Category: writing

art, blogging, pictures, writing

Beginning: My Tumblr Blog – Born into Color

Christa Avampato

Becoming a storyboard artist
I’ve been trying to find the right channel to share my love for design and creative living in a visual way. This blog is really meant more for my writing. This blog is a storyteller’s project, and while a picture can be worth a thousand words, pictures need their own space. I went looking for a place online that was easy to update on the go, that I could largely populate from my mobile phone as I’m out in the world, living it up. In short, I needed a channel to document my usual shenanigans and let them really shine.

Tumblr gets my vote
Enter Tumblr, a ridiculously user-friendly microblogging service that lives somewhere between mainstream blogging and Twitter. Post a quote, link, picture, video, audio clip, or some short text (perhaps slightly longer than 140 characters.) The mobile app has all kinds of features that are easy to use and make posting a cinch. I’m giddy just thinking about this new online adventure. I will post whenever I see or experience something really interesting that I want to share but that doesn’t necessarily warrant a full written post on this blog.

Pictures make a better brain
Lately I’ve been reading a lot about how to build a better brain. There’s a lot of evidence for visual learners to try to improve their auditory skills and for auditory learners to try to improve their visual skills. I am part of the latter group – the weird ones. (Seriously – only 10% of people are auditory learners.) We’re the people who never forget a conversation or something we read, through are highly unlikely to remember what shirt we wore yesterday. I think in words, not pictures. Temple Grandin inspired me to try to make pictures a bigger part of my life. And I’d always like to find ways to boost my brainpower.

Born into Color is born
So here we go – the visual storyteller in me finally gets the chance to have her say in pictures. The title of my blog “Born into Color” is inspired by a line from a poem by Rumi entitled “Quietness”. Appropriate for a girl trying to use fewer words and more pictures. This is my attempt to “Become the Sky. Escape. Walk outside like someone suddenly born into color.” Isn’t that image beautiful – to imagine that every time I set foot outside my home I’m suddenly transformed by the world around me, like a black and white film suddenly brought to life by color.

I’ll be updating the Born into Color regularly while I am at SXSW. I’ll be presenting Taming the Monkey Mind: Yoga and Creative Focus and teaching yoga. If you’re going to be in Austin, let me know so we can meet up! Follow Born into Color by clicking here.

costa rica, courage, writing, yoga

Beginning: Trust that Yoga Can Help You Find Balance On and Off the Mat

Christa Avampato

“Falling out of balance doesn’t matter, really and truly. How we deal with that moment and how we find out way back to center, every day, again and again – that is the practice of yoga…it’s about trusting that you will find your way.” ~ Cyndi Lee, Founder of OM Yoga

This month’s issue of Yoga Journal is packed with incredible articles and heartfelt quotes that made me stop mid-article and remember all of the wisdom available to all of us in this ancient practice. In yoga there is a disproportionate amount of emphasis placed on getting to a certain destination – a particular variation of a posture, an end goal of improvement in some area such as flexibility or strength, or the simple desire to stop the whirring of our minds. What I love about Cyndi Lee’s quote above is that she offers a goal accessible to everyone, at every level of ability. When we lose our balance, can we maintain our grace, learning from the fall, and find the strength to try again?

We all fall out of balance, on and off the mat, and when it happens there’s a gut reaction of frustration. We rant and beat ourselves up and immediately begin to draft up huge changes that we’re going to make so that this lack of balance never happens again. It’s a never-ending battle, this pursuit of balance, and here’s why: balance isn’t something we always have in a snapshot in time. Balance, sustainable and freeing, is something we have over long stretches of time, not in snippets. In a certain posture, we may find extreme ease and balance, but it the remainder of our practice, feels out of whack, that moment of balance in one postures won’t remain in our hearts. Conversely, if our whole practice feels balanced and we struggled at the edge of a posture here and there, then we feel more peaceful and grounded.

In our life off the mat our job, relationship, family, friends, or a particular project may require the majority of our attention. The next day, our focus may need to belong to something different entirely. The key is to think about life balance over many day, weeks, and months. Has it been too long since you’ve been out with friends or spent some quality time just taking care of you? Have you been consumed by one project while other activities that you feel passionately about languish on the vine? Balance is about tending to the part of our lives that needs us most at this moment.

The image above can be found at http://www.tiffanyyoga.com/index.php

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

learning, writing

Beginning: A Little Practice Today Will Go A Long Way Tomorrow

Christa Avampato

A lot of people ask me how I can write every single day. “How can you possibly have time for that?” “Do you sleep?” “Is someone else ghostwriting for you?” “Did you quit your job?” These are actually questions people have asked me – most of them people I’ve never met. Those who know me, whether through this wonderful cyber bloggy world or in every day life already know the answers.

