Don't Forget Yourself

Hi, I'm Nipun.

This is one of the first pieces of writing I’m putting out for this blog, and I want to start off my dialogue with you with a plea: Don’t forget yourself.

This may seem like an intangible, perhaps sentimental request, but I hope that by the end of this article, you call that person you’ve been wanting to call, pick up that hobby again that you’ve been meaning to get back into, or start taking care of yourself again in the ways you know you need to.

Forgetting yourself looks like this: Missing that doctor’s appointment or a routine checkup, skipping working out or fitness for quick dopamine hits, chasing that one person or relationship that just takes and takes from you, and refusing to break out of bad habits that leave you stagnant after a while.

Eventually, this forms a habit of letting go and forgetting about things that have the potential to be life-changing for you. This may include everything from missing even the tiniest aspects like whether someone’s tone or behaviour made you feel small or dismissed, to not picking up an important skill that could result in a better job or a sense of fulfillment in having accomplished something.

Sadly, this is often not intentional.

It’s understandable that as we get pulled into endless directions by a constant stream of emotions and experiences, we get carried away by life, and it is in these moments that we must find our way back.

This rings especially true for folks that grew up in an environment where their needs and development were not a priority, where they were constantly forgotten, neglected or just not prioritised enough.

So, what do you do now?

Start small.

Jot down whatever comes to mind. Be it your phone’s notes app, in a diary, or just a piece of paper. Note down all the things you have been meaning to get back to or plans you want to act on, and pick out one thing from them that you’ll be choosing to act on right away. For the remaining ones, pick out a certain time and set a reminder on your phone or whichever device stays closest to you all the time.

Simply dedicating five minutes to this every day will help bring the parts of you that are lost back to yourself.

It might take days, maybe a few weeks, but by then you will be much farther ahead than you would be without this practice. After all, the only person you’ll always come back home to is yourself. Don’t forget yourself.