Worry is an invention of the mind. What we worry about rarely ever happens. It’s our brain’s way of preparing us for the worst. And while it is helpful to be prepared, there’s a balance to be struck. We don’t want to underestimate the possibilities and not be ready for a situation, and we don’t want to overestimate unfortunate circumstances and drive ourselves into a hysterical mess. Worry is only useful if it helps to keep us safe and a divided mind is no place to seek refuge.
There are some people who place greater value on the right or left brain. The left brain is our analytical powerhouse. The right brain is our creative genius. We need both to live a fully actualized, authentic life. Our days are richer when we can see the big picture and the intricate details. Meditation brings it all together. In fact, I’ve found it to be the only method that brings it all together in an efficient and useful manner.
There are many methods of meditation – observing the breath, the Ham-Sa kriya, object gazing, sound meditation, walking meditation, and the list goes on. The goal of all of the methods is to get us to recognize our own individual existence in relation to the greater universe, and to understand the two are actually one.
We are whole in and of ourselves and we are whole as one giant and beautiful mass of energy and potential. The only trick to meditation is the desire to experience that unity and then to root it back down into our living so that we can share it with others.
“Every child begins the world again.” ~ Henry David Thoreau
On Thursday mornings at 10:30am, I teach a Chair Yoga for Seniors class. And these seniors aren’t the newly retired. Most of them are in their 80’s and 90’s and they are as spry as can be. I’m hoping that by teaching this class, a bit of their well-aged spunk will stick with me when I’m (God-willing) their age.
One of these students came up to me last week with a question.
“I’ve got a bit of a nagging injury,” Muriel said to me.
“Okay. What’s that?” I asked, assuming it was something that is common with arthritis or something similar.
“Well, my upper arm around my shoulder area has been hurting for the last few days.”
“Did you sleep on it funny or hit it on something recently.”
“Well, I started playing ping-pong at this place just down the street a little while ago and I’m really getting into it. I’ve played every afternoon for the last week and I think I may have overdone it.”
I had to laugh at myself. Here I was thinking she had some symptom of aging and it’s actually a sports-related injury. I should have known better with this group of active seniors. Muriel is especially effusive about my class. A few weeks ago, she let me know that the meditation portion of the class has been transformational for her.
“I cannot believe how easily peace settles into me now when I’m meditating. I’ve never felt this peaceful in my entire life, and I’ve been alive a long time. I wish I had known about this earlier!”
I was very proud of Muriel and her sore muscles. “Muriel, this is wonderful. This means you’re building strength in your arms, just like when you go to the gym!”
“I’m actually very excited about this ping-pong. It’s so good for me. Check this out,” she said as she flexed her biceps and asked me to feel them. There was a definitive muscle there. “Can you believe it? First time in my life I’ve ever had muscles in my arms. It took me this long to build them!”
I gave her the advice to alternate ice and heat and give herself a bit more rest to heal her shoulder.
“Do you play ping-pong, Christa?”
In truth the only version of ping-pong I’ve ever played is beer pong. “No, I’ve never played proper ping-pong before,” I replied.
“Well, we will have to play some time. I can teach you. When I come to class next week, we’ll set a date and time. This will be marvelous! But we’ll have to get there early in the afternoon when they open. Otherwise, there’s a crowd. And don’t worry, we can play downstairs where it’s less crowded so you won’t feel self-conscious as a newbie.”
And with that, Muriel got her coat and made her way outside into the big, bad world. I thought about Muriel all afternoon and the deep, beautiful lesson she taught me during our conversation.
At every age, there are new experiences waiting for us. Too often, we think old age equates with decline. For my seniors, this couldn’t be further from the truth. They’re bringing newness into their lives all the time – whether that’s through taking a yoga class or building biceps at 90-something years old.
Golden years can certainly be golden. It’s all a matter of perspective, attitude, and the courage it takes to try something new.
