You are exactly on time.
41 things I know at 41 about your health, your body, and the life you're allowed to want.
I turn 41 today.
I was a competitive dancer from the time I could walk until I left for university. I moved across the country in my twenties with my boyfriend (now husband) of less than a year and no real plan. I went back to school for nutrition at 26 because conventional medicine kept telling me I was fine and I knew I wasn’t. I built a business from scratch. I travelled to Bali and climbed down to Kelingking Beach, which most people skip because it is genuinely dangerous, and scrambled down the cliffs at Diamond Beach, terrified the whole time. I had two miscarriages, one of which landed me in emergency surgery at ten weeks. I married a police officer and learned what it means to say I love you like you mean it, every single time, because you never know.
I am not the same person I was at 31. Or 21. And I’m grateful for that.
If anyone tells you there’s a timeline for how your life is supposed to go, they’re lying. Or they haven’t lived enough yet to know better.
Here are 41 things I know for sure after 41 years of figuring most of it out the hard way.
BTW, if you considered enjoying the paying member benefits and get instant access to weekly voice notes to keep you moving forward, monthly Q&As where you can ask me anything directly, private chat with me, and a community of women who actually get it, enjoy this one time offer as my birthday gift to you:
1. Your health is not a vanity project. It is your foundation.
Everything else, your relationships, your work, your adventures, your capacity to show up for the people you love is built on top of it. Treat it like the asset it is.
2. Health is freedom, not restriction.
I spent years thinking health meant saying no. No to this food, no to that experience, no to rest. I had it completely backwards. Real health is what lets you say yes. Yes to the hike. Yes to the trip. Yes to the life you actually want.
3. Your body has been talking to you for years. Start listening.
Not when it breaks down. Not when something goes wrong. Now. It is always communicating. The question is whether you are paying attention.
4. Freeze your eggs.
I didn’t start wanting children until my mid to late thirties. I didn’t think it would be as hard as it has been. If there is any part of you that thinks you might want children one day, just do it. Thank yourself later.
5. You are allowed to want more than what conventional medicine offers.
I spent years being told I was fine. Every time I went in with a real symptom, I left with a prescription like birth control or an antidepressant. Nobody was digging into the root cause. Nobody was asking why. I knew something was wrong. I went back to school, I dug deeper, and I found answers that the standard system was never going to give me. You are allowed to push. You are allowed to ask hard questions. You are allowed to not accept fine when you don’t feel fine.
6. Be your own loudest advocate.
Nobody is coming to fight for your health on your behalf. You have to ask for the right tests. You have to push for the answers. You have to walk into that appointment knowing what you need and not leave without it. This is not being difficult. This is being responsible for yourself.
7. The birth control pill is not a neutral drug.
I wish someone had told me this sooner. It is not just contraception. It affects your hormones, your gut, your nutrient levels, your mood. Know what you are putting in your body and what it costs you.
8. Going straight from high school to university is not the only path.
I wish someone had told me it was okay to pause. To travel. To figure out who I was before I started building a life I hadn’t chosen yet. A gap year is not falling behind. It is getting ahead of yourself.
9. Doing scary things is the fastest way to grow.
In Bali, I got on a motorbike. I climbed down to Kelingking Beach, which is a steep, relentless descent and an even harder climb back up. I did the same at Diamond Beach, scrambling down cliffs to get to the water and back up again. I was scared the entire way down and the entire way back up both times. And they were some of the most incredible experiences of my life. Fear will always be there. It is not a stop sign. It is just your nervous system doing its job.
10. Fear wants to keep you safe. Thank it. Then keep going.
I boulder now. I am scared of heights. Every single session I am scared. And every single session I talk to the fear: thank you for protecting me, but I’ve got this. You can do the same thing in any area of your life.
11. Comfort zones are not comfortable. They are just familiar.
There is a difference. Familiar can feel like comfort. But familiar can also be the thing keeping you exactly where you don’t want to be.
12. Moving across the country with no safety net taught me more than I expected.
My now husband and I left Toronto, our families, everything familiar, and moved to Alberta in 2014. I was in my late twenties. We didn’t have a map for it. We built one as we went. Sometimes starting over is the best thing you can do for yourself.
13. Being a police wife teaches you presence like nothing else can.
When your husband walks out the door for a shift, you learn very quickly not to take a single moment for granted. You say the I love yous. You give the hugs. You don’t save the good stuff for later. You don’t wait for the right time. You make right now the right time.
14. Life is so short, and we don’t get to know how short.
We are not here for a long time. We cannot dictate when our time is up. And so when things feel light and easy and good, close your eyes, breathe it in, and be grateful. Actually grateful. Not just the word.
15. A gratitude practice is not soft. It is survival.
I practice mine consistently. It has gotten me through things I did not think I would get through. When you can find what is right in the middle of what is hard, you become very difficult to break.
16. Grief deserves respect. It does not deserve the rest of your life.
Loss is real. Pain is real. Sit with it. Honour it. And know that moving forward doesn’t mean leaving it behind. Grief stays with you. It will show up out of nowhere sometimes, years later, and that is okay. That is just how it works. The goal is not to be done with it. The goal is to not let it run you.
17. The miscarriage that sent me to the ER changed me.
At ten weeks I hemorrhaged and ended up in emergency surgery. I had already been through loss. But that one cracked me open in a way I didn’t expect. What came out the other side was a deeper commitment to my own body. To taking care of it. To never taking it for granted.
