Category: relationships

relationships, technology

Beginning: The Hour of My Disconnect

Christa Avampato

This image available at http://jolly-rancherzz.deviantart.com/art/DONT-UNPLUG-ME-177079124
SXSW was a connect-fest. I was tweeting, Facebooking, and blogging to my heart’s content. In a land of free and available-everywhere wi-fi, a tech lover like me thought she fell down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. These online connections led to wonderful off-line connections, too. I met two really amazing women from DC who got a whole group of us together on Group Me, a cool new app that makes it easy to group text message, making the coordination of group plans much easier. These ladies brought in a few others while I got my pals from New York to team up with us, too. It was a wonderful lesson in online connections facilitating off-line interaction.

Balancing our online and off-line existence
Recently I have had some concerns about being a hyper-connected person. My multi-tasking nerd nature still rears its head on occasion and I start to get concerned about its clear ability to consume my time. I have to consciously remind myself that my offline connections need to be of greater proportion than my online ones.

SXSW had me thinking about connections and the growing cross-pollination between offline and online interactions. The wall between the two is slowly breaking down, and now we’re able to more easily facilitate the interactions in both directions. This realization made me feel a bit more comfortable with how many channels I now access to stay connected. Still, I wanted to test myself a bit. Could I survive mostly offline for a few days and not feel lost, not obsess about what I was missing online?

Can we ever really be off-line?
Once I got to Orlando, where I stopped in to see my family after SXSW, I made the conscious decision to take myself offline for a great majority of the time. I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to really be there with my family, no distractions. Rather than feeling any anxiety about my disconnection, it felt amazing. After being hyper connected at SXSW, it felt great to shut off my shiny screens and just be in the world. I felt lighter, and I recognized beauty in a clearer way than I have on previous tech fasts.

Once my family dropped me off at the airport and I explained to my eldest niece, Lorelei, that she wouldn’t be able to get on the plane with me this time, I worried that I’d go right back to my device checking ways. But you know what? It never even occurred to me to take out my mobile while I was waiting in line to check my bag.

Unexpected, and delightful, connections
Instead, I was focused on those around me. I worked to keep Phin clam in his travel bag, and I chatted with some people in line. Both the person in front of me and the person behind me had dachshunds, too. While going through security, I met a woman from Iowa and she told me all about the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, a program I’ve been wanting to check out for quite a while. “Here’s my card,” she said. “If you ever get to Iowa, please feel free to stay with me and my family.” I met a man, Francisco, at the gate. He was traveling to Bogota and was worried he was at the wrong gate. With my very rusty Spanish and his equally rusty English, I was able to help him out. In exchange he told me all about his life in Colombia and how he had just retired after many years of working very hard in the agriculture industry. If I had my earphones on or been obsessively checking my mobile, I would have missed all of these interactions. I would have missed the very human element of traveling – time with others.

Weird is where you are
Even once I landed back in New York, I was able to still feel light, and I didn’t have that obsession with checking my mobile device. Austin somehow shifted my take on technology. I don’t see it as a burden but as a great luxury, something I can take or leave depending on my mood and circumstances. It’s no longer giving me a Monkey Mind. Maybe my quest to keep the lightness of Austin with me even after I return home will be an easier road than I imagined. Can I keep it weird wherever I am?

art, change, choices, faith, fear, politics, relationships, religion, theatre

Step 287: Review of the Off-Broadway Show, Freud’s Last Session

Christa Avampato

In 1998, I saw the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile in San Francisco. I remember being completely riveted watching the fictional meeting of two of the most inspiring characters of all time, Einstein and Picasso. This construct for a play appealed to me so much that I still routinely think about that show 12 years later. It was at times touching and sad, joyful and hopeful. Full of lively, passionate debate and intense discussion about timeless social issues, I always felt it would be hard for a play to match Steve Martin’s brilliance.

