same kind of feeling here. I’ve never thought about the design of my space as having a specific feeling, but rather a specific look. This new perspective gives me all types of design ideas that I’m excited to put into action in my space.

4.) Enjoy summer. I would have spent a good portion of the summer packing, planning,and reconfiguring my life for my new digs. Studies say moving is the most stressful event in our lives next to the death of a loved one. Crazy, but anyone who’s moved, especially in New York City, knows how tough it can be. Now I have the opportunity to just enjoy the summer knowing that Fall will come in due time without the stress of planning a move.

Aside from all of these logistical reasons for being happy about this news, there was a bigger life lesson for me, too. In the past I have been an obsessive planner. My coach, Brian, and I have worked on this area a lot over the past year. I’ve always been someone so worried that plans A, B, and C wouldn’t work out that I had to have back-up plans D, E, and F ready to go at a moment’s notice. This kind of behavior is an enormous waste of time, and sadly it’s served me so well in the past that it became an annoying habit. In the past year I’ve been able to let go of a lot of that.

We can’t possibly plan for every chance event, and to try to do that is a thankless task. I improvise more often now, and more importantly, I trust myself, the universe, and the idea that somehow our lives work out in the best way possible so long as we commit to show up and do our best every day. It’s all I can do, and that’s enough. Lesson confirmed.

creative process, creativity, inspiration, love, New York City, nostalgia

Beginning: Building a Space from Love – Heidi’s House by the Side of the Road

Christa Avampato

Front view of Heidi's
“Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.” ~ Robert Frost, seen on the chalk board over the bar at Heidi’s House by the Side of the Road

I went to Heidi’s House by the Side of the Road last week with a small group of friends. It’s not an actual house but an adorable niche that serves tremendous wine and some of the most delicious food I’ve had in a long time. Every nook and cranny of Heidi’s in jam-packed with love, care, and concern. The attention to detail is extraordinary. Heidi herself made sure of it.

Even the name has a heart-felt meaning. In the bathroom there is a needle point that states, “Let me live in my house by the side of the road and be a friend to a man.” It’s a quote by Sam Walter Foss. I asked Heidi why that quote means so much to her that she’d name her business after it. She told me, “It’s the quote on my father’s grave stone.” Gulp. I got goosebumps.

It got me thinking about how important it is to put love into our endeavors, how much of a difference that makes to the people who get to share in your creation. We taste love in food, we hear it in music, and we see it in art. It has this unmistakable and yet unexplainable quality that is universal.

Take a spin over to Heidi’s and see what I mean. Then get cracking on your own creation of love, and let others share in it the way Heidi does.

books, clarity, health, inspiration, New York City, yoga

Beginning: Yoga Teacher and Writer Matthew Sanford on Awareness and Compassion at the New York Yoga Journal Conference

Christa Avampato

Matthew Sanford
“I have never seen anyone truly become more aware of his or her body without also becoming more compassionate.” ~ Matthew Sanford, yoga teacher and author Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence

My Uncle Tom recently recommended Matthew Sanford to me after hearing him speak. Given my devotion to yoga and my desire to use it to serve the healing of those who are working through trauma, he thought Matthew’s story and message would immediately resonate with me. My uncle knows me well. Upon reading his website and getting only a small glimpse into his experience, I was entranced.I felt like I really needed to hear this story at this moment and connect with Matthew.

So it was a wonderful and synchronous surprise that Matthew is in town for the New York Yoga Journal Conference. He gave a talk yesterday that was open to the public – many thanks to my pal, Yogadork, for cluing me into the event. I had no idea he would be speaking in town and would have been so upset if I had missed the opportunity to hear him talk about his personal and professional work with trauma. Much to my delight, he was even more intriguing and engaging in person than he is in his book. I didn’t think this was possible because I loved the book so much. I could hardly believe it. It’s like hearing a musician who sounds even better in person than he does on his hit album.

I sat with my friend, Erica, of Yogoer fame, and she described Matthew’s style perfectly. “He sifted through so much information that I have in my own mind and didn’t know how to articulate.” His words are poignant, authentic, and perfectly selected without feeling rehearsed. All without notes, nor a single pause or “um”. I could have listened to him all afternoon. My only disappointment was that his hour-long talk passed too quickly.

He discussed his area of expertise – the depth and breadth of the mind-body connection and its ability, when fully manifested in each of us, to change the world. He explained how important it is for our own happiness and for the good of the world for each of us to move in so that we can move out. The answers to all our challenges are within us already, no outside resource necessary. We know what to do, if only we would take the time to listen to the wisdom in our own bodies, in our own hearts. We have the ability to alter our own reality, and the greater world around us, by redefining our experience in this very moment. We have the ability, right now, to change everything. “The principles of yoga don’t discriminate,” Matthew said. How true that is. If you can breathe, just breathe, you can access all of the wisdom that yoga has to give.

