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.

future, home

Step 128: Finding Home

Christa Avampato

“We are born into this world and all we’re really trying to do is find our way home.” ~ Lauren, my yoga teacher

This weekend has been another set of hours in yoga teacher training that has provided me with a lifetime of learning. The idea of finding home that my teacher, Lauren, said struck me so deeply. We struggle to find the right job, relationship, place to live, friends, purpose, and what it boils down to is very simply wanting to be at home in our lives.

Certainly, the idea of the purpose of our lives being to find home could take on a religious bent, though it could just as easily mean just finding our way. Not someone else’s way. Our way. We’ve got this life full of days and we’re all trying to sort out what the heck to do with our time here. How can we be most useful? How should we connect and with whom? Where are we needed and wanted and loved? Simple questions that can be so tough to answer.

Sometimes, I really wish life was a game of hot and cold: as we move closer to where we should be we hear a tiny whisper that says “warmer” and when we move too far away from our true purpose we should hear a tiny whisper that says “colder”. And maybe we can make that happen. I’d like to believe that as I move closer to where I should be in any given moment that I’ll feel a warmth from knowing that says “yes, this is exactly where I needed to be right now.” On occasion that’s happened; I just wish I felt it with more regularity. I wish I had a giant compass that always pointed to home.

In class with Lauren, I started to think about how I might do this, tune my inner compass. Here’s what I came up with:

1.) Check in. Often. I sit in meditation for 18 minutes a day. I make myself do it, even if I’m tired and busy. Afterward I am always able to think a little more clearly.

2.) Record powerful dreams. It sounds cliche, but our minds do make connections when we are sleeping that our conscious minds cannot make. There are a number of scientific studies that support this idea. So I’m taking notes and seeing where that leads.

3.) Use past experience. There are definitely times in my life when I feel I’m on to something, that I am in the flow, and that everything is swimming along perfectly. I try to find the patterns that are common among those times. I’ve found that when I stop worrying about money and trust myself implicitly, somehow the world catches me when I leap. I don’t know how this happens; it just does. So I’m trying to look around for just a moment, make a decision from my gut, and leap more often.

I’d love to hear the ways you’re finding home, wherever that may be.

career, Inc. Magaine, technology, work

Step 127: A Job You Like

Christa Avampato

“Find a job you like and you add five days to every week.” ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr., American author

I thought about this quote as I read the profile of Tim O’Reilly in Inc Magazine this month. Tim is known as the Oracle of Silicon Valley and for good reason. He has a way of seeing what’s coming next about 5 years before other really smart people begin to put the pieces together. His road has been unconventional. He’s not a trained businessman, nor is he a trained engineer or tech expert. Trend identification is his specialty. And so is happiness. He’s a keen people watcher and listener. And he’s got an important message for us: work should support what’s important to us in life, not be the axis around which we build every other moment of our days.

“Sure, sure,” we might say. “Get a job we like. Of course everyone wants to do that. But what if I can’t pay my bills by doing what I love? What then?” I’m not sure what Tim would say to that. Maybe he’d just smile. My response would be: “find something else you can really love. Don’t do something you don’t like just to make money. There’s too much fun stuff out there to learn to waste your time doing something you hate.”

I’m not telling you to go out and quit your job tomorrow. Maybe you should do that – actually, you should definitely do that if you absolutely loathe every waking moment at your current job. But if it’s bearable, find a way to make it useful. A project you can start or help out with, a contact who you can cultivate, a skill you can learn. Or switch roles within your company to something that’s of more interest. Or use that energy to actively seek out a new job, quickly.

Truly, I hated the last role I had at work. Starting around October of 2009, I woke up every morning and groaned; that’s when I knew I just couldn’t physically stay where I was. So it was either on to a new adventure in another role, or out into the world to a new company. And once I shared that sentiment with enough people, I found my way to a new role very quickly. Finding the new job wasn’t hard; deciding that it was time for me to get on with it was the tough part.

Once we admit to ourselves that we just can’t keep going down the road we’re on, there’s no turning back. And that can be scary. But if we’re willing to really seek out happiness and satisfaction in our careers, if we’re willing to say “I can do better than this”, then the world has a funny habit of opening the way forward.

