Healing Taught Me How to Steward Myself Well

There was a time in my life when I genuinely believed the answer to changing myself was more restriction.

A stricter diet. Harder workouts. More discipline. More pressure. More shame.

I thought transformation came from being harder on myself.

If I could just “lock in.”

If I could just stop messing up.

If I could just become more disciplined, more controlled, more perfect…

Then maybe I would finally become the version of myself I wanted to be. So I approached wellness like punishment.

I treated food like something I had to earn. If I had an unhealthy meal, I felt like I needed to “make up for it” immediately. I'd either force myself to do an intense workout to burn it off or starve myself to make up the difference.

I felt guilty resting. Even taking a day off from working out made me feel lazy or undisciplined.

And if I missed a few workouts? In my mind, I had already failed, so I’d spiral and completely fall off track. I'd think what's the point of finishing the week strong, I might as well start over next week.

And honestly?

The more I operated from shame, the more exhausted I became. And the more exhausted I became, the more desperate I was for quick fixes. So I turned to fad diets, intense workouts, and even tried “fat loss” pills once as a desperate attempt to fix myself.

I was constantly starting over. One hard week would make me feel like I had ruined everything, so I’d immediately try to “reset” with another extreme plan. But because those plans were rooted in punishment instead of sustainability, I always found myself burnt out soon after. It was exhausting mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

And every time I “failed,” it reinforced the belief that maybe I just lacked discipline. I didn’t realize how much self-hatred had disguised itself as motivation.

I thought discipline meant constantly being hard on myself, but God was teaching me that stewardship and punishment are not the same thing. Because the issue was never just about food or workouts. The problem wasn’t that I lacked discipline.

The truth is, I was trying to heal internal struggles with external control. No amount of restriction could heal the way my self-worth was tied to my body. No workout plan could fix the all-or-nothing mindset that convinced me I had failed every time I messed up.

I realized I knew how to control myself, but I didn’t know how to care for myself.

No strict routine could repair the emotional exhaustion that came from constantly trying to earn my value through performance. I didn’t need more punishment. I needed healing. Healing my mindset changed everything.

I began learning how to give myself grace instead of constantly criticizing myself. I had to unlearn the habit of nitpicking every flaw when I looked in the mirror. I stopped viewing consistency as perfection and started seeing it as continuing even after a hard day, a missed workout, or an unhealthy meal.

I learned that sustainable wellness doesn’t come from extremes. It comes from habits you can realistically maintain. I stopped trying to bully myself into transformation and started learning how to steward myself well.

That shift changed my entire wellness journey. Because stewardship sounds different than punishment.

Punishment says: “You failed again.”

Stewardship says: “Take care of yourself and keep going.”

Punishment demands perfection. Stewardship leaves room for grace.

Punishment is rooted in control. Stewardship is rooted in care.

And I truly believe God cares deeply about how we steward ourselves.

Not from obsession. Not from vanity. Not from self-hatred.

But from a place of honoring the body, mind, and life we’ve been entrusted with.

For a long time, I thought wellness had to feel miserable to be effective. Like suffering was proof that I was finally doing enough. I was conditioned to believe suffering was part of the process, and it showed in the way I cared for myself.

But lasting transformation didn’t come from learning how to punish myself harder. It came when I finally learned how to care for myself differently. When I learned how to continue instead of constantly starting over. When I stopped chasing perfection and started building sustainability. When healing became part of my wellness journey too.

Healing taught me how to continue without hating myself every time I messed up.

It taught me that consistency could look gentle. Sustainable. Realistic. And that changed my wellness journey more than restriction ever did.

—Becoming Faithfully Her