There is something that I get so excited that I have only just consciously realized is a “thing”.
It’s called CLIFF JUMPING. Not literally of course (unless it’s a low cliff into deep water, I could possibly try that), but metaphorically speaking. I LOVE jumping off cliffs!!
But here’s the thing. I never really saw myself as one of those “cliff jumpers” because I’m not at all KAMIKAZE as a rule. I’m not the girl whose jumped out of a plane, done a bungy jump or who skis with ease down black slopes and off piste (I might make it down a blue piste these days!). I’m as chicken shit as they come for things like that. I love the adrenal rush I get from roller coasters at a reputable theme park and that’s about it. Yes I did once hold a season pass to 6 Flags when I lived in the U.S.. Nothing like hopping on a roller-coaster after a day in an office!
Where I love to be a cliff jumper in real life is with my decisions and actions. I love just deciding to DO IT and trusting that I’ll figure it out if it doesn’t work out. (Yet it always does work out in the end. You’ve got to choose to trust and not let fear get in the way.)
This topic came up in my weekly mastermind call this morning and it prompted a discussion around “crazy” things that we have done in our lives which have SERVED us.
I recall several events as a young child which I now realise stemmed from this need for adventure…a hunger for an exciting life (I grew up in the country-side and used to feel so bored sometimes!)
But probably the first real notable cliff jump was when I got on a plane, aged 15, to visit my penpal in France. This event was prompted several years earlier by a conversation I vividly recall whilst I was playing on a swing at a birthday party. A girl I was playing with told me that she had been on a plane to several places in Europe. I genuinely thought she was lying and I was amused by how blatant she was being with her lies (I knew no other children who had been on a plane!). When I discovered she was actually telling the truth, I decided I WANT TO GO ON A PLANE TOO. That’s why I chose to focus on languages when I entered secondary school.. because I wanted TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE. I saw it as a way out of my boredom.
So after a series of letter exchanges with my French penpal, she invited me to visit her for 3 weeks!! It seemed IMPOSSIBLE for me to go as my family didn’t have the money for things like plane tickets. Back then, plane tickets were much more expensive. Anyway, I remember feeling sooooo determined to make it happen. I recall discussing it with a friend and saying I was going to become a serial babysitter to get the money. Though thanks to my parents finally, who saw just how much I wanted to do this, it did happen.
I showed up, green and overwhelmed, to a small town south of Châteuroux with a Tracy Chapman tape cassette for my pen-pal as a gift (I recall her being unimpressed and I was simply confused by this, lol) and an Irish ham for her parents!
The 3-week visit turned into 7 weeks as her cousins needed an English tutor, so I went to stay with them for a month too.
I can remember feeling very challenged sometimes on this trip, especially for the 2nd part of it, but I will never regret it. I definitely didn’t return to Ireland as the same person I was when I left!
The following summer, a German neighbor had a friend with a guest-house and off I went to Germany for 7 weeks to work as an au-pair. They had 9 guest rooms, a very busy restaurant and 2 wild boys aged 3 and 10. I recall understanding only about 10% of what they were saying on day 1. It felt scary but I quickly improved! My best German teachers that summer were kid cartoons from German TV (we watched a lot!) and their 10-year old son called Sven. I remember being in the car with him and him pointing out the window and saying “die Kuh” (the cow) and “der Himmel” (the sky) and me repeating it. Some crazy things happened that summer that might distress my mother so I wont share :-), but I did manage to return to Ireland with my virginity still intact, despite my adorable German “mutti”’s best efforts to get my cherry popped (she had succumbed at just 13!!!).
At 17 and a half, I had already finished school and started a 3-year diploma in German and Marketing at what’s now called Waterford Institute of Technology. Lots of shenanigans happened there too and not much studying. I didn’t enjoy that part and didn’t make it through the year. I cliff jumped out of there.
I then did an intensive-typing course in Dublin to “finish out the school year” (yes on um .. a typewriter… but oh so glad that I can type mega-fast ever since!) and worked in a 7-Eleven store part-time in central Dublin. I lived with a girl called Sam who I thought was really sweet. Until money was missing from the till at the shop.. and the ex-priest who worked there and with whom I got along really well (he used to say I should enter The Rose Of Tralee!!) .. took me aside and said “you are under observation as one of the staff that is stealing money from the till”. He shared with me that Sam definitely was.
The whole situation distressed me so much that I immediately moved out from the flat I was sharing with Sam and my mother helped me financially to find another place. It was my first real life experience of feeling seriously betrayed. In hindsight, that poor girl was probably struggling through life and didn’t have the family support like I did. I hope she managed to find her way.
That was the time that I came across an ad in the newspaper looking for Irish waitresses for a large Irish pub in Germany called The Irish House in a place called Kaiserslautern. Wow! I have literally just googled it and it’s still going strong!! I remember that it was owned by two couples. The wives came to a hotel in Dublin and interviewed 68 girls one Sunday. 5 of us landed the job and I immediately cliff jumped off to Germany with immense excitement!
Let’s just say that that was a good University of Life experience too and I ended up staying a year rather than for the summer!
I finally returned to Ireland to study languages and Business at what’s now called Dublin Business School. An ad that I put in the Irish Independent national newspaper the following summer led me to a summer job as an accounts clerk for the French and German markets for a company in Dublin. I was way out my depth but it was a fantastic achievement. I recall cliff jumping my last 15 pounds for the ad which left me broke (yes I always took the risks and just hoped for the best rather than choosing sensible). I pinched myself when I got the job!
