Tag: postaday2011

teaching, yoga

Beginning: You Have to Go Where You Can Help

Christa Avampato

http://www.flickr.com/photos/revcyborg/5228173/
“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.” ~ Dr. Seuss

I’m just about 4 months into my year of writing about new beginnings. This writing intention has brought a lot of clarity to every aspect of my life and as I look back on these four months of posts, I’m truly surprised to see all that I’ve been able to begin and how much I’ve been able to share about the beginnings of others. I feel more inspired by the topic of beginning than I have ever felt about any writing intention. Perhaps this is because the very word “beginning” carries with it one of my very favorite sentiments – hope.

With all these new beginnings, I’m focusing on how and where I’m of the best possible service. This means that some endings are within sight now, and with every ending there is some kind of sadness, some kind of mourning and loss. Endings are deaths, and they deserve to honored. Without them, we wouldn’t have new beginnings.

In the past few months I’ve been finding a number of opportunities to share my yoga practice and teaching. Some of those experiences have been more satisfying than others. Many times, I’ve been able to find people whom I can truly help. I am the right students for their needs at this time. And other times, I’m exerting a lot of effort to no avail. I just don’t have what some students need. I am not the right teacher for them, and so I need to release them in the hopes that they can find a new teacher.

This fact became apparent over the weekend as I taught a regular gig I’ve had for some time now. It was actually my very first teaching assignment after I finished my 200-hour certification. It’s a very long distance from my house and I’ve learned a lot there. I’m grateful for the time I’ve been able to spend with those students and all that they’ve taught me, but I can’t take them any further. I sat in the treatment room after both classes, took a look around and felt a profoundly peaceful feeling. My work is done there.

This is in complete contrast to the teaching I’ve done at Columbia Medical Center, Columbia Law School, at the New York Pubic Library, and with my handful of private students. In those situation I feel alive, and I know I have more to offer. In the situation over this past weekend, I could feel the book closing, could see the credits rolling. I just knew deep within my heart that I was needed elsewhere by other students.

For a moment I felt very sad. I wanted to make a bigger impact there. I had hoped for a longer amount of time with those students. I was reminded of a scene in You’ve Got Mail when Jean Stapleton says to Meg Ryan that closing her book store and starting fresh is the brave thing to do. The right thing to do. It was time to move on. And then I also thought of The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. “You gotta know when to fold ’em.” That made me giggle, but he’s right.

In my meditation later that day, I made sure to give thanks to this wonderful opportunity that was now past. I thought of each of my students and how much they helped me grow. They opened my eyes to the power of therapeutic yoga and all the gifts that it has to offer. I’m grateful that I had the time there, and will always be grateful for it. And now with that door closing, I see a new window opening already. We’re all needed somewhere.

books, inspiration, yoga

Beginning: Meet Matthew Sanford

Christa Avampato

Matthew Sanford
As a yoga teacher, I’m very interested in getting involved with trauma recovery. I have some personal experience with post-traumatic stress disorder having endured it for a period of a few months following a fire that happened in my apartment building in September 2009. My experience doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the trauma that so many people go through not for months, but years, decades, lifetimes. My yoga and meditation practices have been with me now for over a decade, and they have never failed me. They helped me forgive, others and myself. They helped me grow and thrive, when I thought my very best hope was only to survive from day-to-day. Now having experienced their tremendous power, I want to gift them to others as a way of paying forward my gratitude.

My Uncle Tom recently sent me the URL for Matthew Sanford’s site. I had never heard of Matthew but from the moment I read the first line of his story I knew he would become a teacher for me: “It took a devastating car accident, paralysis from the chest down, and dependence on a wheelchair before I truly realized the importance of waking both my mind and my body.” Now a yoga teacher, author, speaker, nonprofit founder, and sustainable investor, Matthew’s wisdom gained from his own experience is transformative for anyone who comes into contact with him through any medium. He shares his own traumatic and harrowing story of tragedy and redemption, and how that journey brought him true awareness.