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

adventure, books, change, yoga

Step 126: Reflection on The Bhagavad Gita

Christa Avampato

“As a man adorns worn-out clothes and acquires new ones, so when the body is worn out a new one is acquired by the Self, who lives within.” ~ 2:22, The Bhagavad Gita

“The awakened sages call a person wise when all his undertakings are free from anxiety about results; all his selfish desires have been consumed in the fire of knowledge. The wise…have abandoned all external supports.” ~ 3:19, The Bhagavad Gita

For my yoga teacher training class, we needed to read The Bhagavad Gita, the most famous poem in Hindu literature. It was powerful read for me. While many of our readings in the class focus on calm and steadiness, The Bhagavad Gita is a guide to action, authentic action.

On Labor Day weekend in 2009, my apartment building caught fire. I was almost trapped inside and only by following my intuition was I able to get out in time. Most of my belongings were lost to extensive smoke damage. September 5, 2009 was a kind of death date for me; a date when stripped of almost all my material possessions (my “worn-out clothes”), I realized that none of it mattered at all. I stood outside in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, holding nothing but my keys (which were now useless), watching my apartment building burn. Looking back, I think of that day as a day when I stepped out of my old, worn-out Self, and into a new frame. I still don’t know what the art inside this new frame will look like just yet. I’m a work-in-progress.

Verse 2:22 in The Bhagavad Gita resonated with me, as does that image of Shiva the Destroyer dancing in a ring of fire. Sometimes we get in the way of our own personal development. We get bogged down with belongings, material and emotional. We need not stand on a burning platform, literally nor figuratively, to recognize that change is needed. Yoga can be the practice that helps us recognize our truth, our purpose, our dharma.

Verse 3:19 speaks directly to the danger that surfaces when we get lost in the demands of our society, demands that others put upon us that do not align with our own personal truths. After my fire and after studying these simple words laid down in The Bhagavad Gita, I’ve come to believe that being “results-oriented” and “goal-driven” cause us to miss so much of life. To be shooting for the result, while remaining blind to each step leading to that result, denies us the beauty of practicing the yama asteya, nonstealing. Yes, where we’re going is important, and it is equally, if not more important, to be mindful of how we’re getting there. If we miss the journey, we deny ourselves the wonder and joy of the act of discovery.

Bearing this sentiment in mind, I read The Bhagavad Gita as if it were a map, laying out a method of living whose goal is boundless freedom. And from that freedom all good things come – kindness toward others because we no longer see them as competitors but partners; justice because we recognize in realizing our own freedom that all people everywhere have the right to be free; peace because all we’re really fighting for is our own self-discovery which doesn’t involve any type of harm to another being.

Several years ago, I read a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves. Although the actual words and anecdotes are different, the message is the same as the one delivered to us by The Bhagavad Gita around the question “How do we acquire freedom and mastery of the mind?” The answer in Women Who Run with the Wolves: “crawl through the window of a dream.” The window may be small. Undoubtedly, we will have to leave things behind in order to continue our journey through it. We may wonder why on earth we have to struggle so much, why we should even try at all when the big room full of our belongings that we currently live in is really just fine.

No matter how much we love our current room, that window will not be ignored. It will continue to stare at us until we take up the challenge of crossing over. Through that tiny little frame, lies Samadhi, enlightenment. The only thing stopping us from getting there is our courage, our own belief in our abilities to make the journey at all. Arjuna struggled with this same quest, just as we struggle with it. We’re all in this together, across the globe, across the centuries. The struggle does not change; we have to change. The only way forward is through.

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

yoga

Step 125: Ease on Down the Road

Christa Avampato

The word vinyasa means “to place in a special way.” My yoga teacher, Will, encourages us to conduct our yoga practice, and life in general, with ease. Even, and especially, when we’re in an uncomfortable posture or situation. No matter what, can we find ease in difficulty, peace amidst conflict, calm while stressed? It’s a tall order, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot this week as I grind through a series of tough days with looming deadlines, piles of work, and a packed schedule.

My yoga teacher, Stacey, has been encouraging us to slow down and notice how changing our speed in class changes what we find in each breath. The goal isn’t to jump to the front of the mat or crank into a deep twist. It’s to float and to glide in the way that our minds want our bodies to do. And it requires placing our hands and feet in a special, intentional, slow way. And if we can’t do the posture with some sense of ease, then right now it’s not the right posture for us.

So I’ve started exploring ease on the mat, challenging my body while also thanking it for all of the tremendous work it’s doing. If the mat is a microcosm of the rest of my life, then finding ease on the mat should translate into finding ease in life. When my wrists hurt, I pull up in my core. When I twist, I also focusing on lengthening. When I flip myself upside down, I search for the new point of view I find by standing on my head. It feels good to know that in my life I’m heading down the right road. Now I want to find a way to ease through the inevitable obstacles that are cropping up.

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