Folk artist Phil Ochs wrote a song in 1966 that was later recorded by Joan Baez, and well describes the life I am lucky enough to live:

“There but for fortune, go you or go I.” 

On a good day, I can appreciate my journey. I can look in the mirror, see myself, and feel good about the steps I’ve taken, and even the steps I’ve missed along the way.

I can find joy in the ordinary. 

I can pet Rooney and think, with each scratch of his ear, how lucky I am to have a dog that so closely matches my needs. I can appreciate the first few sips of coffee when I sit down to my desk, and walk into the gym filled with gratitude that I work in a helping profession that allows me to dance, wear dinosaur costumes and help people.

But I often lose track of my good fortune. 

And this holiday season, my gratitude has taken a back seat to grief and sadness. As many of you know, earlier this month, we lost my mother n'law quite unexpectedly. 

Her biceps were bigger than mine. 

I have struggled to find joy or gratitude in many of the moments over the past month. Earlier this week, as I sat quietly during the waning hours of Christmas Eve, in the glow of the lights from the tree, I was overcome with the realization and sadness that I will never share another Christmas with a family member whom I loved so dearly. 

As Rooney slept on my lap, I wept onto his head and wiped my tears with his long basset ears (which aren’t very absorbent). I wondered and worried how I’d get through Christmas day feeling any kind of joy. 

But then Rooney snuggled in a little deeper and Sheila brought me a real tissue in favor of the dog’s ears - and the snow fell softly on the Pennsylvania mountain outside the window, Phil Ochs' words popped into my head. 

There but for fortune, go you or go I. 

Sure I am sad. And there is an empty, aching hole in my heart. But I have a snuggly dog, a life-partner who loves me, and a family who misses me when I’m not around. I have a niece who loves Wonder Woman, a nephew who thought Stretch Armstrong was the best gift ever, and co-workers and clients who cleaned the snow from my car while I was gone. (Thank you.)

I am, not to sound dramatic, a very rich woman.  

Despite my riches, joy is often hard to feel. 

Intellectually, we know we should be grateful and we should feel joy, but sometimes life and scars and struggles numb us to both pain and happiness. 

It is my wish for you, as we wrap up 2017 and prepare for the coming year, that you might feel joy - in the ordinary - in the extraordinary. That you might inhale deeply, and exhale fully, and lean completely into the joy and gratitude of your life.

Thanksgiving is four days away. But I want to tell you today, right now, that if you have a piece of pumpkin pie, you didn’t blow it. 

If you lick the batter of the pumpkin pie while you’re making the pumpkin pie, you didn’t blow it. 

If you have mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and several helpings of each, you didn’t blow it.

In PA, we call these gobs. But in Maine they are whoopie pies. Whatever you call them, if you eat one, it doesn't mean you blew it. 

I often have clients who don't even want to meet to talk about nutrition this time of year because "I've been bad. I've been awful."

No. You haven't been bad. And you haven't been awful. 

You've been human. Human, okay? 

What you may have done though, is decided that after one or two cheat meals and a few missed days at the gym, you've completely screwed up all of your goals. 

No. No you haven't. 

The only way you blow up your nutrition or exercise routine is when you give it away. When I coached softball a few years back, our team struggled for wins and had plenty of games where the score was out of hand. And the only thing I asked of my players in those games was to give nothing away. 

You know what the hardest thing to do is in moments like those? 

Give a shit. (Sorry mom, I said shit. Again.)

It is so tough to drag the bat up to the plate and swing like you care because when you’re losing 18-0 in the third inning, even a home run is just a drop in the bucket. So what does your at-bat and your effort even mean in those situations?

Everything. 

You caring means everything. You caring enough to try matters. In that situation, your effort matters to your teammates, to your coach, and to you. That at-bat matters because you matter. Because we don't play sports and love sports for championships and play-off wins. We play and love sports for the moments. 

And your fitness and nutrition journey is no different.

What matters is you giving up. When you decide that because you ate something that was not on your plan, you should chuck the entire plan. When you judge yourself so hard because you “slipped up.” 

When you decide that you can’t stick to anything, that nothing will ever work, that you might as well not even try because you ate something that wasn’t on your nutrition plan. Or because you missed one workout. 

Researchers actually named this the what the hell effect. You got up and had a cookie for breakfast and decided that the day was lost. So you might as well do fast food for lunch and pizza for dinner and start again tomorrow.

 So today I challenge you. 

That eating a donut for breakfast when your in-laws brought donuts doesn’t mean your day is blown. 

That missing the gym for the past three weeks in November doesn't mean you have to wait until December. Or January. Or even Monday. 

And eating a piece of pie - even eating a whole pie - does not make you a bad person. 

Let me say that again. 