I encourage you to take a look at his website, read his book, and attend one of his events. He has much to share and we have much to learn.

Easter, holiday, hope

Beginning: Easter for All of Us

Christa Avampato

When I was a child, Easter was my favorite holiday. I would get more excited for Easter than I would for Christmas. I got wear a pretty dress and pretty shoes. We’d pack into the car and be to my grandmother’s house in Connecticut by noon. Some of my relatives would meet us there. We’d have a meal and then could dive into our over-sized Easter baskets made up for each of us by my Grammy.

I remember Easter as a time when the flowers were out, the grass was green, and the promise of summer was nearby. Though at the time I didn’t truly understand the religious significance of Easter, I certainly understood the energetic significance. For me, as for so many, it was a time of healing. A time when we could equally hold great sorrow and much rejoicing. We could look disappointment in the eye knowing that there was a promise of redemption and rebirth not too far behind. Easter taught me that for everything there is a season.

Though I no longer formally celebrate Easter, I always keep its lessons close to my heart. No matter where we are, no matter what’s happening to us, there is always a hope that tomorrow will shine brighter than today. That’s the promise of Easter, no matter what religion we place our faith in. Happy Easter to all!

meditation

Beginning: My First Meditation Class at New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care

Christa Avampato

I first heard about the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care (NYZCCC) at the Integrative Healthcare Symposium in March. On Monday, I visited the center and attended my first meditation class and dharma talk. We talked about living a dual experience, an especially relevant topic as we sift our way through these confusing times. We have the ability to hold happiness and sadness, excitement and fear, longing and contentment.

I have a regular meditation practice that has been so helpful in helping me to find more peace and contentment. After giving up on a meditation practice several times in my life, it feels wonderful to finally understand how powerful this discipline is. I used to think of it as wasting time just sitting around. Now I look forward to it as a gateway to make sense of my life, particularly when it comes to understanding a dual-experience.

On Monday night at NYZCCC, I showed up the class feeling a lot of stress from my day, so stressful that I began to have a dull, throbbing pain on the side of my head. My spine felt stiff and in general I felt uncomfortable in my skin. Though I have experienced the transformative effects of meditation, I thought this class would be less than valuable. I stayed anyway; I figured if I’m there I might as well just check it out and see how it goes. If nothing else, it might give me some good writing content.

My meditation began as usual, trying to get comfortable on this foreign meditation cushion, surrounded by people whom I didn’t know and conducted by a leader who was convinced I was someone he knew. (I’ve never seen him before in my life.) I closed my eyes and tried to clear my mind. The stress from the day was very much with me. I felt small, as if my voice and my point-of-view didn’t matter. In a word I felt powerless but very much wanted to feel empowered.

A few minutes into my meditation, I began to feel my spine growing and felt as if my body was moving backwards. My hands began to tingle and feel disproportionately large compared to the rest of my body. Every breath drew more energy into my chest. The aching in my head was suddenly gone.

A while later, though I honestly don’t know how long I was in that state, I opened my eyes. I immediately looked at my hands to see if they were larger. They weren’t though I could still feel that tingle from my meditation and I actually thought for a moment that from the corner of my eyes I could see a faint outline around my hands that made them appear much larger.

All this to say that meditation is a practice in the truest sense of the word. Through our experience, we can tap into an existence much larger than ourselves. If we ask for help, we will receive it, perhaps not in the form we expect. There is a mystery embedded in meditation that cannot be explained through logic and reason. It cannot be articulated. Only felt.

business, change, creativity, leader, leadership

Beginning: Leadership and Boundaries

Christa Avampato

“We are our boundaries.” ~ George Simmel, Sociologist

I read this quote on a blog by one this blog’s supportive readers, bwinwnbwimusic. The quote showed up just as I was thinking about a project I’m currently involved with. The Universe is so wise; it knew exactly the encouragement I needed. The project is not fun – difficult partners and a difficult team to manage. I was nashing my teeth a bit over how to proceed. I felt like my efforts, and even my creative abilities, were blocked. I was stuck, and quickly time was flying by.

