Hey there. Welcome back to unfolding audio letters from the middle of Becoming. I'm Erica Vol and I use tools like human design coaching and Reiki to help women in midlife say no to what drains them because they just trust their decisions and they understand their unique strengths. And together we clear old patterns so that they can make confident decisions and start putting themselves first. I believe your human design is your roadmap. And your permission to do things differently and confidently. Have you ever thought about how one decision in your life can have this butterfly effect and influence everything after it in ways you didn't even realize until later? I was recently at Yoga on the farm here locally, and I was chatting with a former client. I told her that she is the one source of all of my monthly coaching clients since her, and it totally blows my mind that she even reached out to me in the first place because her sister-in-law had mentioned human design on her podcast. And as I drove home from that yoga class, I started piecing it all back together. How did I meet her sister-in-law? And then how did that connection come to be? My mind kept tracing further and further back, and I realized it all started with one decision, One. Small decision that has ended up affecting my entire life for the last 14 years. That one decision was attending the Unitarian Church one Sunday. We were going through the adoption process and I figured we needed to meet people who shared our values and who had been through the process before who could maybe support us. And we met two families that day and they became dear friends. One of them is still one of my closest friends, and through her and starting a book club together, we met another friend and another friend from that church. Liked a company on Facebook, the Dragon three apothecary, and at the time that I saw this ad, I was really struggling at work. I knew I needed something to help me process what I was going through and something to anchor a journaling process. I really wanted to start a regular journaling process, and that ad was for the Dragontree's Dream Book and Planner. Something in it lit me up. I looked it up and like a good librarian and now I know as a good five one profile who loves to research. I researched that planner for several days before I bought it, not even realizing that I was using my emotional authority and sleeping on my decision, and that one purchase has set in. So many things into motion. The day that that dream book arrived, I was hooked. I dove into the front section where you're invited to write about what you want your life to look like in six different areas, livelihood, relationships, community, physical health, creativity and play, and psychological and spiritual health. And to really dream about what your life could look like in three years. I had never really considered my dreams in that way before I knew I wanted things, but this was like asking me to dig deeper and actually put into words things that I would love to dream about, but I thought that they were too farfetched. But then I started to see that I could have dreams, that they could actually fit into something that was not that neat little box that I had felt like was expected of me and that I had done for my entire life up until then. I'd always felt a little bit different in my family. I wish I could say that. I was always fine with that, but I wasn't. But something about writing in the Dream Book started to shift things, and about six months later, Peter and Brianna Borton released Rituals for Transformation. I saw this short promo video for the book, and I knew instantly that I needed it. I remember watching the launch party and just feeling like. This book is gonna change something in me. I didn't know what it was, but it just, something just was bubbling and it really did change me. It was 108 days of digging deep and diving into parts of myself that I had shoved into a cabinet, thrown a blanket over, and hoped it would go away. It helped me face some of the body image issues that I had dealt with for my entire life. Head on and other parts of my life that I had just tried to push aside. for the longest time, I had hoped that if I could just fix one thing, that everything would fall into place and then some of these issues would go away. I thought if I had lost weight or if I was in a different place, or if I could just have the right job where I liked my manager. But the Rituals for Transformation Book actually invited me to pull away that blanket, unlock that cabinet, and invite those things to come forward. It was scary. I didn't wanna do it, but it shook me in the absolute best way. And about a year later, Peter and Brianna launched Sacred Expansion, which is the first part of their coach training program. And I knew I absolutely had to be part of it. I thought it was a one time thing. I didn't realize that it would be an ongoing program. I was not ready to take on the full coaching training, and financially it wasn't even an option for us. I thought I had to figure out more things, but this part felt right. I felt like I could do this. I had had such an amazing experience with Rituals for Transformation. I thought that this could be even more life altering. Sacred expansion asks you and demands of you to peel back more layers and to notice that you're not broken. That was what I didn't realize I needed. Learning I was not broken was amazing. It was. Really where I started to see these glimpses of these gifts that I have, and that led me to have a short email exchange with Anne, who is also local to Kansas City. I did sacred expansion and she went on to complete the full