My favorite sentiment from Matthew’s book is the connection he draws between awareness and compassion. I am particularly drawn to this idea because of my one word purpose that I’ve been working with this year: awareness. When I heard Dr. Chopra speak earlier this year, he inspired me to go looking for this one word purpose as a direction for all of my work. Awareness, to wake up and help others do the same, rose to the top.

Matthew and his story helped me make the next leap on my journey. What do I do once I wake up, once I can be fully aware at every moment? What is the point of attaining awareness? My compassion will grow as a result. And with compassion, real healing begins. As Matthew so brilliantly stated, “Compassion gives us a way to sit with suffering and not try to fix it.” And if we can sit with suffering long enough, we will find that it begins to dissipate on its own without a threat of returning. By being present with suffering, we give it a container to empty into and then we can melt it down, taking only its lessons with us and releasing the pain and confusion it causes.

Letting go takes time; compassion achieved through awareness gives us the necessary patience to allow for the process of letting go to progress. It gives us the time we need, for our own healing and to help others heal, too.

For more information about Matthew and his work, visit his website.

adventure, books, career, celebration, change, choices, creativity, discovery, experience, family, friendship, grateful, gratitude, growth, happiness, ideas, meditation, New York City, story, writing, yoga

Step 365: What’s Possible? A 2010 Wrap-up.

Christa Avampato

“I am neither an optimist nor pessimist, but a possibilist.” ~ Max Lerner

As I cross over the finish line of 365 days of living and writing about an extraordinary life, I marvel at the passing of another year. On December 31, 2009, I wrote a post explaining that in 2010 I wanted to record something every day that put me one step closer to an extraordinary life.

This December 31st post is always fun to write because it’s a chance for me to reflect on the past year and realize how much has happened. Just like flipping through the New York Times’s Year in Pictures helps us remember what’s happened in the world around us, flipping through my posts from the last year lets me remember all the tiny steps that brought me to do this day.

My road to recovery from my apartment building fire:
I was in denial about the true effect it had on me and that brought me to Brian, my coach and therapist, who has helped my life grow in leaps and bounds. By June, I finally felt safe in my home again and could make my apartment feel like a peaceful space.

Stepping into the writing life:
I moved my blog over to WordPress and for the first time in the 3 years since I seriously began to contemplate living a writer’s life, earned enough money to be a freelance writer for hire. This year I connected with so many talented writers – Josh, Laura, Amanda, Erica, Sharni, Will, Sara, the Wordcount Blogathon writers, Katherine, the fab team at Owning Pink, Elephant Journal, and Michael.

I wrote and published my first e-book, Hope in Progress: 27 Entrepreneurs Who Inspired Me During the Great Recessions, a compilation of 27 of my interviews that I conducted with entrepreneurs through my Examiner column.

Yoga at the forefront of my life:
I completed my 200 hour yoga teacher training at Sonicstarted Compass Yoga, my own small teaching company, and will begin teaching a regular Sunday night yoga class at Pearl Studios NYC. Through Sonic I was inspired by the incredible teachers and the 23 amazing women in my class whom I hold so dear after our journey together. My yoga teacher training helped me to establish a regular meditation practice and cured the insomnia I’ve lived with all of my life. I found the joyful noise of kirtan, which re-ignited my interest in music. Yoga led me toward a true contemplation of my faith and spirituality that continues down a very healthy, peaceful path. There are not words enough to thank the people at Sonic for how much joy they brought to my life, but I gave it a shot in this post about our last class and the closing ritual of the training. I am forever and happily indebted to them.

Some wrong turns, too:
I studied for my GRE and despite doing well on the exam, Columbia sent me an email that began “we regret to inform you that you have not been accepted” [into a PhD program in education]. I wrote a curriculum for LIM College that I was tremendously excited about, and then the class was canceled at the 11th hour for reasons that still make me shake my head. I was so excited to be selected to serve on a jury and sadly realized just how imperfect our system is. I still think about the case on a regular basis.

Making peace with New York living:
In 2010 I fell in love with New York City, again and again and again. It became my home. Our love hate relationship ended its many years of turmoil and now we’re living together in a general state of bliss, with an occasional side dish of annoyance, just for good measure and because, well, it’s a very New York thing to do.

A few unexpected journeys:
I conquered my fear of swimming in open water while on a yoga retreat in Greece. I found that mistakes can be joyful.

Wonderful new additions to my family:
We happily welcomed my new little niece Aubree and after years of wondering whether or not I should get a dog, Phineas, a sweet little dachshund, has graced my life via the Humane Society and New York dachshund rescue.

