Tag: postaday2011

choices, decision-making, fear, Life

Beginning: Somewhere Between Fear and Boredom

Christa Avampato

On Friday I was having a conversation with someone about his varied career practicing law. Though he’s been a lawyer for several decades, his bath is rather unorthodox as he’d practiced in a number of different specialties and now serves as the vice chairman of a large firm. As someone who has had a varied career, I’m always interested in hearing what makes people change course and what has served as their catalyst for change. This lawyer had a very simple answer:

“I chart my career. On the vertical access I’ve got fear and on the horizontal access I’ve got boredom. Every time I started in a new field I’d be all the way in the top left – high fear, no boredom. Over time, I move down the curve of fear and closer to boredom. Once those two cross, I know it’s time to do something else.”

That way of thinking resonates with me, too. I actually enjoy biting off more than I can chew; I get a rush from the doubt of wondering if I can really do what I’ve set out to do. It gives me drive and stokes my determination. It took a long time to get there.

When I worked in company management on Broadway shows and national tours, I had the great privilege of working with Petula Clark on Sunset Boulevard. I always got her meal so she could eat in her dressing room between the two shows on Saturday and Sunday. Sometimes she’d feel chatty so I’d stay and keep her company during dinner. She once asked me if I ever acted. I’d done some college productions and some work in summer stock, though never wanted to pursue the field professionally.

“Why not?” she asked me.

“I have terrible stage fright. I throw up every time before I go on stage,” I said, more than a little embarrassed.

“We’re all a little stage fright, dear,” she said. “The good ones never lose that fear. Keeps us on our toes.”

I liked that idea. I still didn’t want to be an actress and I wasn’t quite sure I believed Petula. She was famously supportive and kind, particularly to young people in the company. I thought she was just saying that to make me feel better. Years later I realized she was absolutely serious. I learned to use my stage fright productively – to help me stay prepared and on point at every turn.

If Petula Clark and this attorney had a conversation about career, I have a feeling they’d see eye-to-eye. The fear we have in starting a new adventure is really quite a gift. It gives us the chance to really feel alive, to feel like we’re taking on something so much bigger than ourselves. We’re going out along our edge to see just how far we can reach. It’s always thrilling to find that the ground out there at the edge is so much more stable that we imagine it to be, and not by happenstance, but because our determination and hard work makes it so.

dogs, Life, time, to-do lists, work, writing, yoga

Beginning: How I Find the Time

Christa Avampato

“You have to live your life spherically, in many directions.” ~ Frances Mayes, Under the Tuscan Sun

A lot of people ask me how I can live such a varied life with so many interests that don’t necessarily fit together in a logical way. I like being a Renaissance woman; I love figuring just how all the pieces come together, even if on the surface they seem to have nothing to do with each other. I am a firm believer in connections and relationships.

I’ve struggled a bit to come up with a good answer for people who truly want to know how I fit it all in, how all these subjects and activities can live side-by-side in my brain. Part of it is my training – I’ve been on a vertical learning curve all my life, so much so that it’s where I’m most comfortable and engaged. I like having a challenge nip at me until I crack the code. For me, that’s play.

But people don’t like that answer. It’s not enough of a silver bullet. And then it dawned on me (in the lady’s room, if you must know!): most people don’t give a hoot how I fit it all in and maintain so many simultaneous interests. They want to know how THEY can do that. They want “the how” that they can replicate. Now I’ve got a bit of a better answer to their question.

Generally, this is how time works in my brain:
In the morning, I am in list mode. I jot down everything I need to do for the day, in no particular order. I add to it throughout the day, though most of my to-do’s strike right when I wake up.

Some time between 5:30am and 6:30am I head out for a walk with my pup, Phineas. You might think this is a time suck because I walk him for a full hour and I don’t multi-task when I walk him. Trust me, I need it as much as he does. It clears my head to walk Phin and I find that the whole rest of my day is much more productive after I get some exercise with him. I often return with a mental list full of writing ideas and people I need to contact later on.

After my favorite meal, breakfast (another time when I don’t multi-task – I just focus on chewing), I plow through as much individual work (at home or at the office) as I can before noon because I’m a morning person and a late night person. I’m not so much of an afternoon person. (I blame my European roots for this!) If I’m commuting to work, I use the subway ride to flip through emails and read the top news stories, again making notes in my to-do list as they arise from my reading.

Then lunch rolls around and I usually read through lunch. Again, I check the news, get through some of my to-do list, and invariably add more to my to-do list. (I’ve noticed recently that I have a tendency to mindless gulp my lunch – I need to focus a bit more on my chewing this meal.)

Afternoons are for listening and gathering information. I try to have all of my meetings and phone calls in the afternoon. I’m sure there’s a brain study here, just waiting to happen. (Now adding this research to my to-do list!)

