We hadn’t spoken all summer and our ritual catch-up had quickly veered to health breakdowns.“My daughter helps me dress, undress and go to the bathroom, and I need to step out of the car to retrieve the stub when I enter a parking lot. At least I can drive, even though I can’t sleep. So no, you won’t be seeing me at Pilates this week.”

What struck me more than the dizzying transitions from frantic humor to anger in her tone—and more than the fact that one of the most stoic women I know (last winter she weathered 4 months of tennis elbow and barely winced) was unabashedly confessing her pain—was the scary realization that this was the fourth time in less than 24 hours that a close friend, roughly my age, was wailing about her physical deterioration.

Hours before, I listened astonished as S (super fit, grounded, self-aware yoga teacher, 45) related the saga of a blasted sacro-iliac (a what? Yeah, I hadn’t heard of this ligament either) that ruined the better part of her summer. Even earlier that day, over in London, J was sighing over the need to put high heels on hold (not ideal when you love heels AND you’re in the shoe business) to manage chronic hip & knee pain, which also put Bikram yoga on pause. And just the day before, I’d watched M (who likes to kick box and is seriously fit too) limp elegantly beside me. What’s with the leg, I asked, semi-alarmed semi-curious. Knee, she sighed, always the knee. Must have done something to it. Again.

Yesterday, when a fifth friend suddenly launched into an impromptu aches and pains diatribe, I interrupted her brutally and asked “aren’t we too young to be winging about ailments?” She looked at me quizzically while I rolled the Arnica granules pensively in my mouth, swallowed and added, “isn’t this all supposed to hit in a decade or two? Aren’t we too young to be ailing?”

I believe in life-long self-improvement. I believe in continuously growing our self-awareness, practicing mindfulness and prioritizing what’s important to us (yes, that includes health and fitness, big time) so that we can remain resistant, resilient and resourceful in the face of pretty much anything. But now, this business of 40 plus women falling apart all over the place has me wondering: what could I be missing? What are so many of us not getting?

Important to mention that the link between these colorful gals, besides their connection to me (they are of multiple nationalities, working in different fields) is that they all are strong, fit, vibrant, and have the means, wisdom and knowledge (or even all three) to truly take care of themselves. And I’m not just talking hair and make-up but heart and mind and even soul. They are for the most part in happy relationships too, in case you’re wondering.

It wouldn’t be fair to hide, as I ramble on about others, that I too am experiencing a new brand of muscular fatigue of late. This week was the first time I even entertained the notion that it could be wear and tear. I’m fervently hoping it’s linked to the intense (and wildly satisfying because, no doubt, massively endorphin-creating) boot camp training I picked up again in the park after a 2-month hiatus. Witnesses under my roof will readily tell you that I moan waaaayy more than I used too the day after I work out, and that I wail to the maximus about my aching gluteus, and also stink up the atmosphere with my arnica oil rubdowns (fleeting relief, at best). I’m also hoping this is merely part and parcel of getting stronger (not older) and that “taking my fitness to the next level” naturally involves new forms of pain that can only be temporary, ? RIGHT?

Dunno. For now, I can still take my bra off alone.

Let’s see if 10 hours of animal documentaries will cure or kill me, she vaguely muttered, flopping back on the couch with duvet, hot lemon juice and Strepsils. I joined her a few hours into it, in time to discover the rock-climbing goby, a fish which I (or you, I bet) had never heard of.

This thumb-size goby swims upriver from the sea (nothing new so far) until the foot of a waterfall. Then, amazingly, as if auditioning for a far-fetched Jackie Chan film (sorry, is that a redundant statement?), hurls itself out of the water and, almost comically, attaches itself to the vertical rock face. Using its “pelvic fin” that works like a mini suction cup and its powerful lips, it proceeds to inch, ever so slowly, upwards, while the violent waterfall pounds down all around it, with Mother Nature’s fullest force.

It literally climbs… for several hundred feet.