1.) We actually do have time to do things we really want to do.

2.) I used to battle with insomnia but yoga and meditation helped me get some shut eye. Now I sleep better than I have ever slept in my life.

3.) No, no one else writes this blog. I do love my guest posters, though, and they get full credit for their work.

4.) I still have a day job – gotta pay those student loans somehow. And I started my own business, Compass Yoga, on the side.

The trick of how to write every day? Practice. Not complicated. If you really want to write, then write. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes a day. Put fingers to keyboard, pen to notebook, crayon to paper. Use whatever medium you enjoy and crank. Some of it will be brilliant and a lot of it will be throw-away. That’s okay. You’re just practicing. And the beautiful thing about practice is that the more you do, the better you get. Almost 4 years ago when I started my daily writing journey I wrestled with every word. My delete button was worn out from overuse.

But here’s the thing – I kept going. And now, the words do flow more easily. I find inspiration for my writing everywhere. You will frequently find me scribbling in my moleskin book or typing some note into my phone to write about later. My practice writing and curating creative experiences has made me realize just how much more there is to write about and experience. And that’s what keeps me going.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

books, money, writing, yoga

Beginning: I’m a Penny Pincher on the Right Path

Christa Avampato

Last week I took a quiz from O Magazine and Suze Orman about my financial personality. I’ve been working on a book idea that combines yoga and personal finance so my brain is currently equally divided between the two disciplines, seeing so many connections and symmetries. The research for the book led me to this financial personality quiz. The result? 3 b’s and 3 e’s which makes me a I’m a penny-pincher on the right track – a person with miser tendencies who has hopes of financial liberation. The quiz is a few years old but the system holds true. I couldn’t have described by financial personality more succinctly.

On being a penny-pincher:
“You’re a penny-pincher. Being a penny-pincher doesn’t mean you’re poor; on the contrary, you probably have more than enough to live on. But you won’t spend your money; you hoard it because you are afraid to let it go—which means, in my opinion, that you are afraid of never having enough. This fear often comes from a very realistic place. Usually, people who are penny-pinchers grew up in families where either money or love was scarce; as a result, the kids grew up with fear and shame—two big obstacles to wealth. When you block the flow of money out, you also block the flow of money in. You need to open your clenched fist to receive—even if it’s one finger at a time.”

On being on the right track:
“You’re on the right track. Congratulations! You are creating a life where people come first, then money, then things. [For those who don’t know, this is Suze’s simple mantra on how to live life as well as how to make and spend money.] Either you grew up in a family that had a very healthy relationship with money or one that was so disrespectful of money that you refused to repeat its serious mistakes. Either way, you’ve learned to value who you are over what you have. You’re on the right road.”

On writing my book about yoga and personal finance:
In writing this book, I deal with my own hang-ups, memories, and fears about money. And there are many. Though I’m learning that they are all manageable and I’ve come so far in making peace with finance, and seeing as energy and a tool rather than a burden and chore to manage. Writing the book is helping in that process. And when it’s fully written, edited, and published, I hope it will help many others, too.

That’s the most wonderful thing about being a writer – we write to liberate ourselves, to throw off the chain of our own making and by the very act of putting our writing out into the world, we help others do the same. Writing is and always will be the most selfish and selfless act; a gift we give to ourselves as much as we give to others.

Take the quiz and let me know where you landed on the scale!

This blog is also available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

fiction, writing

Beginning: Strange As Fiction

Christa Avampato

This post is available as a podcast on Cinch and iTunes.

“Writing is my vacation from living.” ~ Eugene O’Neill via Quotes4Writers

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” ~ E L Doctorow via Quotes4Writers

Fiction writing is difficult for me. Writing directly from my life in the first person as I do on this blog is far easier. Fiction writing is really an act of faith, fumbling around in the dark, not quite sure where it’s going, or how or even why. The characters are strangers to the writer at the beginning of the project and they’re family by the end of it.

Over the past month I’ve been working on some fiction writing. Actually bits and pieces of it have been in the making for a number of years. First as a series of short stories I played around with, then as the start of several different complete stories that I thought may eventually see the light of day. Then as I was out running some errands this afternoon, I realized that all these stories actually hang together, that all of these characters that I thought were so separate actually live near one another and their lives will cross and re-cross in ways that I didn’t realize as I was writing each smaller, separate piece. And that meshing together got me jazzed to learn more about them.

Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Fiction writing is a crazy process. I don’t understand all of its inner workings, how stories and characters and through lines come together into a cohesive whole. There’s a little magic thrown in for certain. Our imaginations are wondrous, wild, and precious things.

I do know that fiction writing stokes my creativity more than non-fiction writing. It scares me in the same way that meeting new people can sometimes be scary. We have to take a chance on these characters, and sometimes they disappoint us and hold up a mirror to us so that we see things about ourselves that we would really prefer to ignore.