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” ~ Ken Robinson
Being wrong is underrated. It usually comes about because we went out on a limb, tried something new, or put forward an idea that was provocative and against the grain. These actions have so much merit, regardless of the outcome because they require boldness, courage, and passion. It’s hard to overstate the value of these qualities in the pursuit of a well-lived life.
“Wrong” used to be akin to a curse word for me. I was afraid of what may happen if I was wrong, whether that meant giving answers on a math quiz, starting a new relationship, or speaking my mind. Despite the fear I did these things anyway, either because I had to (fear was not a reason to not take a math quiz) or because I was just too curious about the outcome to not try (please refer to my dating history.)
And you know what terrible thing befell me when I was wrong? Nothing. Life just went on. Perhaps I was a little (or a lot) embarrassed. On occasion I was mad that situations didn’t go the way I wanted them to go. Every once in a while I was sadly disappointed. No matter. In due time, I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and started again.
Now I barely even blink when I’m wrong. I recognize my mistake, I learn, and I move on. I don’t waste any time analyzing to death the error of my ways. I don’t beat myself up over it. I’ve learned to revel in my humanness – flaws, foibles, and all. And I’ve also learned to revel in the humanness of others, which is a gift all its own.
So go ahead. Risk looking like a fool because you went after something with your whole heart. Take a chance, a big chance that may cause you to fall flat on your face. Even if this comes to pass, your own resilience will surprise you. You’re stronger, more adaptable, and quicker-to-heal than you think.
“Your thoughts, words, and deeds are painting the world around you.” ~ Jewel Diamond Taylor
Life isn’t happening to you. You aren’t being forced into a job, relationship, home, frame of mind, or attitude. These are all choices. How your days unfold is a result of your decisions, one after the other.
And here’s the really beautiful part: everything, and I mean everything, can be changed, fixed, and improved. And the person to do that is you.
It is within your power, within your right, to have exactly the life you want. If something isn’t working, if something is bringing you down, then you can take the steps to correct that. You can move toward joy, from wherever you are right now.
Your life is your canvas; paint a picture you’ll never grow tired of looking at. Don’t accept anything less.
“Sometimes the little opportunities that fly at us each day can have the biggest impact.” ~ Danny Wallace
In a time when emotions are running high, I’ve found myself compelled to be more patient. When I’m on the subway with people who are pushing and losing their temper because of the intense crowding and delays, I am driven to be more tolerant, to smile more, to give others the right of way even when it’s my turn.
So often we think we must do something big to really make a difference. We have to start a company or organization, make a huge donation, or broadcast our message through a megaphone of some form. During this odd time in New York City as we are reminded of the power of nature and the incredible gift of neighbors helping neighbors, I am learning about the immense value of small, everyday kindnesses that we can all give and receive.
They give us a sense of belonging. They cause us to pay it forward, igniting a chain reaction of compassion and courtesy. It’s in these small moments that we recognize just how connected we all are. And it’s a really beautiful thing to understand.
Last night I went to ISHTA Yoga for the first time since Hurricane Sandy hit. I deeply missed my yoga home and being away from it made me realize how important it is for me as a staple in my life. We are so lucky that the studio didn’t incur any damage other than loss of power.
On my way to the studio, I was conscious of how tight and uncomfortable I was. This week I had two interviews for new freelance work that went very well though the preparation days leading up to them left me surprisingly stressed. They are both wonderful jobs and I’m eager to work with these mission-driven organizations. The roles are highly creative and dovetail perfectly with my passion for education.
While I was preparing for these interviews, I also spent a fair amount of my energy getting my head around the difficulties being faced by so many of my fellow New Yorkers in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It’s as if we are living in two parallel worlds. One in which life is perfectly fine and proceeding as normal, and 5 miles away one that has descended into complete chaos with leveled homes, unbelievable loss of life and valuables, no power, no running water, and no heat. And all of this on the eve of another storm heading our way that may bring us our first dusting of snow and 60 mile per hour winds.