Lucky for us Mark St. Germain has succeeded in building a script that’s even more powerful and thought-provoking than Martin’s – Freud’s Last Session, now playing off-Broadway at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater at the West Side YMCA. Freud’s Last Session showcases the possibly factual meeting between a young C.S. Lewis, a devout Christian and the gifted author who would go on to write The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, and Sigmund Freud, a life-long atheist, consummate intellectual, and founding figure of psychoanalysis, who is at the very end of his life and career, dying of oral cancer. Set in London on September 3, 1939, the invasion of Poland by the Nazis serves as the political backdrop of their meeting.

The piece made me laugh out loud one moment, and tug at my deepest convictions the next. The dialogue is so sharp and the acting by Martin Rayner (Freud) and Mark H. Dold (Lewis) so penetrating that the 75-minute show flew by, too quickly in my opinion. I wanted more of the debate and the history. I found myself rooting for their relationship, and wanting it to go on, in spite of knowing that 20 days later Freud would engage his long-time friend and physician to end his battle with cancer.

The show touches upon an incredibly diverse set of themes: religion first and foremost, war, death, sexuality, fear, faith, love, memory, humor, and change. While this list of topics seems overwhelming, they are in the very capable hands and words of St. Germain, who expertly weaves them together in such a seamless way that I found myself completely wrapped up in the story as if it were my own. The language he uses is so vivid and the mannerisms of the actors are so authentic that I truly felt I was peering into a window on history. This play is the most rare form of theatrical work – a perfect script. Every single word precisely and beautifully chosen. The set and lighting designs are so realistic that I felt transported across space and time to Freud’s London study to witness this single, emotional meeting.

This show has a special, very personal meaning for me because my father was a Freudian psychologist. He passed away when I was a teenager, long before I ever had the opportunity to have a conversation with him as Lewis may have had with Freud. I didn’t get the opportunity to understand his contradictions and complexities, though that may have been for the best. At the end of his life, he was in a great deal of pain physically and emotionally, as Freud was. Through the dialogue of Freud’s Last Session, I was able to put together some more pieces about my father’s personality, as if I had actually been placed there in that seat for a very specific reason – to help me get a little bit closer to understanding my childhood. My thanks to Mark St. Germain for this amazing gift; he has inspired me to dig deeper and learn more about Freud and Lewis. I’m confident that there are more answers there, waiting for me to discover them. And that is perhaps the greatest lesson of the show – that self-discovery is a journey that never ends and yet must be pursued. As he so adeptly has Lewis say, “The real struggle is to keep trying.”

Freud’s Last Session runs through November 28th at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater. Don’t miss it.

Image above depicts Mark H. Dold and Martin Rayner as Lewis and Freud, respectively.

personality, psychology, relationships, women, work

Step 257: 10 Scientific Findings About the Differences Between the Male and Female Brains

Christa Avampato

“Men and women have to stop blaming one another for their differences, and there really are differences.” ~ Barbara Annis

I went to a talk today with authors Barbara Annis and John Gray, leading authorities on how to get the sexes to understand one another and work together. Barbara Annis has just published the book Leadership and the Sexes, and John Gray is the author of the New York Times Bestseller Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

They uncovered some surprising research currently being conducted about the male and female brains, and then used that research to formulate strategies for men and women to use together to create better work environments. Here are the top 10 points of interest that I took away from their presentation:

1.) Under stress, women remember more details and men remember fewer details. In general, women have better memories than men. When he tells you he really doesn’t remember, he’s telling the truth!

2.) Women can speak and listen simultaneously because the capability to listen is housed in multiple areas of their brains. The male brain is better equipped to focus solely on speaking or listening because all of their listening ability is housed in one area of their brains. So the pause between his listening and speaking is legit – give him the time to process.

3.) Women are more susceptible to stress and the average woman at work experiences 2X the amount of stress that men do. To compensate women have more endurance to continue to function under stress, however this increased stress and desire to continue to perform under stress causes many health problems in women. Ladies, get to yoga class, take a walk, meditate. You need to cut your stress levels!

