40 Lessons from Age 40

Everything from what a boundary is and how to stick to it, to why self-compassion is so critical. And, oh yeah, back pain. There’s always back pain.

1. The universe rewards courageous participation. I’m so sorry I’m starting off this list with a line that I definitely either got from some life coach on Instagram or the Goop podcast. So sorry. (I’m not sorry.) But I yam who I yam and this is the phrase that infused my life in 2019 and I will be taking with me into the rest of my future.

I spent years wondering why stuff wasn’t happening for me — career, romance, the ability to dance like Beyonce — and I was as good at stewing as anybody. But something in 2019 in me woke up and asked, “Uh, hey Catherine — what have you actually tried to do to make those things you say you want happen?” And then something else in me cowered and said, “Trying is scary.” And the other, better something in me kicked me in the solar plexus, dragged me out of my house by the hand, and said: “Try.”

Try. Take that step. Do the thing that scares you. If the big thing that scares you is too scary right now, try little things that scare you and push you out of your comfort zone. Attend a meetup where you don’t know anybody; dine alone at the bar; ask that cool girl in your yoga class out for coffee; try meditation; do a fitness class that intimidates you; just, try. The universe will see your effort, will take notice, and will be like, “Oh, this person is finally ready. I’ve been waiting! Let’s go.”

2. Self-compassion is the only path forward in life — and not only that, it is the only way to heal. I thought when it came to motivating myself and getting things done, tougher was better and meaner was best. God, the things I’ve told myself over the years about my image, my worth, my abilities… and god, the myriad of ways I tried to shove down feelings I didn’t want to deal with or look at or was ashamed of.

Here’s something radical: kindess to yourself creates space for the things that have been hiding deep in your heart, in your belly, to slowly come forward. You keep being kind to those things, and they’ll keep showing up, and helping you understand why they were there in the first place. Finally, you guys will have such a loving relationship towards each other that one day, they’ll feel okay leaving you.

This may actually feel sad. It will be hard to say goodbye to the things in yourself that you spent decades either beating up or pretending didn’t exist — because in a way that kept them so close to you — but you’ll feel so light going forward. And now there will be space for so much love and goodness to come in.

3. Allowing yourself and your state of emotions to be dictated and controlled by the events of the world serves nobody — not you, and not the people who need you. The other day I came across these words from Thich Nhat Hanh: “Someone asked me, “Aren’t you worried about the state of the world?” I allowed myself to breathe and then I said, “ What is most important is not to allow your anxiety about what happens in the world to fill your heart. If your heart is filled with anxiety, you will get sick, and you will not be able to help.”

There are cruelties, indignities, pain, everywhere. But if we spend all of our time reading and marinating in that awfulness, we get stuck.

We mistake attention for action. You may think if you’re not constantly reading the news or Twitter or talking about how horrible everything is, that that means you don’t care. Not at all. I check in once a day on the news now and have mostly blocked Twitter. Because I realized everything was keeping me in a pit of despair — and then I couldn’t serve my purpose. I couldn’t help others around me. I was paralyzed, and that’s exactly where the dark forces want you.

Of course, stay informed. Volunteer. Show up to marches. Donate to candidates. But most importantly, do not get paralyzed by the darkness, or the light of your purpose will not be allowed to shine — and you will be denying those that could truly be helped by you and your actions.

4. Oh yeah — speaking of purpose, we definitely all have one. Every. Single. One of us. I think we get caught up in the meaning of the word “purpose” — we think we all gotta be like the Dalai Lama out here. Nah. I think purpose can be incredibly specific and meaningful to you.

You really know when you see somebody living their purpose. Like, this is going to sound flip but I really believe it: I think there are some Instagram influencers out there who are really in their purpose. They love to buy stuff, try it out, share in creative and visual ways with their audience, and the people who watch it, love it. Great.

Another extremely random and weird example I sometimes think of when I think of purpose is this guy who has created a company selling blue-light-blocking glasses. He’s on a lot of lifestyle & health podcasts I listen to and every time he talks about the importance of reducing artificial light you can absolutely, genuinely feel his belief and passion in his company and what he’s doing. So, dude’s purpose is to educate others on the negative effects of artificial light! And he’s doing it!