Meditating on boundaries
I decided to sit down, close my eyes, and really focus on this quote from George Simmel. If I feel blocked, there must be some boundary I am trying to cross over and that boundary doesn’t have any give. What is the boundary? What lesson is it teaching me? How do I either traverse it, or find an authentic way to incorporate it into my plan?

Finally, an answer surfaces
Yes, the partner on this project is difficult. Yes, there’s a leadership vacuum and a team that is not proactive. The boundary though, the real boundary that I was wrestling with, was me. I’m the one who needed to grow and change because I am the only individual I really have control over.

It starts and ends with me – that’s leadership
The partner was difficult because I had not set firm guidelines with them. There is a leadership vacuum and I will need to fill it. The team is not proactive and so I need to be more prescriptive with them. I have the ability to influence and if the project is to turn out in a way that I’m proud of, then it is up to me to find a way to motivate, inspire, and bring all the disparate pieces and parties together. In this way, I am learning that leadership requires the close examination and then acceptance of boundaries. It’s back to the oldage of once I accept myself as I am, then I find that I can change.

education, election, politics

Beginning: Shifting Our National Priorities in Favor of Children

Christa Avampato

I saw a sign in a store that read, “I can’t wait for the day when we have an education budget that can’t be cut and have to hold a bake sale to fund our weapons program.”

As the landscape of the 2012 Presidential Race starts to take shape, I’ve been thinking a lot about our society’s priorities and how backward so many of them seem. This sign popped up in my life as if to encourage this train of thought. Why is funding for education so susceptible to cuts while re-engineering our defense budget is always off the table? Too many kids have too few options. In several neighborhoods only blocks from where I live, kids have two choices of how they spend their time: the classroom or the streets.

Why do we have such a hard time taking the long view? Why can’t we see that healthcare and a good education are the fundamental building blocks for every productive member of society?

Why are social services seen as expendable when they are literally a matter of life and death for far too many Americans? Does that mean we’re saying those people are expendable, too?

Why does the personal wealth of a candidate have more to do with the viability of their campaign than their ability to empathic and charismatic?

And why is it that we have a possible candidate in the running who says on national television, “let other nations fend for themselves”?

If we want our country and our world to change, we need to change our own communities first and that will require shifting our priorities. The focus has to be on what we do for our children. We have to have their best interests in mind if we hope to have a country and a world we’re proud of.

books, learning, travel

Beginning: The Physics of the Quest

Christa Avampato

“I’ve come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call ‘The Physics of The Quest’ — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: ‘If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all – to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself… then truth will not be withheld from you.’ ” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

I love the book Eat Pray Love. I read it shortly after a very painful break up while I was in business school. I was heart-broken, more heart-broken than I’d ever been, and seeking out others who had made the best of their own sad love story gone wrong. I found my way to Elizabeth Gilbert and her words started me down the road to healing. I loved the book so much that resisted seeing the movie. I didn’t want to see a book I loved so much played out in a way that didn’t match what was in my mind’s eye. On a rainy afternoon with streaming Netflix at my disposal, I finally saw it and my only disappointment was that I waited so long to see. It’s a beautiful, uplifting film.

I had forgotten Elizabeth Gilbert’s words on the Physics of the Quest though when I look back over the 5 years since I first read her book, I realize that those words are the ones that have described this journey of mine so well. That break-up, as painful as it was, served as the catalyst toward creating a life of my own design. Now I see that ending as a beginning to a wonderful quest: I moved to New York, I began to write seriously every day, this blog came to life, I developed my yoga teaching practice in a deeper way, I met so many new, wonderful characters who have become close friends and confidants. I travel and explored. I ramped up my career as a product developer. I adopted Phineas, my pup. Yes, there were loads of disappointments and wrong turns. And yes, they were all worth it to find my way to this life that I’m living at this very moment. A life I love.