4.) When men feel stressed, they slow down and do less. This helps them process information during stressful times. Women actually speed up under stress and do more. This is detrimental to women’s well-being. Ladies, take a tip from the guys – in times of stress, take a step back, breath, and relax.

5.) Under stress, men seek space to sort out the situation independently. Women seek understanding and turn to others when stressed. In connection, stress among men drops when they disconnect from others. Women’s stress level increases when they are disconnected from other people. In times of stress, give people what they need to feel better.

6.) Men prefer to be left alone at work, and find well-being in the workplace from more responsibility and opportunity. Women have a desire to feel connected to their employers and co-workers. The #1 reason women leave corporations is not for work-life balance but because they don’t feel valued by their employer. Corporate America, listening is and under-rated skill and you need to encourage it among your teams.

7.) Single men take more risks than married men, and fail more as a result. However, I believe in the axioms, “nothing ventured, nothing gained” and “fortune rewards the bold.” There’s nothing wrong with calculated risk.

8.) Testosterone does not increase aggressive behavior, but lowers reaction time. Under stress, men are likely to make quicker decisions as a result. Guys, take more time with decisions when possible. You’ll be happier in the long-run.

9.) Because of lower testosterone levels, women tend to weigh consequences of actions more often than men do. Guys, consequences matter – take a bit more time with your choices.

10.) To create a better working environment, men and women have to stop blaming one another for their differences and seek to really understand one another.

These differences have their benefits and should be celebrated! We’ll all be happier and healthier as a result – we have so much to learn from one another.

change, learning, Life, relationships, values

Step 248: 8 Lessons From My Apartment Building Fire, One Year Later

Christa Avampato

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my apartment building fire. In some ways, I cannot believe it’s gone by so quickly and in other ways I can’t believe how much change has happened in a year. So net-net, it feels like it has been a productive year with a lot of learning. Sometimes I still shiver at the thought of the circumstances and what could have happened if everything had gone horribly wrong, if I hadn’t followed my instincts. I wrote a series of posts on this blog that recount the difficult days after the fire. They begin with my post on September 5, 2009.

The building has reopened and the walls have been painted over a pristine white. You’d never know that one year ago a fire ripped through the hallways, but every time I walk by it, I still feel the gravity of what happened there one year ago. To commemorate and celebrate the occasion, here are the top 10 things I learned as a result of my fire:

1.) I now trust my gut 99% of the time. Trusting my gut on September 5, 2009 saved my life. I had every reason to discount the feeling of dread that I felt in my kitchen when I heard my heat pipes ticking. Something told me to look a little closer, and that’s when I saw the tiles on the floor heaving. I quickly got to my stairs, without over-thinking what was happening, and despite the thick black smoke, I kept running for my life. Had I delayed even a few minutes or second-guessed my gut, the consequences would have been dire.

2.) It’s okay to ask for help. In the days after my fire, I really tried to pretend that everything was fine, that I was fine, that I was strong and invincible. The truth is that I’m strong, and human. I needed help to sort out the trauma that followed my fire and started to see Brian, my life coach. We started on a journey of self-discovery together and it is one of the most rewarding relationships of my life.

3.) Someone who wants me to move through a traumatic situation at lightning speed for his own sake is not worth having in my life. At the time of my fire, I was dating a guy whom I had really fallen for. He was a prince the day of the fire, though as soon as he saw that this wasn’t just a little blip on the radar screen of my life, he showed the less appealing side of his character. Things quickly unraveled and while we tried to maintain some kind of relationship right after our romance ended, I quickly walked away and have never looked back. That departure started a year-long effort to only have people in my life who believe that love and friendship are a two-way street.

4.) There really is no time like the present. I was sort of floating through life a year ago. I had a job that was okay, but that I honestly felt no passion for. I had been thinking of moving to a more mission-based organization, and now one year later I’m fully on that path. Destination unknown, but I know I’m moving in the right direction now by taking steps toward moving my career toward public education.