So rejoice in that your purpose could seem banal (it’s not), could be extremely specific (how cool is that — it means it’s really yours), may not seem “noble” — and reconcile the fact that it is still just as important for you to do it and live it.

5. Meditation is essential. Sorry. Just do it for 10 minutes a day. It’s a game-changer. It’s literally the easiest, free-est, safest, most accessible tool humans have for healing, reducing anxiety and depression, for better sleep, for not being so cranky or reactive. And yet so many of us are so resistant to it.

I know it’s terrifying to 1. Spend time alone with your thoughts 2. Spend time doing what seems like “nothing”. Well, consider that capitalism has squashed your understanding of the value of doing nothing and give meditation a shot. I just like silent meditation where I count my breaths up to 10 then start over. Yes, I continue to think a million thoughts. Yes, sometimes it’s torturous. And yes, when I do it daily — everything is better. Everything. My mood is better. Time seems more expansive. I’m more generous and filled with love. I have more focus and better ideas. And I’m so much more in touch with myself.

6. We don’t have a body — we are a body. When was the last time you nourished your body, paid it loving attention, dropped into it, noticed what feelings were arising from different parts of your body?

I often say that having a body is like having a second brain that we totally diminish and discredit and truly if we could learn to access its wisdom we would be frigging, I dunno, landing on Pluto and solving climate change by now, not to mention having better relationships with ourselves and others, treating animals real good, reducing bloat, having better sex, winning the lottery, etc.

If we could more easily access the information our body — whether it’s your gut, your heart, or the pain in your shoulder — is trying to send us, we would also trust ourselves more.

Do you have problems understanding your body’s messages? Try a simple body scan meditation, or even just upon waking ask your body, “What might you have to tell me today?” It will answer, promise.

7. Pay close attention to your most frequently-used phrases and words. Especially those that involve, “I can’t,” “I never,” “I don’t,” “I always.” These words are beautiful little golden clues, not to reality, but to things you believe are your reality for whatever reason. Honestly, once you start paying attention you will notice yourself declaring on the regular any number of things that will eventually have you asking…. “Uh, why exactly do I say that all the time?”

Are you actually bad with money? Is it really true you could never become a runner? Is it real that you don’t like to cook? These sorts of words and phrases are tiny little prisons that have convinced you not to give some things a shot. Please dismantle them.

8. Leave some room for whimsy and play and magic in your life. Sorry to my group of friends I’m calling out here but this is a perfect example of what I mean. One day I shared with them this beautiful little story from journalist Courtney Martin (her newsletter is here). She wrote, about money and giving: I worry about the ways in which a scientific approach to giving can sometimes prevent us from using giving as a way of restoring our own humane instincts. When I was in my 20s, I co-founded this thing called the Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. I gave 10 friends $100 and told them to meet me at a bar a month later and tell the story of how they gave it away. Hilarity ensued. Someone made a shit ton of lasagna and passed it out on the street. My mom threw $100 worth of coins on elementary school playgrounds. My friend Daniel paired strangers up in a bookstore and had them exchange their favorite books (his treat).

“My goodness, this is so charming and heartwarming,” I said.

But all of my friends were fucking aghast.

“She should have saved that money to take into her 30s!” “I would have spent that on a new laptop.” “Who has an extra $1,000 in their 20s??” “What about a down payment?”

I mean… all fair. But somehow, she had that money, and she chose to spend it in a whimsical, community-oriented, and human-affirming way. As Martin later said, “There’s something to be said for a visceral engagement with joy and spontaneity, and injecting more of that into our lives.”

Don’t let the grind of capitalism let you forget about magic, joy and the ways in which we can call it into our lives, is what I’m saying.

9. Always go to the funeral. You’ve heard this one. It’s true. Always show up in the hard times when you can, even if you don’t know exactly what to say or what to do, even if you’re not that close to the person. It means something. It means everything.

10. You can’t fail. I tweeted this recently: Failure isn’t actually a real thing, life is just a series of trying out different stuff and collecting whatever happens afterwards as evidence and information for next time.

So what’s stopping you?

