“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.” ~ Khalil Gibran
Dreams tell us a lot about someone because dreams process the past, accept the present, and create the future. The narrative of a life grows from dreams and is fueled by actions taken to animate them.
Dreams tell us what someone values above all else because they are wishes of an ideal. When someone tells me they have big dreams, I pay attention because our dreams house the very best version of ourselves.
When I meet someone, I immediately want to know who they are at their best. That best self is pure potential and I’m in the business of helping people harness that potential and transform it into their truth.
“How beautiful can life be? We hardly dare imagine it.” ~ Charles Eisenstein
On a rainy Saturday morning, I made my way to this blog as Phineas was snoozing long past his usual morning walk time. A recent incident was weighing on me. Though I know I made the right decision in distancing myself from the situation, I still felt confused about why it came about at this time.
I have long-believed in the idea of space clearing. Sometimes life can get too full. Like an over-stuffed garden, our lives also need tending and weeding so that the plants we want to grow have the freedom and room to do so. I used to think this was just a chore that happened once in a while, but as I get a bit older I realize that this process is continuous. We must be diligent in keeping up with it, especially given the pace at which life and change moves in our world. Otherwise, the task becomes overwhelming.
That’s not to say this chore is easy. Every change and every ending is difficult, no matter how much it’s needed, wanted, and warranted. Think of how much energy and effort it takes to pull weeds from the garden. Sometimes their roots are sunken way down and we must dig deep to fully excavate them. But the work is worth it. In the end, there is a freedom there and with that freedom we get the opportunity to plant something new, something beautiful, something we have yet to imagine.
Our conceptions of time hold us back. We’re either too old or too young. We don’t have enough experience. We don’t have enough education. We don’t have the right contacts. We don’t have the right skills. We haven’t been at our current jobs long enough or we’ve been around too long to change. We’re too old or too young to get married, have kids, buy a house, travel around the world. We’re too old or too young to create change. We use time as an excuse to not take action. We use time as a way of wiggling out of rising up to be everything we are meant to be.
Time’s up. No more waiting. No more excuses. No more looking forward or looking back. You are have right now. In this moment, we are capable of great change. And it’s true in every moment. Go and be exactly who you want to be. Time doesn’t stand still. Time doesn’t wait for us. But in time, there lives every possibility. Go grab it!
“You have to work on opportunity’s watch and not your own.” ~ Keifer Sutherland
“The difference between what we are doing and what we are capable of doing would solve most of the world’s problems.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
36 today, and what’s on my mind? Kiefer Sutherland and Gandhi. Odd mix, you say? Perhaps, but here’s their glaring resemblance: they are men of opportunity.
Kiefer Sutherland was recently interviewed by Jay Leno about his new TV show, Touch. He didn’t want to take the job and hoped he would hate the script. Unfortunately, he fell in love with it and couldn’t turn it down. The story was too powerful and he knew he’d be kicking himself if he passed on being the one to tell it. We don’t always get to choose when we make a leap; sometimes, the leap chooses us.
Gandhi was also a man of opportunity. He saw injustice happening in his own life and to many others all around him. He couldn’t watch it anymore without throwing all of his efforts into change. He knew he could do more and that his efforts would make a difference. We revere Gandhi today as super-human, but he wasn’t. He was a person just like you and me, and with so much passion for his cause that he had to pursue it. He knew he could be the change.
I’ve firmly set the date for when I’ll be leaving my current job in pursuit of my own passions – Compass Yoga, my writing, and a public education project called Innovation Station that I have been crafting for several years. People have asked me how it feels to be leaving my stable job in pursuit of my own projects, and I have to admit that I don’t think of this change as leaving my job. I think of it as reaching up into the sky and pulling my dreams down to Earth. This is work I have to do that’s good for me and good for the world. I’m running to something that I must do, not running away from something that I can’t do anymore.
Today is a birthday for me on 2 levels – a celebration of 36 years of living and learning and another celebration of being reborn into the life I’m building of my own design. And I feel like the luckiest person on the planet for this opportunity. Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to all!
“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.” ~ C.S. Lewis
In this economy, it’s easy to look around and see miles and miles of space lacking in opportunity. But what’s really happened is that the opportunity of today has a different face than the opportunity before this latest recession touched down. We cannot look for it with the same methods, in the same places, and with the same lens.
The opportunity before was often found in big companies, in big cities, and by following the rules outlined for us. Get a pedigree education, go into a corporate training program as a well-respected company, and climb, climb, climb. Now, the greatest opportunities are discovered within our frustrations, solved by our imaginations, and brought to life with our own two hands.