Most of the time I have plans after work, whether I’m teaching a class, taking a class, or seeing friends. That’s down time for me and recharges me for the evening. If I don’t have plans, then I take the time for myself at home.

When I arrive home, I play with Phin for a bit and read the note from his dog walker to see how he did in the afternoon. Sometimes we take a little jaunt around the block, depending upon how we’re both feeling.

I do some yoga and an 18-minute meditation every night. No matter what. I set get out my mat and bolster, set my timer, and get it done. No compromises.

Then I write, usually with Phineas sitting next to me. The writing part of my brain kicks in when the sun goes down. I’m not sure why – perhaps because the distractions of the day have fallen away by then. I feel like way up on the 17th floor, I can be alone with my thoughts when it’s dark outside. All the listening and gathering I’ve done throughout the day has had time to gel.

Yoga, meditation, and all of the personal work I’ve done over the last two years have paid off by banishing my lifetime of insomnia. Occasionally I toss and turn, though most of the time sleep finds me pretty easily. I take Phin out for a last quick minute (literally) and then I try to shut off the lights just after I catch the top stories of the 11pm news.

That’s an average work day for me. So far, it’s working though I’m always open to changing it up as needed. How does your day map out? How do you get it all done?

career, work, yoga

Beginning: Knowing When to Walk

Christa Avampato

By Miruna Uzdris
I’ve been speaking with a number of potential partners for Compass Yoga as I explore the possibility of offering on-site yoga classes. Classes begin at the Manhattan VA Hospital on October 7th. The VA development came about so quickly because one of the clinical directors has practiced yoga for quite a few years and believes in its power. She is a kindred spirit and so we’re giving this a try to see how it goes. We’re partners and collaborators.

Another organization I’ve been speaking to has not been able to mirror the experience I’ve had the VA. The Executive Director, a social worker, was on the defensive the moment I met her. I know I can help the people in her program through a yoga and meditation class. I know they will benefit greatly from my personal and professional experience. All she had to do was have an open mind and provide an space for a trial class. She would have seen the low-cost, high-quality impact immediately.

Instead her haunches were up and her aggression was released. “All that woman wants is to come in here and do her little program so she can get some PR for her website.” And worst of all, she asked one of her staff members to deliver that message rather than contacting me herself. The board and I put together Compass Yoga with a lot of heart. No one’s going to spit on our efforts on my watch. Rather than taking the second-hand abuse, I consulted with the board and walked away from the opportunity, much to the shock of the social worker.

Several hours later I got a call from the social worker, and somehow the Executive Director has completely changed her tune and is interested in having me present at a community meeting. I guess he thought I’d be honored by the invitation. Instead, I turned it down in favor of focusing our efforts on other partners who want to be true collaborators.

Here’s what I learned from this situation:

1.) We have to focus our efforts if we’re going to make this practice available to all who are open to it. There is tremendous need for wellness programming among populations like returning veterans who have specific healthcare issues that yoga and meditation can address. We don’t have time to get bogged down by naysayers and people who are trying to defeat our efforts just as we’re beginning to lift off.

2.) A fish rots from the head down, especially in the nonprofit world. If there’s a surly Executive Director in place, the chances of break-through innovation and partnership are slim to non-existent. The organization can have the greatest mission in the world, but if the leadership in place isn’t qualified to actually manage and lead then the mission, and it’s recipients, lose. Management matters.

3.) We have to be well ourselves before we can help others be well. This Executive Director is a therapist. She is trained to help others heal and transcend their own grief, and yet she is not a healthy person. I understand the scarring that can occur from being burned one too many times and the trauma that ensues. I get that on a very personal level. Before I could be a teacher, I needed to be whole and healthy. I needed to deal with my own issues so they didn’t become anyone else’s. It took great courage to face up to my issues and I’m exceedingly proud of that personal work. Many people pass one without taking this road. I hope this Executive Director takes up the challenge and heals her own grief before it’s too late for her and for the people who need her help.

4.) People will treat you the way you let them treat you. If I had let that Executive Director run over me, she would have without thinking twice. Had I gone to that community meeting under those pretenses, I would have set a dangerous precedent with her. The right and professional action to take was to walk away and focus on the partners who want to be well. We have very little time on this Earth – we have to make the most of it.

career, happiness

Beginning: The 10 Commandments of Steve Jobs

Christa Avampato

My friend, Lon, sent this infographic to me. I immediately printed it out and hung it up at my desk. I’m working on my own version of the 10 commandments – how I work and live, what I believe to be the blocks that help to build a life to a happy, fulfilling life. I’ll share them as soon as I’ve completed. Do you have a Until then, here’s Steve’s. Do you have a version you’d like to share?

death, dying, Life

Beginning: Beauty and Funerals

Christa Avampato

“Beauty once seemed to me to be an accident of nature. But now that I can see my life on my face, I realize we earn the way we end up looking. Time, it seems, gives us all a chance to really be beautiful.” ~ Ann Curry

“Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve.” ~ Coco Chanel

My Uncle John passed away last week. A kind, generous man, we was one of the people who figured prominently into many of my childhood memories. He was one of those people whom I always felt so lucky to know and love. He lived into his 90’s despite an abundance of health problems for many years. He was a miracle man, a real-life version of the comeback kid.