And 10 valuable life lessons that I’m grateful for:
1.) Goodness is created and remembered by sharing what we have with others.
2.) Shouting dreams helps bring them into being.
3.) Stubborness can be a beautiful thing.
4.) We get what we settle for.
5.) Obstacles in our lives are valuable.
6.) We never have to wait to live the life we want.
7.) Letting go is sometimes the bravest and best thing to do
8.) Trusting our gut is the best way to get to get to the decision that’s right for us.
9.) Be thankful for less.

My favorite and most treasured discovery of 2010:
10.) Truly extraordinary living is found in very ordinary moments.

Wishing you a very happy start to 2011. Thanks so much for being with me on this journey that was 2010.

The image above makes me feel free. Find it here.

apartment, New York City, rent

Step 348: More Space Than I Thought I Had

Christa Avampato

In New York City we are used to small spaces. 1000 square feet, a modest size for many other cities, feels like a palace in New York. the size of our apartments is a normal topic of conversation, as is how much we’re paying for it, what amenities our neighborhood has, and our dreams of a private outdoor area just outside our door. We are a city obsessed with the idea of space, and we usually think we don’t have enough.

Since getting Phin, I have had a little wire playpen set up for him. I leave the door open and within its tiny perimeter I kept his food, water, bed, toys, and yoga mat. (Yep, he has his own yoga mat where he does all his deep thinking, just like me!) Now that we’ve been together for 3 months, he’s chilled out and I folded up his playpen and just placed it against the wall. I couldn’t believe how much room I had once I took it down! My tiny studio (and I mean seriously tiny, not just perceived tiny) seemed so much bigger.

I was reminded of how much room and time we have in our lives. I’m one of those people who is regularly guilty of over-stuffing my schedule. It’s ridiculous, and I have no one to point the finger at except the lady in the mirror. When we work to fit something into our lives, when we consciously make room for it and then have that time or space free up again, we realize that we aren’t time or space starved. We’re awash with it. Life seems so short, and yet if I think back on everywhere I’ve been, everything I’ve done, and the great volume of living that lies ahead, I realize that life is long. The opportunity to do an abundant amount of extraordinary work, is constant.

The photo above is a New York City studio apartment. Tiny but made to look big by a wide camera angle.

New York City, rent, yoga

Step 347: I Booked a Room For My Yoga Classes

Christa Avampato

After a solid month of looking intently for a room to teach my own yoga classes, I found one. I looked at over 50 spaces in total.

I was picky. I wanted:
– beautiful space
– bright
– shiny wood floors, sprung (meaning they have some cushioning to them)
– well-maintained
– housed in a place with lots of artists around
– quiet, ideally sound proof
– good subway access
– doorman
– elevator
– affordable
– professionally managed
– amenities like clean restrooms, wi-fi, and a comfortable space for students to wait if they arrive early
– ability to move to a smaller or larger room to accommodate the class size
– mirrors
– easy cancellation / re-scheduling policy

I asked for the world. In truth I was pickier about the space than I was about finding my own apartment. I wasn’t willing to live with less. If I’m going to ask people to come to my class and pay to be there, even if it is a modest $10 a class with $2 donated to a charity of the student’s choice, I’m going to make sure it’s perfect. And as Brian always tells me, “You get what you settle for.”

Pearl Studios NYC located at 500 8th Avenue between 35th and 36th Streets will be home to my very first independently run yoga classes as part of Compass Yoga. Classes start on Sunday January 30, 2011, 6pm – 7pm. The class on the 30th will be free to anyone who’d like to attend. Thereafter, they will run every Sunday from 6pm – 7pm. Schedule will always be posted here and on this Facebook page. I hope you’ll join us!

The photo above is a picture of the room where I’ll be teaching yoga at Pearl Studios. (We’ll move the piano!)

celebration, Christmas, holiday, New York City

Step 314: The Holiday Season

Christa Avampato

Around this time of year, a lot of people complain about retailers pushing along the holiday season. “Christmas candy is already out and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!” they say. I’m okay with that – retailers, put the idea of Christmas in our heads for as long as possible. I’d do just about anything to lengthen the holiday season – the joy, the decorations, the music, the cookies. New York City becomes a truly magical place during the holidays. I’ll take as much of it as I can get.

This past weekend I walked by Bryant Park and saw that the ice rink and holiday market was already busy. And you haven’t even packed away your Halloween costume, you say? Who cares?! It’s the holidays. Bring it on! Get the most out of this holiday season in New York City – see the Nutcracker, check out the holiday windows at Bergdorf’s, listen to some carols, pay a visit to Santa, and go see one of the great big beautiful trees decked out in more lights that you can count. Here’s a comprehensive guide to all of the festivities in NYC – http://www.nycgo.com/?event=view.article&id=245898. Make the most of it and happy holidays!

health, healthcare, hope, hospital, New York City, teaching, yoga

Step 258: Teaching Yoga at New York Methodist Hospital

Christa Avampato

Yoga provides an incredible well-being practice for everyone. There are no physical or mental limitations that prohibit a yoga practice of some variety. If someone can breath, they can do yoga. I began my journey toward becoming a yoga teacher focusing on my classmates at the Darden School at the University of Virginia. They had stress and I knew how to relieve stress through yoga since I had been on a journey of self-study and yoga for close to a decade. A classic case of filling a need in the market.