I flip through the New York Times every day – online version during the week, paper version on the weekend – and mark, snip, and save everything that has some kind of future relevance for Compass Yoga. I do the same with a ludicrous number of magazine, websites, newsletters, and any number of social media channels. Leads on sources for potential funding, programming, partnerships, and smarter ways of working are piling up. And the more I find, the more there are.
Creativity is addictive, endless, and constant, if only we begin to trot down the path to solve something that bothers us with a solution that benefits the greater good.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” ~ Mary Oliver via DailyGood
There is a world beyond what we can see, hear, and touch.
Every once in a while I get a glimpse of this world, usually in the deep recesses of the night, and it snaps me awake, not in a shake-me-out-of-bed sort of way, but in a very cosmic everything-is-going-to-be-okay sort of way. It happened last Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning. On Monday night I had a session with Brian that left my mind churning about exciting new possibilities as I commit to taking this leap in my career.
I thought I was dreaming as I heard a very gentle calling from an old woman to the effect of, “If you can put your trust in me, I promise you it will be okay. You will be okay.” My eyes gently opened upon hearing this and I found that the light of the moon shone very brightly through my window. I’d never seen it in that position outside my window, and it had never shown through that brightly. It felt like a spotlight on me. It looked full. I cocked my head to one side (similar to the stance Phineas takes when he hears an unexpected sound on our walks), realizing very clearly that the voice was coming from the moon. And it didn’t seem the least bit odd.
I climbed out of bed, walked over to the window, pulled back the curtain, and saw that without the curtain the moon was only half full. I put the curtain back in place and again it appeared full. I have no idea why and I didn’t question it in my sleepy state.
I crawled back into bed and gazed at the moon. “So all I have to do is trust? Trust that leaping is the right thing to do?” I asked. And she glowed back a nod and a gentle “yes.” That was it. I rolled over and went back to sleep.
A few hours later, I woke to my alarm, bundled up, and then bundled up Phin. He led the way to Riverside Park without hesitation, and I gladly took his lead as I turned over in my mind my encounter with the moon. Did that really happen, or was I dreaming? In the rising daylight, I reasoned that of course I had been dreaming.
And then Phineas stopped. Just stopped right by a tree and sat down, facing west. I stood in place next to him and looked out over the chilly Hudson to see a low orange moon, full now (for real), setting on the western horizon as the sun was making its way up in the East. She didn’t say anything this time. She just sat there and looked at me as Phineas and I looked back, all resolute in the fact that yes, of course it would all be okay. It has to be because we’re on the path we’re meant for, and when our actions fall in line with our destiny the world oddly, beautifully, inexplicably cooperates.
Doors open by the light of the moon, and all we need to do is walk through them.
“In a painting you create beauty with the addition of each brush stroke. In a company you create it with the addition of each talented, engaged person and with each thoughtful act.” ~ Bill Witherspoon
There’s a lot of lip service paid to talent management in companies and organizations, and that lip service is fine as long as it’s backed up with action. As the Board of Directors and I work on shaping Compass Yoga, we’re very conscious about the beauty of the company, staying true to the mission of serving students with mental and physical health challenges and partnering with like-minded teachers and organizations.We’re picky about who we bring into the fold, and because we are a service organization our product is our people. They are the key ingredient to making this work, and it’s such a joy to find these kindred spirits. It’s also a lot of work.
We’re discerning, and growing more so all the time. We have a filter that we use to evaluate our partnerships and our opportunities thanks to Michael Vito, one of the very talented board members:
1.) Does the partnership or opportunity align with our mission?
2.) Is there a material benefit to gain from the partnership or opportunity?
3.) Is the partnership or opportunity financially beneficial to both parties?
Michael developed this filter for us because everywhere we look we see opportunity for Compass. Because we are still bootstrapping the organization, we have to be very careful about where we deploy our resources. We need to focus so that we can keep an eye on our beautiful long-term goal – improving our healthcare system.
“The important thing, it seems to me, is that we believe in the possibilities of one another.” ~ Feo Aladag, Director of When We Leave, to Cinema Without Borders
The dream
In the dream I was seated in a very dark room, so dark that I actually wasn’t able to see anything. I didn’t feel frightened or alarmed in any way. It was as if I was just sitting cross-legged on the floor and with my closed eyes had blocked out all the light. There was a very clear voice, not my own and not belonging to anyone I recognized. The only thing I was certain of is that the voice was male.
