community, society

Step 138: Invest in Others

Christa Avampato

“We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” ~ Gwendolyn Brooks

As the weather gets milder, I’m spending more time on my terrace. I stare up at all of those stars, and they remind me that the world has a lot of room for glowing. I really hate that term “top performers”, the idea that the world takes shape on a bell curve with us as nothing more than points on that path, grouped in standard deviations from the mediocre mean. Ridiculous. If the universe in its infinite wisdom thought that way about the galaxy, I would spend my nights gazing into a black, empty sky, with hardly any light.

Everyone has within them the opportunity to display extraordinary abilities. Our only real work consists of bringing out that glimmer in ourselves, and in those around us. We owe it equally to ourselves, to those with us now, to those who came before us, and those who will follow. I for one would rather leave a legacy of light than a legacy inscribed with the idea of “I did what was rational, safe, and standard.” I would rather believe that by changing expectations, I can change performance. I would rather spend my days chasing down my own unlikely dream than abiding by someone else’s rules and standards.

I invest in people before I invest in the stock market. When push comes to shove, I double down on my own efforts and I don’t bank on a better opportunity to magically appear. I have to build the better opportunity, for myself and for others as my responsibility, my privilege. After all, without one another, we don’t have much at all.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

faith, music, yoga

Step 137: The Sound of Faith

Christa Avampato

“All major religions carry basically the same message. That is love, compassion, and forgiveness. The important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.” ~ Dalai Lama

Last night I hopped over to Sonic Yoga’s kirtan to make up a few teacher training hours that I’m going to miss on Saturday. I attended the first kirtan in March and was excited to see how the event was evolving. Most of the people there were involved with the teacher training currently or were alumni of previous trainings. Sonic has done an incredible job of keeping its teachers in touch and bridging the divide between classes. My friend, Courtney, leaned over to me at one point and said, “I’d really like to just roll out my mat and sleep here because it feels so good to be in this.” I felt the same way.

Though Sanskrit is a foreign language to me, I feel like I’ve spoken it before. The words have so much power and vibration in them, sometimes subtle and sometimes so strong that I think my heart might leap out of my chest. I’ve heard some people express the same feeling about their religious faith or going to their church. For me, yoga is my church, and kirtan is the soundtrack to my experience on the mat.

Last night as I walked to the subway with two other friends from my teacher training class, we talked about how alive we felt after the kirtan, about how it swept away our tired, worn-out feelings. Somehow that song that is almost entirely improvised breathes life into us in a way that food and water and even relationships cannot. It’s the sound that awakens something in us that is very tangible but somehow still too elusive to put a name on. It is a feeling we can take out into the world and infuse into everything we do.

We walked out into the night wanting very much to bring the peace and confidence and creativity we found at the kirtan out into the world. Even this morning I am still humming the melodies, sometimes purposefully and other times subconsciously. Sound and song have been a part of so many revolutions throughout time. I wonder if our little kirtans at Sonic, in some small way, are helping to shift the world’s energy in a way that we so desperately need it to shift.

books, commitment, yoga

Step 136: A Dedicated Life

Christa Avampato

“Learn to lead a dedicated life…the dedicated ever enjoy peace…the entire life is an open book, a scripture. Read it. Learn while digging a pit or chopping some wood or cooking some food…OM Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi. OM Tat Sat. (OM peace, peace, peace. OM unlimited truth.” ~ Sri Swami Satchidananda

In one week, I will complete my 200 hour yoga teacher training. I’ve been trying to take my yoga practice out into the world. I practice my balance on the subway as it roars down the express track. I find it while cooking my meals. I use it when I encounter someone who is having a tough day and showing it. In the mornings, I try to be mindful of my commute, visualizing my day and what I will be able to accomplishment. I am trying to show up and be present at every moment. I look at service as yoga, too, even though my mat may be no where in sight.

Sri Swami Satchidananda wrote the translation of the Yoga Sutras that we read for the yoga teacher training. While I didn’t agree with all of his notes, the quote above that he used to close out the book has really stuck with me throughout this training. It’s great to be able to start to do arm balances or be on the verge of doing headstead in the middle of a room without a wall. My physical yoga practice has grown by leaps and bounds – for the first time I actually understand how my body is pieced together and why it works the way it does. I began a daily meditation practice with this course, a practice that will always be with me, even when my body stops working so well. I grew to look forward to change, and accept that all of this is temporary. But the real achievement for me is that I am conscious every day of living my yoga, on and off the mat. Yoga gave me a way to grow my dedication to my own happiness.

The most beautiful piece of yoga is that there is no end to the learning. In all the years I’ve been going to class and even with this wonderful training at Sonic, I haven’t even scratched the surface. Yoga has been around for ~6,000 years. Its applications in the world, in our lives, and in the physical practice have no end so long as we are dedicated to their study and to our own personal exploration. Tat Sat, indeed.