coaching program and I became her first practice client. I will never forget sitting in her office for the first time, and I had this. I was in a really bad work situation right then, and like I said earlier, I was feeling really broken. I had this sadness, not like a clinical kind of depression, just this heavy soul, deep sadness from being in a job that drained me every single day with a verbally abusive manager. And in that session, Anne saw a light in me I had never been able to see in myself. Something shifted in my work with Anne. And a few months later, I got a new job. For a year, things started to feel better and then the pandemic hit and we were all home all the time. But it gave me a chance to reconnect with Anne in a group that she was leading, which was really amazing. And then fast forward three years, and I'm the one going through the Dragon Tree Coaching Program and at our penultimate retreat for the Illuminator program. I finally got to meet Brianna and Peter in person. It was amazing. And then Anne was there as an assistant and oh my gosh, talk about full circle. Going from her first practice client to then me being in this space where I was doing the exact same thing. It was amazing. And life altering in a way that I have never been able to explain to others. And then a few months later, I did a human design reading for Anne, and she mentioned it on her podcast and her sister-in-law heard it and reached out to me. And now she was my first monthly client and we've hosted a retreat together and she has introduced me to people who have introduced me to people. And the web keeps growing and it doesn't stop there. With all of the things that this one decision did, Brianna introduced me to Sarah Jenks and her Holy Woman Program, which then introduced me to three incredible women who are part of a sister circle together, and we've been together for almost four years. And that circle became a space where I finally started to embrace parts of myself that I could feel bubbling to the surface. And I wasn't really sure how to accept them. This like spiritually witchy side that I had never felt safe to express. They gave me something in a way that gave me permission to step into this slowly and in a way that just felt so good. And during our sister circles, I started leading the meditations and I started to be able to lead us through soul journeys and just trusting what came through. And one sister in our circle would share her love of astrology. And it always felt a little too complicated for me, which it makes me sort of laugh now. 'cause then now I got into human design and I started to see, she would talk about patterns and parallels. And I could see these parallels between those two systems and astrology helped me see some patterns that I didn't know were there before and together, like these really seemed to fit so beautifully and they gave me permission to like dive deeper. Sarah Jinx also introduced me to Becca Piastrelli, who wrote a book called Root and Ritual, and it was Becca who introduced me to a woman named Erin Claire Jones on her podcast in October of 2022. I was dabbling in human design, but Erin Claire talked about human design in a way that I had never heard before. It. Instantly resonated with me. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know how she knew human design in a way that like made sense to people and then sounded logical. So I found out that she was releasing a course, and so she launched it the following year and piecemeal. I purchased all the classes and I finished them in January of 2023. Right before I gave that reading to Anne and then this past December Erin Claire offered a certification program and I took the exam and I, that's when I became a certified human design guide through her Blueprint Pro. And it's so cool to me that like all of this web and all of these people that I have met that I can trace back to. This one decision, this one sim, what felt like a really simple decision at the time to go to the Unitarian Church one Sunday in July of 2011. I had this nudge in my body and I was just feeling like we needed support as we started that adoption journey and a journey that would change our lives forever because that's how we have our daughter. But little did I know that that decision would then impact me in different ways. Other than being a mom 14 years later, that that nudge could change the course of my life. Have you had this experience? Have you ever traced a story back like that one decision that then followed you and changed things for you? I really invite you to piece these things together and see what comes out for you. 'cause it's really freaking amazing 'cause so often we're in our heads that we. Miss the moment when something shifts and when we drop into our hearts and into our guts, sometimes we can feel it. We can feel that nudge. We can feel that moment that it might lead to the next one. We might not know it at the time, but as we start to trace back, we can see the steps that like this person introduced me to this person and this person to introduce me to this person. And it's like this magical web. So. Thank you for joining me. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I would love it if you tap the plus sign to follow the show so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're feeling generous, leave me a quick review to help more people find unfolding. And I would be so grateful for your support. It really means the world to me. And if there's someone in your life who you know would love these conversations, please share it with them. I really love to share these with you. Have a good one. Be well. I will talk to you next time. Bye.