In May, I made my teaching path “official” and received my 200-hour certification through Sonic Yoga and started Compass Yoga. During my teacher-training process, I turned my attention toward making yoga accessible to people who had few opportunities to experience it, namely people with serious physical and mental health ailments. Almost 4 months to the day after completing my training at Sonic, I will begin offering classes in the pediatric unit at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn to patients, caregivers, and the hospital staff. This is exactly the type of yoga work I set out to do and it feels like such an incredible gift to do the work I know I was meant to do.

I begin on Saturday, September 25th with a trial run at New York Methodist. I will be sure to update this blog as I get further along the path, though wanted to share this wonderful news, for which I am infinitely grateful, as it happens. Where there’s a will there is most certainly always a way. Namaste.

art, change, museum, New York City

Step 255: Matisse’s Unfinished Works

Christa Avampato

I went to MoMA today to see the special Matisse exhibition. It covers the period between 1913 and 1917 when Matisse began to find his groove that became his hallmark – the voluptuous figures, bold colors, and intentionally unfinished quality of seemingly simplistic forms. It is a collection of work gathered from all over the world, from a variety of public and private collections, that is a rare treat that showcases an artist as he gains confidence in his own voice. So often art exhibitions show an artist’s work that made him or her famous, that fully expresses a specific point of view. MoMA’s Matisse exhibit however shows an artist in the process of becoming.

My friends, Allan, Sara, Andrew, and I all commented on how much of Matisse’s work in the exhibit remains intentionally unfinished. He made very few comments on the work while he was alive, leaving the interpretation to his audience. On the audio tour, curators from MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago commented on the work, largely guessing at what Matisse meant to say with each piece as he re-worked each canvas several times with different color schemes, adding new characters, and then taking them away, changing background colors and landscapes. Matisse never seemed to be satisfied or finished with a work. Rather, he just moved on.

Matisse’s work got me thinking about how we all work the different canvases of our lives. We move on from jobs, relationships, cities where we live, leaving each with some mark that we were there and yet giving them the freedom to evolve long after we’ve gone, all remaining open to interpretation of what our presence meant and what might have happened if we had stayed on longer. Maybe Matisse in his early career had it right not just about art, but about life – we are all in the process of becoming, no work (or life) is ever quite finished, and it all deserves celebration and reflection.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913 – 1917 is on exhibit at MoMA until October 11, 2010.

The photo above depicts Henri Matisse painting Bathers by a River, May 13, 1913. Photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn. Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester

community, free, justice, New York City, religion

Step 254: A Vigil for 9/11 and Religious Freedom

Christa Avampato

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” ~ U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis

Last night I went with my friend, Sara, to a vigil for religious freedom and to commemorate the anniversary of 9/11. I had never seen the sky lights that are lit up to pay homage to the Towers, 2 giant beams that shoot up from the base of where the buildings once stood clear into the sky for as far as the eye can see. Hundreds of people gathered just one block away at Park and Church, holding candles, listening to speeches by religious leaders, and talking with friends. Just around the corner stood the site that will become the Islamic Community Center.

To be honest, the speeches weren’t moving, sometimes inaudible, and the traffic continued to run along Church Street throughout the vigil. What was moving was to hear the message, from the speakers and attendees beside us, that no neighborhood in this country should ever be off-limits to anyone. It sounds like such a simple idea and yet it has caused such controversy in New York and around the country. The argument “how could THOSE people be so insensitive?” has circulated around the Islamic Community Center in newspapers, TV broadcasts, and on the streets on U.S. cities. My response is THOSE people didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. Muslim lives were lost when those Towers fell, too; Muslims the world over are mourning today and everyday just like non-Muslims. If anything that ground on Vesey Street, and anywhere else in this world for that matter, belongs to the global community. We all have a right to be wherever it is we want to be.

What toppled those Towers so tragically 9 years ago today was not Islam or people living in Middle Eastern countries. It wasn’t hatred for Americans, nor was it anger in our foreign policies. What destroyed those Towers and continues to threaten world security is intolerance. By protesting the Islamic Community Center at 51 Park Place, intolerance grows and strengthens. Intolerance, the very idea that has caused our nation and particularly New York City, so much heartache is exactly what the protesters to the Islamic Community Center are propagating. It’s akin to poisoning ourselves with the very thing that others used to harm us.

It was encouraging to be among the group gathered for the vigil last night, sharing candle light and a common belief in true freedom for all people everywhere. I hope that the light we created there goes at least part of the way toward rooting out intolerance and burying it once and for all.