11. Lead with your shame. You know the thing you are most ashamed about. It may be your struggles with dating (as Shani and I talked about on this week’s podcast). It may be your weight. It may be that you don’t make as much money as you feel you should, or that you think you’re bad with money. It may be your sexuality or your lack of relationship with your family or your depression and anxiety or that you were abused or your divorce.

It turns out: the things we are most ashamed of are actually our superpowers. It’s because this: we’re so ashamed of them BECAUSE they are so vital and important to us, and at some point, we were told they were bad.

Well, turns out, now we can flip the script. So think about the aspect of yourself that makes you cringe when you think about admitting it to somebody else. Now understand: that is the story you must, MUST, share with the world.

Of course: it takes time to get there. Be kind and gentle with your shame. But know: it need not dictate the rest of your life demanding you to control yourself into different ways to not show it to the world.

Your shame need not be hidden. It must be revealed as your gift to the world.

12. You deserve the things you want. My little sister just got engaged and wants a big-ass wedding. Nice. Another friend wants a fancy car. Do it. Another person I know wants to move to Europe. Yet another is in corporate work but dreams of being an acupuncturist. Why not?

The elements and outcomes of the things we want are not always in our control. But that shouldn’t stop us from wanting, or not feeling ashamed of the want, of the need, and for trying to get it.

Wanting is natural. Want is natural as our fingernails growing; humans were made to want. We wouldn’t have wants if they weren’t a part of what we were meant to experience in this lifetime. Wanting is merely the natural expression of the expansion of life and the universe. Want away. Get clear on those wants. Go for them. Get on it.

13. You are not a passive participant in your own life. This is scary because it forces us to look at the ways we have actually been active participants in our own current situations, even the ones that cause us harm, pain and sadness.

When I think of this lesson I always think of a friend who had been in an on-again, off-again romantic relationship for over five years. At last catch up, this friend was waiting to see how the other person had felt, and if they wanted to move forward again in another attempt.

“You’re waiting? Why?” I asked.

My friend shrugged. It seemed the other person had all the power, is how they explained it. They had to just wait it out.

“What about declaring your feelings and saying you 100% want to do this? What about saying you’re not going to wait around any more and dedicating yourself to finding somebody who unequivocally wants to be with you?” I asked.

That didn’t seem to be in the cards, because this friend was content to think they had no say in the situation. And that’s what being a passive participant looks like.

When you think you end up in the same patterns and situations over and over again by chance, consider this: you’re more powerful than you might give yourself credit for and you might have a part to play in these repeating patterns.

So how can you do things differently now? How can you be an active participant in your own life?

14. Don’t worry if you don’t get married or have kids. Take it from somebody who went through an intense identity crisis around dating, marriage and motherhood in her late 30s and came out fine on the other side. You don’t have much control over these things. Concentrate on sussing out people that adore you and that you feel nourished by instead of drained by — lovers, friends, family members. Plan, but understand our life’s path in dating and procreation is largely out of our hands.

If we can reframe dating to curiosity and learning about ourselves and others, and leave space to be delighted and surprised by the people that come across our paths, that makes romantic connections so much more fun instead of an endless, self-punishing slog of shame and work. Take it from somebody who knows it. Also, 100% listen to this week’s podcast with Shani about dating and shame for more insight on this.

15. Create a playlist that makes your heart feel good and dance and sing to it every morning. Liz Gilbert talked recently on a podcast I listened to about how she would just put her playlist on shuffle and each morning as she got out of bed would dance to whatever song came on.

Dancing is healing and joy; movement shows we’re alive. Let music move you. Much like wanting, we wouldn’t be able to create beautiful music as a species unless we were meant to just enjoy it purely and move our bodies to it. Even if — especially if — you think you are “bad” at dancing: dance.

16. Don’t let your job, title, salary or status be tied to your worth. I consider it my greatest achievement that I finally got to the point realizing I’d be as happy and as valuable in a service job — or not working at all — as I was in a high paying white-collar one. I was, for so long, a blowhard that let my job status determine my own self-perceived value. Still stewing that I wasted a good 25 years thinking that way.

