creative process, creativity, yoga

Beginning: A Creative Update On Compass Yoga

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

Despite the rainy weather over the weekend, I was able to focus a lot of my creative energies toward Compass Yoga. The site has been updated and the service and product ideas are flowing! The Board and I have been talking through some new ideas to spread our efforts to a wider audience. Here’s a brief update of how we’re doing:

Board:
The Compass Yoga Board of Directors is in place and in a constant dialogue on how to shape the organization going forward. Check out their bios and personal mission statements here.

Partnerships:
We’re moving ahead on the partnership front with classes. Beginning October 7th, there will be a weekly yoga and mediation class at the VA Hospital in Manhattan for the medical staff. We’re in talks with several other potential partners where we hope to offer classes and programs by the end of the year.

Incorporation:
We are grateful for legal counsel and support from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and the incredible probono attorneys who have volunteered to help us. We will be working closely with them in the coming months on our nonprofit incorporation and tax-exempt status.

Online resources:
In the coming months, Compass Yoga will be releasing a set of online multi-media resources that help to fulfill our mission to “provide yoga to populations who have a specific healthcare need for the therapeutic healing that a yoga practice offers.” There is no shortage to the ways in which we can offer up our teachings, unencumbered by geography and language.

New York Public Library classes:
I am thrilled to announce that Compass Yoga‘s members of Karmi’s Angels are taking over the classes at the Bloomingdale branch of the New York Public Library. As my work on administrative work on Compass ramps up and I turn a good deal of my attention toward our Veteran Program, Sarah and Suzanne offered to divide up the classes at the NYPL. In September, the classes will shift to Thursday evenings from 6:00pm – 6:55pm and will continue to be free and open to all.

Other areas under development:
Compass is currently working on securing PR representation to spread the good word on our good works. We’re also putting together a few potential workshop ideas, scouting out funding resources, and continuing work on the book project for yoga and finance.

Want to get involved?
Join us! Check out the “Get Involved” section of our website and connect with us on Facebook.

apple, inspiration, technology

Beginning: What Steve Jobs Taught Me

Christa Avampato

There are plenty of people out there playing pundit about the fate of Apple now that Steve Jobs has stepped down. When I heard about his resignation, I at first felt a real sadness and then my attention quickly turned to gratitude for what he gave to all of us. While Apple and its team have drawn so much benefit from his leadership, I also realized that just by watching and studying him and interacting with the products and staff of his company we have gained so much. We owe him so many thank yous.

Here is a start:

Never give up; rely on your intuition – After his board sent him packing, it would have been very easy for Jobs to slunk off into obscurity. Instead, he started another company and invested in this little start-up called Pixar. Jobs trusts his gut above all else, and that authenticity that “knowing beyond knowing” has paid off in spades for me, albeit spades that have been hard-won.

Be unreasonable – There are several business legends about how infamously unreasonable Steve Jobs is. He is a relentless, restless seeker of quality and he demands of everyone else what he demands of himself – excellence.

People don’t know what they want and we can’t expect them to – If Apple got bogged down in consumer product testing and consumer product research, it’s unlikely that we’d have any of the magic Apple has built its brand on. In a time of user-generated content / input craze, Apple took a completely different approach – its products shaped the desires of consumers rather than the other way around.

Invent by alleviating pain – Apple has always paid close attention to what gives consumers pain, and then invented products and services to alleviate it. It is a brilliant point-of-view from which to invent, and it has won them consumer loyalty by the boatload.

Everything is possible; you can make something out of nothing – Jobs took his interest in personal technology, got out a white piece of paper and built Apple from nothing but a handful of computer components. For any entrepreneur with little more than a dream, Steve Jobs shows us what’s possible with passion.

Our future really is in our hands – I suppose Steve Jobs could have played it safe as a young man and gotten a job working for someone else. Instead, he paved his own road from the very beginning and never looked back. He knew his future was actually safer (and more fun!) in his own hands rather than in anyone else’s. His story will be one that’s told and emulated for many generations to come. I can’t wait to see all of the new Steves that spring from his inspiring path.

celebration, change, grateful, gratitude, growth, yoga

Beginning: Curative Energy

Christa Avampato

“You can channel your pain into helping others and spread a tide of curative energy throughout the world.” ~ Daily Good

I wrote earlier this week about the desire to be grateful for my hardships, to become so thankful for them that I would never think of trading them for any different history. Shortly after that post, I watched the PBS series This Emotional Life, and as if by some stroke of synchronicity learned that there is a growing body of research that points to gratitude for hardships as the potential silver bullet for a lifetime of happiness. Can our pain be the source of what breaks us down and what completes us?