The image above depicts Sri Swami Satchidananda at his Yogaville Ashram in Buckingham, VA. Ironically, his ashram is only 40 minutes from where I went to business school; I never knew it existed until my training at Sonic.

change, humor

Step 135: Laughter Makes a Difference

Christa Avampato

“If you laugh – you change; and when you change – the world changes.” ~ Shilpa Shah

I don’t care what people say about TV – I love it. When I was feeling badly about my job, I watched The Office as often as possible. Even re-runs. My boss at the time reminded me of Michael Scott. The Office made it easier for me to go to work in the morning while I found another job. Laughing changed my perspective.

I’ve experienced this same phenomenon when a friend cheers me up after a tough day or when someone emails me a joke or a funny story right when I need it. Yoga puts a smile on my face after I get through a rigorous class. My niece does something hilarious like see the space shuttle take off and say, “Look, Mommy. Fireworks.” If we look closely, there is no end to the hilarity of life.

Laughter changes the lens through which we see the world. And once we can see the world differently, we can see our role in the world differently. And once we see our role differently, we find a way to make a difference.

The image above was found here.

career, change, choices, faith

Step 134: The Life Waiting For Us

Christa Avampato

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” ~ Joseph Campbell

I walked to the subway last night with a friend of mine from yoga class. She asked me how I got so interested in so many things, which lead to us talking about the idea of life paths. I went to school with a lot of people who were on a straight and narrow road. It must be nice to have that consistency. Surprise is the constant in my life.

When I started college, I was going to be a civil engineer. And then I became a history / economics majors. After a brief stint on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide, I made a career in Broadway theatre, which eventually took me into fundraising, followed by business school. From business school, I started working in the innovation field at a toy company and now I’m a product developer in financial services, on the verge of starting my own social enterprise around my impending yoga teacher certification. I’ve moved to a new home almost once a year since I was 18 – which was a long time ago. Such a linear path, right?!

At a job interview, a VP once looked at my resume and said, “Wow. sounds like you’ve done a lot of exploring.” He didn’t mean this as a compliment. Smiling, I replied, “Yes. Yes, I have.” I did get the job, despite his disapproval of my life path. He was also a very unhappy, lazy man who was let go shortly after he interviewed me. I guess being an explorer pays off in the long-run.

Truth be told, I was always out there in the world looking for opportunity and very often I found it. While some people worry about taking too many turns, I hang on and enjoy the ride. I’ve met so many fascinating people, traveled, and done everything I always wanted to do. It is a charmed life, but one I did not plan. I was just always prepared to be lucky and happy.

Sometimes I had to let go of the life I had for the promise of adventure. I had to trust that the opportunities before me were meant for me, that my life was out of my hands to a certain degree. And while it sounds scary to say that, it doesn’t feel at all scary to live it. Control is an illusion.

Whenever I was ready to leap, somehow I grew wings. Whenever I was ready to climb, there was some gentle hand that helped me rise. The life I was meant for was always waiting for me to just show up and be there and live it. So that’s what I do: I just show up, try to be present, and smile, and laugh, and learn, and trust that where I am at every moment is where I am supposed to be.

adventure, courage, yoga

Step 133: Souls Like Kites

Christa Avampato

“A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.” ~ John Neal, American author and critic

I thought about this quote on my yoga mat today as I kept practicing my arm balances. I’m not good at this group of postures – the entire weight of the body is balanced on the hands in different positions. It requires a lot of core strength and coordination – two things that I don’t quite have in abundance. So I keep practicing. Doing the prep postures, trying them on my back, giving it a go, falling over. Actually, today in handstand I did a forward roll, exactly what I was afraid of doing. And you know what? I was fine.

Arm balances are for me what wind is to a kite. They are a good challenge for me, especially as I work on building more courage and confidence. I try to get my very soul up against them and rise. Most of the time I lose, but I keep at. Everyday I get a few moments of that floating, fluttering feeling that arm balances provide. I feel the full strength of my upper body. Eventually my body will figure it out. Eventually it will learn how to fly. It’s what we were made to do.

The photo above was taken by David Martinez for Yoga Journal.

care, growth, nature

Step 132: Ditch What’s Dead

Christa Avampato

Plants left in my care meet a premature end. I sing to them, water them, give them plenty of light and love, and they never stick around for very long. My mother has the greenest thumb on the planet. She sticks a dead twig in the ground and the Garden of Eden emerges overnight. I didn’t get that gene.

But I love plants, and so I keep trying. I took myself over to the Plant Shed last weekend and picked up a few Impatiens. I came home tonight and found one of them limp and wilted. I just watered it yesterday! How could this be? I filled her up with water and pruned away the dead leaves in despair. And then something amazing happened. Within an hour, the plant perked right back up. The limp leaves suddenly found their life again. Maybe I’m not a bad gardener, just a bad pruner. Maybe I let the dead leaves stick around for too long, dragging the rest of the plant down with it.

