Week 17: Fertility Burnout & the Trap of Self-Monitoring Your Healing During IVF & Infertility

There is a point in this journey where you finally start to see yourself.

You begin to notice your patterns more clearly. You catch your reactions in real time. You start to understand why you do what you do instead of just moving through it unconsciously. And for a moment, it genuinely feels like something is shifting.

Like you are finally getting somewhere.

But then something subtle happens, and it is easy to miss if you are not paying attention.

That awareness starts to turn into watching. The watching turns into correcting. And before you know it, correcting turns into judging.

You start asking yourself quiet questions throughout the day. Am I doing this right? Have I changed enough? Why am I still reacting this way? Should I be further along by now?

And without realizing it, the very thing that was meant to soften your experience begins to create more pressure.

It is not loud. It is not dramatic. But it is constant.

This is where a lot of women get stuck, and it can feel confusing because on the surface it looks like progress. You are more aware. You are paying attention. You are trying.

But underneath that, awareness has turned into self-monitoring. And self-monitoring almost always carries judgment.

It sounds like responsibility. It feels like improvement. But in the body, it lands as tension.

You can feel it if you slow down enough to notice. There is that slight tightening when you catch yourself reacting. The immediate mental note of what you should have done differently. The subtle disappointment that follows right behind it.

That is not awareness.

That is the same pattern, just wearing a different outfit.

Most of us learned this way of being very early on. Being critical of ourselves. Trying to do things better so we could feel safer, more accepted, more in control of our environment. Over time, that pattern becomes so familiar that we stop questioning it.

We call it our personality.

“I’m just hard on myself.”
“I’ve always been this way.”

But that is not truth. That is a story that has been repeated enough times to feel true.

And if that story creates more pressure, more tightness, more disconnection from yourself, then it is one you are allowed to question.

This is where the next layer opens, and it is not where most people expect it to be.

It is not in fixing the judgment. It is not in trying to replace it with something more positive. It is not in doing the work better.

It is in seeing it.

Fully.

The observer observing the observer.

You noticing yourself… judging yourself.

And instead of stepping in to correct it, you take a step back. You let it be there. You allow the judgment to exist without adding another layer on top of it. There is something very different about that kind of awareness. It is neutral. It is spacious. It does not rush to change anything or make it better. It simply allows what is already there to be seen clearly.

And your body responds to that.

Because judgment tightens. You can feel it in your chest, your stomach, your breath. It creates contraction and signals that something is wrong, that something needs to be fixed or improved.

Awareness, when it is clean, does the opposite.

It softens. It creates space. It allows your nervous system to settle instead of activate. From that place, things begin to shift in a way that does not require force. Not because you finally got it right. Not because you pushed harder. But because you stopped adding pressure to every moment of noticing.

There is no urgency in that kind of change.

It happens gradually, quietly, almost without you realizing it at first. Your reactions soften. Your body does not brace in the same way. Your thoughts do not carry the same charge. And you are no longer trying to become a better version of yourself. You are becoming more present with who you already are, without the constant need to evaluate or fix it.

There is a quiet kind of freedom in that. Nothing dramatic. Nothing performative. Just a softening. And sometimes, that is where the real change begins.

Listen Now: Fertility Burnout & the Trap of Self-Monitoring Your Healing During IVF & Infertility

Week 18: The Hidden Pattern Keeping You Stuck in IVF & Fertility Burnout

 Let's Do This Together 💚

Monica 

Listen up, lovelies: Everything I share about health, diet, or fertility magic is my opinion. Yep, it’s all based on years of trial and error, study, reading, listening, and side-eyeing the nonsense out there. What worked for me might be a jackpot for you—or it might be a total flop. Bodies are weird like that. 🤷‍♀️

Let’s get one thing straight: I’m not a doctor, nutritionist, dietitian, or any other kind of licensed health wizard. If you need medical advice, run—don’t walk—to an actual qualified professional. Don’t come back here saying Monique told you to eat kale for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, okay?

As for the products I mention, they’re either what I used during my own infertility rollercoaster or what I wish I’d known about back then. No guarantees, no promises, and absolutely no refunds on your hope budget if it doesn’t work out.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, proceed with curiosity and, above all, discernment. You’ve got this. 💪✨

🌺 Book Your Fertility Breakthrough Session Today 

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Full Transcript:

00:00
Hello beautiful and welcome to the Finding Fertility podcast.

00:10
I'm Monica, your mentor in uncovering the hidden layers of your fertility journey. Together, we'll discover the right path for you within the six essential steps to creating the family of your dreams. We'll ditch the overwhelm, tune into your intuition, and build a vibrant foundation for your fertility. Whether it's through gut health, subconscious healing, or energetic alignment, you can unlock your body's natural power to get and stay pregnant.

