health, writing

Step 95: Write for Mental Health

Christa Avampato

A lot of people ask me how and why I find the time to write every day. After almost 3 years of keeping this blog and nearly a year and half of making sure to write every day, writing is a habit for me. I brush my teeth, eat (at least) 3 meals a day, and I write. It’s a lens for everything I do. Some days, I feel like I really get it right. And some days, I really get it wrong. Every day I’m a happier person because I’m a writer. It helps me live a better life, so I keep doing it.

For the past few months, I’ve been getting a daily email from Psychology Today. The handful of articles they send to me are all centered around a specific theme. A few weeks ago, the theme was the positive effect that writing has on our mental health. One of the articles lists some scientific studies that have been explored the link between writing and good mental health, and provides some tips on how to get your write on.

Writing’s not a magic bullet. It doesn’t cure everything, fix everything, or heal every wound. It doesn’t protect us. It can’t save us. What it can do is help us process. It can help us get by, by helping us get through. And that’s good enough reason for me to keep going.

Easter, holiday, religion, Spring

Step 94: Easter

Christa Avampato

Easter Sunday – this was always my favorite holiday when I was a kid. We would all pack up and go to my Grammy’s house. We’d eat a delicious meal, followed by lots of candy. We’d hang out and the flowers would be blooming as everyone smiled in their very best Sunday clothes. Every Easter I spend some time remembering those times, missing them, and so grateful that we had that time together.

Because of all of my yoga training this weekend I didn’t go home for Easter this year. This morning I got an e-card from my mom that concluded with “Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Happy Everything.” All religious affiliations aside, that’s how I think of Easter. A time to wish everyone ‘happy everything’. (And I have to say I’ve been thoroughly impressed with the incredible e-cards I’ve been getting lately. They are elaborate and stunning. I’d like to keep them in an on-line library of some kind! Check out Blue Mountain cards and Jacquie Lawson.)

I also received a message from my friend, Moya, about her upcoming trip to DC. She wished me a Happy Easter along with this message, “I like the idea of sacrifice and of enduring and being rewarded in the end.” I’m with Moya and her beautiful sentiment. Everyday we make sacrifices for the sake of the long-haul. We hope all of our hard work and effort pay off in the long-run even when that hope seems foolish in the short-run. Easter reminds us that persevering in the face of difficulty, keeping the faith when we have no practical reason to do so, and continuing to show up with the very best we have to offer today despite the troubles we faced yesterday and will likely face tomorrow, has a magic, a power that just cannot be explained rationally. It’s just pure faith.

I love Easter and Spring because they show us that our future, our own re-birth, is in our hands AND helped along by a mystical, beautiful, universal energy. Whether you celebrate Easter as a religious holiday or not, I hope that this sense of possibility and the beauty of burgeoning life after a very long winter is yours today and every day going forward. Happy Easter. Happy Spring. Happy Everything.

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

technology, tradition, yoga

Step 93: 6,000 years ago and decades down the line

Christa Avampato

I am currently studying for my yoga teacher certification, carrying on a tradition that is more than 6,000 years old. At the same time I started this certification process, I also took on a new job where I spend my days thinking about mobile technology and its useful application to everyday life now and in the years ahead. I have one foot in two very different worlds. The irony isn’t lost on me.

When I have tried to reconcile the paradox in my mind, I hit a dead-end. How do I stay true to an ancient practice and stay equally focused on the cutting edge of personal technology that is set to rival any science fiction model to-date? “Why do you have to?” Brian asked me. “Sounds perfectly balanced to me. Upper chakras. Lower chakras.” I think he really wanted to tell me, “Stop worrying about nothing and just accept that we spend our present living in both the future and the past. That’s life, sister.” But he didn’t – he’s too good a coach to say something like that.

I like this idea of innovative thinking coupled with ancient study. It helps me realize that we really are on a continuum, especially when we consider how the world around us is evolving and changing with our hearts and minds and bodies remain a blessed constant. Even 6,000 years ago in caves in India, where yoga began, people longed for peace and safety and love. They longed for belonging to an energy, a life-force, prana far more vast than they could be alone. They had a thirst for knowledge. They were curious. They were creative.

This constancy of spirit is a welcome thought to ponder when we consider how quickly everything around us is changing. We can feel overwhelmed by technology and communications and the great speed of life. We don’t have to be. In our hearts, we are all the same. We have been for thousands of years, and likely will be ages and ages hence.

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

choices, decision-making

Step 92: Settling

Christa Avampato

Brian often uses the following phrase when I talk about “ideals” – the ideal job, relationship, apartment, friendships, life: “you get what you settle for.” I’ve been sitting with that phrase lately because something about it didn’t sit right with me. I have never thought of myself as someone who settles for anything. And then this weekend I realize that I’m exactly the kind of person who settles. We all are. We all get a job, choose a place to live, develop relationships, decide how to spend our free time. So there’s no more need for me to worry about settling because settling really just means choosing a path, making a decision. In this light, settling doesn’t sound bad at all.

We all settle, but the question is what are we willing to settle for? Said another way, what is it that’s going to make us happy and want to get up out of bed today. Either it’s something that makes us really happy or something that doesn’t. It either leaves us fulfilled or it doesn’t. Brian, as usual, is right. What we end up with is what we decide is good for us. We do indeed get what we settle for – it’s a matter of choice.