I cannot tell you how painstaking this looks. Richard Attenborough’s pithy comments and the dramatic music make it all the more compelling. Many gobies don’t make it: they simply fly off and die. Others pause in whatever crevices they can find to rest. Your heart goes out to the little guys.

Eventually, some make it to the top where warm, shallow pools await. This is fish kingdom spa central—warm, nutrition-filled, pressure-free, peaceful. “Here the goby will feed and breed and eventually die,” emotes Attenborough, “while newly spawned fish will wash out to sea, so that the cycle may begin again.”

The poignancy of it all is the sobering parallel with us humans. I mean, truly: how many people do you know who approach their entire life this way: struggle, determination, stubbornness with only one objective in mind: to reach that nirvana, that someday place, no matter what.

And what, what is that warm, blessed pool? The day you can’t swim any more? Retirement? The day you have more than enough money? The day you buy a country house? And how hard will you work to climb that waterfall? Until Nature knocks you off?

All around me, I still see people doggedly going for it—zero fulfillment, zero joy, and less than zero awareness that they’re even fighting a waterfall upwards. It makes me want to (and sometimes, especially with  clients, I really do) grab them by the shoulders and shout: “Why are you swimming so hard upstream? Where are you going? And do you even remember why?”

Life is already so riddled with challenges, tough decisions, adversity (aka “opportunities” or “learnings” in coaching jargon) and there is always plenty to fight for and against. Do you really want a lifetime of convincing yourself to do something you don’t enjoy doing but… keep doing it anyways?

Luckily, you can think more independently than a goby, and you don’t actually have to climb waterfalls.

In life too.

Early this morning, the stunning, perfectly fit men, sporting chic sunglasses, photogenic miniature dogs (typically crossbreeds between Yorkshires, Poodles, Bichons and other adorable throw pillows) and 2-seater vintage cars—Alfa spiders, MG’s, early 70’s Karmann Ghia’s—were out on 2-Mile Hollow beach. Most were lovingly toweling the sand off their Yorkoodles, or engaging in impromptu banter with other gorgeous men. This New Yorker cartoon-worthy scene on one of my favorite beaches always makes me gleeful. Don’t ask me why, maybe because it’s an apt reminder that we should all just play more in life.

Accustomed to being one of the rare women on the scene, I politely hello’d my way by, trotting towards the waterline to run on the edge of the beach.

There is a specific band of sand at the water’s edge that’s ideal for running—not too mushy and just firm enough. The jogger’s challenge is staying on this strip while avoiding the waves lapping at one’s shoes. It is a constant dance, away from the water towards the softer sand, which is at a slight incline, and back again. With today’s erratic waves, I negotiated an elegant zigzag, requiring dozens of nimble, real-time, ad-hoc adjustments.

Just as in life.

In such moments, no one can advise you. You alone must gauge where the edge of the wave will rise, how quickly to sprint sideways, or whether you can accelerate forward in time to miss the wave’s reach.

It occurred to me that we need to exercise this subtle combination of flash-prediction, intuition and dexterity, in so many domains (and in real time!): office politics, relationships, investments, even child-rearing challenges. What’s too much, too little, too fast, too slow, too soon or too late?

There are times, like today, when glancing at a seagull halved my concentration and I was suddenly, jarringly, ankle deep in cold water. I let out something of a damsel-in-distress yelp, which hopefully only the seagull heard, and bounced onto higher, drier ground. There was now water trapped in my socks, squishy and annoying and… I carried on. Definitely not so comfortable running with seawater in my shoes but, ultimately, manageable. I knew the water would evaporate as soon as I’d put the shoes in the sun, and they’d be dry by tomorrow, no biggie.

Life is full of split-second decisions. Instances where you just need to think without thinking, as Malcolm Gladwell puts it. Sometimes you make a decision that hits the nail on the head, sometimes you miss the mark. Welcome to the human race. In moments when you “take your eye off the ball,” there’s obviously a chance something could happen, and yes, something you cannot control and…So what? Who said you can’t run with wet socks?

Only you can make your decisions, call those shots, cauz’ no one will ever know better than you whether they are right or wrong. What matters is: you’ll know whether they are the right ones for you.

