How a Simple Nightly Practice Helps You Stop Abandoning Yourself

Issue 159, March 20, 2026 ✨ Higher Power Coaching & Consulting ✨

There’s a simple practice that has helped me maintain my boundaries more than almost anything else I’ve done.

It’s not complicated, doesn’t take long, and you can start doing it tonight. If you’re in 12-step recovery, you’re probably familiar with it: it’s called a nightly inventory.

I’ve been doing some version of this practice for years now. But over time, my understanding of why it works has evolved. Today, I see it as one of the most powerful internal boundary practices there is.

How This Practice Started

Every night, I write at least ten things I’m grateful for. In the past few months, I’ve started writing a few things in the morning to start my day, then I add to that list at night. I started this practice in July of 2000, originally writing five things each night. That small habit completely transformed my life.

Years later, when I came into recovery and learned about the idea of a nightly inventory, it fit perfectly with what I was already doing. I simply added it to my evening routine. Truth be told, I don’t do this every night now, but anywhere from 5-7 nights per week.

I remember reading something in my twenties that made this whole idea seem ridiculous. In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie talked about doing a weekly inventory of his behavior. On Saturday nights, he’d reflect on the week and ask himself how he could have done things better.

I thought, “Are you fucking kidding me??! Who would do that?” Fast forward 30+, and here I am doing something even more consistent.

The Basement Metaphor

Here’s the image that helps me understand what a nightly inventory really does. When I first worked the 12 steps, it was like I went down into the deep, dark, dank basement of my life. There was junk and debris everywhere: old resentments, defects of character, unexamined patterns, emotional wreckage.

Doing the 12 steps was like cleaning the entire basement out. First, I cleared out the junk, then I sandblasted the walls, then I painted, carpeted, and furnished the place. Then I redecorated.

By the time I was done, the basement had become a beautiful space where I could relax. A place I wanted to invite people into and that I could actually enjoy. My nightly inventory is like sweeping the floor every night, so the junk never piles up again.

Where Internal Boundaries Come In

These days, I think about this practice a little differently. For many people, the hardest pattern to break is self-abandonment. You say yes when you really want to say no, overcommit, people-please, and take responsibility for things that aren’t yours. Often, you don’t even realize you did it until after the fact.

A nightly inventory helps you catch those moments. When you reflect on your day regularly, you start to notice patterns. You see the moment where you overrode your gut. Or where you tried to manage someone else’s feelings. You see where you abandoned yourself. And once you start noticing these things consistently, something powerful happens. 

You get sensitized to the pattern. You start spotting it earlier (sometimes even in the moment).

Why This Matters So Much

There’s another reason this practice is so helpful. It allows you to clean things up quickly by nipping them in the bud. If you realize the next day that you people-pleased someone or overcommitted, you can go back and say something like:

“On further reflection, I overcommitted yesterday. I’m going to need to step back from that.”

That’s much easier to do the next day than it is two weeks later. A nightly inventory gives you the chance to correct course before things get out of hand. It keeps the floor swept.

What My Inventory Looks Like

After writing my gratitude list, I ask myself a series of questions. Some are traditional recovery questions. Others are about patterns I know I’m prone to.

Things like:

• Did I gossip today?
• Did I try to control something that wasn’t mine to control?
• Did I have unrealistic expectations of myself, other people or the world?
• Did I abandon myself by prioritizing connection over honesty?

If the answer to any question is yes, I write down what happened and consider what corrective action might be needed. That can mean making amends or having an honest, clear, and direct conversation. Sometimes it simply means acknowledging the pattern and committing to do better. 

I also ask for my Higher Power’s help with the situation. Then I think about someone I can help (especially if someone else was involved in the situation). If I can’t think of how to help, I pray for that person. Whatever the situation is, I do something to interrupt the pattern.

Then I end the inventory by asking two more questions:

What’s something loving I did for myself today?

And

What’s something new I did today that reflects the person I’m becoming?

Those questions remind me to focus on my good qualities and what’s working well at least once daily. 

There’s another benefit to doing a nightly inventory that I didn’t understand at first. It helps me question the stories my mind tells. When something uncomfortable happens during the day, our minds often rush in to explain it.

Maybe you think:

“She’s upset with me.”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I probably ruined that relationship.”
“They must think I’m selfish/stupid/[insert negative quality].”

When those thoughts happen in the moment, they can feel completely true. But when you sit down later and reflect on the day, you can look at them more objectively. You can ask yourself if that’s what actually happened, or if it was a story your mind created from your distorted thinking patterns. (Remember, you’re not responsible for your first thought, but you are responsible for your second one and what you do about it).

Sometimes the answer is yes, I did mess up. But sometimes the answer is something very different. Maybe I was just setting a boundary, and it felt difficult. Maybe someone else was having a hard day, or maybe nothing was wrong at all.

A nightly inventory creates space between you and your thoughts. It’s a built-in pause for yourself on a consistent basis. Instead of automatically believing every thought you have, you can step back and look at it rationally with your frontal lobe instead of the reactive part of your brain. And that’s an internal boundary too.

Staying Out of Denial

For me, the biggest gift of this practice is that it helps me stay out of denial. It keeps the focus where it belongs – on me and my part, not on what other people did or didn’t do. Just on what I did and living on purpose. And THAT is where the real power is.

A Simple Invitation

If your life isn’t quite the way you want it to be right now, a nightly inventory might help. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t need a long list of questions. You can simply ask yourself:

• Where did I abandon myself today?
• Where did I honor myself?
• Is there anything I need to clean up?

That small daily reflection can become one of the most powerful internal boundary practices you have. Because when you pay attention every day, self-abandonment has a much harder time slipping past you.