On Quitting

The truth is, finishing can be the easier path.

When I was 19 I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disorder.

My spleen was attacking my platelets.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, it was like a subconscious suicide.

Without medical intervention, I would have eventually just bled to death. Some thin vessel, somewhere in my body would have burst and my body would not have responded with a blood clot.

I didn’t consider that my body was trying to tell me something. I didn’t yet understand that our bodies know.

Instead, I fought like hell to keep going. I only napped when the fatigue won, and I felt like I had lost.

I had three surgeries in less than a year. I was on crutches for 3 months. My only thought was training to get back on the soccer field, and passing my classes so I could keep playing soccer.

I remember friends talking about leaving school, and some actually leaving. It was like they were speaking Martian.

I can’t say I regret it. I’m proud that I graduated and I cherish every minute I spent on the soccer field.

But I do feel so much tenderness for that tired body that couldn’t keep up, that did not want to keep up.

And I can’t help but wonder what she would have done, if I had been able to listen.

At 19, all I knew was to keep going.

I remember the first moment I realized that stopping is an option.

We had just graduated. A friend and I were determined to climb a fourteen thousand foot peak before leaving Colorado. We were up at 5am and at the base camp by 11, perfect timing, but terrible conditions.

We arrived to find everyone huddled behind a rock to block the wind and discussing how dangerous it was to summit, that with this wind you were liable to get blown right off.

I thought, well, it’s gonna be tough so no sense procrastinating! I pulled my hood tight, hunched over and marched towards the summit.

My friend, on the other hand, turned and started to walk back down.

I shouted, “What are you doing?”

He shouted back, “What are you doing?”

“Going up”

“No you’re not, that’s stupid. Let’s just go back down, try another day…”

Turn around? You mean, we can just decide to stop? We don’t have to keep going no matter what?

This revolutionary insight taught me how to say no to pilot training later that year, which was the first pivotal moment of saying yes to my life.

What I’ve learned the hard way is that finishing can be the easier path. Finishing is linear. Quitting forces us to confront that dreaded question, “What now?”

At 38, I’m proud to say I’ve mastered quitting. I’m clear that within every no, is a bigger yes. No is a prerequisite to yes. Every no prunes away more and more of what is not us, not ours to do, and leaves us with only our essential yes — our place, and our work to do in the world.

And staying with your yes doesn’t feel like “Finishing what you started,” it feels like living — creating, trail blazing.

Quitters get a bad rap in our culture, but quitters are warriors. Quitters are creative. Eventually we call quitters leaders.

Steve Jobs quit college.

The Buddha quit life, and sat under a tree — for years.

Do you know what they call mountaineers who know when to quit on a summit attempt? Alive.

Quitting could save your life.

So what is it that you know, what does your body know, that you need to give your full-God-Damn-NO to? What potential YES, is waiting for you when you do?

You will only find out if you try.

And I hope you do.

The whole world hopes you do.

*******

Sign up for email notifications here.

Why I Jump Out of Airplanes… I mean, meditate.

Sadly, it’s not to feel better.

When I was 19 I was pushed out of an airplane.

Seriously.

It was absolutely fucking terrifying.

When it happened, I was perched in the open door of a perfectly good airplane. Did I mention I was in jump school? I had signed up for this. We had practiced for a few weeks.

The instruction was “Stand, in the door!”

Even typing that I feel a little dizzy.

I was a cadet at the Air Force Academy. This was my first summer of college.

We were wearing our green flight suits. Fully harnessed. Helmets. Jump boots. The whole deal.

The inside of the plane was bare metal, except for two benches facing each other.

Sitting there, waiting my turn, while the plane slowly completed it’srotational pattern, no one talked. I literally couldn’t use my mouth. I just sat there watching as my friends, one by one, got sucked out of the open door.

And then it was my turn. My instructor looked at me. And just like we had rehearsed, he pointed at me and shouted, “You.”