So how do you get past it?

Time to share a trick I learned from my wise friend Judy.

The first time I saw her do this was when she co-led a group of 22 people, in the context of a very unique leadership training. The formal trainers had, as they often did during this 4-week-training program, surrendered their “leader chairs” to us (the participants) and we had to work with that, lead in rotation and basically draw on our own leadership/facilitation skills, common sense, intuition and initiative.

At a particularly messy moment (that’s code for: the group has lost the plot, there is no clear sense of where the group exercise is headed, something might happen or things may careen and everyone will lose motivation and disengage completely), as Judy was tossed an idea of how we might proceed as a group, she suddenly put one hand over her eyes, elegantly raised the other for a little silence, and simply said “hold on a sec’ please, I’m just checking in with myself.”

Little did she know then, that these words would go down in our group’s lore forever.

We all waited for 5 pregnant seconds and then she smiled (beamed, in fact), stood up, and led us into an impromptu exercise that totally shifted the mood and restored everyone’s enthusiasm, instantaneously. Magic, really.

What she did, specifically, is irrelevant now.

What’s important is that Judy knew (as in: had a deep sense of self-trust) she had an answer, and certainly the resources to handle anything, even if she didn’t know WHAT it was exactly she was looking for. By “checking in with herself” Judy consulted her intuition, listened to her gut feel, and took a momentary break from her mind’s gotta-solve-this-problem-stranglehold. I should mention that Judy is a brilliant, highly cerebral thinker. At the same time, she is also incredibly wise and knows how to create a solution in the moment, as warranted. And now, she also knows that, in many situations, she can’t rely exclusively on her mind to do that.

You with me so far?

Good. Because this is the point of this post: when you find yourself in such a bind—sensing an almost physical pressure to choose, decide or make something happen now—do what Judy did: check in with yourself.

Here are tricks that work (for Judy, for me, for friends I’ve consulted with):

Hit an imaginary, mental pause button and make time stand still for a few seconds.

Close your eyes, or look at the sky, tune out any noise, distraction, other people. Now ask yourself one of these questions:

“What’s important here? What really matters?”

“What’s the most natural thing to do here?”

“If I wasn’t worried, what would I do, right now?”

Try also:

“Am I ok with this?”

“What’s my intent here?”

“What’s in it for me if I choose x?”

“How does this choice sit with me, here, in my belly.”

I am utterly convinced that all of us have the answers to practically everything that life throws at us; it’s just a matter of accessing them. Most often, this involves bypassing the supreme force exerted by our brain, dodging the mental dictates in order to consult the other sources of wisdom we carry inside us. And the cool thing is: those sources are always available, in every moment. If we simply remember to check in.

And yet, for the first time in a remarkably long time, I found myself in an out of character dare-I-don’t-I-say-anything-trepidation yesterday.

Perched on the edge of a bench, in bleachers overlooking a set of badminton courts, I gazed admiringly at my son who was beating what seemed like a good natured opponent. Other than the occasional “Great shot!” or “Way to go!” my progeny prefers we refrain from any distracting commentary whatsoever, nay, any live involvement in his badminton matches. Understandably. Instead I support him in loving silence, sourcing him confidence, ease, and all good things.

So yesterday, out in Villers-le-Bouillet (you really have to be Belgian, or francophone, to appreciate just how quaintly incongruous the name of this dorf sounds, it’s also a full 100km from Brussels) where we sat through a number of matches, I could not get over the relentless interference coming from said opponent’s mother, up in the bleachers, 5m away from me.

Utterly qualm-less, the woman was hollering instructions at her son, speaking at him after every exchange and dispensing all manner of weird advice while gesticulating to demonstrate. Now I have seen badminton coaches in action and she was not one of them. On the court, the sweet boy kept glancing up at mama between every point, as if on cue, wide eyes searching for guidance and ears perked for what she had to say. Kill the sound and you’d think the mother was remote-controlling the boy or using him like some freak avatar.