5.) Empathy is a must in all of my relationships. At the time of my fire, I worked for a woman who can only be described as wretched. She was not the least bit sympathetic toward my situation, and actually gave me a hard time about taking one day off to work with my insurance company and loaded up my plate with additional work. That moment was a definite breaking point for me, and I decided from then on that I would never work with that type of person again. Empathy is now a non-negotiable in every area of my life. (I got out of the situation with that former boss several months later, and found my way to a better internal position at my company.)

6.) True friends can celebrate with you and cry with you. I’ve had people in my life who are fair weather friends and friends who only show up when the chips are down. Real friends are the ones who show up in both kinds of situations, and everything in between. I’m blessed to have so many people in my life who fit that description.

7.) Your stuff really is just stuff. I lost almost all of my material belongings in the fire. A few things survived, but I essentially had to rebuild my material life. I had gotten to a point where I really valued my material possessions. Now, it’s just not that important to me. I only replaced the essentials – I just didn’t want “things” anymore, and I still don’t. I down-sized in a big way and feel lighter. Even if everything went up in smoke again, so long as my health and the safety of others were preserved, I really would be okay. I am not what I own. (However, PLEASE go get renter’s insurance. The peace of my mind that my Liberty Mutual policy brought me was immense. I had enough emotional fall-out to deal with from the fire itself, so not having to deal with a major financial crisis on top of it was worth every penny of my $200 annual policy.)

8.) This too shall pass. And by “this”, I mean everything. Everything always changes, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. My yoga practice has helped me accept and embrace this fact that my fire so brilliantly illuminated. And it led me to pursue my yoga teacher certification and the founding of Compass Yoga to share these insights.

Not a bad year of learning. And despite the unfortunate circumstances, my fire is the gift that keeps on giving. The lessons I learned as a result have brought tremendous peace and gratitude to my life. It couldn’t have been more unexpected, and looking back I can’t say I’d wish it hadn’t happened. It woke me up, which is exactly what I needed.

The image above is a picture of one of the hallways in my apartment building after the fire.

books, diet, dreams, entertainment, film, food, forgiveness, love, movie, relationships, religion, simplicity

Step 225: The Best Way to Eat Pray Love

Christa Avampato

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Pleasure cannot be bargained down.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

The long-anticipated movie of a woman traveling through the world looking for delicious food, peace of mind, and love opens in theaters nationwide today. Last week I walked by a swanky home store advertising “get your Eat Pray Love scented candles here” in its windows. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, runs an importing business with her new husband. That may explain the commercialization of the film. Still, the merchandising seems like an odd play destined for a less-than-stellar market performance, no matter how high the box office ratings are.

The sad truth is that Eat Pray Love is a well-written book, with lyrical language, rich imagery, and some important insights that, if put to good use, could actually increase people’s happiness. The problem is that it’s been so hyped that most consumers are sick to death of it. And the onslaught of book-related merchandise doesn’t help matters any.

Here’s my suggestion: don’t go to the movie at all. I’m not even sure I’d suggest you read the book at this point. You know how the story goes so it sort of takes the fun out of it. Here’s how you can really live the message of finding your own path, the issue at the heart of the story:

1.) Eat well and enjoy it. Stop mindlessly munching on whatever is within arms reach, enjoy your food with good company, and rather than beating the heck out of yourself for the calories, just exercise more

2.) Pray in your own way. I’m a spiritual person, meaning that the light that is within me honors the light that is within you. Be good to your family, your friends, and your neighbors. Stop asking what the world needs you to do, and just concentrate on doing what brings you joy. That’s where the real goodness is. Recognize that there’s something beyond the here and now, and that we are all intricately and beautifully connected. Honor that connection through service, which is at its essence a divine act.

3.) Love. Forget your past failures in love. Forget the heartache and the tears and the anger and the screwed up behaviors of people who hurt you. Get it all out in the open, let it go, and move on. There’s nothing worse that ruining our next relationship by imbuing it with the problems of the last one. I know it’s hard. I’ve had my heart broken in a million pieces more times than I can count. I’ve got a good family and good friends who help me pick up the pieces and put them back together, and I’m a better person for it, even though it was hell to go through in the first place. Keep loving. The alternative is what causes this world to be such a rough place to live – we shouldn’t make it any worse by carting around our disappointments from one relationship to the next.

