The Permission I Had to Give Myself to Invest in Me: How Faith and Self-Worth Transformed My Wellness Journey
I sat in my car in the parking lot of the wellness clinic for twenty minutes before I went in for my first appointment. Not because I was nervous about the appointment. Because I was nervous about what it was going to cost me. I’m 44. I’ve been running a company for more than a decade. I have made bigger financial decisions with less hesitation than this. And I sat in the parking lot like a kid trying to talk herself into spending her birthday money.
The math wasn’t the problem. The permission was.
The voice that stops you isn’t humility. It’s a habit.
I could hear it the whole time I was sitting there. That’s a lot of money. That could go toward the kids. That could go toward the business. Who do you think you are. Same voice I’ve been listening to my whole adult life. Quiet, reasonable, never raises its tone. Always sounds like it’s being responsible.
It’s damned expensive. The peptides, the bloodwork, the supplements, all of it. Taking care of yourself after 40 costs real money. And the women who can most afford it are often the last ones to spend it on themselves.
Once I started calling that voice a habit instead of a virtue, I could finally argue with it. It’s been on autopilot since I was about nineteen. Putting yourself last because that’s what you were taught to do, and then calling it selfless when really it’s just slowly grinding you into the ground.
The permission has to come from you. Nobody else can hand it over.
Not from my husband. He’d been telling me for years to take care of myself, and I’d been nodding and not doing it. Not from my doctor. Not from a friend. Not from a podcast.
It came from getting quiet.
When I finally carve out time to be still, what I hear back is usually the thing I’ve been avoiding. The answer that season was, you have to take care of you. Because if you break, it all crumbles.
That was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted a workaround. I wanted to keep going the way I was going and have it somehow work out. Instead I got, you are not optional in your own life. You don’t get to keep pouring out of an empty cup and call that selfless. That is just broken.
For me, that quiet time is faith. I love Jesus, I talk to Him, He talks back, and it shapes how I move through my day. For you it might be completely different and that’s fine. I’m not prescribing a religion. I’m saying I would not have written that first check if something bigger than me hadn’t told me, in a way I couldn’t argue with, that I was worth it.
Spending money on yourself is not selfish. You’re on the list.
We don’t flinch at the things we spend on the people we love. Sports fees for the kids. Tuition. Co-pays. Birthday parties that get out of hand. Christmas. We write the check and figure it out, because they’re worth it, and we don’t even think about it.
Now ask yourself when was the last time you spent that kind of money on you without spiraling.
You are also on the list of people you’re responsible for. You just keep crossing your own name off it. Nobody can pull you out of that but you. Your partner can support it. Your friends can cheer you on. But the permission has to come from inside, and it has to come before the result. You don’t get to wait until you feel better to invest in feeling better. That is not how any of this works.
What I didn’t expect was the joy.
I sleep through the night now. I wake up before my alarm, which my 35-year-old self would have found deeply offensive. I have energy at 4pm. I look at myself in the mirror getting ready in the morning and I actually like what I see.
My libido came back. I’m not going to be cute about it. Sex got good again. My body feels like mine.
I laugh more. The bubbly is real. My kids notice. My husband notices. The team notices, and I think it makes me a better leader because I’m not white-knuckling my way through meetings.
I appreciate things again. A good meal. A Saturday morning that isn’t crammed. The drive home with the windows down. The small stuff is back.
This is what I was protecting when I sat in that parking lot. Not the money. Her. The woman who would come out the other side of writing that check and remember what her own life felt like. She was worth every dollar.
If you’re reading this with your stomach in a knot, you already know.
Maybe you’re literally sitting in your car right now. Maybe you’re on your couch with a website pulled up. Maybe you’re three weeks into avoiding a decision and you keep finding posts like this one.
The math is going to math whether you do it or not. The question isn’t whether you can afford the thing. The question is whether you can keep affording the version of you that won’t spend a dollar on herself.
Go in. Sign up. Buy it. Book it.
Imperfectly, guiltily, with your stomach in a little bit of a knot. The people counting on you don’t need you running on empty and calling it strength. They need you. The actual you. The one who finally let herself be on the list.
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XOXO busy bees,
Melissa