I’ve tried to let them go sometimes, but I can’t. Years later, despite my neglect, these characters are still hanging around my writing door, determined to stay there until I let them in, give them some tea, and get to know their stories. They are stubborn and will not be silenced. I appreciate those traits. I’m the same way, so I’ve decided to let them have their say. Pen to paper, taking dictation.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

adventure, career, creativity, guest blogger, health, writing

Beginning: Guest Post by Monica McCarthy of Morning Do

Christa Avampato

Monica McCarthy is one of my favorite Twitter-turned-real-life connections (@MissMcCarthy). She is an actress and holistic health coach living in New York City. Her blog, Morning Do, is a collection of her writings on healthy living. Monica is having a transformative 2011 already and I’m so thrilled that she agreed to write a guest post. She writes here about her love of new beginnings and some of her latest adventures.

When I was in elementary school I won first place in a writing competition for a poem entitled Every Ending Is A New Beginning. Little did I know then how many new beginnings would take place over the years.

I love new beginnings, always have. Maybe that’s because as a kid, I spent my summers jumping from one summer camp to another while both of my parents worked. Every week or two there were new places to explore, new friends to meet, new things to do.

As an adult, I have a similar approach when it comes to career. The results of a personality/career test I took recently stated the most important component of my Ideal Career was Spontaneity. Yep – that sounds about right.

This past year, the pull of New Beginnings strengthened tenfold. I became certified as a Holistic Health Coach after having switched to a vegan lifestyle after having understudied actress and vegan Alicia Silverstone in a Broadway play. In an effort to learn everything I could about the benefits of a plant-based diet, I also interned for the radiant Kris Carr for a bit and assisted the lovely Victoria Moran, both incredibly knowledgeable women in the vegan/health community.

Last October I started the Healthy Living website Morning DO and entered the amazing and fascinating world of blogging and social media where I’ve met some extraordinary people like Christa!

Oh, and I got engaged! So now I’m entering the crazy world of DIY weddings. Oh, I also started taking French classes because I love languages and had never studied French. Oh, and last month I took my first photography class. Oh, and last week I ran in my first New York Road Runners Race. Oh, and at the end of this month I’m taking my first painting class.

I guess you could say I’m a new beginnings fanatic. I believe we learn more about ourselves every time we try something new. The catch, of course, is we can’t do everything at once. There are still only 24 hours in a day. Every new beginning must lead to an end.

Which leaves me with just one question: What’s next?

Monica McCarthy is a certified Holistic Health Coach, writer, and actress living in NYC. She loves helping her clients transform their health and happiness in ways they never even thought possible. Her passion for healthy lifestyle make-overs is the basis for her website MorningDO.com where you can find useful tips and helpful hints along with a daily Morning DO exercise. Monica lives with her fiance and their rescue pup and spends her free time planning for their DIY wedding.

interview, writing, yoga

I’m featured today on Liz Massey’s site, Creative Liberty

Christa Avampato

My first interview of 2011! Liz Massey, the author of Creative Liberty, featured my writing and yoga practice today. We got to talking about creative habits and rituals, and how to get creativity flowing again when we’re stuck. It was a fun interview and Liz’s curiosity is inspiring. I’m flattered to be included with such a wonderful group of creative souls as part of her “In the Studio” series.

Check out the interview here.

career, dreams, writing

Beginning: My First Blog Circa 2004 And How I Haven’t Changed

Christa Avampato

This post is also available as a podcast. Click here to listen.

I joined Blogger in 2004 with a tiny collection of writing before I even really knew what blogging meant. I guess that was before anyone knew what blogging meant. There are exactly 26 posts on my first blog, which I titled “Eyes and Ears Wide Open”. I made it private because I was afraid someone would read it. Ha! Silly, and hilarious when now I live so much of my life online for anyone in the world to see.

There are still a few things I keep to myself. Or at least I used to. I used to moderate comments on this blog. I’m not doing that any more. Any one who puts a comment on my blog will see it published immediately. [Mom, please refrain from any gushing in the comments section. Just send me an email telling me how awesome I am. :)] Another thing I used to do a lot of was poetry writing. I won some very tiny poetry contests when I was a teenager and in my early twenties. There are a few of my poems out there published in anthologies, though I don’t own a single copy of any of them. Most of what’s on my first blog is poetry, deeply personal narratives that I never intended for any other soul to read.

Until now. In this year of new beginnings, I’m working on an illustrated book of those poems and a few others I’m writing, sprinkled with my doodles on my new Wacom Bamboo, a drawing tablet that connects to my Mac. My brother-in-law is a genius with his drawing tablet; me – I’m purely an amateur. I thought in looking back at my first blog that I’d see so much progress, that I’d changed so much as a person. I actually laughed out loud when I saw how similar I am to my 27-year old self. Outwardly, my life may be very different. On the inside, I’m still the same gal, but now with more real confidence.