Could you be just as happy being a cashier somewhere, or a bus driver, or any other sort of typically blue-collar job? If the thought of that chills you, dig down: you have associated your worth as a person with your career (which is pretty normal tbh and something a lot of us are taught to do).

Understand that you are worthy outside of any job, title, career, salary, and so is every other person on this planet.

17. Jealousy and envy are fabulous guides. I talked in the last issue about paying attention to your words. In a like way, pay attention to jealousy and envy. They are great tools for understanding something you want for yourself. We often don’t know what we DO want, and that’s okay — you can start with what you DON’T want, and also what you’re jealous of, and those are great guides to figuring out your true wants. Let envy guide you and inspire you, not turn you resentful.

18. Speaking of being resentful, one of the biggest lessons I had to learn was that when I was feeling resentful, I had been trying to control a situation or not speaking up for my needs, and the resentment was merely a sign of me either not articulating wants, having silent expectations not met, or disappointment that my ways of trying to control the situation and outcome didn’t pan out.

Resentment is a POWERFUL clue that you are giving away your power, going into victim mode, and not stating your needs clearly.

Listen to your resentment. Respect it. It has something to tell you.

19. We need rituals to mark transitions in our lives. I wrote about this last year; here’s an excerpt:

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that people are lacking a sense of the spiritual or mystical or meaning or structure in their lives today — something that the function of organized religion used to provide in society. But organized religion isn’t really a safe space for many people to turn these days — or a space where atheists or people who don’t overall believe in the common narrative of a Big White Dude God can go. But that doesn’t mean that even the most logical or practical of us don’t crave a sense of something bigger than the daily mundane in our lives, a sense of meaning or significance that we can participate in. I know that I — somebody who doesn’t believe in the traditional sense of god or religion as it is commonly understood today — felt I was missing something along those lines. So I started creating my own sense of the sacred in my day to day life through a series of small rituals that are now the fabric on which I build my days.

20. I regret to inform you that you do, indeed, need to feel it to heal it. Pushing down pain or ignoring it will only ensure it will grow. This article beautifully articulates what that might look like:

When we allow ourselves to fully experience painful or uncomfortable feelings, we are doing work. Sitting with our feelings instead of disengaging or distracting ourselves is work. Once we accept that we are doing work, we can silence our internal critic that believes that feeling pain means we’re “doing something wrong.” Instead, we begin to understand that feeling our pain is important and productive. When we understand the true nature of our work, we can summon compassion for ourselves as we move through our uncomfortable feelings on the path to healing, peace, and wholeness.

You can apply the feel it to heal it framework to something as big as heartbreak or something as small as minor anxiety. I tried this last month: I was feeling extremely anxious in my body for some reason and couldn’t suss out why. Instead of distracting myself with my phone, a drink, food, or any of the other myriad ways we have at hand to shove feelings down, I took a walk without my phone or headphones. I acknowledged internally the anxiety was feeling almost unbearable. I noticed where it lived in my body. I eventually understand that by feeling it, and leaning into it — the act of really feeling it was actually the release process. It was gone by that evening.

21. Consider the power of narrative storytelling to effect change in your life. This is a bit of a really embarrassing story that I struggle to tell because — you’ll see — but it made a profound impact on my life and I use it in my coaching so I may as well do so because I need to lead with my shame and walk the talk, etc etc.

So the framework that the organization I got certified as a coach by uses narratives as ways to help clients move into different ways of being in their lives. After a few intake sessions, coaches present a client with a Current Narrative, and then invite them into a Deepening Narrative, with practices that support them being in that a new way in the world. Basically this is like saying, you’re showing up as X in the world and it ain’t working for you anymore — let’s get you to Z.

We get coached too, through this certification process, so we get narratives. Mine were illuminating for me. My Current Narrative was The Quintessential Librarian. My coach showed me how I was using information, solutions, advice, my intellect and headspace, wanting to fix people, as a mode of survival in the world — hiding behind a big desk, always had the answers, was the smartest person in the room, but kind of stuck in a big old dusty library of her own making.