And then pointing to the very edge of the door, the ledge of the last thing to hold on to before four thousand feet of wide, open space. “Stand, in the door!”

I crawled. Slowly. With a lot of not wanting to, gripping and keeping my face as low as I could to the metal floor. I put my right knee right up on the edge of the world as I knew it. My right knee, my right hand, my left foot—were glued to the cold metal. My chest, my belly, my face and my left hand were fully exposed.

I think I passed out.

The training is to count to eleven before you pull your parachute. “Jump one-thousand, two-one-thousand…”

And I pulled. Before I got to three. I only know this because we watched a video after each jump.

The next thing I knew, I was under canopy. I was floating over the Earth, watching it with wonder. It was timeless, and I was right there, present, alive, awake.

And it can feel like this, on our meditation cushion, when we come in contact with our pain and we choose to stay with it.

It’s really fucking scary. That moment of standing in the door, of staying on our cushion, of staying with the reality of what is arising — rather than doing anything to get away, it’s really hard.

That feeling at the edge of the airplane, facing that open door—facing that thing, that big nebulous, scary edge. It’s ineffable, but we all know it. It’s just that feeling of bad, right at the center, deep in the core. It’s what drives us to check Facebook, to drink, to smoke, to binge, to purge, to run, to be a nasty asshole, to whatever.

And who can blame us. No one wants to feel that. It’s horrible. It’s normal to want to get away from it. Who in their right mind would crawl up to that door, and jump out? Who would acknowledge the fear and the pain, and gointo it?

What I’ve learned the hard way, from getting myself to my cushion more often than not, for the better part of going on 14 years now—is that meditating doesn’t always feel good, and that isn’t the point.

Even after all this time. I feel that same blip of fear and resistance. It’s not always this strong, but it’s always there. It doesn’t go away, not completely.

I sit to strengthen my ability to live more and more of my life with the awareness, the aliveness, I felt in that moment under the canopy.

We sit to build our courage to be with reality, just as it is —rather than spending our precious energy trying to flee from it.

I sit because I know, that on the other side of that door, if I can just make that crawl to the door, is total freedom.

*******

See more pictures on instagram.

How I Lost My First Book

I spent over a decade not writing my first book.

Imagine twelve, crisp young officers sitting around a large oak table with a sharp, eager, full bird Colonel at the head. He is leading a mentoring session, and sincerely wants to help us ‘make rank’.

Eleven of us are taking notes.

He asks, “Where are you with your educational development?”

“Sir, I am finishing my MBA, Sir, I am finishing my MBA, Sir, I have a master’s in applied mathematics, Sir, I have recently started an MBA in engineering management…”

My back is soaked as we go around the room, and I then shout, “Sir, I am starting my Master of Arts in Critical and Creative Thinking.”

All eyes are on the Colonel.

Eventually he nods and says, “That’s interesting. I took a class in creativity once.”

What I hear is, “McNiff is getting a degree in underwater basket weaving. Who let that happen?”

I went for the degree in underwater basket weaving because I wanted to become “A reflective agent of change.” That’s what the brochure said.

I wanted to write a book, and I had no idea how to do that. I didn’t know people like that. I knew people that flew airplanes and got really practical degrees.

I wanted to compile a book of stories about how we find our purpose — a book of facts, from real life people that had found it.

I wanted to speak directly to you, and to me, to the seekers. I wanted to show that what we seek exists — using stories from the many inspired humans on this planet.

I also really wanted to find my purpose.

This program seemed like a place to start.

And it was.

I’m not sure if that book was never meant to be, or if I missed my chance, but in trying to write it I paid attention, and I took notes.

I gave myself permission to take risks, beginning with that bold move to study creativity.

I wrote, a lot.

I interviewed a mentor who told me, “It’s not what you do, but who you become that matters.”

At the time, I didn’t get it. This was frustrating to hear. How could this be true? I remember thinking, but what we do informs who we become! What we do matters. And of course, this is also true. What we do matters.