00:37
Your fertility journey is all about radical responsibility and deeply believing that your body is on your side. It's time to stay consistent, embrace trust, surrender, and create the transformation you deserve. Fighting fertility does not diagnose, prescribe, or treat any fertility issues. What we do is empower you to take control of your health by uncovering the root causes holding you back. Let's do this together. Happy Friday! Welcome back to We...

01:06
I am truly honored you are here becoming the conscious mama you were born to be. So now that you've slowed down enough to see your pattern, I'm going to reiterate this because I know I've said it throughout the weeks. Awareness is not the same as self-monitoring. Many of us move from being unconscious to being aware and then act

01:35
accidentally turning that awareness into another form of pressure. Watching yourself, correcting yourself, judging how well you're doing, the noticing, being the ultimate observer. How much have you changed? Have I gone from 100 to 80? No, I haven't. I'm not doing this well enough then. That's not what this is all about.

02:00
But I know from lived experience from the past and here now and probably in the future that judgment is the loudest one in the room, especially to ourselves because we have patterned again and again in that way, being hypercritical of ourselves. I have a client that is super hypercritical.

02:29
and she can easily say where it came from. Yep, my mom. Okay, so you have learned that pattern. Most of these patterns are learned. They're not personality traits. So if you can say, okay, where did this come from? Why do I beat myself up so much? And start unpacking that and understanding that this is not yours to carry.

02:56
it can really soften the load of I'm just that way. Because remember, that is a story. If you are just that way, and you love that about yourself, and it brings joy to you and the people around you, then keep it, keep that story. If you are just that way, and you don't want to be that way, girl, we need to change that.

03:18
So this week is about the awareness. So this week is going to be the observer observing the observer, okay? So you have become the ultimate observer of your reality. Now I want you to add this layer of, if I'm judging myself, now you are observing, you observing yourself. And when that judgment and that shame and that blame come up, I want you to observe it.

03:47
and just be so graceful to yourself. And you can think of it as your higher self. You can think of it as your uh loving mother figure. The observer observing the observer is this all loving like bundle of glowing joy that cannot judge and will not judge you judging yourself.

04:18
So stepping into that and really just observing you, observing yourself, judging yourself for the observations and the things you aren't supposedly doing. And this is all about noticing without needing to improve. Like I said, this higher self is not here to say, oh, hey, you need to do X, Y, Z to get out of this. It's here to help you.

04:47
Be really neutral and graceful about noticing your pace without calling it wrong, noticing your reaction without fixing it, noticing your thoughts without arguing with them. Judgment tightens the body. Awareness softens it. So this week, you may notice something about yourself. See if you can step into the observer, observing the observer.

05:16
And stop there. No story, no meaning, no verdict. Just noticing, just observing from this ball of pure joy and love. And remember, when we're moving through this, we really need to give ourselves that extra boost. So write yourself a little note, set the timer in your phone. Just notice. Bring in the image of that glowing light. If you have a piece of jewelry that you're wearing,

05:44
Touch it now and repeat as an affirmation, just notice and bring in that light and know that light is all around you. Because here's the thing, this is what I have chosen to believe. There's no judgment. There's no heaven or hell. There's no karma like they have explained it to us. No one's up there judging you. You're the only one judging yourself for where you are right now, especially in a fertility journey.

06:12
So if you can get that into your system, I'm the only one who's judging me right now. And remember, this isn't a little reminder to do better, but it is a reminder that we're not adding and piling anything extra. We are simply stepping back, slowing down, becoming aware. Because when awareness is clean, it regulates. When awareness...

06:42
is judgmental, it activates. Ask yourself this question and see, are you here to become a better version of yourself? Or are you here becoming more present with who you innately already are? And as you clear the BS and as you get rid of the patterns and as you can become the ultimate observer observing the observer, that's where change naturally

07:09
happens. So be graceful to yourself this week. This one's a little bit more challenging, a little bit more deeper. And next week 18, we're going to look at how this kind of awareness begins to shift the way you show up in the smallest, most ordinary moment. And you guys know that's where I believe the magic happens. So have a beautiful week and we will see you next Friday for week 18.

07:39
Thank you once again for tuning in and becoming the conscious mama you were born to be. Remember, I wasn't some magical unicorn who stumbled into fertility success. I stayed consistent. I put in the work and I made it happen. And guess what? You can too. Remember, this transformation happens when you stay committed to yourself. Trust your body, follow your intuition, make it possible. The links that you need are down below.

08:06
And if you are still here and you absolutely love this podcast, please take some time and leave me a review and help other women like you find this podcast to get the support they need. Help a sister out. Leave a review today.