Remembering to Remember
On returning to yourself, again and again, on purpose
As you know, in January, I went to Costa Rica with a circle of extraordinary women.
It was one of those weeks that stays with you. The kind of time away that doesn't just refresh you. It recalibrates you. And as often happens when I'm with women who are ready to go deep, something unexpected emerged. A theme none of us planned for, but all of us embraced.
Remembering to remember.
Each evening, we'd gather and close the day with one simple question: What do you want to remember to remember from today?
What struck me wasn't just the answers. It was how different each answer was. The same day, the same experiences, the same conversations, and every woman had held onto something entirely her own. A moment of clarity. A feeling in her body she hadn't felt in a long time. Something someone said that landed differently for her than it did for anyone else. Something she didn't want to let the noise of real life swallow whole.
By the end of the week, we came up to a higher level together. We asked the bigger version of the question: What is it, from this whole week, that you most want to carry with you?
What came from that conversation was so alive, so specific to each woman, that we knew it deserved to exist beyond memory. So we created something physical. A gorgeous, personalized ezine for each of them, filled with the things they'd shared throughout the week. A document of themselves, at their most honest and most clear. Something they could come back to. Something that wouldn't fade.
I've been sitting with this idea ever since I got home.
Why We Forget
Here's what I know about myself, and I suspect it's true for many of you too.
The reason I have always had my own coach, invested in my own growth, and chosen to put myself inside immersive experiences is, more than anything else, about this. About remembering to remember.
To remember who I am. What I want. Why I’m so magical. What genuinely makes me happy. What I want more of, and what I want considerably less of. What's possible when I'm not shrunk down by the day-to-day. How to move toward that with intention rather than just good intentions.
Because our lives are loud. The world is noisy. There's always something pulling at us, demanding our attention, asking us to be useful or productive or available or responsive. And in all of that noise, it is remarkably easy to lose the thread back to yourself.
The women I work with tell me this constantly. They describe how alive they feel when they finally get the chance to step away and return to themselves. To what they value. To the version of their life they actually want to be building.
And then they describe how quickly that feeling fades when they're back in the thick of it. The busyness, the obligations, the long to-do list that never quite empties. How discouraged they get when they realize they've forgotten, again, to remember.
This isn't a willpower problem. It isn't a discipline problem. It's a practice problem.
What the Research Actually Says
There is real science behind this, and I think it's worth knowing.
Researchers from Harvard Business School found that people who took time at the end of each day to reflect and write about what they had learned performed 23% better than those who didn't pause to reflect at all. Not 2% better. Not marginally better. Twenty-three percent. As Professor Francesca Gino put it: "Now more than ever we seem to be living lives where we're busy and overworked, and our research shows that if we'd take some time out for reflection, we might be better off."
And it goes further than performance. Dr. James Pennebaker's research found that writing about experiences for just 15 to 30 minutes, four times over the course of a month, can significantly improve both mental and physical wellbeing, with benefits that can last for months or even years.
When we commit our thoughts and reflections to paper, the brain undergoes a process of composing, synthesizing, and storing. The act of writing signals to the brain that something is important, which then flags relevant incoming information and opportunities to help us move toward what matters.
In other words: the practice of remembering to remember is not soft. It is not indulgent. It is one of the most rigorous things you can do for yourself.
The work of remembering to remember isn't passive. It doesn't happen by accident, and it doesn't sustain itself on good intentions alone. It requires a commitment. An ongoing, deliberate practice of returning to yourself before you drift too far.
Part of how our lives unfold is shaped by the practices we choose and protect. The rituals that bring us back. The moments we carve out not to be productive, but to be present to ourselves.
I’m so excited to share that I will be introducing some new ways for us to do this together, and I want you to stay close, because what's coming is going to be awesome!
But I don't want you to wait. I don't want you to put it off, the way we put off so many things that actually matter, until one day you wake up and realize you've forgotten more than you remember. That you've been so busy living that you stopped paying attention to the life you're actually building.
So here, right now, are a few places to start.
A Few Ways to Begin
Start a Remember to Remember journal and make it beautiful. Not a planner. Not a productivity system. A dedicated notebook, one that feels good in your hands, where you capture the moments and realizations you don't want to lose; big and small. The conversation that shifted something. The morning you felt entirely like yourself. The decision you made that your body knew was right before your brain caught up. Date each entry. Come back to it. Your past self is always leaving wisdom for your future self, but only if you write it down.
End each day with one honest question. Before you close your eyes: What do I want to remember to remember from today? Don't filter it. Write whatever surfaces first. Some days it will be a revelation. Some days it will be the way the light looked at 6 PM, or something someone said, or a feeling you want to hold onto. It all counts.
Build a weekly ritual of reflection. Choose one time each week to sit quietly with your journal and read back through what you've written. Notice what keeps showing up. Notice what you almost let slip away. This is where real self-knowledge builds. Not in the moments themselves, but in the space where you look back and see the pattern clearly.
Go analog. Pen, paper, presence. There is something that happens when you put pen to paper that a phone or a laptop simply cannot replicate. It slows you down in exactly the right way. If you want to make this practice feel like it matters, because it does, make it tactile. A beautiful journal. A pen you actually like using. A few quiet minutes without a screen. These aren't indulgences. They're signals to yourself that you are worth returning to.
At the end of each month, come up a level. Just as we did in Costa Rica at the end of the week, give yourself the bigger view. Read back through the month and ask: What is the most important thing I want to carry forward? What did I learn about myself that I don't want to forget? Write it somewhere prominent. Let it travel with you into the next month.
More is coming! Beautiful, fun, meaningful, sassy, perhaps salty but always deeply intentional ways for us to practice this together.
In the meantime, start small. Start today. Because the most important thing isn't the perfect system or the perfect moment. It's the decision to not let yourself be forgotten, by yourself.
You are worth remembering.
With love and full heart,
Laura x