What I can see now is that I was desperate to find something, something I could do, that would alleviate my angst. The tension was very uncomfortable. I wanted it to stop, but the best thing that happened, is that it didn’t stop.

Thirteen years later, what I’ve learned the hard way, from not writing that book, is that creative tension — in any form, is a good thing. It’s what keeps us going. The discomfort gives us the courage we need to keep going.

The point is to keep going.

Photo by Scott Schell

And one day, something really interesting happened. The tension resolved. I realized that instead of writing the book, I had lived it. I have what I’ve been seeking. I am, and have always been, and have become, one of those inspired humans.

Trying to write this book has shaped me, and now I get it. I’m not seeking a purpose any more. This isn’t a destination. It doesn’t work that way.

Whether we write the book or not, the tension resolves when we get the lesson. That’s how it works.

And hopefully, if we are lucky, something else grabs us, and the process begins again.

I’m ready, and it’s time now, to make space for the next great endeavor, but I will never forget you — my first creative love affair, my first book, that never really was.

Thank you for being so loud and entertaining, especially when I needed you the most.

Thank you for helping me to leave that job. That was scary.

Thank you for helping me to leave that marriage. That was hard, and I couldn’t have done it without you.

Thank you for inspiring me in those moments of panic when I felt like I had ruined my life.

Thank you for keeping me company when I couldn’t sleep.

Thank you for the trip to Australia. I loved that.

Thank you for inspiring me to ask that terrible roommate to move out so I could use her room for writing. That was a great decision.

I bid you farewell, dear friend, and I thank you for your service.

*****

See more pictures on instagram.

I grew up with a Dad who came home with candy in his pockets.

What I didn’t say, is that quite often, he was also drunk.

He would walk through our door, take off his shoes, and hang his coat and hat in the front hall closet.

Somewhere in this process, my sister and I would attack — like sharks that could smell the candy through his suit pants. We would reach right into his pockets, where we were certain the candy was hiding. He would lose his balance with the thrust of our clumsy little paws.

Every once in a while we would find nothing, maybe some lint or a golf tee, but nothing sweet that we could put into our salivating mouths. On these occasions, when we found nothing, we would give him spankings.

I would stand behind him and swing my arm around like a windmill to get as much force as I could muster. I was never really spanked so I wasn’t clear on how one was supposed to issue a spanking, but the windmill method seemed pretty good.

He would laugh, and stumble a bit, and with a twinge of guilt say “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I remember thinking, “Good, feel bad, and next time remember the candy!”

Now I know there was more to his guilt than remembering to grab a handful of mints before leaving the bar.

Now I get it, but for his eulogy it seemed okay to leave it that I grew up with a Dad who came home with candy in his pockets — because I did, I did grow up with a Dad that came home with candy in his pockets.

What I’ve learned the hard way is that life is messy. We get Dad’s that are messy, and magical, and terribly human. And we love them madly any way.

*****

See more pictures on instagram.

What Afghanistan Taught Me About Love

I lived and worked in Afghanistan for eight years. I worked on programs that gave rural communities access to water, basic health care and education. I saw the country gain access to electricity, and programs change hands from international to Afghan leadership. I saw streams of girls raucously swarm the streets every morning and every afternoon, light heartedly getting access to an education.

I still hold hope that what we did will be enough, and that this generation can make it. But I also saw the security situation deteriorate. I saw people get scared and leave. I felt the lock down, the loss of freedom, hope, and control.

I’m not the same person I was, and I’m so glad.

I left the population of Americans that can hear fireworks and not jump. I joined the global population of people who feel a pulse of terror and assume bomb blast, before realizing their neighbor is lighting fireworks to celebrate the super bowl.

I wrote this story in the fall of 2013. This is not journalism, this is a love letter. This is my truth, and my story. Names have been changed to keep this account anonymous.