My Deepening Narrative that she wanted me to try on? The Water Sprite. She wanted me to work to access playful, joyful, silly, lighthearted and feminine qualities into my life — things in me she could see but I couldn’t quite believe were there. But I was into it.

Until she told me my practices to support this Deepening Narrative — and one of mine was to “dance to fairy music for five minutes a day.”

Oh, and did I mention: we are receiving these narratives in front of our classmates?

And that she then asked me to get up and dance to the fairy music IN FRONT OF HER AND EVERYBODY ELSE?

Guys: I almost pooped my pants and simultaneously bolted from the room. For real, I was about to just be a blur of running away with poop trailing behind me.

But at this point I already deeply trusted this coach and her peers. I wanted what they had: a deep presence, a self-acceptance of themselves, a grace, compassion. So I took a risk.

And at the request of my coach, who could see how terrifying this really was for me, everybody else got up in that room and danced along with me.

This may sound like your nightmare. It truly was mine. And yet, I did something TOTALLY RIDICULOUS that FELT humiliating — and I did it… and I survived… and it was even kind of fun, and childlike. And that my classmates did it with me — honestly, I’m still feeling teary thinking about that moment.

(PS: This is what vulnerability in action looks like. Terror about shame and judgment and looking stupid… and doing it anyway.)

That day was the day I learned the true power of narrative storytelling and its ability to help you change into who you want to be in the world. So think on some archetypes. What could be your Current Narrative? How is it not working for you anymore? What could be a new way of being in the world? And would you be willing to dance in a ridiculous manner — or do something similarly poop-running-inducing — for five minutes a day to get you there? The question then to answer is: Why not?

22. When I started doing exercises and movement because it felt good and made me feel better and more connected to my body — instead of for vanity or to look a certain way — everything changed. I look FORWARD to exercise now and try to be gentle on my body when it doesn’t feel like doing it instead of grinding myself into dust to run faster, workout harder, lift more weights.

Movement should be nourishing, not punishing.

23. You can’t expect somebody else to live a lesson unless you’ve learned it or done it yourself first. I see this often in regards to both parenting and romantic relationships, which of course are some of our most humbling and complex relationships. I have a number of parent friends who have or want to send their kids to therapy — out of good reasons and love and care for their child — but have never been to therapy themselves or aren’t currently in therapy. I see a number of friends or clients who want their romantic partner to be a certain way — healthier, cook more, less stressed, whatever — but are waiting for that partner to be that way before they do it, too.

You can only control your own behavior and circumstances. If you wish your partner worked out more or ate more healthily, you can only do those things for yourself. If you want your child to understand how to be more calm, consider if you practice that yourself — do you make space to meditate, reflect, journal? If you want your kid to use screens less, what is your screen time usage? If you think your spouse should go to therapy, you go to therapy. And so on, and so forth.

This was a very hard lesson for me to learn, personally. I thought if only this or that person in my life did things differently, then MY life would be different. But I had to step up and take ownership of my own actions.

24. Speaking of parenting! You may not have had the childhood you wanted, needed or deserved — but you can learn to reparent yourself. Inner child work can be wonderful for this, and I plan on doing an upcoming Wednesday Wisdom issue on it. The Holistic Psychologist is also a great resource for reparenting and inner child work. What do reparenting and inner child work mean? That we learn to take care of ourselves the way we would have wanted to be taken care of at like, age 5. Kindness. Play. Compassion. Good sleep. Healthy eating. Movement. Self love. Boundaries. Keeping our promises to ourselves. Not letting others treat us poorly.

I heard a great podcast with French photographer and illustrator Garance Dore a while back in which she said that her mother “gave her the poison but also the remedy.” That is, her mother caused the wound — but it was through Garance’s necessary work healing that wound that she was able to become herself fully in the world.

What was your struggle in your childhood — and how are you working to heal it and come through it on the other side? Those lessons you learn through your pain are how you can help others and heal the world.

25. Talk therapy has its limits. Therapy can be great and there are incredible therapists out there. That said, sometimes talk therapy can go around in circles for years. Creating more self-awareness is wonderful and powerful — but unless you are acting differently, and showing up in the world differently, then the change you’re going to want to live may not come for you.