His funeral served as yet another reminder to me that everything that surrounds us is temporary, that this is all changeable. It reminded me of what Brian and I talked about last week – that a life just spent out on the ledge isn’t really living at all. You need to have the existence you want, and no one can define that for you except you. People will try – they will tell you where and when to go, who to go with, and what you should do when you get there. During Uncle John’s services I couldn’t help but think about the idea that in the end our legacies are about the choices we make, and the ripple effects we cause in the wake of those choices.

There was a poster board of photos at John’s wake. Some of them I’d never seen and some of them I hadn’t seen in many years. I was a tiny baby in the ones I was in. My grandparents were there, as was my dad, looking many years younger than I remember them and with wide, wide smiles. I loved seeing those images and yet it was hard for me to see them, too. Particularly with my dad, I was reminded of all the lost potential, the lost opportunity that he could have had, that my whole family could have had, and in particular that I could have had if only he had gotten the right help at the right time.

I think losing people like my Uncle John is easier than losing people like my dad. John lived a full, loving life. He was grateful for his days and was able to overcome extraordinary hardships. (I found out at his funeral that he had served in the U.S. Army’s First Armored Division during World War II, the first Americans in WWII to go into armed battle.) My dad, by nature, was not grateful and there wasn’t anyone in his life who asked him to be more accountable and responsible for the life we lived. In his eyes, life happened to him. In my Uncle John’s eyes, life happened and no matter what, he chose to love life again and again. My Uncle John took full advantage of all opportunities at his doorstep, and lived a wonderful, long life as a result. My dad did not.

So we have a choice – not necessarily of when it’s our time to move on from this lifetime, but certainly how we spend each of our days in this lifetime. We can choose what we stand for, how we spend our time, and with whom. We either choose to make and take opportunities, or just react to life as it happens. Given the very stark contrast of the lives and passings of my Uncle John and my dad, I know which way I’m going. Do you?

death, health, Life

Beginning: My First Mammogram

Christa Avampato

My mother is a breast cancer survivor. Even prior to her diagnosis and healing, I was constantly on my soapbox about how mammograms should be provided to young women. Because of my strong family history, my insurance covers regular mammograms starting at 35. Recently I got a prescription from my doctor and off I went to Lenox Hill Hospital.

Upon scheduling the exam, I had a feeling of real gravity. I knew I was okay; I just felt the weight of this kind of test. After all, it is an exam that is checking for cancer, a potentially lethal disease, and to go through with one we must look squarely in the face of our own mortality. What I felt was most certainly the feeling of “dis-ease” brought on by looking for a “disease”. The synchronicity of these words is no accident. Disease, and the potential of it, is uncomfortable to say the least.

So in I went to the hospital. They had to take several rounds of scans because the doctor felt that the first set had something out of the ordinary. Due to my strong family history, they take no chances. When the doctor came back into the examination room a second time to ask me to take an immediate ultrasound, the gravity of the tests grew a bit heavier on my shoulders. My only thought was perhaps my mind-body connection is not as a strong as I think it is.

I went into the ultrasound room, and the exam took a solid 20 minutes. As I was lying there, I thought about what I might do if indeed the abnormality was something of concern. What would I do if I was asked to have a biopsy? How would I deal with a diagnosis of cancer at age 35? Sadly, it has become more common in my generation than in those generations who have come before us. My mind was blank. I had no idea what I do, and so I waited and breathed.

The doctor read the ultrasound with a sigh of relief. He saw that the abnormality was not cause for alarm. He said he would review with his attending and then send the report to my gynecologist. He also noted that mammograms among young women are very difficult to read because the younger we are, the more dense our tissue is. Reading abnormalities in dense tissue can be deceiving and this is made still more difficult by my petite and mostly lean body type. What was supposed to be a 20 minute baseline exam turned into a 2 and a half hour event in which I felt fine, then felt worried, and then felt fine again.

I walked out of the hospital and took in a full breath in the sunlit air. I exhaled with a big sigh, though the lesson was not lost on me. My mortality is a very real thing, and I must live accordingly. Most people spend a lot of years, particularly their early ones, not looking at or thinking about death. Because of the deaths in my family at a young age, I have never had that luxury. The moment I could contemplate life, I began to contemplate death in equal measure. After all, we cannot have one without the other.

creative process, creativity, determination, imagination

Beginning: Thinking Into Being

Christa Avampato

“Our thoughts are forming the world.” ~ Yogi tea bag

Our inner confidence and conviction is more important than we realize. If we see a situation that we want to improve, we do actually have the ability to create the change we wish to see. Our thoughts form companies and organizations; they build programs, products, and services. Everything we touch, see, and experience is the creation of nature or someone’s imagination. Why shouldn’t the world have the gift of your vision, the gift of living up to your expectations?

