Yesterday was one of those days that tried my patience.

It was hot and sticky, my hips and lower back apparently were not in agreement with my yoga teacher about a class full of hip-openers being a good idea and thus decided to, and it was James’ day off so I was dealing with a fair bit of extra auditory stimuli from his TV watching and music.

As a worker from home, this combination of factors makes for a very unproductive, very unhappy, guilt-ridden day.

I found myself repeating the mantra, “Just be kind to yourself,” over and over today… because on days like this, my tendency is to be quite unkind to myself.

I didn’t accomplish anywhere close to what I wanted to accomplish yesterday. One out of something like four tasks got finished, and I cut my day work day extremely short because after a few hours of working, I was just spent. I was cranky. I was in pain. I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend.

I knew if I pushed myself to do more, the resentment would build and my mood would spiral into something dark and that’s something that doesn’t just affect me, it affects James as well… so one of the things that I’ve been trying to do is to take care of myself so I don’t end up in emotional turmoil.

So, I just stopped.

Then the guilt monster started in on me because I didn’t complete everything I said I would, and I didn’t work the amount of hours that I normally would in a day… and my brain would just not shut up about it. So, I kept repeating “Just be kind to yourself.

When I sat down an did my daily journal pages, I ended up writing about everything that had frustrated me about the day… and then I realized that I really didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. I didn’t feel well! I was in pain! These are things that are totally normal reasons to stop what you’re doing and take care of yourself. Why was I feeling guilty about taking care of myself?

It seems kinda silly, but worries about what people might think. I think there’s a tendency with workers from home to just push through pain and sickness and keep working because you’re in the comfort of home. I know that no matter how badly I feel, my general inclination is “If it’s a work day and I can be sitting upright and at the computer, I should be working!” and in reality, this probably isn’t the best mentality to have… If you’re not feeling well, you should be resting so you can heal.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that if I hadn’t take the time to rest and sleep yesterday afternoon… I probably would have still been in sorry shape today. Instead, most of my pain is gone and I’ve been a lot more productive.

Moral of the story? Be kind to yourself and take care of yourself. You’ll be better off for it.