And if you really want to know what Elizabeth Gilbert and her journey are all about, watch her TED talk on creativity. In 18 minutes it will inspire you to do something extraordinary, and the world could use a little more of that these days.

The image above depicts Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert in the movie Eat Pray Love, opening today nationwide. I like the sunflowers.

dreams, family, learning, relationships

Step 206: Dreams Must Be Lived

Christa Avampato

My niece, Lorelei, lives in her tutu. It’s one of the first things she asks for in the morning. She loves to put it on, along with her dancing shoes (little black patent leather shoes with bows on the sides), and tap around on the kitchen tiles. She’d be thrilled if we could tile the whole world like a kitchen. She’ll spin, belt out a few Disney musical tunes, and take a bow. She invites everyone else to join in.

Her tutu transforms her – she takes on a new persona with it. It’s her special everyday costume. As I danced around the kitchen with her almost every morning of my vacation, I wondered what my tutu is. What is that one thing I have that transforms me into exactly the person I want to be? What helps me put away any fears I feel for the sake of just living to the fullest?

I have a white puffy calf-length skirt that I bought several years ago. I live in it during the summer. I love to twirl around in it. It makes me feel like I’m in some far away place, like I’m an explorer. It’s one of the few things that survived the fire in my apartment building. I have no idea how the specialty cleaner got the smoke and soot out of it. I bet they bleached the heck out it, and I’m glad they did. That skirt is my version of a tutu.

I’m not a clotheshorse – I actually hate shopping, particularly shopping for clothing. I do think it’s important to have one item that helps us to actualize and crystallize our lives exactly as we wish them to be. It helps to keep dreams in the forefront of our minds.

This week, I worked on numbers, letters, and vocabulary with Lorelei. She taught me about the value of not only having dreams, but also acting out our dreams. I think I got the better end of the deal.

The photo above is my niece, Lorelei, dancing in her tutu. If you have your version of a tutu, I’d love to hear about it!

friendship, relationships, success

Step 203: Get a Buddy

Christa Avampato

Nutrition experts have long extolled the positive benefits of having a buddy to encourage us to stick to healthy eating and exercise habits. Many scientific studies show that a group (even as small as 2 people) that agrees to lose weight and get healthy together has a far greater chance to get and stay healthy. So why not get a buddy for just about everything we want to achieve?

I thought about this idea yesterday when I received an email from a friend of mine whom I met through my yoga teacher training. She has been wanting to do daily meditation and pranayama (breath work), and has had a tough time getting motivated. She asked me if I’d be her meditation buddy and I gladly accepted.

In January 2009 I became very interested in starting my own business, and though I have many friends who are also interested in this endeavor, most have not taken the plunge just yet. I needed to get out there and meet some other would-be entrepreneurs so I started writing a column about entrepreneurship for Examiner.com. In 15 months I wrote 125 columns, most of them featuring start-ups. A collection of 27 of those stories became my first e-book, Hope in Progress. That group of entrepreneurs became my de-facto start-up buddies, people who inspired to get in gear, and they did. I founded Compass Yoga, my own yoga instruction business, in May.

Buddies have taken root in other areas of my life, too. I have writing buddies who inspire me and my writing. I’ve had job search buddies and apartment hunt buddies (you need these in NYC with this rental market!). Buddies have also come to my aid on Innovation Station, my extracurricular education program for middle school students. When I think of the areas of my life where I found the most success, in each I had a buddy.

So where else could I use a buddy these days? Certainly as I ramp up for my first gig as a college professor at LIM College next month. Today I learned about Sprouter, a new online community for entrepreneurs who have just launched – an area where I’d like to connect with other new start-ups. As I’ve gotten more interested in new technology, I started looking for some offline communities in this space. Digital Dumbo is a group of like-minded individuals who are working to make Brooklyn into the next Silicon Valley. I’m attending my first Digital event next Thursday.

