Tag: mindset

creativity

Day 10: I’m lucky when things don’t work out

Christa Avampato
Very true sentiment from an unknown source

When we swing for the fences and chase dreams, we get disappointed a lot. It’s the price we pay for going after exactly the life we want rather than just settling for the easiest path or what happens to present itself to us. If we actively shape our lives, no matter the odds, we’re bound to meet rejection now and again. If we’re lucky.

Whenever I’m disappointed that something didn’t work out as I hoped, I say to myself, “I wonder what I was saved from?” Sometimes, I eventually learn the answer.

My cancer made me healthier, mentally and physically. It set my priorities in order. It made me realize what truly matters most. I don’t if any of that would have happened without cancer. So I choose to be grateful for it. I choose to believe that I’ll live longer and better because of cancer, even if it did try to kill me a few times. Life works in mysterious ways.

creativity

Day 12: Drawn back like a bow

Christa Avampato
Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash

It can be difficult to get from day to day when we feel like we’re stuck, or even worse, going backward. We are, rightly, obsessed with progress and forward momentum.

But life will sometimes slow us down. Something will stand in our way, seemingly immovable, and so we have to search for a way up, over, and most often, through. Illness and injury are the most palpable examples of what it feels like to be held back, no longer able to do what we once could. Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe it’s permanent. All of it is frustrating at best, and often downright depressing.

Over the past 5 years, I’ve been held back a lot. My health took a lot of time and effort to restore. It still takes a lot of time and effort to maintain. Side effects are a daily struggle, and I’m only half way through the decade of meds I need to take. This is the hand I’ve been dealt.

When I see myself being held back, and even actively pulled backward, I close my eyes and remind myself I am like a bow and arrow. To fly forward, an arrow must be drawn back. The stronger the force pulling it back, the further it will fly when eventually that force relents. And it will always eventually relent, releasing the arrow.

What keeps me going in moments of regression is knowing that one day I will get past all these obstacles standing in my way. In the meantime, I am getting stronger, more resilient, and learning because of these setbacks. I am an arrow, and my day to fly will arrive.

creativity

Day 15: Transforming our mindset through nature

Christa Avampato
Photo by Chinh Le Duc on Unsplash

“My favorite puzzle game is Darwinian Brain Tease…you identify evolutionary riddles and try to think of solutions.” ~David Stipp, Why Rats Laugh & Jellyfish Sleep: And other Enchanting Stories of Evolution

I recently read this book and loved the idea of this game. We can play it anywhere, alone or with other people, and it doesn’t take any tools other than our imagination.

It reminds me of a meditation game I used to play when I was sick and wanted to be anywhere other than in my body. It was the pandemic so I couldn’t go anywhere and couldn’t see people other than my medical team. I would close my eyes and imagine myself as different animals: a snake shedding their skin, a bat flying at night, a giraffe tall and elegant looking down on the world below, and my favorite – imagining myself with my dog Phineas, able to breathe underwater and exploring the ocean with a whale named Blue as our tour guide.

This game connected me to nature, gave me a place to go when I couldn’t go anywhere, and got me outside of my body that was broken and bruised. Putting my mind into nature, even if my body couldn’t be there, shifted my perspective and helped me rest on many nights of relentless insomnia, worry, fear, and grief. I gave those emotions over to nature, and in return I found that they were fuel for creativity and hope.