Very clearly and calmly that voice said to me, “You’re not as penned in as you think.” I started on why I need to keep my day job with the fact of my pesky student loans right at the top of the list. Then the voice asked me to really think about that reason and see if it’s true. And just like that, the dream ended and I woke up.
A lesson from my younger self
I thought about my students loans. While the total dollar amount is higher than I’d like, the monthly payment is lower than my student loan payment was when I first graduated from undergrad in 1998. And what did I do in 1998? I went running off to New York City to chase a crazy dream of working on Broadway shows. I didn’t move here, get a day job, and chase my dream on the side. I went for it, both feet in. It was difficult, I struggled, and there were plenty of days when I wondered what I was really doing. When those days hit, I just buckled down, showed up, and kept going because moving forward was the only thing I knew how to do.
Maybe the voice in my dream had a point. Maybe it is time for me to let go of the guideline that I have to pay off my student loans before I can leave a stable day job. If we want to live extraordinary lives, then we can’t spend all our days living our dreams on the side. The only box we are really in is the one we build around ourselves; we’re not as penned in as we may feel. We have to believe in our own possibilities and the possibilities of one another.
“The most amazing thing about biz dev work: the more you do, the more you realize that opportunity is under every stone. Turn ’em over!” ~ ME
For the past two weeks I have been sending an insane amount of emails and making an equally insane amount of phone class related to Compass Yoga. I’m getting down all of the steps in the hopes that some day I will have the time to reflect back on all of this work and on all of the amazing, talented, incredible people who helped me through their own kindness, talents, and generosity.
Business development work is what I’ve been trained to do. By nature, I’m relentless, and this natural tendency and endurance was only further bolstered by my undergraduate and graduate school education. Once I really believe in an idea and have dedicated myself to it, I will work and work and work until I make progress. I’ll experiment, take a new approach, or try something completely off-the-wall if I think it will make a difference.
Business development is a long-term bet
I’m making progress. On June 19th I’ll be giving a presentation on the benefits of yoga for veterans, at Jehrico Project, an organization that serves homeless veterans in New York City, and I’ve started the long paperwork process to teach yoga at the Manhattan VA Hospital for the medical staff. These are two developments that I’m incredibly grateful for, and I think it’s important to share that I didn’t just waltz in and have these wonderful opportunities handed to me. Of the hundreds of contacts I’ve tried to make, most were never returned, a few kindly declined my offer, and these two took some convincing – first by me and then by people at these organizations who believed in the power of this work.
When you don’t know what to do, keep going
I’m sharing this truth because there’s an important lesson in this for you and me. You might be working on a project at this very moment and you may feel like all of your efforts are yielding a blessed thing. You might feel like you’re beating your head against the wall, wringing your hands, and wasting your time. The truth is that you are laying a foundation, and foundation building takes a lot of effort. We want to jump to the decorating, “the fun stuff”, of a project as soon as possible, but trust me, that won’t work. You have to make sure your base is solid and build from that. It’s slow in the beginning but if you training properly and do the appropriate groundwork, you’ll be so much better off in the long run. Cultivate patience as you pursue progress.
“Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.” – Maori Proverb via Tiny Buddha
Yesterday I expounded upon my love for Daily Good’s daily email that inspires me on a regular basis. Another site that I love for its flat-out joy and love of life is Tiny Buddha. I found my way to Tiny Buddha via MJ, a tremendously loyal and helpful member of the Christa in New York community. Lori Deschene, the creator of Tiny Buddha, is another one of those sources who delivers tidbits of delightfulness to my inbox and always seems to find exactly the right words exactly when I need to hear them. The quote above is an example of that.
The light is closer than we think
This Maori Proverb made me think of a picture of someone looking down at the ground, searching for some positive sign, searching for some kind of light and hope, never realizing that all the light they could ever want is just above them. If only they would take their gaze up, they would be able to find all the signs they could ever ask for. I have a friend like this. She is someone who has been blessed with so many riches, material and otherwise, and yet is never happy. She often says, “I really just need something to go right in my life soon.” What she doesn’t realize is that she has the ability and the power to take her life in the direction she wants to go. Great things aren’t going to happen TO her; they are going to happen when she brings them into being.
A life of light or darkness is often a matter of choice
And this is true for us, too. We can choose to live in the shadows – goodness knows there are enough of them in the world and in our own pasts. We can also choose to acknowledge the shadows for what they have to offer us, take their learnings, and then turn toward the light. Those shadows will stay with us as reminders, as teachers, but they don’t need to hold so much power over us. We can take another road. Once we change our minds, we change everything.
Christa Avampato 