This is going to be controversial but I also sometimes think talk therapy can create somewhat of a victim narrative. At least, this was partially the case for me. I was an anxious person who struggled with vulnerability, a perfectionist, and more. These were labels and storylines that my therapist and I honestly co-created and a stuck to for, well, nearly a decade. Life was just always going to be hard for me in those regards!

What I like to think about now is, what if what you thought you were isn’t actually true? Or didn’t have to be anymore? If you’re in therapy, have you created a narrative for yourself that you might be over-identifying with? Could you ask yourself what would happen if you did things to not live that way anymore?

26. ​Back pain is real. I know I’ve generally been talking about wisdom and lessons learned around emotions, meaning, compasasion, etc, but let’s not sugarcoat it: because we live in a society that prioritizes having us hunched over electronics in badly designed chairs for upwards of 8 hours a day, we’re all going to get some back pain at some point. In fact I’m experiencing a horrible bout of it right now resulting from a very bad Airbnb mattress and neglecting my stretching routine for the past few months.

What I learned about my lower back pain was not that it was the BACK muscles that were causing the pain — it was my IT band and hamstrings that were the issue. When they were tight, they pulled down on the lower back in excruciating ways. But a few things made a serious difference for me:

A good mattress. I need it incredibly firm.
Foam rolling my IT band for a few minutes every morning and night.
This hip stretching video.
This chair back support contraption.
A regular stretching routine including a lot of hip flexor stretches.

God speed. Yes, aging ups your wisdom, but does difficult things to your body if you don’t take good care of it.

27. Energy is real, in many ways we can’t believe simply because we can’t see or prove it — yet. This was a lesson I learned after glibly trying my first reiki session a year and a half ago. Reiki sounds like ridiculous magic: A healer places her hands over your body, helping to clear different energy centers that have come blocked, so that the energy (life force, chi, prana, whatever) can better flow through you.

That reiki session was so impactful that six months later I become certified as a Reiki healer myself, and started taking the concept of energy — and how to clear it when it was blocked in different ways — seriously.

This concept has of course been around for thousands of years in Eastern approaches and medical systems, and for good reason: energy exists, it can get stuck in bodies and physical locations — and there are easy ways to clear it.

Want to clear energy in your body? Try reiki, acupuncture, or guided chakra or energy clearing meditations. As for physical locations, clearing energy is easy: Consider, if your home were a riverbed, could the water flow smoothly through it? If not, clear space. Clear out closets and drawers. Open a window and light a candle when feeling stuck. Dust all the surfaces in your home, wipe down counters and surfaces, and sweep.

As for people energy: Feel into the people and places that immediately make you feel GOOD — that’s their energy speaking to you. Make a note to bring more of whatever they have into your life.

Struggle with taking on other people’s energies as an empath? Google the “zip up” method and other energy recalling or energy clearing practices and meditations.

28. The things you think are stupid, pointless or useless may be the things at some level you most want to do you, only you have taught yourself to think they’re pointless as protection from your deepest desires.

Chew on that!

29. Other than meditation, journaling is the best free tool available to help you with your healing and self-knowledge. I’m a writer, and I resisted journaling for years. I figured: I already know the stuff that’s swirling around in my head; what’s the point of putting it down on paper, by hand, no less?

It wasn’t until my experiences with Morning Pages that I realized how transformative getting my thoughts down in front of me was. It allows you to see patterns, excavate feelings, realize things you knew at some level, but didn’t really know-know — you know?

Don’t know where to start? Morning Pages is easy as all get out (and here’s a video I made on it). Or search the web for journal prompts. Susannah Conway, a hero of mine, has a journaling course for beginners you could try.

Like many things that seem too good and simple to be true or effective, don’t underestimate the power of writing down your thoughts and beliefs on pap. It could end up being life-changing.

30. Know when to give in (and this doesn’t mean giving up). For the past week I’ve struggled with articulating a final lesson for this installment of the 40 lessons from 40. I rewrote dozens, and none seemed right. I considered putting one here that didn’t feel totally authentic, but then deleted it. So, I’m giving in: I don’t have a brilliant lesson to put in this slot. And that’s okay, too.