I think this may be true in life, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve let dead-end everything hang around my door. Brian and I have been working on clearing it all out. My yoga teacher, Johanna, talks about this act as “letting go of what doesn’t serve.” Intellectually this makes sense. It takes times and guts to put into practice. It wasn’t until I saw this wilted little plant, flopped over like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree, that I finally understood this idea in my heart.

If we let the dead leaves hang on, they will suck the life out of the rest of the plant. When we prune away the dead leaves, the plant’s going to look a little odd, a little lopsided. But in time, it’s going to come around again, with a little water and sunshine and room to breathe. If you’ve found this to be true in your life, or your garden, I’d love to hear how it worked for you.

Africa, art, film

Step 131: Meet Kate Ofwono, Documentary Film Maker from Uganda

Christa Avampato

My friend, Amy, has been staying with me for the week. She is an exceptionally talented production stage manager (currently on the Phantom of the Opera tour) and a trained trauma counselor. Amy and I worked together many years ago as young theater managers and we’ve stayed close pals ever since. She has an incredible heart and has spent much of her free time abroad doing international volunteer projects. Last year she spent 6 months at the UNHCR in Geneva working on refugee issues.

In graduate school, Amy met Paulette Moore, a documentary filmmaker. Paulette’s blog, Story Doula, chronicles her film work and one aspect of her work involves making films about social justice and peace building. Paulette was able to find a way to premiere the work of Kate Ofwono, a 22-year old filmmaker from Uganda who currently resides in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, in Geneva in March. Kate filmed her daily life with the help of FilmAid International’s participatory video program.

Kate’s film is exquisite. She is so honest, strong, and articulate. Her courage inspired me. Watch her film clips here.

learning, work, yoga

Step 130: Climbing and Coasting

Christa Avampato

The downhill path is easy, but there’s no turning back.” ~ Christina Georgina Rossetti, British poet

We have all types of negative connotations that refer to climbing uphill: ‘an uphill battle’, ‘a vertical learning curve’, ‘moving up the corporate ladder’, ‘getting to hump day in the work week’. Last week my yoga teacher, Jeffrey, talked to us about the joy that’s found in the uphill climb. If the different kramas (stages) of an asana (a yoga posture) are akin to how a mountain climber ascends up a slope, he encouraged us to be at whatever stage we are and enjoy the view. If we can only do headstand prep and not full free-standing headstand, then he asked us to consider how powerful that prep posture is and the benefits we are receiving from it. It works in yoga, and it works in life.

While coasting requires very little effort, whether we’re talking about yoga, careers, relationships, or any other part of our lives, it’s tough to turn back and take advantage of the views that we had the opportunity to see on the upside of the climb. They go whizzing down the mountain too quickly. As we head downhill, there’s less time for learning.

It’s not that the downhill offers no value at all. It does provide us with the opportunity to reflect upon everything we learned on the climb. On the downhill, we can bask in the glory of all the work we did in the ascent. We get to feel proud of our accomplishments, and the joy we find and exhibit is an inspiration to others to start their own climbs.

The key to happiness may just be to enjoy wherever we are, knowing that it’s all temporary, that we’ll have many uphills and downhills, and that each has something magnificent to offer us on the journey.

Uncategorized

Step 129: Yoga Practicum

Christa Avampato

Today my group had our yoga practicum. We had to collectively sequence a 1 hour and 15 minute class and then teach it. Because I’ve had stage fright for most of my adult life, I found those familiar little butterflies soaring around my stomach right before it was my turn to teach. My heart beat grew a little bit faster. My body temperature started rising. Always, the anticipation of an exam is worse than the exam itself.

I took a great big breath and began. As it turned out, this teaching, all teaching, has nothing to do with the teacher and everything to do with the student. I looked around the room to see what they needed, what they would find helpful in the moment. If they needed a break, I wanted to give that to them. If they needed to release a specific part of their bodies, I wanted to provide a way for them to release. Teaching, and particularly yoga teaching, is service of the most beautiful kind. My job was just to support the members of the class on their own paths to wellness.

As the class wound down, I was overcome with gratitude. I could feel the love and support pulsating in the room. Despite my initial nervousness, I didn’t want the class to end. I wanted that feeling to go on forever. I have been so fortunate to be a part of this program, to share these days with the other students and my teachers, to discover parts of my own soul that I never even knew existed. There are no words to express how moving it is to provide relaxation and peace and joy to another person. The best tribute I can pay to the great benefits I’ve received from this training, and to all of the people who made it possible, is simply to go out into the world and teach what I practice. Perhaps I’m closer to my golden compass than I realized.