When I read the email that my travel was approved, something dropped in the pit of my stomach, and I started to cry.

I imagined myself walking onto an abandoned stage. Like in a bad dream, where I knew I was dreaming, but couldn’t wake up. I was wandering around, looking for my friends. The stage looked mostly the same, but the cleaning crew was lazily sweeping and taking down the props.

Infuriatingly, I could hear Amena, but I could not find her.

Her LAUGH was echoing in the background, but all I could see was this old fat man in his loose baseball cap sweeping the stage floor. What I wish I didn’t know — is that he can’t clean this up.

I should have gone home, or moved on, to anywhere — like nearly everyone I know.

I was here when things were exciting. When James was aspiring to write for the Times. When he was aspiring to get that French girl to stay over AND sleep with him.

I want to retell the story of how Jack endeared himself to me, after drinks at the French restaurant, when I had my “Welcome to Kabul” fall in the ditch. Covered in the kind of human mess that only Afghanistan can provide, how he laughed and pulled me securely onto his lap any way.

I want to sit on Franny’s lattice covered patio, drowning myself in wine and enjoying my “I don’t know why, but I only smoke in Afghanistan” cigarettes, listening to What’s-his-name gush his admiration for the beautiful and committed Ida. How her work brought her to tears, and what he would give to feel that way about anything.

I want to be the newly married 28 year old intern, working behind the bar with Elle as she describes her surprise at being single at her age, wondering if she missed her chance to have children, if she has stayed in Kabul too long.

I don’t want to be the old hand consultant, closer to 40 than 30, divorced and uncertain of the future. I shouldn’t be the one to turn out the lights.

Johnny wants to do that. He earned it. It was his fiancé that was shot in the head for delivering medical aid to children in Nuristan, not mine.

I wanted to leave when Fridays meant playing sponge bob with William at the UN pool, when leaving meant I still had friends to leave behind.

But here I am, and tomorrow I will meet with the Institute of Health, and the man who is running the women’s health program.

I will broken-heartedly inquire about the quality of the education program, but he won’t notice my demeanor, and I will hold no hope or confidence in his answer.

I will ask about the tracking system for graduates and pass this information on, with no hope that this will actually happen or that anyone will notice when it doesn’t.

The bursting, passionate hope I once held for the future of Afghanistan, fled to Sweden and India and Australia in the handbags of my friends. They didn’t leave because of a lack of education, although that is what we will tell the donor when trying to get funding.

She left because of her abusive husband — because she didn’t want to marry that old man — because they couldn’t live with the shame of not being able to protect their sisters from their mother-in law’s beatings.

They left because they could, and for that I am proud and grateful.

Years ago — I cried as I hugged you goodbye. Wondering if I would ever see you again. It was after all, probably my last trip to Afghanistan. Amena left the room, saying she “Couldn’t bear to see my tears.”

The oil buchari that gave us such bad headaches has been replaced with an electric heater, but there is no warmth.

I’m sitting where your desk used to be, and I miss your mess. I miss the way you always wanted to sit together to work on the report. I miss telling you to stop cleaning your teeth with the sharp point of the paper clip that still makes me cringe.

I miss being asked to keep it down.

The door is shut, but there is no laughter to be quieted. You aren’t here to see my tears, and I wonder why I still am.

What I LEARNED THE HARD WAY, is that only love can break our heart.

I went back to Afghanistan, again and again. I couldn’t stay away, and I hope I never do.

I didn’t get to save Afghanistan, but I did get to love it.

At my very first going away party, a colleague said that I “Built a home in his heart.” And it’s like that. Part of me will always live in that house. I left that piece, and I will never get it back.

And I don’t want it back.

One of the great treasures of my life — is that I get to carry an Afghan home in my heart.

*****

See more pictures on instagram.

How to Make Chicken Stock (…and grow up)

You can simmer that pot for days, but it won’t make chicken stock until you take the damn lid off!

