Because clarity isn’t always sharp.
TL;DR:
I used to think forgetting meant failing.
But sometimes, forgetting is just life asking us to remember differently.
This is what that looked like for me.
There was a time I could hold it all in my head — meetings, messages, tasks, dates.
I’d joke about “mum brain” or “midlife fog,” but deep down?
It scared me.
Not remembering things didn’t feel like a glitch.
It felt like a crack.
Like I was slipping.
What It Looked Like in Real Life
There’s a particular memory I can’t shake.
I was meeting a former colleague — someone I hadn’t seen in years.
As we chatted, I asked — not once, but three separate times — whether she still played sport with her mum.
She gently corrected me each time. And only later, on the drive home, did I realise:
I had confused her with someone else.
Her mother had died just six months earlier.
I blamed perimenopause. Stress. Sleep. And maybe all of that was true.
But the real shift was this:
I no longer trusted my own mind to hold me.
And when you’ve built your value around being sharp, quick, capable —
that kind of forgetting cuts deep.
What Helped Me Shift
I stopped fighting the fog.
Because it wasn’t just about hormones or overwork or aging.
It was about bandwidth.
My mind wasn’t broken.
It was overloaded.
And instead of doubling down, I slowed down.
I wrote more things down.
I made visual lists.
I spoke reminders out loud — yes, even in the car, like a weird podcast to myself.
And I reframed what memory actually means to me.
Not just recall.
But connection.
Not just facts.
But feelings. Anchors. Associations.
I remembered songs. Colours. Smells. Stories.
The kind of memory that isn’t sharp — but deep.
And Today?
I still forget things.
I still lose track.
But I don’t lose me.
Because remembering, for me now, isn’t about performance.
It’s about presence.
When I feel foggy, I pause.
When I feel scattered, I anchor.
And when I forget what I knew — I return to the things that help me remember who I am.
Your Gentle Next Step
If you’ve been forgetting more lately — and blaming yourself —
you’re not broken.
You might just be full.
Try the Memory & Mood Tracker— a free visual tool to help you notice what’s shifting and track what supports your clarity.
What This Series Is For
This post is part of Here’s How I Do It — a personal blog series sharing the real-life rhythm behind the Beaming Bernie pillars.
Not just the structured ideas. The lived ones.
What’s Coming Next
Next time, I’m sharing a story that has nothing to do with data — and everything to do with moving forward (literally).
🚶♀️ My 10,000 Step Journey (With No Science Behind It)
A post about consistency, fresh air, and finding steadiness in motion — even when nothing else felt predictable.