18. Your body keeps score even when your mind refuses to.
Every time you push through instead of rest. Every time you ignore the signal. It is all being recorded. The bill comes eventually. Pay attention now so you don’t have to pay later.
19. Movement is medicine. But not as punishment.
Move because it makes you feel alive. Because it makes you strong. Because your body was built to move and it wants to. Not because you ate something “bad.” Not as penance. As celebration.
20. Strength is worth building intentionally.
I want a body that is strong and capable. That is my goal. Not a number, not an aesthetic. Capable. Strong enough to climb, to boulder, to adventure, to show up fully for whatever life asks of me.
21. You probably need to eat more than you think.
Most women I work with are under eating. A lot of the time they don’t even know it. They have been so conditioned to take up less space that they are literally not fueling their bodies enough to function well. More food is often the answer, not less.
22. The girl who under-fuelled her body for years became the woman who teaches other women to listen to theirs.
I was a competitive dancer and then a runner and I did not eat enough to support the body I was asking so much of. I know what it feels like to ignore those signals. I also know what it feels like to finally stop. Both things inform the work I do now.
23. Your gut is not separate from the rest of you.
Your hormones, your mood, your energy, your skin, your cycle, they are all connected to what is happening in your gut. When something feels off, start there.
24. Normal on a lab result does not mean optimal.
I cannot tell you how many women I have worked with who were told everything looked fine, and nothing felt fine. Learn the difference between the absence of disease and actual thriving.
25. You are not too sensitive. You are not making it up. Trust yourself.
If your body is telling you something is wrong, that is information. You do not need a doctor to validate your lived experience before you are allowed to take it seriously.
26. Building a business is the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
Nobody tells you that going in. The learning curves are steep. The lows are genuinely low. And the highs are worth it in a way that is hard to explain to someone who hasn’t done it. It is all on you, and that is terrifying and the best thing that ever happened to me.
27. Working for yourself means unlearning almost everything corporate taught you.
There is no safety net. No manager to blame. No system to hide inside. It is just you and the work. That is clarifying in a way that nothing else is.
28. Freedom is the point.
The reason I built my own practice is because I can actually help people the way they need to be helped. I can order the tests. I can go deep. I can spend the time. I could not do that inside a system that was not built for that kind of care.
29. People pleasing is expensive.
I am a chronically recovering people pleaser. It has cost me time, energy, opportunities, and more than a few relationships. The antidote is not being difficult. It is being honest. Honest about what you need, what you want, what you will and will not do.
30. Self confidence is a skill, not a personality trait.
I wish someone had told me that at 20. I thought you either had it or you didn’t. You can build it. Deliberately. Through doing hard things, keeping promises to yourself, and getting out of your comfort zone over and over until it starts to feel like home.
31. The opinions of people who don’t know you are not data.
I am slowly, genuinely caring less about what people think. Especially people who are not in my life, who do not know me, who have no context for the choices I make. Their opinion is not information. You can let it go.
32. Adventure is not a reward for when you have more time.
It is a way of moving through life. Schedule the trip. Book the class. Sign up for the thing. Don’t wait until you’ve earned it. You’ve already earned it.
33. You are never too old to start something new.
I started bouldering at 40. I am scared of heights. I am also completely hooked. It is never too late to find the thing that challenges you in ways you didn’t know you needed.
34. Say the extra I love you. Give the extra hug.
Especially if someone you love walks into uncertainty every day. Especially then.
35. Your forties are not a decline. They are an arrival.
I am stronger at 41 than I have ever been. Mentally and physically. I know myself better. I waste less time. I care about the right things. Your forties are when everything you survived starts to actually pay off.
36. You can have it all. Just not on someone else’s timeline.
Stop measuring your life against someone else’s highlight reel or someone else’s sequence of events. Your path is yours. Build it accordingly.
37. Health advocacy is an act of self respect.
Walking into a doctor’s office knowing what you need, asking for it clearly, and not accepting a dismissal is one of the most powerful things you can do for yourself. It is also a skill. Practice it.
38. Rest is not laziness. It is recovery.
Your body does its best work when you let it recover. Sleep, downtime, stillness — these are not indulgences. They are part of the work.
39. Don’t DIY your health. Or your life.
There is nothing simple about understanding your own body, building a business, building a life. The thing that makes the difference between struggling for years and actually getting answers is finding someone who specializes in exactly what you are dealing with. A practitioner who gets it. A psychologist, a financial planner, whoever it is that meets you where you are. This usually means going outside the conventional system, into private or alternative care. That is not a last resort. For most of the women I work with, it is the thing that finally worked after everything else didn’t.
40. You don’t need permission.
Not to take up space. Not to want more. Not to change direction. Not to try something that scares you. Not to rest. Not to go. The permission you are waiting for is yours to give.
41. You are exactly on time.
Not behind. Not late. Not too much or too little of anything. The version of your life that you want starts with one decision, made today. I know because I have had to make that decision more than once. And every time, it was worth it.
Here’s to 41. Here’s to the adventures still ahead. Here’s to doing the scary thing anyway.
And here’s to you. Whoever you are, wherever you are in it.
You’ve got this.
Love,
Kat
If you made it to the end of this and something shifted, come join us. This one time offer expires in 48 hours.
Happy Birthday! Great points of view from so many phases of life.
This is so beautifully written, thought provoking and inspiring! Thank you for your honesty and encouraging transparency. 😊❤️