In my early thirties I lived in Boston, while traveling a lot for work and pleasure. In between trips, while home, I sheepishly explored domestic undertakings. Having dinner parties was one of my most favorite things to do. Only snag is that I really don’t know how to cook.

I insisted on hosting many nights at my house, and forced my friends to endure chopping root vegetables with cheese knives while I set the table, lit the candles and played my favorite music to set the mood.

Luckily I have great friends.

One night we roasted a chicken. Afterwards my friend said, “Now you can make a really great stock.”

“Totally,” I replied, as if I were a normal person and knew what this meant or how to do it.

As the youngest of five I wasn’t allowed in the laundry room. My jobs included unloading the dishwasher and occasionally folding the clothes, which I’m sure was eventually taken away because I only remember trying to trap the cat under the laundry basket. And competing over who could fly the underwear farthest across the room — using only the ceiling fan.

I sometimes like to say I was raised like a boy because, you know, I ampretty sporty. But I think the truth is, I was raised like the youngest of five — by parents who liked things a certain way and found it easier to do it themselves. I was allowed, and in fact told, to go play video games while my mom and older sisters cooked thanksgiving dinner.

I’m thirty-eight, and when I go to my mother’s house — it’s better to ask my fifty-two year old sister to do my laundry, than to watch my mother’s anxiety.

I went to college not knowing how to use an iron. My college was the Air Force Academy, and we learned weird things to do with an iron. We strapped down the sheets with shirt guarders (funny little contraptions that attach your socks to your shirts — to keep your socks up and your shirt down) and then ironed the sheets, after the bed was made.

A friend of mine still has a scar on her neck from ironing her shirt collar,after she was dressed. Of course we also had an extra iron on hand for the in room grilled cheese delicacy.

I absolutely took advantage of the laundry service privilege. This didn’t give me away exactly. Many of us used it because we were so sleep deprived. No one had the energy to stay awake long enough to wait for the dryer to be done.

Freshman year a friend of mine actually fell asleep while he was explaining a math equation, in the front of the room, at the chalkboard.

I remember watching my college boyfriend do his laundry. We were seniors and had more free time to do things, like sleep. He didn’t know it, but I was taking notes.

His friend asked him,

“Do you want me to separate the whites?”

“No, just throw them all in together on cold and use the permanent press setting.”

I’ve ruined a lot of clothes since then, and picked up a few other tips along the way, but hallelujah. I was free. I knew how to use a washing machine.

You might be wondering how I learned to use a tampon. And luckily the box comes with very explicit instructions and pictures.

So when my friend told me, “All you have to do is boil the bones with the all of the left over vegetables scraps for a few hours.” I thought, I think I can do that.

And then I called the next day for more details.

“Bay leaf, right?”

“Yes.”

“Salt. Pepper?”

“No salt. A few pepper corns.”

“Anything else?”

“Plenty of onion, leek and fennel scraps. You definitely need a few carrots and celery stalks, but you have that, right?”

“Oh, yea, got it!”

Hours went by and I kept eagerly checking. It smelled good, but man did it taste watery.

“So it’s been five hours, and it still doesn’t taste good? What am I missing?”

“You’ve been simmering it for five hours?”

“Ya, I even turned it up a little bit for the last hour.”

“Hm, that doesn’t sound right.”

“Right, I had to turn it down again because it was boiling over the lid and making a mess.”

“Wait, the lid? You have to simmer it with the lid OFF. The whole point is to boil it down.”

In our own ways, big and small, we all have to learn how to be adults. Depending on how you were raised, you can probably choose to mindlessly live out the habits you were raised with — and get by just fine.

We each have the choice to keep our perspectives long and skinny, and live life looking through the straws of our youth.

Or, we can have the courage to let life break us open. We can actively explore our blind spots, because no matter how perfectly you were raised, you have them too.

WHAT I’VE LEARNED THE HARD WAY, is that these lessons will probably keep sneaking up on me.

