My original post for today was much deeper, much more honest and transparent than this one will be. The only problem was, I couldn’t write it.

The whole thing was stilted crap to be honest. But it showed me something important, a pattern that I’d never noticed before.

The crappier I feel, the more stuck I am, the harder I push myself to work.

If I’m just tired, or feeling a little bit sad, or weary, or whatever, then fine, I can give myself a break. I have compassion for those feelings within myself.

But antsiness? Frustration? Annoyance? Anger? Fear? Forget it. My solution to those feelings – work harder. And faster. And set higher, harder, more impossible goals.

While I was writing the post that was going to be but isn’t, I was getting more and more uncomfortable with my topic. I just didn’t have it in me to be that transparent about this particular thing yet. Yet the more uncomfortable I felt, the more frustrated I became with my writing, the more I pushed myself to write.

Yesterday morning, the alarm was accidentally left on and I was woken at 8am despite my intention to sleep in after work the day before. When I went to turn the damn thing off, my knee seized up painfully and that was it – no sleeping after that. I was so pissed off about the whole situation, so you know what my solution was?

Get up and work. Even though it was Sunday. Even though I’d worked the smoothie job the day before and probably needed a day of rest. And I forced myself to work all the way through until I gave myself a nervous breakdown at around 2pm.

Giving myself a break instead

Once I noticed what I was doing, I stopped. I gave myself permission to not write my original post and to not write anything at all period. I looked up recipes for dinner tonight. I got a shower. I did some dishes. I got some lunch. And only then, when the desire came back, did I let myself sit back down in front of the computer to write. This is the post that came out.

It may not be the greatest thing I’ve ever written, and it’s a dwarf by my usual writing standards, but it’s what came out, with a little bit of compassion and letting myself be wherever I was.

This is the post you all need to point me back to whenever I get stressed out, freaked out, or bummed out.

I can let myself be wherever I am. I don’t have to force anything. I don’t have to should myself to death. I can just be me, exactly as I am, whatever that may be.

I’ll probably forget all of this wisdom tomorrow. But for now, I’m going to try to remember it. Maybe I’ll make myself a sign.