So here is my truth that has been revealed along this part of my Quest – everything starts from nothing. Every creative project, every trip, every relationship, every living, breathing being. They all begin in the exact same way. No one is born an expert. No genius idea starts as a genius idea. Tend to your creativity. Free your imagination. Start with only an intention and see what you can build, laying aside all past successes and failures. Each new day starts as a blank slate; you choose the layers of color that fill it in and which spaces to leave blank. Decide how you want it to build, the same way a painter brushes paint on a canvas, the same way a sculptor carves and cuts and shapes. We all start at the beginning. The key is to keep going.

health, healthcare, meditation, nonprofit, yoga

Beginning: By-donation Yoga Workshop on the 5 Elements of Chinese Medicine and Yin Yoga to Benefit the Nonprofit Blissful Bedrooms

Christa Avampato

I put an ad up on Craig’s List last week looking for volunteer yoga teachers who would like to be matched to nonprofits to offer free yoga classes through the Compass Yoga program Karmi’s Angels. I received a lovely email in response to the add from Joyce Cobb, a Structural Yoga Therapist and committed civic activist. Joyce is on the board of a nonprofit called Blissful Bedrooms which provides bedroom makeovers for homebound, disabled, and economically challenged individuals. Isn’t that awesome? Design aiding service in the community. I love it.

On Monday evening, April 25th, Joyce is offering a by-donation workshop about the 5 elements of Chinese Medicine and Yin Yoga. Donations benefit Blissful Bedrooms. Workshop information below. All levels, from beginner to advanced are welcome.

By-donation Yin Yoga Workshop – Stress Points and the Water Element

In terms of Chinese medicine, Yoga is thought of as a self treatment. Stretching the meridians (pathways of energy in the body) promotes health and longevity, relieves stress and many ailments. The Chinese theory of Yin and Yang and the Five elements marries well with the theory and practice of Yoga. The duality of Yin and Yang is present in us and in all of nature. Yin Yoga can counterbalance the Yang practices on the mat and in our daily lives. At first this slow flowing, long held pose practice may seem boring to the “yangster” but even after the very first class one will experience the challenging nature of Yin Yoga and the quiet calm and overall peace it presents afterwards. The rewarding nature of a Yin practice is that brings with it the ability to be more accepting, more yielding. Facing the aversion that comes with holding a deep stretch longer than we are normally comfortable with helps us to let go of opinions we may have about our own limits and face the aversion in our daily lives, reducing our stress, enhancing our health, well being and peace of mind. It enhances breath work and meditation by preparing us more completely to be in the here and now.

Covered in this 1 ½ hour intensive workshop:

1.) Brief introduction to the theory and practice of the 5 elements in Chinese Medicine and Yin Yoga

2.) Warm up Practice – Pawanmuktasana – Joint freeing series

3.) Yin Yoga Flow for the Kidney Meridian (a powerful way to promote healing and rejuvenate energy)

4.) Pranayama (breath work)

5.) Relaxation and Meditation

6.) Closing

Learn how to add this challenging Yoga practice to your daily life. Join us for a workshop on the Water element and Yin Yoga with Joyce Cobb, Structural Yoga Therapist and Certified Yin Yoga Teacher. All levels, from beginner to advanced are welcome. Payment will be by donation.

Proceeds go to benefit Blissful Bedrooms, whose mission is to transform the bedrooms of homebound and economically challenged young individuals challenged with a variety of disabilities. Find out more about blissful bedrooms here: http://www.blissfulbedrooms.org

Workshop Date:
Monday, April 25th

Location:
TRS Studios – 44 E 32nd Street – 11th Floor – Between Park and Madison Avenues

Time:
6:30 pm – 8:00 pm

Cost:
This is a by-donation workshop. Proceeds will go to benefit blissfulbedrooms.org

meditation, yoga

Beginning: Yoga and Meditation – Curing Insomnia, Making Peace with My Dad, and Gaining Real Daily Confidence

Christa Avampato

If ever there was time in our history when the world needs every ounce of creativity from every corner, it’s now. Our environment, governments and healthcare and education systems are just a few of the areas of society that desperately need reinvention. We must begin to look for solutions with new eyes and unwavering confidence that we can make a difference.

