change, fear, time

Leap: The 3 Year Anniversary of My Apartment Building Fire

Christa Avampato
My friend Blair sent this to me and said “thought of you………. you ARE fire!” How right she is.

3 years ago today, I scrambled down 3 flights of stairs through blinding black smoke after a fire in my apartment building burned through 3 floors and was on its way into my kitchen. I was one person when I ran from the wreckage and another person when I emerged on the street. In an instant, my life and perspective was forever changed. I didn’t know that at the time but with the gift of 3 years of hindsight, I see how critical that fire was on my path.

It was the turning point. It was a new birthday. It gave me the courage to eventually make the Leap into a life of my own design.

When I quit my corporate job 2 months ago to craft my own career through Chasing Down the Muse, I really quit being afraid. In that instant, I became the person that fire made me become. Heat is a tool of transformation, and in a very visceral way, that fire was a spiritual kiln for my soul. It left an indelible mark on me and I am grateful for it.

In the past 2 months, many people have asked me how they could do the same thing. Here’s my 1 simple piece of advice to everyone who wants to take a Leap of any kind: dig down, way down deep to your core, and ask yourself what happens if everything falls away tomorrow. Is where you are where you hoped to be once this game was all over. If tomorrow the book of your life has the two words “The End”, has it been a ride you’re happy with?

I faced this very grim possibility 3 years ago and my answer was a resounding “No”. I knew something had to change; I knew a lot of somethings had to change and that it would take time. I had to get going. I needed to create a new direction.

I thought I was scrambling down 3 flights of stairs but what I was really doing was crawling through the window of possibility toward my very best self. In that moment, my Leap was set in motion. To quote Sondheim, “that’s where I began being what I can.”

art, blogging, creativity, theatre, time

Leap: Why Create Art?

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” ~ Edgar Degas

I believe in the deep healing of art. I didn’t always believe that. I knew it was healing for me but for a long time I thought my work in the arts was frivolous, self-indulgent, and a waste of time. How time changes and teaches us!

In the 8 years since I left professional theatre management, I have not missed it. The impossibly long hours, the stress and pressure, the constant hustle. Even when you have a job in that business, you’re always looking for work because a gig is gone in the blink of an eye. But I miss it now, in a very deep and passionate way.

More and more, I have thought about trying my hand at it again now that I have a bit more business experience under my belt and a few more lines of time around my eyes. This time I won’t be creating the environment for art for my own sake, but for the sake of others.

adventure, child, childhood, children, creativity, discovery, inspiration, travel

Leap: Have a Little Awe

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.” ~ Albert Einstein

I spend time with my nieces, Lorelei and Aubree, because I love them. I also spend time with them because I am incredibly selfish. They are a constant reminder to me that life is filled with the exciting, the unexpected, and the unprecedented. There are millions of surprises just waiting for us. The world wants to astound us, to make us wonder and wander. It wants us to be free and open to its magic, to follow its lead into the miraculous and previously unimagined. My nieces remind me of all of that whenever they see something I have seen a million times before and regard it with amazement.

Show up with a full heart, open eyes, and perked up ears. You won’t be disappointed. You’ll be inspired.

adventure, learning, Life, teaching

Leap: Life Teaches. It’s Up to Us to Learn.

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

“Life offers its wisdom generously. Everything teaches. Not everyone learns.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

No matter what’s happening to us, we have the opportunity to learn. Good times teach us gratitude and generosity. Tough times teach us about perseverance and dedication. Confusing times teach us about our priorities. Moments of clarity teach us that life doesn’t have to be as difficult as we make it.

Around every corner, there is a chance to meet wisdom, to take her into our lives, and make her feel at home. Just let it happen.

creativity, health, healthcare, hope, hospital, medical, medicine, time

Leap: The Tricky Truth About Using Our Time Efficiently

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

I am by nature an efficiency hound. I hate wasting time, I love to be productive, and I feel an outsized sense of pride as I check off items on my to-do list. Yoga and meditation have taught me a subtle truth about efficiency that I didn’t know for a long time: sometimes what looks inefficient in the short-term is the most efficient thing to do in the name of long-term productivity.

At the suggestion of Anne Lamott, one of my favorite writers, I started reading God’s Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. The book chronicles the 20+ year career of Dr. Victoria Sweet at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, the last almshouse in the country. Low-tech and human-paced the work of Laguna Honda is a far cry from any hospital I’ve ever been to or read about. Early on in the book, Dr. Sweet gives samples of surface inefficiencies that proved to be tremendously helpful when viewed with the gift of time.

There was a nurse who dedicated a good chunk of her work time to hand-knitting blankets for each patient. Efficiency consultants were aghast and put a stop to it. However, those blankets were tangible symbols of how personally vested the entire staff at the hospital was to all patients. It let the patients, many of whom were so ill that no other hospital would admit them, and their family members know how much care and attention was being paid to their health.

Another example of inefficiency was the process of giving Christmas gifts. Collected and wrapped every year, the nursing staff would dole out the gifts randomly and then a day of festive trading between the patients would ensue. It made for a lively atmosphere with plenty of interaction throughout the entire hospital community. Again, the efficiency consultants saw all of this festivity as a terrible waste.