As I settled down onto my mat, I was considering how best to care for an open heart, how to be with people in times of distress without inheriting that stress. It is difficult but it can be done. And the trick is in our roots.
As my teacher, Douglass Stewart, walked into the room and began to talk us through our class. I felt myself release down into the mat, down into the Earth. What I’ve been missing in these past few days is the stability of grounding. Douglass, who always seem to know the perfect thing to say at every moment, asked us to firmly plant ourselves down, through our feet and hands, to feel that the Earth below us is stable and supportive. He asked us to recognize that the further we sink our roots, the higher we can fly. I felt that sentiment so strongly that my eyes began to fill up. That was my missing link.
When we feel like the wind is whipping us around, when we feel like everything around us is swirling at breakneck speed, it’s the ability to root down, to find that which gives us stability and strength, that helps us to rise. I am so grateful to ISHTA for being a part of that which helps me feel rooted so that I can be free and available to be of service, particularly in times of difficulty.
Keep breathing, New York. We’ll get through this together.
Yesterday I learned about two great job opportunities that I wanted to pass along. If you’re interested, please let me know and I can get more information to you!
The first is at Sesame Workshop where I am a consultant for The Joan Ganz Cooney Center (JGCC), the digital media research lab at Sesame. So, the best part of this job is that you’d get to work with me. (Kidding, kind of.) JGCC is hiring a Senior Project Manager to work on a wide variety of impactful projects around education and technology. The job is posted on Idealist.org and is now taking applications. I could fill up a whole post with the perks of this job, but I’ll keep it short and say that the JGCC team is stellar, the projects are filled with goodness, and there is flexibility in schedule. The job is based in New York City at the Sesame Workshop offices. (Yes, where Grover, Cookie, Elmo, and the whole gang spend their time.) Click here for the complete job description and to apply.
The second is an Executive Director role with The Mind Fitness Training Institute. This is a DC area 501(c)(3) non-profit research and training organization dedicated to teaching mindfulness and resilience skills that enhance performance and strengthen response to stress, change and uncertainty. The job is not yet posted but if you are interested in learning more about it, please let me know and I will get the details for you from my friend who let me know about the opportunity.
I like to help good people work with good causes. Please pass on these opportunities through your network.
Finding our true north is about deciding what matters.
Next week will mark 5 months since I left my corporate job to start Chasing Down the Muse, my own consulting and teaching practice. I did this for many reasons though there is one reason that stands head and shoulders above the others: I wanted to work on projects that matter to me. I care deeply about education (defined broadly as cultivating the imagination by stoking our creative fire with inspiration and information), healthcare (defined broadly as helping all people attain their maximum level of wellness), and strengthening entrepreneurship / small business.
I was working a corporate job in financial services. It didn’t add up. This is not to say that I think financial services is a terrible place to spend a career. On the contrary, I am grateful that I spent time in this industry because it helped me to understand the mechanics of our economy during an unprecedented crisis. It just wasn’t right for me anymore in this capacity. So, I left in an attempt to find a better path with a safety net that consists only of my savings account and my passion to live an authentic life.
Planning to leave wasn’t easy. I had a cushy gig with nice people (many of whom I am honored to have as friends), regular work hours, a healthy paycheck, and a solid benefits package. It was a lot to walk away from but I’ve never looked back. These benefits paled in comparison to the possibility of doing the work I am meant to do, the work I am called to do.
I should have been scared. On paper this looks like an extraordinarily naive decision made by a wide-eyed twenty-something, not a thirty-, on the verge of forty-something, who’s been around the block a number of times. But here I am, 5 months later and resolute in the fact that given the chance I would absolutely do it all over again and perhaps sooner.
There isn’t a single day when I say to myself “I really should have stayed where I was.” Even when it’s hard, even when I haven’t had things work out as I planned or expected, I continue to feel motivated and inspired by possibility and opportunity. I’m always confident that something I really wanted doesn’t work out because room had to be made for something I have not yet even dreamed of.
