When You Can’t Remember What You 'Know-You-Know' ... Stop Trying So Hard!

This morning, I found myself standing at the edge of frustration, squinting at a blank passcode screen on my daughter’s iPhone. I had set a Screen Time passcode months ago — one of those parental boundaries meant to preserve sanity and sleep — and promptly forgotten it.

After two failed attempts, the red warning message appeared. I paused, mildly annoyed at myself, wondering if I’d have to phone Apple Support like a guilty teenager or worse, reset the whole device. I sighed and thought, "What did I even use? Why can’t I remember what I know I know?"

A forgotten passcode, a quiet pause… and a lesson in letting go.

Then, in a moment equal parts strategic and, if I'm honest, slightly dramatic, I decided to try to force the system into offering me a solution. "I'll deliberately enter the wrong passcode a few more times," I thought. "Maybe it’ll eventually unlock a ‘forgot your passcode?’ prompt.” 

And that’s when it happened.

As I relaxed into the idea of not knowing — of simply accepting the situation — my fingers were somehow guided to the right combination on the very next attempt. I hadn’t remembered  it in the usual sense; it was more like it rose up through the mental fog the moment I stopped straining. Somewhere in that act of conscious surrender, a quiet space opened up inside me. I'd stopped chasing the right answer and fully accepted defeat.

In that moment of mental unclenching — not trying so hard to recall, just… allowing — the code gently floated back into my awareness. As if it had been sitting quietly the whole time, waiting for me to stop so that it could speak.

And it hit me: how often in life do we miss something important — especially when we can’t remember what we know we know — simply because we’re trying so hard to 'get it right'? How many insights lie just beneath the surface of all our over-trying?

It reminds me of moments in meditation or even prayer — those sacred spaces where we’re not striving, but listening. When we create space, the knowing within us has room to rise. The pressure to “figure it out” quiets, and our inner wisdom finally gets a word in.

So yes — this morning I remembered a passcode. But more than that, I remembered a truth:

The answers you seek are often already within you. It’s not always about trying harder — sometimes it’s about softening, surrendering, and trusting what will rise when you do.

Surrender is not giving up — it’s giving over to what already knows.

And perhaps that’s something worth exploring.

Here are two gentle journaling prompts to take you a little deeper:

• Think of a time when the answer came to you after you stopped trying so hard. What changed in your inner posture? What allowed the insight or memory to rise?

  
  

• Where in your life right now are you gripping for control — and what might happen if you softened your hold?

Sometimes, the wisdom we’re searching for is like a message in a bottle, bobbing just beyond the waves of our effort. The harder we push toward it, the further it seems to drift. But when we grow still — when we stop chasing and start trusting — the tide brings it gently to shore. May these prompts help you quiet the waters, so what’s already within can rise to meet you.

If this reflection resonated with you, you might enjoy some of the other moments I’ve written about — where control gives way to clarity, and effort softens into insight you can find more musings, meditations, and journal prompts here or come and connect with me over on YouTube.

You’re so welcome here.