Compass Yoga is taking a cue from Daily Good. We are generating a tide of good will and compassion. We’re attempting not to help our students escape, but to help them use what they’ve got, everything they’ve got, to help them heal themselves from the inside out. I’ve heard the saying that every difficulty contains its own answer. I am beginning to see just how much value our pain has, and the recognition of that value is what begins to help us make meaning of the hurdles in our lives.

I would never wish trauma on anyone, though slowly I’m also beginning to realize that I may be getting to a point where I would never wish mine away because it’s too valuable for me and now through Compass Yoga, too valuable to others. Acceptance and healing don’t have to be elusive goals. We can draw them to us and embrace them. They are ours for the taking.

books, feelings, film, happiness, medical, medicine

Beginning: This Emotional Life

Christa Avampato

I’ve been a fan of Dan Gilbert since I read his book Stumbling on Happiness about 5 years ago. Kelly, a dear friend and one of my housemates in graduate school at Darden, suggested it to me after it was assigned in one of her leadership classes. I’ve always been fascinated by happiness, primarily because it seemed like such an elusive thing to me for so long, though this book helped to intellectualize happiness for me, to start to realize the profound influence of the mind-body connection.

Last year, Gilbert put together a 3-part series for PBS called This Emotional Life. It’s roughly a 6-hour documentary exploring relationships, facing fears, and rethinking happiness in the context of these two complex areas. It’s remarkably well-researched with experts from a wide array of fields sharing their personal and professional stories. There is a piece on veterans in the second part of the documentary that features, Penn, my other alma mater. Another piece of my history fell into place. The documentary was so successful that it has now become a multi-platform source of information on the topic.

This documentary opens our eyes to taboo subjects – depression, therapy, anxiety, and fear – and makes the subjects palpable. It opens up the communication channels and shows that when we can discuss these subjects in a public forum, there is a great amount of freedom to gain. Truth be told, these are not isolated instances that happen to a minority of people. It is wide-spread, and there is help available.

As someone who has struggled, mostly in silence, this these types of issues, I’m grateful that so many top scientists and researchers have taken such an interest in tackling this difficult and uncomfortable subject. Coming through the other side of the issues, I feel so empowered to be able to help others on this journey to rebuild their own vitality. This Emotional Life reminded me of how much work there is to do and how much relief Compass Yoga can bring to so many who need it.

1

Beginning: Beyond Transcendence

Christa Avampato

From http://kidologist.com/2010/11/
“In Buddhism, there’s a really beautiful sentiment about strife: The souls that love us the most are the ones who are our greatest adversaries in life.” ~ Brian

Can we be grateful for really difficult circumstances? And I don’t mean being able to articulate sayings like “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or “every cloud has a silver living”. I’m not asking if we can adopt the idea of “chin up”, “look on the bright side”, or “see opportunity in every difficulty”. I want more than that.

Brian and I have started to talk about the possibility of actually being grateful that my childhood home was in a near-constant state of distress. This isn’t making lemonade out of lemons. This is about actually wanting the lemons. I’m not there yet, but the idea is something that I could never even conceive of before now. If it were in my power, I would go back and change my circumstances. I would roll the dice again, knowing that my life as it is now would not be the same had I grown up in a house with less trauma. I’m still too angry, even after all these years, to let that dream go just yet. I still feel cheated.

I feel that I am moving toward transcendence, very close to being able to release the guilt, shame, remorse, and yes, anger. In order for me to fulfill my dharma, and in turn to release my father from his in this lifetime, I’m going to have to move beyond forgiveness. There is more work to do after forgiveness. In order for both of us to be truly free, I will eventually need to bid my dad’s spirit a fond farewell with a sincere thank you for teaching me exactly what my soul needed to learn, exactly when I needed it. That’s a tough thing to imagine coming to fruition, but I’m going to give it a try.

nonprofit, yoga

Beginning: Meet the Compass Yoga Board of Directors

Christa Avampato

Last Monday, Compass Yoga held its first Board of Directors meeting. I had been anticipating that moment, dreaming about it, for many months now. I am beyond lucky and exceedingly grateful to these talented people who have made the decision to walk this path with me and build something truly extraordinary. I could go on and on about their gifts and achievements, but I will let them speak for themselves through their bios. To learn more about why they joined Compass Yoga, please click here.

 

Rob Lorey
Rob has over 20 years of performance and business experience in the entertainment industry. He has exhibited extensive leadership as a director, producer, and union liaison. In addition to his artistic work, he has taught theatre to professionals and children for over 15 years developing workshops, seminars, and master classes. Rob received his Masters of Social Work from Hunter College School of Social Work in 2009. As a social worker, he has developed programs within the LGBT community for teens and seniors, worked in hospice for the past five years, and mentored at risk youth while connecting them to college opportunities within the CUNY system. His current career endeavors involve social policy and advocacy.


Amy Rebecca Marsico
Amy has spent 15 years as a stage manager, producer, assistant director, and writer in both non-profit and commercial theater.