And I choose embarrassment over ignorance.

*******

See more pictures on instagram.

Three Reasons to Say Hell Yes

You don’t know. You’re not in control. It might not work. Say yes any way. You know you want to.

When I was still relatively new to the Pacific Northwest, my partner asked me if I wanted to take a spring backpacking trip. He told me, “We will be going through snow.” My New England brain translated this to mean little patches of snow — you know, under the shadows of trees.

In my defense, we had a record low snowfall that year.

I was really surprised to find myself on a six thousand foot — treeless, blindingly sunny, mountain range — walking through a snow pack deeper than I am tall, without my sunglasses. For two days.

Oopsie.

Photo (and emergency eyewear) by Scott Schell.

At the time, I was supporting myself financially by teaching yoga — which is sort of an oxymoron.

That year my accountant asked me if I was living off of air. I really neededto stay home and work, so that I could afford to buy things, like food. But I didn’t stay home. Because, hell yes, I wanted to go backpacking.

I was introduced to the concept of following our hell yes by a super hot Brazilian big wave surfer. And you know how she found it? By letting herself rest on the couch, in her pajamas.

She realized needed to wait until she had nothing in her, but a big fat hell yes — before paddling into an ocean monster that could kill her.

Imagining her sitting on the couch eating cereal gives me courage.

Photo by Michele McNiff

 

Here’s what I’VE LEARNED THE HARD WAY, from following my hell yes.

1. It’s okay to not know

Turns out, in the realm of creative living, the whole path doesn’t become clear until we look back. On the way out, we only get to see one step at a time.

Robert Fritz says it best, “The vision need only be clear enough that you would recognize it if you created it.”

I think he’s saying know what you want, know what is important to you, and then let how and when be a little fuzzy. I think he’s saying don’t kill your dreams by needing to know every god damn detail, before they are ready to know you.

I love the way Fritz describes this because it sounds like a dance with the future. And the vision is like a sensory function — a smell or a taste.

And in this ambiguous dance, our hell yes is our lifeline. It’s how we find our way when we can’t see the rest of the path.

I had no way of knowing that following my hell yes on that spring hike would be a moment of realizing I could trust my partner to take care of me, and that I could feel safe having kids with him — but it was.

2. It’s okay to try things

Benjamin Hardy said recently on medium that, “Quantity is the most likely path to quality.” Reminding us that Bach produced one thousand songs, but only three were considered among the greatest music ever created.

We aren’t all musical geniuses, our expectations might be quite a bit lower and it may seem reasonable to get discouraged when we try a few times and things don’t work out — but it’s a trap. Of course, if we commit ourselves and keep trying, we will find our greatness. We will.

But too often we are giving up on ourselves too soon.

I was 32 when I got divorced. My biological clock wasn’t just ticking, it was waking me up at night. I dated with purpose for six years. I once went on a tinder date that required my passport. I’ve been on dates where I needed to ask my sister to pick me up from the airport (she lives in another state).

God as my witness, I went on a date that required me to use oxygen. I’ve also been on lots of unremarkable dates. And had my heart smashed a handful of times.

And I had no way of knowing which would be the greatest ever, until I tried.

3. It’s okay to trust life

I’m not saying don’t plan. Plan away. Dream big. But I am saying hold them lightly, and leave space for life to give you something better.

I whole heartedly agree with Michael Singer:

If the natural unfolding of the process of life can create and take care of the entire universe, is it really reasonable for us to assume that nothing good will happen unless we force it to?

Life wants your greatness too.

That thing inside of you that feels like nothing but potential, that vague urge, that fuzzy desire. That thing you really want to do, even when it seems to makes no sense. I believe that is life inside of you, asking you to say yes.

It might be messy. And as Brene Brown so eloquently says, “You’re gonna get kicked around.”

But isn’t your greatest potential, and your deepest desire, worth a few bumps and bruises?

*******

See more pictures on instagram