31. We do badly with boundaries because we’ve never really been taught what a boundary means — or the consequences of not sticking to one. I thought of this recently when I had this interview with Shani Silver about deleting your dating apps. She realized the apps weren’t serving her. She deleted all of them. Then, despite many temptations, she has never gone back on them.

That’s a boundary defined that is stuck to.

I thought of this again with a client recently. She wants kids and a serious romantic relationship. However, she keeps dating men who literally up front say either they do not want kids or are just looking for something casual.

She has defined her boundary — but she doesn’t stick to it.

Some examples from my own past life when I had defined boundaries but hadn’t stuck to them: countless promises to write more, quit smoking, drink less, not be around a person who didn’t really make me feel good, not speaking up for myself when somebody said something hurtful… and a million more.

I was good at sticking to goals (run a marathon, do that work project). But I haven’t always been great at knowing, defining, and then sticking to my boundaries.

In my opinion, creation of a boundary is when you promise yourself you will not do yourself harm or let yourself into situations that cause you harm.

Ignoring a boundary results in what’s called self-abandonment. Self-abandonment is dangerous because it teaches you that you cannot trust yourself and that other people’s needs and opinions are more important than yours. And if you believe you cannot trust yourself, all sorts of difficult things can follow from that.

The good news is that self-abandonment in the form of repeatedly crossing or ignoring our boundaries is a learned behavior — which means it can be unlearned. But you must go slow. The best way I’ve found? Following the advice of The Holistic Psychologist in making daily, incredibly small promises to yourself, and sticking to them each day. Really small. Drink a glass of water before you get out of bed. Meditate for 3 minutes a day. Take one 10-minute walk a day. Watch her video for more.

32. The obstacle is the way. Or to quote a second new-age spiritual guru, obstacles are just detours in the right direction. As a graspy, control-oriented, need-to-know-how-everything-is-going-to-work-like-NOW type person, this is an evolving lesson that I am still learning and leaning into and mastering.

This requires faith that all things work for your best interest and that we don’t always know or want what is actually best for us.

Ugh, I know. Faith. But surrendering to obstacles or problems that appear in my life and graciously letting go of the thing I thought I wanted or the path I was trying to take has only served me every time I’ve leaned into it.

I’m trying to do it more.

33. Spend at least one hour in nature once a week. I use this example with clients often when I explore their relationship with nature. Imagine a beautiful horse. You put it in a box front of electronics under fluorescent lights with no fresh air or grass for 10+ hours a day. In fact, it never goes in fresh air or around trees or grass. It just withers inside the box.

That would be a pretty messed up horse, right?

Well, I don’t know why we humans think we need nature any less than any other animal out there. One of my favorite quotes is from Alan Watts: “We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe.”

We are not separate from nature. We came out of nature. We are nature. And when we are disconnected from it, bad things happen. Go into nature for one hour a week, minimum. And it doesn’t have to be some grand trip to the highest mountain or the most remote lake. I’ve made a promise to spend one hour in nature a week in my local park.

34. In related terms, spend one hour a week in silence. Look, I love me music. I love me a podcast. I host a podcast! But sometimes I think about all the sensory overload that is coming our way and how it obscures our inner voice. I live alone and work from home and I can rarely think of a time when I’m not hearing or listening to anything, so for those of you with families or offices or kids or loud commutes — I can’t imagine what that might be like. I fill every spare time I’m alone in my house listening to podcasts, and only recently did I really think about how loudly that was drowning out my own inner voice. So now I aim for an hour or more of silence of week (and if I can combine it with that hour of nature above, even better). It feels uncomfortable sometimes to do the dishes or laundry in silence in my house — but I always think leaning into discomfort is something we should aim for more. Which leads to…

35. Lean into the discomfort more. This is something I tell my clients regularly: in our work, we are aiming for discomfort. Because discomfort means we are changing, we are trying things differently, we are creating a new perspective. Somewhere along the way we humans decided if something didn’t feel good, or easy, or comfortable, it meant it was not good or useful for us. No way. That is our little reptile brain begging us to stay safe and not to do anything differently. Think of discomfort as a great sign that you are growing. Think of it as something to aim for. I’m not talking danger — that’s different than discomfort. I’m talking about doing something that might come with rejection; running half a mile if you’ve never run before; trying a salsa class when you’re convinced you’re a bad dancer. Not anything where you’re putting your physical self in danger — but something where yes, your ego may get a little bruised. Your ego could stand a little bruising. It makes you stronger.

