Healthy Comes Before Healing

A Sunday Reflection

For a long time, I believed healing meant I had to be “fixed” before I could move forward—before a new relationship, a new job, or a new chapter of life.

But healing doesn’t start there.

Healing begins with becoming healthy.

When you are unhealthy—mentally, emotionally, or spiritually—you don’t heal. You stay stuck. You repeat patterns. You give your power away. You take advice over intuition. You override your gut to keep the peace, to be good, to do what others think is best for you.

And when it doesn’t work out, you blame yourself.

That was my story.

My trauma-shaped brain didn’t think negatively on purpose. It was wired that way by words spoken to me, things done to me, and environments that were never healthy long enough for me to see another way. I gravitated not toward what was truly meant for me, but toward what felt familiar—even when it hurt.

I confused endurance with faith.

Silence with strength.

Staying with being godly.

I believed that if something didn’t work out, it meant God was punishing me. That I didn’t deserve good things. So I layered that belief on top of trauma, on top of survival mode, until my own voice disappeared.

But God never stopped listening.

The shift didn’t come gently. It came through a mental health crash—through isolation, triggers, and finally enough quiet to hear something different. My voice. And God’s.

What I began to understand is this:

Healthy people make choices, not sacrifices of self.

They listen to their gut.

They learn from outcomes without self-destruction.

They walk away from what is unhealthy instead of trying to fix it.

I wasn’t failing because I wasn’t strong enough.

I was stuck because I was trying to heal without first becoming healthy.

I believed it was my responsibility to be the peacekeeper, the fixer, the understanding one. When I named what was unhealthy, I was labeled difficult, dramatic, insubordinate. And when I stepped away, I assumed I was no better—because everyone else seemed so certain I was wrong.

At 53, it finally clicked:

It was never my job to fix anyone else.

Healthy would have said: This isn’t aligned with me.

Healthy would have explained why and walked away.

Healing would have followed.

But empathy, love, and the belief that “family is everything” kept me staying far longer than was safe for my soul. And when you are not healthy, empathy without boundaries will always result in harm.

You cannot force growth on people who don’t see it for themselves.

But you are allowed to say: I love you, and unhealthy is not for me.

Realizing that God was guiding me—not punishing me—changed everything. He was listening the whole time, steering me away from what was never meant for me, even when I fought to stay.

Healthy led me to healing.

And healing finally led me home to myself.

sharing from lived experience, not professional advice.