To give a flavor of just how similar I am, and just how out-of-whack some aspects of my life are with how I’d like them to be, here is a post from December 2004 about cubicles. Despite my distaste for them, I work in one. I’m part of the legion of cubicles dwellers that I promised myself 7 years ago that I’d never be again. Life makes me laugh, and then shake my head, and then get up and make some serious changes. By December 31, 2011, I’m bound and determined to finally live up to the promise I made in the post below many years ago.

Saturday, December 11, 2004
Cubicles

I will never understand the human desire to set up boundaries and divisions, to seal themselves off from one another. Why is it important for people to say, “I am this and you are that. I sit here and you sit there”? I hate the cubicle culture and I fear it’s growing at a furious pace. I am getting off the train here – no more cubicles for me. And when I’m running my own operations, I will refuse to have cubicles. I’m actually going to business school on a quest to get rid of cubicles. To make them as obsolete as slide rules.

I recently saw a photo of an office that didn’t have walls between desks, but had gigantic tropical fish tanks winding through the office. You can see the person on the other side of you. You can take a boat and send it “down tank” with a message for a colleague. If we must have boundaries, then can we at least make them transparent and filled with color and life?

The image above is the one that inspired my post back in 2004. Not as inspiring as I remember it. I would make my office fish tank much more colorful.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

experience, writing

Beginning: New Writing Intention for 2011

Christa Avampato

Listen to a podcast of this post on Cinch.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” ~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

As I moved closer to my goal of Step 365 on my path to extraordinary living, I started to worry about what I would set as my writing intention for 2011. In 2009, I set out to write a post every day that discussed something that made me feel more hopeful. In 2010, I wrote a daily post that described one more step I was taking to live an extraordinary life. I learned so much in those 2 years, and it felt like a streak that would be tough to maintain in 2011.

And then my friend, Amanda, sent me a lovely email and asked me to write a guest post for her blog ZENyc, which focuses on how to maintain balance in the crazy place we know and love as New York City. Of course I said yes and I asked her if she had a specific topic she wanted me to address. She didn’t have anything particular in mind, just a post about how I stay sane in New York.

The mere suggestion of my sanity was very flattering. Sometimes I feel totally off-kilter but apparently I am holding it together well for a majority of the time. New York keeps us on our toes – we grow comfortable with being uncomfortable from time to time. You’ve gotta be a little nuts to live here, and a little more nuts to stay for a while. Thankfully, I’m a lot nuts – gratitude to my upbringing by a very bohemian mother and an austere, psychoanalyst father – so not only do I choose to stay in New York, but I also choose to call it home.

For Amanda’s guest post, I batted around the idea of writing about yoga, having a dog, my amazing friends, my writing, having a quiet home – all topics that I write about all the time. I wanted to do something really unique for Amanda, offer something up to her readers that would be new and helpful. I wrote, re-wrote, and tossed away a number of posts. None seemed quite right.

About the same time that Amanda asked me to write the guest post, one of my co-workers told me about his New Year’s Resolution to be open to new experiences. He said it worked well for him in 2010 and he was thinking of taking it up again in 2011. That sounded like a good idea to me, and inspired me to write a guest post for Amanda’s blog about the topic of beginning. It takes courage to try something new. To have a beginner’s mind seems to me to be the best way to stay balanced. If we’re always beginners, always learning, always energized, always bold and courageous, then it’s possible to achieve great things while keeping our humility. We don’t know what we don’t know, so as beginners we experiment and explore and try, and then try again without beating ourselves up or second-guessing ourselves.

Just writing that post on the beginner’s mind was invigorating, and it got me jazzed to head out into the world and try all sorts of new, cool things. It put more fun and laughter into my writing and my life. Calling myself a beginner, I was able to look at everything with new, fresh eyes. And before I knew it, I had my writing intention for 2011. (Thank you, Amanda!)

In 2011, you’ll find all of my beginnings recorded here. All of my bumbling, fumbling, and shenanigans as I try these new beginner shoes on for size will be exhibited daily for your reading pleasure. Sometimes it will be a story of some experience I had or person I met or place I went. It may just be a cartoon or a quote or a picture. I’ll write about my new business, Compass Yoga, and how it’s going. I hope you’ll come along for the ride with me, take in the sights and sounds of a new writing journey, and tell me about your new adventures, too.

Let’s get going – as an old Levi’s ad once said, “the frontier is all around us.” Our frontiers are waiting.

The image above cracks me up. I hope it makes you laugh, too. Find it here.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.

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.