Rather than collect random gifts and wrap them up without any indication of what was inside, the nurses were instructed to ask each patient what they wanted, including size and color, and then that is exactly the gift they would receive. Though the gifts were still lovely, the loss of the trading process deflated the celebration. Christmas at Laguna Honda lost its sparkle when it lost the activity of swapping. And with the loss of celebration, they lost some of the spirit of deep, true healing.

These examples made me think about the efficiency of my own life – my to-do list, the structure of my days, and my constant pursuit of more productivity in less time. These things have their purpose and they’ve served me well but perhaps there’s a bit more wiggle room than I typically allow.

Maybe it’s okay to spend part of my afternoon at a museum today rather than spending that time on business development. Going to the museum probably won’t yield a client contract, but what it may give me in terms of inspiration may be just what the doctor would order and exactly what I need to be at my best tomorrow.

art, creativity, Life

Leap: Pain is Rubbish

Christa Avampato
Image from Khalil Gibran

“I subscribed to the notion that to be able to express yourself in an artistic form in life, you have to live in perpetual pain. It’s nonsense…you don’t have to live it to represent it.” ~ Colin Farrell

The actor Colin Farrell gave this quote in an interview with Ellen earlier this year. As someone who used to work in entertainment, I sympathized with his former perspective. I used to share it and as I got older I realized that empathy went a long toward telling a story with honesty and integrity. Living a life based on method acting was tremendously flawed, less fun, and ultimately less productive than living life from a healthy, balanced perspective.

As a yoga and meditation teacher, I sit with a lot of suffering and pain. It is possible to feel empathy and compassion, without sending ourselves down into a dark spiral. There’s no sense in diving onto a sinking ship. We can’t help people who are drowning from that perspective. It’s far better for us to be on solid ground and offer a hand up and out of the water to those who need us. It’s actually the only thing that does any good.

adventure, choices, creativity, decision-making, time

Leap: When You Don’t Know What To Do, You’re on the Right Track

Christa Avampato
This photo was taken by my yoga teacher, Arturo Peal

“It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” ~ Wendell Berry

It feels good to have direction, to feel confident in the decisions that lie in our past, the choices of our present, and the road of our future.

But what about the fork in the road? We stare for a long time down the path to the left, then pivot to stare an equally long time down the path to the right, and don’t know which to choose. We are keenly aware that with a single step, we are changing our future. We don’t know how it will unfold, but we know that there is no going back. With certain decisions, there’s no way to retrace our steps and make another choice. Things will be forever different.

When the going gets tough, we find that in that moment we actually get going. The Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey lies not in choosing between good options and bad options but good options and equally good options. That choice will allow us to clearly see our own priorities. We will finally know what’s most important to us, and very often it will surprise us and those around us.

Surprise and realization keep life interesting. They keep us engaged. They keep us growing and evolving. Confusion is a good sign that we are getting down to the real work of life – to decide what truly matters and why.

change, friendship, home, moving, relationships, social media, social network

Leap: Social Media Provides Us With Room To Move

Christa Avampato
From Pinterest

As I think more about my potential move to a new city in the coming year, I realize how much freedom social media provides. I’m able to connect with friends and friends of friends to ask questions about potential new homes. And when I do make a decision of where to move, I don’t need to feel like I’m leaving behind my friends in NYC. I won’t see them as often in person but we will still be close with the lines of social networks drawn between us. I also remember that a number of people whom I consider good friends are people I know through this blog and other channels. I talk to many of them daily in one way or another.

This ability to make and keep connections over long distances makes moving easier than it’s ever been before. Moving to a new city doesn’t need to feel isolating or lonely, even while we are in the process of reestablishing our physical social lives. These reflections make a move from New York a less scary proposition, an exciting new possibility, and they open the way for options that I never would have considered before. As the world gets smaller, individual opportunities expand.

charity, nonprofit, yoga

Leap: Quoth the IRS, “Compass Yoga, it’s official. You are a 501(c)3 charitable organization!”

Christa Avampato
From http://www.yoganonymous.com/

Okay, so they actually said, “We are pleased to inform you that upon review of your application for tax exempt status we have determined that you are exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions to you are deductible under section 170 of the Code. You are also qualified to receive tax-deductible bequests, devises, transfers or gifts under section 2055, 2106 or 2522 of the Code.” But doesn’t my title for this post sound much more celebratory, aptly reflecting this enormous milestone?!

I couldn’t be happier with this recent turn of events for Compass Yoga. Actually, the moment I got the email from our attorneys I started doing a little victory dance to the song “Everybody Talks” by Neon Trees. How fitting!

This tax-exempt status sets in motion our opportunity to get the healing benefits of yoga to more people in more places. Great things are happening, and I can’t wait to share the progress with you. Now, the work really begins. If you want to be involved in this journey in any way, please contact me. We’d love to have you climb aboard our ship. There’s room for everyone who wants to be a warrior of wellness.

dreams, opportunity

Leap: How to View People Properly

Christa Avampato
From http://curlygirlstore.com

“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.