I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
Every time I practice yoga, I set an intention before I begin the asanas. Sometimes it’s for a friend or family member who needs help. Sometimes it’s for a cause I believe in or an organization doing good work. For the past week I’ve been dedicating my practice to the people of Haiti.
To read my full post on Yogoer.com, click here.
“If the first people to experiment with great inventions such as radios, generators, or airplanes had been afraid of being arrested, we’d never be enjoying those things today. ‘Let them come arrest me,’ I’d say. ‘It would be an honor.'” ~ William Kamkwamba, author of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
I just finished The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba. William elegantly tells the story of how he constructed a windmill in his village in Malawi to provide his family with electricity in order to save them from suffering another famine. With Bryan Mealer, a former Associated Press correspondent, he elegantly explains how the will of one boy can change an entire community, even an entire nation.
Rather than give a recap of his remarkable feat, I want to emphasize the great lesson that William has for all of us: tell the naysayers in your life to “shut it”. (Those are my words, not his.) How many times do we develop an idea only to have it crushed by someone else’s criticism? William faced this many times, from his family, friends, and community members. He refused to doubt himself. He refused to give in to negative energy. He just kept right on building his windmill, despite all of the criticism and mocking. In the process, he inspired millions of people all over the world. Read the book – you’ll be inspired by his energy, curiosity, and determination.
The next time someone even hints that you can’t do something you want to do, I want you to tell them the following:
“A kid in Malawi with one year of elementary school education built a windmill to help prevent his family from starving. He built it by following diagrams in a beat-up, out-of-date science textbook from a local library miles away from his home and using salvaged items from a scrap yard, all while everyone in his life told him he was mad. He couldn’t read English well so all he could do was follow the pictures. So, do I think I can do (fill in the blank)? Yes. Yes, I do. If William Kamkwamba can build a windmill, despite every roadblock imaginable, then I can certainly bring all of my ideas to life.”
To learn more about Williams and his continuing journey, visit his blog: http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/. You can also learn about his project, Moving Windmills, by visiting http://movingwindmills.org/ Follow William on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/wkamkwamba
For more information on Bryan Mealer, visit http://www.bryanmealer.com/
I received my second letter from Dwight, my 3rd grade book buddy. He and I connected through Learning Leaders, a nonprofit education organization that pairs local elementary school students with business professionals. Dwight and I are reading Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and then sending several letters to one another to share how we feel about the book.
Here’s Dwight’s latest letter to me and my reply to him:
“December 21, 2009
What I think of Charlotte’s plan is wonderful. Me, too, I like how she chose interesting words, too, because they are good. Me, too, I will wonder if Wilbur will continue putting words into his head. Charlotte has good words, too.
Your book buddy,
Dwight”
“January 18, 2010
Dear Dwight,
Happy New Year! I hope you had a great holiday. I went to visit my family and friends in Florida and really enjoyed spending time with them. I finished up Charlotte’s Web while I was there What did you think of the ending of the book? Were you surprised by it?
I really liked the scenes at the fair, though I was hoping all of that food would make Templeton, the rat, a nicer friend. I bet he would enjoy living at the farm a lot more if he was a little bit nicer. At least he agreed to help Charlotte find the final word for her web. What did you think of the events at the fair?
Losing someone we love it difficult, so I really related with how sad Wilbur was to lose his friend, Charlotte. I was very impressed with his sense of responsibility to care for Charlotte’s children; his actions showed how much he cared about Charlotte and how appreciative he was for her efforts to help him. I was a little bit worried that all of Charlotte’s children will leave. I felt relieved when Joy, Aranea, and Nellie decided to live at the farm. I am sure Wilbur was relieved, too!
Your book buddy,
Christa”
A set of bookshelves was the last piece of furniture I needed to replace. I bought a perfect set of them about a year ago and lost them in the fire in September. I took myself to Crate and Barrel this afternoon and bought the exact same set I had in a darker stain to match my new bed. To make room for this new set, I needed to clean out a corner that’s been filled with boxes for 4 months. About half way through the cleaning, I started to cry. I was reminded of the last time I cleaned and made room for bookshelves, which then caused me to think about how they looked just after the fire. Covered in a film of dark gray soot, holding books that could never be cleaned and electronics that couldn’t be salvaged.
The delivery of these bookshelves is another reminder of starting over, and starting over begins by losing something we care about. I still haven’t been able to hang up any pictures; I’ve tried but when I do I start to tear up and put them down. Everything still seems so impermanent to me, and I still have some anxiety about wasting even a moment of time, which then leads me to question how I’m spending my time at all, causing me undue stress and worry.
I am immensely grateful that I made it out of the fire unscathed. I feel lucky to have insurance that took care of me financially. My friend, Cindy, gave me the legal know-how to negotiate with my former landlord. In a practical sense, the fire was a blip on the radar screen of my life. In reality, it changed everything. It changed me. The double-edged sword of getting another chance is that I can’t stop considering and re-considering and re-considering again what would be the best use of my time. It’s enough to drive anyone mad.