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Examiner.com: Divvyshot Acquired by Facebook

Christa Avampato

I love having an inside scoop – Sam Odio and his stellar team at Divvyshot built such an elegant solution for uploading photos that Facebook just acquired them. Well done, Sam and company!

Check out the press release here.

writing, yoga

Step 91: Finding the Words

Christa Avampato

In tonight’s yoga class, we practiced, taught, and learned the anatomy of back bends, the class of poses that ask us to open our hearts, to be vulnerable, to give, and to receive. They can be frightening poses for some and fully liberating for others. Thanks to my work with Brian and my desire to be open to possibility, back bends are a natural part of my practice and my life. I have worked hard to find comfort in discomfort, to feel at home far, far away.

To help the class capture the essence of back bends, my teacher, Jeffrey, helped us make word banks for Purvottonasana, Upward Plank. Some to capture the feeling of the pose: a window opening, lifting, flying, rising, shining, offering, accepting, receiving, expanding, letting go, surrender, liberation, and grace. Beautiful, poetic words to match the poetry of our bodies.

On my way home, I thought about word banks that may apply in other areas of our lives to capture the essence of an activity, a moment, an event, a relationship. How often do we really consider the true essence, the intention, of our daily trials and triumphs? I don’t have this practice, though after tonight’s yoga class I see how powerful a practice it can be. The moments of our lives deserve description.

feelings, happiness, Marcus Buckingham

Step 90: Contemplating Happiness

Christa Avampato

I’m working on a project that involves researching the female consumer’s changing behaviors during this latest economic downturn. As part of that research, I went back to Marcus Buckingham’s columns for the Huffington Post about the state of women’s happiness. In reading through the articles again, I found myself thinking about the 5 questions Buckingham considers when evaluating happiness:

1.) How often do you get to do things you really like to do?

2.) How often do you find yourself actively looking forward to the day ahead?

3.) How often do you get so involved in what you’re doing that you lose track of time?

4.) How often do you feel invigorated at the end of a long, busy day?

5.) How often do you feel an emotional high in your life?

I really wanted to answer ‘always’. I actually felt guilty about even contemplating any answer other than ‘always’. So how could I really evaluate my happiness? How could I ever make sure that I was being honest, and not answering the way I’m “supposed to”, so that I could really look at the areas of my life that need some extra work? “Don’t write it down,” I thought. “Just answer (silently) and observe.” And I did.

The answers to these questions are powerful cues if we give ourselves the permission and the space within our own hearts to be really, really honest with ourselves. Forget about the expectation of happiness that everyone else has. We have the power to transform our lives, to change and grow and become more aware. We can’t do that if we can’t ever let go of others’ expectations. Before we can improve our lot in life, we need to allow ourselves to just be however we are, wherever we are, and see what bubbles up.

design, Examiner, innovation, product development

Interview with Ben Kaufman, Founder of quirky

Christa Avampato

Another great innovation interview over on Examiner. I had the extreme pleasure to connect with Ben Kaufman, Founder of quirky. quirky is for every person who has an idea for a product or service (and don’t we all?!) and isn’t quite sure how to start bringing it to life. Check out the interview here.

books, creativity, design, hope

Step 89: Glimmer Moments

Christa Avampato

On Bruce Nussbaum‘s recommendation, I just started reading Glimmer: How Design Can Change Your Life and Maybe Even the World by Warren Berger. I’m only a few pages into the introduction and already my mind is reeling with ideas and inspiration. Thinking and learning about design gives me more energy than a gallon of coffee.

In the introduction, Berger defines ‘glimmer moments’ – the point when a life-changing idea crystallizes in the mind. I’ve been having a number of glimmer moments at work, in yoga teacher training, and in my sessions with Brian. Call it destiny, synergy, coincidence, Kismet, serendipity. Or prana. Or dharma. Glimmer moments are aha’s. Times in our lives when everything just falls perfectly in to place. So perfectly that we wonder why we didn’t see all along what now seems so obvious.

We talk a lot about timing in terms of relationships or jobs. In actuality it’s all in the timing, everything, every aspect of our lives. The stars align exactly when they are supposed to align, not when we want them to, not when we think that they should. Sometimes I imagine that up there somewhere there’s a great puppet master who’s arranging and re-arranging circumstances based upon the choices that human hands make in their attempt to control human destiny.

So let go. Do what gives you energy, what makes you whole and happy. Make a plan or a rule, but be prepared to do an about-face at any moment because you have new information today that you didn’t have yesterday. Life is like that – we change, the world changes, and we all have to keep plodding forward, doing the very best we can with what we’ve got. Recognize that the glimmer is always there; our only job is make sure we take the time to stop, look up, and recognize it.

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

entrepreneurship, Examiner

Examiner interview: Laura Sandall, President of Gold Marketing Group

Christa Avampato

Exciting stuff on Examiner.com today – my interview with Laura Sandall, President of Gold Marketing Group. After 20 years at Target, inventing the modern-day concept of a pop-up store, she struck out on her own. Her story is full of courage and wise advice on going your own way. Check it out – click here for the full story.