To chart a new course, to step off the ledge, requires the belief in our ability to fly even if we have never taken flight before. Certainly, it requires equal amounts of conviction and lunacy because there is no proof, evidence, or guarantee of success. We make these kinds of decisions based on guts and faith.
You might think this is a recipe for anxiety but it’s exactly the opposite. Somehow, I am now calmer, clearer, and more relaxed than I’ve ever been. It’s the greatest feeling in the world to be free, happy, healthy, and fulfilled. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel like the luckiest, most blessed, grateful person on the planet. To somehow repay the world for this incredible opportunity, I put these thoughts down on paper in the hopes that they help you find your own true north.
Never, ever doubt that your wildest, most wonderful dreams are not only possible, but also probable, if you set out to find them.
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Most people have no business managing others because they have no idea how to positively motivate others. In this void of motivation, managers think the best idea is to have update meetings with their team members so the team can offer up detailed lists of what they’re working on to account for their time.
How many of these meetings have you been in? And how many of those meetings left you inspired? I find meetings like this useless. If you’re an adult and you have a job that you care about, you just do whatever it takes to get the job done in the time that you have to do it. You go to your manager when you need help or want to talk through an idea. Why waste time accounting for the hours you worked by preparing a detailed list of tasks for your boss? That sounds unbelievably inefficient to me and it communicates a true lack of trust and respect between managers and their team members.
Here’s a better idea for managers: build a team that actually cares deeply and passionately about the work. Motivate them by caring about who they are as people and being vested in their success. My former boss, Bob G., had one simple belief about teams. When he hired me he said, “Christa, I hope you are really successful at this company. But more importantly, I support you personally. I want to see you as a person be happy and successful and I’ll do anything I need to do to make that happen.”
I was more motivated to work for Bob than any other boss I’ve ever had. This belief in how to manage also presented another unintended consequence: because I was so self-directed working for Bob, I became entirely self-directed in all of the work that followed. That sense of self-direction in a job made entrepreneurship much less scary for me down the line.
Unfortunately, Bob spoiled me with this attitude. He set the bar too high. I have expected every boss after him to be this wise and supportive. The fact that I now work as a freelancer should tell you that every boss I’ve had after him failed to rise to his level. Once you get used to working for someone like Bob who has an enlightened view of management, you can’t go back to the dark days of micromanagement.
Bob’s outlook is all too rare these days. But it doesn’t have to be rare. Anyone could take this point-of-view. Anyone could decide at any moment to give their team members freedom to grow, experiment, and shape their work. What have you got to lose? Try it in small steps with small projects and see how it goes. You’ll be surprised by how high your team can soar when you give them the opportunity fly.
Parts of Downtown Manhattan saw the light tonight for the first time in almost a week. From NYTimes webcam
“Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” ~ Ray Bradbury, American writer
I have been glued to my television this week. With transportation being a tangled knot, if it exists at all, I wanted to let those who really need public transit access it without people like me adding noise to the system. In the past day or so, I’ve found myself incredibly anxious and antsy even though I was completely unaffected by the ravages of Hurricane Sandy. I donated money to the Red Cross but that one action wasn’t sufficient for me when my city is in such dire need. I needed to stop watching and start doing.
This weekend, local efforts to mass mobilize volunteers are getting underway. After signing up for countless lists, my inbox is flooded with requests for help and I couldn’t be happier. I’m rolling up my sleeves, heading outside, and pitching in. It will take all of our creativity, patience, and compassion to get us moving again. We can’t just try to make a difference; we must actually make a difference. The health of our city depends upon it.
If you’re in New York City, or plan to be, and you want to lend a hand, New Yorkers can use your support. Visit nyc.gov/service to learn about volunteer opportunities with the City and community-based organizations working on the recovery. Please check the website periodically in the coming days as they update the opportunities.