So what can I do? How do I keep from going mad? I just keep going. This afternoon I sat for a minute in my own tears after clearing space for these new bookshelves. And then I just grabbed a tissue, grabbed my Swiffer, and pushed it around the floor to pick up the dust and lint where my boxes have been piled up for 4 months. In the middle of the dust I found a tiny pink metal object. It was my niece, Lorelei’s, hairclip. She must have dropped it when she was here visiting in October. I smiled as I spun it in my fingers.
That hairclip reminded me that no matter what I do with the remainder of my life, the best part is that I get to be with my family and my friends. I get to keep writing and working with my community. I get to evolve and grow and try new things that I never would have had a chance to try had I not gotten out of the fire. I’ll get to fall in love again. And that’s the upside of gratitude and starting over – even though I lost so much, I realize I have a lot of reasons to begin again.
After almost 3 wonderful years of blogging on Blogger, I made the move over to WordPress. Same content for the blog, highlights on other projects I’m working on, and a new design. I’ve ported over all of the posts and comments from here onto the new site so none of the content has been lost. It’s a party – come on over and see me at http://www.christainnewyork.com.
I thought that this step would be coming much later in the year. I had planned to study and take my GRE, get my after-school program with Citizen Schools underway, and then work on converting my blog from Blogger to WordPress. I got it completely backwards. Yesterday I spent most of the day setting up this site for prime time, the after-school program starts at the end of January, and then I take my GRE on February 6th. The best laid plans…
I just couldn’t help myself with this new site. Professionally I needed to showcase the big projects I’m working on in a way that Blogger couldn’t do for me without significant time and financial investments. While I’m finding WordPress a bit more complicated than Blogger, my expert media friends tell me it’s worth it so I sat down and got it done yesterday. I expect it to be a work in progress for many months to come.
So let me show you around:
– My main page is my blog since my writing is the project that’s most important to me and where I spend the most time.
– I added a “Help Haiti” tab. On it, you will find a link to the U.S. State Department which is coordinating the U.S. relief effort. I’ve also included some other excellent sources of information on the situation in Haiti. I’ll keep adding to it as I find new info. If there’s a link you think I should include, let me know.
– “About Me” gives my short bio and the first of one of a few photos of me. The photos on the site were taken by my good pal, Dan Fortune, who spins a mean mix of classic hits like you’ve never heard them before and is a whiz with a camera.
– “Other Writing” gives a short description of other publications where I’ve been published and featured. When my e-book is finished it will get its own tab. More to come on that in the next month.
– “Innovation Station” is the after-school project I am piloting with Citizens Schools this spring. My goal is to use product development and entrepreneurship to engage children in their studies. Now that this conversion to WordPress is complete, I’ll turn my attention to Innovation Station. This page will look radically different in the next few months.
Just to the right, you’ll find a sidebar that allows readers to subscribe via email (you can subscribe via RSS at the top of the page), join me on Twitter, see my 5 most recent posts, search via category cloud that shows my most common writing topics, a blogroll of some of my favorite sites, and an archive.
I tried to keep the design simple and clean, eliminating the unnecessary so the necessary may speak. Let me know what you think in the comment section, via Twitter, or via email. I look forward to the continued changes and conversation!
On Friday I organized an innovation session at work to get a broad cross-section of my business partners to consider new product ideas that we should explore in 2010. Each exercise we did had a prize associated with it, and for one of those exercises I won a black moleskin appointment book. I keep all of my appointments in my calendar in my phone, so I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this appointment book. It’s much too sleek to let it go to waste.
I decided to record my daily “big thoughts” – inspirations for these blog posts, things I did especially well each day, and great opportunities for learnings. For the past two days, I’ve found myself recording new ideas and resources that I should tap for my various projects. This tiny black book has become a book of intentions.
For some time now I’ve been searching for and crafting the perfect filing system – a single place to keep all of my links, magazine articles, references grouped by project. I haven’t been able to find that place just yet. I’ve tried my own excel spreadsheets, my Google inbox, Evernote, a number of online resources, an intricate paper filing system, etc. It seems I’ve tried just about every option and each falls short a bit. With the entry of this little black book, I realized that maybe that perfect filing system doesn’t exist, and maybe it doesn’t have to. Perhaps items of interest can, and should, be stored separately.
I started to image this little black book a year from now, pages and pages filled with inspirations, or at least pieces of inspirations. I imagined myself flipping back through its pages and being inspired all over again by the notes and messages scrawled across its pages in my own handwriting. Perhaps to build an extraordinary life we all need a place to record our wildest learnings and dreams. Perhaps in our commitment to write down these dreams, we have the greatest chance of bringing them to life.
“Are you more like your mom or dad?” people ask me. I’d like to believe that I can choose the best of both.