It was so distracting, so insulting and unfair to him, it was painful to behold. I have rarely seen someone demonstrate so little faith in their child, so publicly and so unabashedly. Whatever badminton potential the kid had, these shenanigans were destroying it.

Needless to say, within 15 minutes of this, I was silently beside myself. My son seemed unperturbed and was hitting deliberately gently as he’d gauged the other boy to be a less seasoned player. My husband, silent as per our way in these tournaments, shook his head at this, “should we tell him it’s patronizing and insulting to an opponent to not play full out just because you’re better?”

By now I was far too consumed with active seething at the controlling-mother to even begin to wrap my head around that thought track.

“She’s unbelievable! I mean: does she have any idea of how she’s ruining her son’s chances?! Not to mention pleasure? Or life?”

After 5 more minutes of this I stood up.

“I can’t take it anymore, I’m going over there to tell her.”

“Go for it.”

“But I can’t, it’s her mothering style, she’ll take it personally. You can’t tell people they’re bad parents. She won’t get it.”

At this point I’d sat and stood up, neurotic jack-in-the-box fashion, 4 times.

“Come on. You’re a coach, you can handle it. She needs to hear it from someone.”

Before I knew it I was there, standing right alongside her. She looked at me, a bit surprised, and I said, quietly and emphatically: “May I volunteer an observation? Here’s what I see: your son is more engaged with you, more tuned into what’s happening up here than he is on the game. His focus ought to be on the court, not on you.”

Not entirely surprisingly, she turned away like she hadn’t heard a word.

My mind still on fire, I left it at that and returned to the other end of the bench.

“Feel better?”

“She totally ignored me. Pretended I wasn’t there. It’s ok, I’m used to people not wanting to hear hard truths.”

I have no idea what the impact of my opinionated, potentially patronising intervention was or will be, if any (possibly just dinner conversation “a crazy, possessed woman verbally assaulted me today!”). I harbour the innocent hope that my words will someday decant into her heart. Better yet: that her son will find it in his to tell her to shut up and let him play and be his own person.

And that may never happen. Who knows?

Should I have kept my urges in check? Suppressed my indignation, remained silent, polite, minded my own business? No doubt, I must have sounded self-righteous, possibly scary. In coaching jargon: I made myself right and I made her wrong. And yet, for reasons I’m still not entirely clear on, I’m so glad I spoke up.

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. She can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over-prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative – dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

One of my most energetic, can-do clients elected to spend our entire coaching session today on how challenged she is to say no. To all sorts of stuff. We examined the toll this exacted on her time, her energy, her wits, her relationships, her life. Sobering stuff. She now sees how saying yes when she really means no (as in: the heart and gut are yelling NO) has the potential to keep her from focusing on what’s most important to her. Not to mention exhaust her body and mind.

It’s a biological truth: saying yes to absolutely everything will send your stress levels soaring. So learn to differentiate between what you really want to say yes to, and what you’re saying yes to when what you really mean….is no.

Fact: To truly say yes to the things we want, we need to say no to others. This includes people. In your personal or professional life, be aware of your needs and your limits and refuse–serenely and politely–to take on extra responsibilities even though you know you could do then. Taking on more than you can handle will, guaranteed, create internal resentment for having said yes when you meant no. Not only will you kick yourself all the way home, you will also be broadcasting put-upon-vibes, giving people around you (colleagues, friends, family) the feeling the world owes you. Unattractive, unhelpful, utterly unnecessary.

• Does it really need to be done?
• Can I delegate it? If yes, choose someone now.
• Can I reschedule it into the future? If yes, fix that day/time now.

Or maybe it’s time to…just DO IT!

On a deeper level, as you contemplate what it is you are putting off, ask yourself: what am I afraid of?

There’s often an underlying fear for why we avoid tackling certain things. Nine times out of ten, you’ll discover that once you’ve named these fears–exposed them, as it were– these fears are actually unfounded. Just like excess baggage you’d been schlepping around and which you hadn’t realised you could just…put down. You’ll be surprised at how simple and effortless many things will suddenly feel to you, as a result.