You are not a bad person if you have a meal that doesn't meet the nutrition goals you outlined with your coach. Or in your head. 

Please hear me when I tell you that you are not a bad person.  

This is my favorite quote:

"It is never too late to become what you might have been." - George Elliot

It's not too late. You're not a bad person. You can do this. 

But what you can't do is throw in the towel. (In Pittsburgh we wave our towels, we don't throw them.) Don't give up on you. A donut for breakfast does not mean you start again tomorrow. It means that you had a donut for breakfast.

Believe in yourself. And believe that one or two or five decisions doesn't define you. Ok? 

Do you want help not throwing in the towel? Do you need help believing in yourself? Do you want some guidance and a judgement-free zone to make a plan? Email me. Message me. Comment below. I'd love to hear from you. Do you have a topic you'd like to see addressed? Let me know that too. Be strong. Be kind. To others, but especially to yourself.  

I spent my 41st birthday in an eight-hour kettle bell training course, which was awesome. It also meant that I couldn’t lift my arms to toast with my friends that night, so I skipped the arms and stuck my face in the glass.

Here’s to my forties. 

Lately, I’ve been listening to yet another book on habits, and the author suggested writing down our secrets of adulthood. So it got me thinking, as I ring in my 41st year, what my five secrets of adulthood are. 

I don't really want to call them secrets though, and rules seems too rigid, so I'll call them...um...stuff I've learned in my four-plus decades. 

1. TRUST YOUR GUT

My intuition has always guided me well. Never was that so obvious than a few years back when I took a job I felt like I should take. Something was telling me that while the work appealed to me, the job itself wouldn't be the right fit. On paper though, I just couldn't see turning it down, so I ignored my instincts and signed the contract.  

It was one of the worst experiences I ever had. And I could have spared myself and others a lot of stress had I listened to my gut. 

2. THERE IS NO SECREt (which is why I can't call them secrets..)

Did you ever show up to a class having read the wrong assignment? And suddenly the professor starts talking and students start talking and you have the distinct impression that everyone knows something you don’t know? 

I felt that way for much of my adulthood. I was certain that everyone knew something I didn’t know.  

It’s only been since my thirties that I began to realize that it’s not true.

There is no secret. There is self-discovery, and taking chances and sharing hurts and joy - there is confronting shame and guilt and learning what it means for you to live the life you want to live.

But there is no secret. You know more than you think you know. Trust yourself. 

Trust yourself.   

3. THERE IS NO BOOK THAT WILL TEACH YOU SELF-KNOWLEDGE

If I could go back and give some advice to my 25-year old self, I’d take most of the books on self-knowledge out off of her bookshelf and torch them. 

You can’t get to know yourself from a book. You can read about human behavior all you want, but if you don’t take the time to pick up the rocks in your own life and look underneath them, you’ll never understand how you feel, how you think, how you react - to yourself and others. 

That takes a lot of inner work and that work is hard. It is so hard. 

If you sweep everything under the rug, you’re going to trip over that rug one day. I promise you. 

4. HAVE FUN

One of the things I appreciate most about my dad, and there are many, is his silliness. After a long week at the steel mill, he would always get up on Saturday mornings to watch Bugs Bunny with us, and I’m pretty sure, knowing what I know about Dad, he’d have watched Bugs Bunny anyway. He was watching Scooby Doo when I was born, and it wasn’t to accommodate a kid in the room. He turns phrases inside out, laughs with ease, and can find the humor in anything. 

If you’ve been to the gym, you may have seen me wearing a horse head, throwing rubber chickens or putting on a polka. Because polka.

Sometimes I do it to put myself in a better mood, and sometimes I do it because rubber chickens. Life is way too short to be serious. 

5. Compassion and kindness trump all

Yes, I use the term trump deliberately. We are living in divided times, and regardless of where your political or religious views fall, civil discourse feels lost. But if we lose the ability to be kind and compassionate, especially in times like these, we lose everything. 

One of the greatest acts of kindness I ever received came from a college student at a tavern in State College. I'd just come out to my parents and it hadn't gone well. So I was sitting in the bar, sipping on a beer, crying and trying to make sense of what might come next. On her way out the door, the student put her hand on my shoulder and said, "I don't know what's wrong, but it will be ok."

It mattered. Kindness always matters. Sometimes we're too much in our own heads to pay attention. Sometimes it's difficult to have compassion for those who don't share our views, who push our buttons and challenge our instincts for kindness.

But those are the folks who need it most.  

This is not an all-encompassing list. But this is my list for now.  

BONUS SECRETS

* Always have tweezers. Because chin hair, and now gray chin hair.

**The only way out is through. Tough times come and go. Sometimes they last a long time. But you will get through them.