 

health, wellness

Beginning: You as Healer

Christa Avampato

“Your identity is not equivalent to your biography. There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there’s a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility.” ~ John O’Donohue via Daily Good

Healing is seen as a miracle, in stark contrast to the events that cause a need for healing. I’ve always liked the idea of healing being a result of our own doing, something that we can attain just as quickly as we attain injury. I think that the miracle of healing comes from tapping the part of us that John O’Donohue talks about in the quote above. We tend to focus so much on our wounds, and for good reason – they have much to teach us. The well of healing and safety that resides in us, side by side with the wounds, is just as important and often overlooked.

Real healing, lasting and plentiful, requires that we recognize both the wounds and the place in us that cannot be harmed. That latter piece is the one we access in a mindful practice – yoga, meditation, running, writing, service. It is the place where our light resides, the light we recognize in ourselves and honor in others. It is the place that we can retreat to regardless of the outside conditions. It’s our connection to the Universe’s wisdom, to everything sacred, to our own divinity. Go there.

weather

Beginning: Us and Irene

Christa Avampato
Phineas: "Wake me when Irene leaves."

Phineas and I hunkered down in our apartment in New York to ride out Hurricane Irene. We were not asked to evacuate (though if we had been, we certainly would have complied). We stocked up on water and food, filled pots, pans, and bowls with water in case our plumbing went out. We stayed away from the windows as we’re up on the 17th floor of our apartment building. Phone and computer fully charged, movies and books at the ready. The girl scout in me was at her preparedness best.

Irene didn’t pack the punch near us that many feared, though Phin is never happy about any amount of rain. I keep telling him we should be grateful it wasn’t worse; he’s not having it. He just toddles off to his bed and flops down with a dramatic “hmph!” (See photo above.)

Pictures on TV from Long Island look awful – downed trees and flooding – though electricity for most seemed to be on. The storm went a bit further Eats which saved us in New York City. I am still glad that the alerts were sent out for all of us. I’d always prefer to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. With these unpredictable types of storms, you never know what can happen.

Truth be told, I mind the rain and gray weather far less than most. I like the feeling of being insulated. I used the bad weather as a time of introspection and I’ve been able to stay productive. Lots of reading and writing, planning for Compass Yoga, and catching up with people via phone and online. It was a good reminder to me of how important it is to take time out and hunker down once in a while, and it shouldn’t take a hurricane warning to do so.

creative process, creativity, yoga

Beginning: A Creative Update On Compass Yoga

Christa Avampato
From http://www.zastavki.com

Despite the rainy weather over the weekend, I was able to focus a lot of my creative energies toward Compass Yoga. The site has been updated and the service and product ideas are flowing! The Board and I have been talking through some new ideas to spread our efforts to a wider audience. Here’s a brief update of how we’re doing:

Board:
The Compass Yoga Board of Directors is in place and in a constant dialogue on how to shape the organization going forward. Check out their bios and personal mission statements here.

Partnerships:
We’re moving ahead on the partnership front with classes. Beginning October 7th, there will be a weekly yoga and mediation class at the VA Hospital in Manhattan for the medical staff. We’re in talks with several other potential partners where we hope to offer classes and programs by the end of the year.

Incorporation:
We are grateful for legal counsel and support from New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and the incredible probono attorneys who have volunteered to help us. We will be working closely with them in the coming months on our nonprofit incorporation and tax-exempt status.

Online resources:
In the coming months, Compass Yoga will be releasing a set of online multi-media resources that help to fulfill our mission to “provide yoga to populations who have a specific healthcare need for the therapeutic healing that a yoga practice offers.” There is no shortage to the ways in which we can offer up our teachings, unencumbered by geography and language.

New York Public Library classes:
I am thrilled to announce that Compass Yoga‘s members of Karmi’s Angels are taking over the classes at the Bloomingdale branch of the New York Public Library. As my work on administrative work on Compass ramps up and I turn a good deal of my attention toward our Veteran Program, Sarah and Suzanne offered to divide up the classes at the NYPL. In September, the classes will shift to Thursday evenings from 6:00pm – 6:55pm and will continue to be free and open to all.

Other areas under development:
Compass is currently working on securing PR representation to spread the good word on our good works. We’re also putting together a few potential workshop ideas, scouting out funding resources, and continuing work on the book project for yoga and finance.

Want to get involved?
Join us! Check out the “Get Involved” section of our website and connect with us on Facebook.