Episode 36

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Published on:

28th Jan 2026

Faith Doesn’t Work Anymore | Infertility and Burnout

This episode examines what happens when faith stops feeling grounding and starts feeling like pressure. Stephanie Dingbaum shares her seven-year fertility journey, including the moments when hope became harder to hold than letting go, and what it cost to keep believing while the answer stayed no.

The conversation explores spiritual bypassing, burnout, and what happens when surrender stops feeling like strength and starts feeling like loss.

What This Episode Covers:

  1. Why faith can feel fake when nothing changes year after year
  2. How spiritual bypassing shows up during infertility
  3. The emotional cost of staying grateful while still waiting
  4. How burnout and nervous system overload affect desire and capacity
  5. What changed when she stopped gripping the outcome

Guest:

Stefanie Dingbaum is a therapist and podcast host who spent seven years navigating infertility before becoming a mother. Her experience reshaped how she understands faith, surrender, and trust.

Connect:

Michelle @michelleaburke

Stefanie @stefanie.dingbaum

Keywords:

faith stops working, infertility and faith, spiritual bypassing infertility, seven year fertility journey, surrender feels like giving up, why faith feels fake, burnout and infertility, nervous system and fertility, identity crisis infertility, manifesting when nothing works, hot mess magic podcast

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About the Podcast

Hot Mess Magic
The conversation your best friend would have with you if she wasn't afraid to say the true thing out loud.
Hot Mess Magic feels like your most honest friend finally picked up the phone.

Each week, Michelle Burke — bestselling author and keynote speaker — sits down with guests who are willing to admit what's actually going on underneath the surface.

Not just what life looks like.
But what's running it.

The internal patterns, which have become personality. The conditioning, believed to be clarity. The beliefs which were born before you were. The emotional wiring quietly shaping the choices, relationships, success, and struggles most people don't fully understand in themselves, yet.

These are the conversations which normally happen over a glass of wine, not in public.

The ones about the gap between the life you've lived, are currently living and the one you're creating.

The moments where people finally name and claim what's been running quietly in the background for years and how they navigate it.

No steps. No homework. No fixing.

Just honest conversations to make you feel less alone and more like yourself.

New episodes every Friday.
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About your host

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Michelle Burke