She holds a master’s degree in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding with a concentration in trauma healing. Amy is interested in the convergence of the arts and conflict resolution fields. As a trainer and facilitator, she has designed workshops for youth that employ the arts to teach trauma awareness skills, encourage resilience, address root causes of conflict, and build capacity through dialogue and education. She has also designed workshops for women and girls that explore gender and power issues.

Amy is the co-author of Transforming Trauma: An Interactive Role Play for Community Leaders and Caregivers – a piece that was used by the STAR program (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) to train civil society leaders on how to recognize and address trauma in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. She also wrote and compiled an Arts Resource Guide on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Amy’s experience as a volunteer for the International Rescue Committee, where she helped resettle refugees from Sierra Leone, inspired her to work with people who have survived war and conflict. She has traveled to Bosnia where she had the privilege to speak with refugees and internally displaced persons about their experiences, and she has conducted interviews with refugees from Lebanon, Palestine, and the DRC. She spent six months at the UNHCR, the refugee agency of the UN, where she helped to develop the Heightened Risk Identification Tool, managed an awareness-raising project on child participation and was a contributing writer for several manuals and information sheets, including the Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming Guide. Amy is a roster member for the United Nations Volunteer Programme.

 

Lorenzo E. (Lon) Tibbitts
Lon is the Manager of Strategic Operations Planning for American Express Global Payment Options and also serves as Chairman and Director for Rite Care of Utah, a non-profit provider of free speech and reading therapy for children with speech or reading disabilities aged 2-12 with offices in Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah. He has previously served as Director of Advertising for Copperfield Publishing, President of Shoreline Ltd. and LaMirada Inc., both small venture capital firms, SVP of Utah Printing and Group Manager of the Granite Mountain Records Vaults.

Lon was educated in Literature and Economics at the University of Maryland and Brigham Young University. He and wife Lana are the proud parents of three feminists and one son – all grown and doing great things.

Lon loves to chase little white balls around pristine green spaces, hike in the mountains of Utah with Lana, do anything on, in or by the sea, and spoil his grandchildren. His passion is creating a freer, more open and democratic world for his children, grandchildren and their peers all over the world.

 

Michael Vito
Michael is a strategy and operations professional combining traditional business and financial analysis with understanding of the needs of firms and government programs evaluating development of and investment in sustainability strategy. He monitors developments in renewable energy generation and efficiency technology, NGO activity, and environmental policy in the US and Asia.

Michael is a graduate of the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia, an accredited LEED Green Associate, Asia Society member, and active participant in Net Impact. He is currently pursuing ongoing studies of Mandarin Chinese and Japanese.

government, politics, yoga

Beginning: Politicians Need More Yoga

Christa Avampato

Last weekend Bill Keller wrote an excellent piece in the New York Times Magazine about the virtues of poetry. He was taught the power of the poem during an executive program at Wharton. He was thoroughly impressed by how much his fellow classmates took to the subject and what a profound affect it had on them. In light of Washington’s latest antics, he called on Congress to take a cue from the Robert Frosts of the world in an attempt to become more enlightened.

I wonder if the same argument could be made for yoga in Congress. While it may be a bit far-fetched to imagine Congress being called to session with one great “OM”, I fully believe that every person, politician or not, is well-served by a healthy dose of self-reflection through yoga and meditation. I’ve never known anyone to take up yoga and deem it as anything less than enormously helpful. I never regret going to my mat, even if it’s just for 10 minutes. I always roll it up feeling better than when I rolled it out. Its ability to bring the mind and body together in one harmonious effort seems like just the type of action we need in Washington if we’re going to build a stronger, better country for all our citizens and residents.

Here is my plea to every politician: take a comfortable seat in your office, close your eyes, and breathe. Do a quick scan of the body and find areas where you feel stress or discomfort. Send the energy of your breath there. Set an intention. What will you do today to help the people you represent live extraordinary lives? What role will you play in their development, and in their health and welfare? How are you going to lead and collaborate with your colleagues to increase wellness in your communities? Throughout your campaigns in the upcoming year, drop the rhetoric and tell me how you’re going to build a healthier system. That will get my attention and my vote.

adventure, curiosity, discovery

Beginning: Discover Your World

Christa Avampato

“Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.” ~Buddha via Tiny Buddha

There is something to be on your dharma, your path. This week I had a number of experiences as I met with potential partners for Compass Yoga where I was conscious of being truly alive, truly living my practice. I came to realize that what I offer as a teacher afford me the opportunity to be a part of everyday miracles. I have the opportunity and the privilege to help people shape their days, their lives.

Brian has been encouraging me to focus not on what I think about my experience but how I feel about it. And when feelings crop up that seem confusing, he’s asked me to go more deeply into them, to use yoga to get at the fear and discomfort that arises from time to time. His hunch is that the yoga will replace any uncertainty or fear I may feel about taking a step away from the crossroads and down a newly imagined road. He’s asked me to consider the idea of willing what I need from the universe and being open to the response.