I managed to complete my studies and then landed in Geneva, Switzerland in June of 1993 to work for the International Labour Organisation. This was massive for me even if I actually hated the admin work I was doing. At least I was finally doing something which I believed was “sensible”.
I later won a green card in an Irish lotto and cliff jumped off to Atlanta, Georgia. I worked for Coca-Cola. I then cliff jumped back to Ireland and did further training in I.T. that led me to return to the UN again in Geneva as an IT trainer.
When I later went to Thailand on an 18-day holiday with my husband and fell in love with it, I asked myself and him why on earth we weren’t living there? So I quit my job and he took a years sabbatical from his and we cliff jumped off to Chiang Mai. We returned before the year was out to give birth to our first son, Dylan. He cliff jumped into the world nearly 5 weeks early, it runs in the family I guess :-).
When my second daughter was born and I felt destroyed about leaving her with a child-minder, I cliff jumped and started my own company called “Love To Learn” working with children with learning differences (oh because another cliff jump I did during those years of working was a masters in education, specializing in dyslexia and child development).
Whilst working at my own practice in Geneva, I indirectly came across a FANTASTIC process to help you work through stressful thoughts called The Work of Byron Katie. It blew my mind with how simple yet effective it was in shifting my stress.. and I had A LOT of self-inflicted stress through an unclear mind. (All stress is self-inflicted. The better we become at managing our thoughts, the easier it is to handle every external circumstance.)
I ended up cliff jumping again, with 3 young kids at home, the youngest being a 9-month old baby (it was really hard to leave them and deal with the guilt of that) and leaving to L.A. for 10 days to a workshop in The Work. I was so impressed that I started training in the process. I certified 3 years later and despite a huge internal battle (because I loved working with the kids I worked with and had a bond with them and their parents), I quit Love To Learn and started a new company called Manage With Clarity as a certified facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie.
I made this switch after a 6-month break from work which I took to recover from a serious surgery where I had donated a kidney to my sister. This was a really stressful time in my life and one of the hardest cliff jumps I made, but luckily it all worked out well and my beautiful sister is rocking that kidney still!!
In 2014, we moved to Nairobi as a family for a year and I felt called to work with women from the Nairobi slums. It was as much of a gift and learning for me as it was for them! I led 20 stress management workshops in a dangerous area of the city, sharing The Work of Byron Katie. I had a few dodgy experiences during that time that I can look back and laugh at now, but they were scary at the time. There was definitely some cliff jumping involved in that adventure!!!
I returned to Geneva with my 3 children after one year, whilst their dad stayed on working there. Since our house had been rented out, I found a new house to rent and bought a second-hand car. I recall taking my 3 kids on public transport to a far away place to go and test-drive and then buy the car. The house I rented ended up flooding so I moved with the kids to another house 10 days later. At the time, all of those things felt difficult. Now I can look back and laugh. There are many moments which feel difficult to us and that we can look back at later and laugh. Everything passes, nothing is permanent. “This too shall pass” is one of my favorite sayings” and also “time heals” because it does. I know the pain of grief and loss too, having lost my father 7 years ago.
Anyway, back to my “work”. After a few years of hanging out in The Work of Byron Katie space, helping people to shift their pain through questioning their stressful thoughts, I moved into coaching. This started when I myself hired a great coach and I loved the process she used to help me realise what was possible for me in my life by stepping up.. so of course I had to do coach training (or 10!) then too!
A scary cliff jump I then did was to withdraw my certification as a The Work of Byron Katie facilitator. I felt too stifled by the “rules” and I wanted to follow my own rules and instincts instead. There is great freedom in that for me. I still love and highly recommend the process though and use it with clients.
That’s what’s led me to where I am today and I’m truly grateful for that. The only thing that I’d like to see shift in the future is that I’m more in nature, with a “part-time” house nearby in the mountains and to have a lot more space for book writing and some travel adventures. I am certain it will happen! I love the phrase “she believed she could so she did”.
In the meantime, I’ve 3 amazing kids to be a mum to and I have some exciting long-term goals for when they leave their two nests. Yes there are two nests since me and their dad decided our journey as a couple was complete. and I cliff jumped out of the family home last year. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “failed” relationship by the way. We have a different relationship which is still very mutually respectful.
So that’s the “highlight reel” from the perspective of a person who cliff jumped several times in her life and will no doubt continue to do so. I’m not saying that all this cliff jumping was easy. I definitely experienced lots of ups and downs.. but that’s life. I don’t regret any of my decisions and I honestly wish that I had cliff jumped a lot more with regards to traveling. I would choose cliff jumping any day over feeling bored, frustrated and soul-destroyed. It’s got me to where I am now and I’m excited for where my future cliff jumps will take me!
What cliff jump are you aching to make? Have you got fears around doing it? Cliff jumps will usually ruffle a few feathers, but you’ve got to honour yourself and trust your gut. Trust that people will deal with it and adapt.. or not, that’s their business, not yours. Not cliff jumping because you don’t want to upset someone is a prison. You are not responsible for them. You are responsible for YOU and for your life.
I believe that a well-lived life must involve cliff jumping outside of our safety zones. It’s scary and it’s not always smooth-sailing.. but it’s so worth it, I promise you.
Want my help with lovingly pushing you off the cliff? Click here for details of my latest program called UNTAMEABLE. Go for it! You only live once and life’s too short for staying sensible and stuck!
Much love,
Niamh xx