Today I heard a bit about Lugh, one of the gods of the Celtic Pantheon. He is the son of Cian and Ethniu, half god, half monster. He was able to become successful because he had the good traits of each of his parents: the heart and morals of his father’s side (the gods), and the courage and self-defense abilities of his mother’s side (the monsters). With the gods being oppressed by the monsters, he joins the gods, teaches them to defend themselves, and helps them gain their freedom from the monsters. While greatly simplified, this basic outline provides a powerful example of how to choose our better history and future.
Every experience and example has the potential to be a help or a hindrance to us. Cian’s family, had good, patient hearts that lead others to dominate them. Ethniu’s family was wild and ill-willed, though exceptional warriors. Lugh could have easily adopted either example. Instead, Lugh was able to combine the warrior instincts of his mother and the good heart of his father to restore peace.
The important lesson here is Lugh’s decision to pick and choice among his historical examples and inherited traits to create something all original that allowed him to do the most good in the world. When I consider my own history and my own way forward, I’ve been thinking a lot about my parents, my earliest examples of how to be an adult in the world.
It would be easy to vilify one of my parents and deify the other. Instead, I am trying to appreciate and nurture the very best of them both as a base to build my own life from. From my mother, there is so much goodness to choose from, though not enough personal confidence. From my father, there is so much intellect and confidence to choose from, though not enough compassion and love for others.
My history is the inverse of Lugh’s, though my journey has been and will continue to be similar. In order for me to really do some good in the world, I will need the very best traits of both my parents combined. I wonder if that’s true for all of us.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here
I’ve been watching the news unfold around the tragic earthquake that shook Haiti to the core on Tuesday afternoon. My friend, Ellie, just returned on Sunday from a mission trip to Port-au-Prince and to hear about the news of the Earthquake only 48 hours before the earthquake struck was an eye-opening experience. I could very easily have lost my friend if her trip was just a day or two longer.
CNN and NBC have done a tremendous job getting the word out, showing the images and telling the stories of the people in Haiti, encouraging the much-needed generosity of the world to pour into this tiny country. In 24 hours, a cell phone text campaign raised millions of dollars. Thanks for social media, it takes so little effort on our part to lend a hand, and in this situation every little bit helps.
I’m finding it difficult to go about my usual business in light of the disaster. I just don’t feel like I’m doing enough. The images are haunting me and are never far from my mind. I keep visiting internet news sites to get the latest updates. In an effort to do more, I wanted to post today’s step on this blog to list four ways that we can all get involved in the relief efforts right now:
– Twitter users can quickly get word of the latest updates and relief efforts, particularly from people on the ground in Haiti, by searching #Haiti, #haitiquake, #RedCross, #CARE, #ONE.
– Give much needed funding to the efforts of organizations like the American Red Cross, HealingHaiti.org, and CARE. While there is a desire to give goods in these types of situations, monetary donations are more efficient because relief agencies can use the funds to buy the most-needed items in bulk. Cash is the best way to give during disasters of this magnitude.
Anybody with a cell phone account with a major carrier can donate $10 to the Red Cross by texting “Haiti” to the number 90999. The donation appears on the giver’s bill. Online fundraising company mGive launched the campaign yesterday together with the State Department and the Red Cross.
– Does your organization offer a charitable contribution match? If so, donate through your organization to make your gift go even further in Haiti. Better yet, contact the head of philanthropic giving at your company to see if a communication can be sent to employees. The company will likely not request donations, though the communication could just serve as a reminder that in these types of situations, company matching of charitable dollars is a wonderful employee benefit.
– This will be a LONG TERM relief effort in Haiti. While it is tough for anyone aside from military, media, and search and rescue teams to get to Haiti, many organizations will be organizing volunteers in the coming months, perhaps years. HealingHaiti.org and the American Red Cross are great places to start if you’re interested in lending a hand on the ground with any vacation or personal time you may have.
The situation in Haiti prior to the earthquake was dire. Now it’s reached catastrophic proportions. Extraordinary circumstances can lead us to help others in extraordinary ways. We have the opportunity to do something extraordinary today, right now. The people of Haiti need our love and support now more than ever.
The image above is not my own. It depicts the tragic devastation of Port-au-Prince. Photo Credit: AFP
For busy New York yogis, Yogoer.com is a dream service. In a couple of clicks, the site provides every nearby yoga, pilates, fitness, and dance studio based on an address. It’s Mapquest for your source of well-being. The site also provides job postings for yoga instructors, profiles of studios and instructors, and a blog. To make it even easier to utilize the service, Yogoer.com is available as an iPhone app. You can also follow Yogoer on Twitter.
Last week I had the pleasure to interview Erica Heinz, a graphic designer, Huffington Post columnist, yoga instructor, and founder of Yogoer.com. I’m also excited to announce that I’m recording my yoga teacher training diary on Yogoer.com’s blog. My thanks to Erica for the opportunity to connect with the community she’s building on Yogoer.com
For the full interview, click here.
Christa Avampato 