Discovery is found at that junction between crafting our lives in the image we desire and being open to all of the ways that image can manifest itself. We are lead in different directions for reasons that we think we understand, and yet when we arrive we find that the picture isn’t exactly as we thought it would be. The lessons are different, and what we learn is rarely what we expect and always exactly what we need.

To discover, we need an open heart and a curious mind, a relentless pursuit of the new and unfamiliar. It takes equal amounts of courage and strength. We need to let go of fear, and just sink down into the flow that is all around us. We work so hard to find our way, to find our purpose and calling. When it’s found, we owe to ourselves to give our lives over to it. There’s something really beautiful and really freeing about letting our path guide us. We’ve done the work; we’ve done our part. Now let the universe hold up its end of the deal.

health, wellness

Beginning: 5 Surprising Health Facts from Rodale Press

Christa Avampato

I believe in wellness. I’m on a mission to create healthy systems wherever I go, and foster a sense of wholeness in every person I meet. Rodale Press, the publisher of Men’s Health, Runner’s World, and a variety of other magazines and books all centered around healthy living, is one of my go-to resources.  My friend, Sarah, used to work for them and one of my former co-workers kicked her corporate life to the curb to join their social media team. Both have nothing but glowing remarks about the still-family-owned company and its commitment to walk the talk of their publications.

I recently signed up for their newsletter on healthy living, 25 Secrets for Healthy Living on a Healthy Planet. Packed with valuable info on every inch of the publication’s 11 pages, here are 5 secrets I found surprising:

1.) Organic trumps local. I thought it was the other way around though when it comes to our overall health, organic wins. Local organic is, of course, best of all.

2.) Soap and water are the best antibacterial combo we can buy to fight germs, and that doesn’t mean buying an “antibacterial” soap, which is akin to washing our hands in a “vat of pesticides.” Gross.

3.) 3 habits of all happy people: they value experiences over things (and those experiences include time with family and friends), they treat themselves with simple everyday things that make them smile, and they fake happiness when they have the blues (which actually works to get us back to our happy medium!)

4.) The vast majority of people need more sun to up their vitamin D levels. 15 – 30 minutes of sun exposure on our bare skin provides as much vitamin D as 40 glasses of milk! (Just make sure to really watch how long you’re in the sun, and avoid exposure sans sunscreen at the peak hours of 11am – 2pm)

5.) If you can’t pronounce it or describe it easily, don’t clean with it or put it on your skin, no matter which celebrity endorses it. When it comes to make-up, look for USDA-certified organic products whenever possible.

Check out the other 20 tips, tricks, and surprising facts by signing up for the Rodale newsletter at http://rodalepress.com.

change, choices, dogs

Beginning: What Dogs Teach Us About Change

Christa Avampato
Phineas patiently waiting for a hug

I’ve now boarded Phin twice, one for a business trip and once to visit my friends in DC. Boarding him felt like such an enormous decision. Would they take good care of him? Would he be safe, fed, and exercised properly? The team at Biscuits and Bath has been wonderful with him, giving him lots of attention and play time, though each time I’ve left him there’s a little part of me that feels hollow. And while I was briefly free of the obligation to take care for him at all times while I was away, it felt strange to not have him with me, as if something was not quite right with the world until I would pick him up.

This is the lesson of change that Phin has taught me: change takes adjustment. When I first got him, I had to reconfigure my schedule to wake up earlier to get a long morning walk in and adjust my weekends so I would also be around in the afternoon for his walk. I had to find a dog walker so he would have company during the day and so I could go out after work without having to rush home every night. It was a financial adjustment, too, securing pet insurance, medical appointments, high quality food, and regular medications as needed. We also had separation anxiety to sort through, and a routine to establish his security when I did have to leave him on his own at home. And above all, we needed to bond as a pair to enrich both of our lives.

It’s a lot of work to have a dog, particularly in a city and on my own. Much more work than I ever thought it would be. And yet, I cannot imagine what I ever did without little Phin. He’s become so much a part of my life in every way that I feel strange without his energy in my home. It’s as if I can’t be wholly me unless I know he’s safe and sound in our home.

Animals have this magical way of finding their way into our hearts just by being. Phin and I don’t speak the same language and yet we certainly understand each other. Just when I need a hug, he climbs out of his bed, does his little yoga stretches and makes his way over to my lap. When I need to get some work done, he toddles over to his toys and is more than happy to play independently. All without me saying a word. His innate comprehension on an emotional level is astounding.

If only people could be so attuned to their environments. Imagine how much more we could be there for each other, how much more comfort and concern we could provide in exactly the right amount, at exactly the right time. No wonder so many say that dogs are more than companions; they are our greatest teachers, too.