How Yoga and Meditation Shaped My Life

I began to teach yoga and meditation because the practice has had a supreme effect on my life. It helped me end a lifetime’s struggle with insomnia, something that seemed incurable from the time I was a very small child. It helped me to make peace with my father, who passed away before I had the chance to reconcile with him, releasing the burden and guilt that plagued my life and my relationships for too many years. It gives me the daily confidence to live my life by my own design, pursuing the many and varied passions that make every day a blessing. In short, it helps me to make a difference in ways I never thought possible. As Rumi so eloquently stated, yoga and mediation help me to “walk out like someone suddenly born into color.” I love that imagery and I want to help others do the same by giving them the gift of this practice. That’s why I teach.

How Yoga and Meditation Can Shape Your Life

If yoga and meditation could help me turn my life and health around, then I have every confidence that they can do the same for others, no matter what circumstances they face. In the book The Soul of Leadership, Dr. Chopra states that the soul’s mantra is, “I am enough.” So often we think we need X, Y and Z to be successful, to make a contribution, to live our lives fully. You don’t need anything more than you have right now, at this very moment. If your lungs breathe and your heart beats, that is enough to help create a better world. There’s so much knowledge and confidence wrapped up in those three tiny words — “I am enough”— and it is a power we all so rightly deserve. Just as you are, you have everything you need to live the life of your own choosing, to make a difference. That’s the wisdom that yoga and meditation provide — a chance to get to know who you really are and what you’re meant to do.

teaching, yoga

Beginning: Starting to Teach Advanced Yoga Students

Christa Avampato

Chin Mudra (hand gesture) - symbolic of the connected nature of human consciousness
Most of my yoga students are beginners. Sometimes my class is the very first yoga class they’ve ever been to. Other times, they tried yoga a number of years ago and this is their first time back in quite a while. They have ailments and areas of sensitivity. They seek out my class because their doctor, friends, or family members told them to give it a try to help their knees, back, hips, increase their flexibility, and lower their stress.

So it was a change of pace for me as a teacher to be asked to sub several times at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). They have a strong yoga program as part of their Student Wellness Office. I got to my first class, ready to focus on stress reduction and relaxation, and quickly realized it wouldn’t work. All of the students had been studying yoga for years and had a very strong practice. They were young, super-healthy med school students who wanted to go to their edge. As students, their edge is identical to mine. I would have to pump up my usually mellow class quickly.

For a split second I panicked, reverting back to old patterns of self-doubt. And then I reminded myself to read the room and take my class up several notches. The only thought running through my mind was, “give them what they need.” I used the sun salutation as a building block, and then added a lot of strength, twist, and balance postures. I was going to have to go for broke so that these students got what they needed. They needed me to bring my A game, and I couldn’t let them down. I had to bring my whole heart and mind into that classroom. I had to tread that line of challenging my students while also being very supportive. It is a tough balance to maintain but I had to go for it because that is exactly what these students need. I needed to fully be there with them, in my top-form teaching zone. My creativity needed to shine through.

The classes went far better than I ever dreamed they would go. I had a student who attended the Friday evening class and then returned Saturday morning bright and early because she enjoyed the Friday night class so much. I had a few students who asked me for advice and help after the class. A few asked for my card because they want to attend my other classes. After a third week in a row of my day job feeling very much like a daily grind, my yoga teaching freed up my spirit and my energy. It amped up my imagination as developed new sequences on the fly. My CUMC students inspired me, challenged me, and ultimately made me feel lighter and more at peace. Finally, I found confidence in making it up as I go along; all I had to do was draw upon my own practice as a student of yoga .

As I boarded the subway after the Saturday morning class, I smiled wide. “Ah, this is where I’m supposed to be. Here is my path.” This is no small revelation.