The Self Care Machine Banks On You Not Noticing
Admit it, your wellness routine is exhausting and is not evidence of self love - it’s a sophisticated performance that creates a split between the you who executes perfect practices and the you who never feels quite well enough.
Not only is this not effective - it is the exact fragmentation keeping you from the sovereignty you seek.
The fatigue you thought you would cure after performing your carefully curated self care regimen isn't random exhaustion.
It’s the precise energetic cost of maintaining a divided consciousness - one part performing wellness while another part watches, evaluates, don't forget judges and documents the performance.
The Audience You Never Acknowledged
Even in your most private wellness moments - the meditation cushion at 5 AM, the journal no one will read, the carefully prepared nourishing meal - an audience exists. Not external witnesses, but the fragmented parts of your own consciousness that have been trained to split into performer and evaluator.
Notice how it happens:
You sit to meditate, and immediately the internal narrator begins: “I’m doing my practice. My posture could be better. I wonder if I’ll reach twenty minutes today. My mind is so busy - I’m not very good at this. But at least I’m doing it.”
You prepare a healthy meal, and the subtle documentation impulse arises: “This looks beautiful. If only others could see my commitment. Is this healthy enough? Did I use the right ingredients? Am I doing this right?”
You sit to write in your journal and a voice over your shoulder is critiquing and editing what you are writing - the judge is present: "You shouldn't write that, it isn't positive enough."
This constant internal audience isn’t a character flaw - it’s the successful implementation of a wellness paradigm designed to keep you perpetually performing rather than presently embodied.
The System Doesn't Want You Whole - It Wants Self Soothing
The very systems that deplete you are the ones selling you "self care" solutions. This isn't accidental. It's strategic.
When you're exhausted from performing constant productivity, the algorithm offers you bath bomb advertisements.
When you're depleted from maintaining multiple masks, the wellness industry markets expensive retreats.
When your nervous system is fried from digital overload, social media platforms promote meditation apps.
None of these solutions address the root cause of your depletion. They're designed to keep you functional within the machine, not to question the machine itself.
This pattern shows up everywhere. The corporate wellness program that teaches stress management instead of reducing workloads.
The beauty industry that convinces you self care means expensive treatments rather than rejecting beauty standards altogether.
The productivity guru who sells you time management techniques instead of questioning why your time must be "managed" at all.
Your exhaustion isn't a personal failure - it's a predictable outcome of a system that requires your depletion to function.
Self soothing keeps you in the game. True self care demands that you change the rules entirely.
The Performance That Depletes You
This division between performer and audience creates an energetic leak at the precise place your sovereignty should be strongest: your solar plexus. The constant evaluation, documentation, and comparison fragments your authority center, creating the very depletion your wellness practices claim to address.
Your exhaustion comes from the constant performance. The meetings where you nod enthusiastically. The social media persona you've crafted. The professional image you maintain even when falling apart inside.
The emotional labor of appearing fine when you're not.
Your life force energy is drained by the hour with these identity maintenance rituals.
They demand a fragmentation of self that no amount of bubble baths can repair.
Each performance requires you to sever connection with your authentic needs and replace them with what the moment demands.
This isn't sustainable - it was never meant to be.
The Identity That Requires Maintenance
Perhaps the most subtle aspect of wellness performance is the identity it creates and maintains. “I’m someone who meditates daily.” “I’m committed to my wellness.” “I prioritize self care.”
These identity statements feel positive, even empowering - but they create a constant maintenance requirement that drains rather than nourishes.
Each practice becomes not an expression of sovereignty but evidence required to maintain the wellness identity. Each day becomes another opportunity to prove your commitment through perfect execution. Each modification becomes another chance to optimize performance.
The exhaustion you feel isn’t from insufficient self care - it’s from the constant maintenance of a wellness identity that requires endless verification.
From Performance to Presence
The shift from wellness performance to sovereign presence isn’t found in better practices, more commitment, or perfect execution. It emerges through a simple but profound recognition: the boundary between the one who performs wellness and the one who evaluates it is itself is a vital fragmentation to dissolve.
This dissolution begins with a single question that collapses the performance pattern:
“If absolutely no one, including myself…would ever know I did this practice, would it still emerge naturally?”
When this question is asked from a sovereign position rather than a performance position, many practices immediately dissolve while others transform entirely. What remains isn’t less care but more sovereignty - the natural expression of well being rather than its constant verification aka validation.
The Recognition Practice: Performance Dissolution
Examine what you labeled as "self care" this week.
That meditation you rushed through so you could check emails?
Performative Wellness.
That extra hour of sleep you "allowed" yourself after working until midnight?
Not care - it's the minimum requirement for basic functioning.
The boundaries you keep planning to set but never do?
You are waiting for permission that will never arrive.
Your body already knows this truth - that's why the relief feels so temporary, why the Monday morning weight in your chest returns so quickly after your "Self Care Sunday."
This is the first pulse of recognition - meant to rattle your cage to liberation.
Don't abandon the practices that serve you, only the ones where you have to be 'one'.
The Truth Beyond Technique
Your wellness isn’t achieved through perfect practices - it’s remembered when the performer dissolves into presence.
Your sovereignty isn’t developed through elaborate routines, it’s recognized when the boundary between doer and evaluator dissolves.
What would your wellness look like if no one [including yourself] was watching?
What would naturally emerge when performance pressure dissolved?
What care would your sovereign system request if you weren’t performing for an audience?
The answers to these questions don’t come through more information or better techniques. They emerge through the recognition that the boundary between wellness performer and wellness evaluator is a vital fragmentation to dissolve.
Once you recognize the split between your sovereign self and the performer, you are exactly in the right place to dissolve this fragmentation.
Fonda shares: 'When I was a massage therapist, I noticed the common thread of physical pain that people expressed. It inspired me to pull on the 'why' of pain: No matter what walk of life, the disconnect (pain) is basically the same.
People are fearful that the love (they are seeking in all areas of their lives), they aren't worthy of it.
The fact IS unless and until you accept yourself, to remember your worthiness and love yourself in plain sight - no one else's love can full you up. This is the Wholeness journey + the cycle of pain can cease.'
Fonda Clayton Smith is the founder of Wholeness Lab, a sanctuary for high-achieving women who are ready to stop performing and start embodying their Sacred Wholeness.
When you're tired of seeking external validation, questioning your intuition, and feeling divided between who you are and who you're expected to be, Fonda's unique blend of sovereignty coaching creates the container for your return to center.
Fonda is a Certified Life Coach, Polarity Therapist, Licensed Massage Therapist, published author, podcaster, and guide for women reclaiming their energy and boundaries after years of putting everyone else first.
Through The Sovereign Seat™, she offers a sacred pathway back to the woman you've been editing out of your story.
Join Your Tribe
All Rights Reserved. Whole Sovereign