What areas of your life could use a buddy?

relationships, silence, values

Step 196: The Angry Truth

Christa Avampato

”The truth will set you free. But first it will piss you off.” ~ Gloria Steinem

I laughed out loud at this quote and then I thought, “You got that right, Gloria.” The truth may lead us to liberation, though first it does make us uncomfortable, particularly if that truth goes against a long-held belief. And what if you’re the truth-sayer of your friends, family, co-workers? What if you and the truth have come to an agreement that it will present itself and you will give it a voice? Do you turn into someone who sets others free, and first makes them angry?

I have this role. Of course I have biases, lens, that filter my view of the world. Everyone does. I am very conscious of the fact that I don’t say the truth, but my truth. I call things as I see them, though I admit that may not always be how they are from every angle. And I encourage other people to say their truth, to gives their points of view freely and openly. The truth, however biased, teaches us something – about ourselves, about others, and about the world. I’ve noticed that my closest friends share my truths. We found each other by speaking our minds. The truth leads us to our pack.

That said, speaking our truths is a tall order. Someone, always, will disagree with us and be angry about our point of view. Even the most saintly of human beings, Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, dealt with this same difficulty. No one who speaks the truth is immune to some type of backlash.

Take the tall order. Freedom isn’t free – it takes guts to find it for ourselves, and even more guts to help others find their own freedom. The alternative is that we all stay kind of content and trapped. That sounds like a serious degree of hell to me. I’d rather speak up and deal with the consequences.

owning pink, relationships, writing

Step 169: My New Column on Relationships on OwningPink.com

Christa Avampato

It’s with great excitement that I announce my new OwningPink.com column on relationships. The brilliant and ridiculously talented Pink team asked me if I’d be interested in being a featured blogger and I couldn’t resist the chance to be more closely linked to them. I was very influenced by Chris Brogan’s recent post on the importance of labs and how they fuel our creativity by pushing us to our edge on a subject we want to understand more deeply. The complexity and wide of relationships (including our relationships with romance, family, friends, money, co-workers, our community, dreams, etc.) is something I want to understand better, so I’m writing my way to understanding through OwningPink.com and inviting all of you along for the ride.

I’ll be posting about twice a month, under the incredible editorial eyes of my dear friend, Joy Mazzola, and her sparkling partner-in-pink-crime, Lauren Nagel. The whole venture is headed by Lissa Rankin, Founder and Pink Doctor of Mojo (what a great title!). Lissa and I connected through Twitter and then I interviewed her for my entrepreneurship column on Examiner. She is a gift in my life.

Would love for you to check out my new column, leave a comment, and click around the site to see all of the other amazing creative work that’s on display.

relationships, swim

Step 69: Waves of Our Lives

Christa Avampato

“When we realize we are the Ocean, we are no longer afraid of the Waves.” ~ Unknown

I learned to swim when I was 30. I could doggy paddle and float on my back just fine as a kid, though no one else in my family swims so I never learned. Finally, I realized I really wanted to learn to scuba dive so I signed myself up for adult swimming lessons at UVA, where I was in graduate school at the time. I did well in that set of lessons, though I must confess that I am still nervous in the water. Despite that I am a Pisces, water is an uncomfortable medium for me.

I saw the quote above on my yoga teacher, Lauren’s, email signature yesterday. Perhaps this realization is what I’ve been missing. I see myself as separate from the water, despite the fact that our bodies are comprised mostly of water. I have been thinking of water as something I need to fight through, not something I need to be in communion with.

And isn’t that the way of our existence in the world, too. In our jobs, our relationships, our hardships, even in our most triumphant moments. Much of our human experience is a battle. We fight over, under, around, and through. But what if we could recognize that we are actually part of the great flow of energy? Could we utilize the energy around us not as something to cut through, but rather as something that is a part of us? That is us. We could take all of the effort we spend to fight our way through and put it toward lifting ourselves up while taking others with us.