36. The rules for a well-lived, content life and self-knowledge are actually pretty simple — which may make them seem like they couldn’t possibly work. But they do. I have read approximately 70,000 self help and spiritual books in the last three years as I have embarked on a massive period of growth and personal transformation. I read for myself and I also read to keep myself up to date on tools and perspectives for my coaching clients. Some of these books are great; some are average; some are truly life-changing. That said, as far as I can distill down, at the core of most of them are four basic tenets that, when understood and stuck to, truly do work. Here they are.

37. Cultivate a gratitude practice because it helps train your brain to see the good which opens you up to more good opportunities and a better attitude towards life. We all know we should be keeping gratitude lists but for me until I realized the why it was hard to stick to. The why is because our brain is trained — in order to keep us alive — to see negatives and danger. You can start to retrain it by listing all the good things that are actually happening in your life. Much like a muscle, when you start to slowly realize more good things, by nature, you will start to see… even more good things. Gratitude is a powerful tool, free, and easy to start with. Give it a shot.

38. Define the core values that govern your life and that you want to live by. Most of us have no idea what we want or who we are, even decades into our lives. Starting the path of inner work and self-exploration can begin with understanding your values — because you do have them, even if you don’t think you do. As I mentioned I’ll be writing an upcoming Wednesday Wisdom on some simple tools to start to understand your core values.

39. Write down your goals. Duh, right? But I didn’t do this for years because I simply thought it couldn’t make that much of a difference — and honestly, because I was afraid of having my goals look me back in the face. Because then I’d have to do something about them. And if I didn’t do anything about them — likely, at the time — I would only have myself to blame when they didn’t come to fruition. So I started, tentatively. Now, I probably achieve like 80% of the goals I write down. And I’m brave and resilient enough to know that the goals I write down that don’t happen are not “nevers,” only “not yets” or “not nows.” Which leads into…

40. Realize you are infinitely powerful. You are not a victim of your circumstances. You can do anything — anything — you want to, and it’s time to own up to that, right now. I do not say this lightly: one of the biggest truths I know so deep in my heart and gut that sometimes it hurts is that we are capable of having, achieving, being anything that we really want to be. We really are. I am. You are. That doofus filming a tiktok next to you at the coffee shop is. (Is that how tiktoks work)

We are also the people who get the most in our own way. We tell ourselves stories about our limited abilities to protect ourselves, to not have to take responsibility, to not change. We don’t want to have to try. Trying is scary. Realizing that the path of our lives is entirely defined by us is frigging terrifying. It’s easier to pretend other people cause our pain, that reality is limiting, that dreams are silly.

NO. HELL NO. I am SO tired of capitalism, the productivity grind, our childhood traumas and dreary, sensible but well-meaning people preventing us from being lit the hell up every day of our lives.

I am MORE tired of ourselves being the ones who prevent ourselves from achieving our dreams.

My biggest belief is that if everybody on this planet owned up to their own individual power and dreams, did the work to step into them, and were living their purpose, we would be in a better place. Hell, if that really happened for all 7 billion of us… I honestly think we would see paradise here on Earth.

But it’s scary. I get it. You gotta think of money, and laundry, and student loans, and what your parents would think if you did that one thing.

I’m not saying flip off your life, quit your job, renege on your loans (well maybe we all should?) and move to Fiji. (Err, actually that all sounds pretty good.)

But I am asking you to consider lesson #1 from this series: The universe rewards courageous participation. And I am asking you to do one thing that you want so bad you can feel it in your belly but you’re terrified of. Write a short story. Go to a ceramics class. Stop texting that one person. Say hi to the cute boy on the bus. Take that trip. Wear that lipstick. Say that thing.

From there? From that one small action, that one small promise, that one small moment of believing in yourself?

The rest will unfold. I promise. And I can’t wait to see it.