Begin Again (And Again): The Truth About Real Self-Care

Not everything we call self-care is actually self-care. Some of it is avoidance. Some of it is performance, and some of it is self-abandonment dressed up in better language.

I’ve learned that losing yourself doesn’t always happen all at once—it happens slowly, in the ways you silence yourself just to be understood.

Nearly 11 years ago, I began my self-love journey. I lost nearly 75 pounds in five and a half months—going from 247 lbs. to 173 lbs. At my heaviest, I felt like a stranger in my own body because it didn’t align with who I knew I really was, but more than the weight, I shed shame. I began forgiving myself, learning myself, and choosing myself. I called it my Begin Again Journey.

For the first time, I was proud of who I was becoming. I started to believe what God had already revealed to me about me. I was walking in a confidence I had never known—steady, sure, and unapologetic.

Although I’ve never reached 247 lbs. again, I have crossed 200 a few times. That taught me something I didn’t understand in the beginning: we have to give ourselves enough grace to begin again, as many times as necessary, while choosing not to quit. This journey was never about perfection. It was about persistence.

Still, something interrupted that euphoria—I had a deep longing to be understood, and it cost me more than I realized. I overexplained myself. I softened my voice. I apologized for my boldness as well as, for how my confidence made others feel. In trying to prove everything I wasn’t, I slowly talked myself out of everything I was—my authority, my truth, my identity. And before I knew it, I had lost myself again.

So, what does this have to do with self-care? Everything.

Self-care is not just what you do—it’s what you allow, what you tolerate, and what you refuse to abandon. Somewhere along the way, it got reduced to surface-level practices—rest days, spa appointments, stepping away when you’re overwhelmed. Those things have their place, but they don’t address the root. What I needed wasn’t rest; I needed realignment.

You can take care of your body and still abandon yourself. You can do all the “right” things outwardly and still silence yourself inwardly. That’s where I was. I had done the physical work and started the emotional work, but I hadn’t learned how to hold onto myself in the presence of others.

I didn’t know self-care sometimes looks like not overexplaining, not shrinking, not apologizing for who you are, and not negotiating your truth just to be understood. I thought self-care was becoming better. In reality, it’s becoming aligned. It’s choosing not to betray yourself because someone else is uncomfortable with your growth. It’s recognizing that the need to be understood can become a doorway to self-abandonment. If you’re not careful, you will give up your voice trying to keep your connections. That’s not care. That’s compromise.

If I’m honest, addiction played a role in that too. I was never addicted to drugs or alcohol, largely because I saw what they did to my family. But the thoughts were there—I just refused to act on them. Still, avoidance doesn’t mean absence. It just changes how it shows up.

My drugs of choice were food and sex. For someone else, it might be shopping, gossiping, bragging, overworking, or overcommitting. Addiction has many faces—some obvious, some socially acceptable, and some even praised, but at its core, it’s all the same: trying to fill, numb, or escape what we haven’t faced.

You can call it coping or habit, but if it helps you avoid yourself, it isn’t care—it’s self-abandonment in disguise. That’s why self-care requires more than routines. It requires introspection, accountability, and the willingness to ask not just “What am I doing?” but “Why do I need this?” Until you answer that, it’s still self-abandonment—just better disguised.

So, here’s your Tuesday Pause:

Where have you been caring for everyone else while abandoning yourself? Where have you been overexplaining, overextending, or over-apologizing just to feel accepted? And what has it cost you?

Self-care is not always soft. Sometimes it requires silence where you used to explain, distance where you used to overextend, and stillness where you used to perform. Sometimes it looks like choosing yourself without permission, agreement, or understanding—not because you don’t value connection, but because you no longer value it more than yourself.

Self-care also taught me this: I could only take good care of others when I was truly taking care of myself. I stopped giving love in hopes of receiving it back. Instead, I learned to love myself so intentionally that what flowed from me was no longer depletion, but overflow, and that overflow reached everyone connected to me.

So today, don’t just ask, “What do I need?” Ask, “Where am I leaving myself, and why?” And whatever answer comes up, don’t rush past it. Sit with it. Be honest about it. Then, gently… begin again.