Welcome to the Unfolding Podcast, a space where we explore what it looks like to really trust yourself. Say no without guilt and live your life like it actually belongs to you. I am Erica Voell, a Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide, and I help women in midlife trust how they are uniquely designed to make decisions, reclaim their authority, and understand their unique strengths. Using Human Design as a lens, we clear the noise of conditioning so their no feels powerful and their yes feels true, and they can move forward without self-doubt, guilt, and the pressure to prove anything. On this show, we have honest conversations about self-trust, boundaries, energy and identity, especially for women who in midlife who are done living by the shoulds and second guessing themselves. You'll hear stories, insights, and tools rooted in Human Design, coaching, and real life. Not to tell you what to do, like another self-help book, but to help you really hear yourself so you can stop overthinking and start making decisions that feel grounded. Clear and true. I have a lot of new listeners through this podcast and on Substack, and I just wanna say welcome and thank you for listening. I felt like with all the new subscribers, it was time for a reintroduction because I have changed so much, even since May One of the first questions I get asked when I tell people what I do is, what is a Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide? I work with women in midlife and one of the things I've noticed when I was talking to my clients and where they would get stuck is in making decisions. But that's not where they start, and that's not why they come to me. Where we start is what are the stories that are coming up for them? What are the patterns and the stories that they've been telling themselves their entire lives? This is not to blame them. This is just like what were their coping mechanisms and what were the stories that have shaped them? We also talk about how they have shape-shifted to make other people happy. 'cause so often they have felt like the black sheep in their family or that they didn't belong, or that they were too sensitive or too inconsistent, or too emotional or in too intense. And oh my gosh, I feel that same way my entire life. They also tend to compare themselves to others a lot, and they've taken all of the personality tests trying to help them find something that explains who they are. But they feel like they can't be defined by a series of letters or a number. They have felt like Myers-Briggs and Enneagram and StrengthsFinder put them into a box and they don't feel like they fit into that box. And what's also come forward is a lot of these things have affected how they make decisions. For a lot of them, they've made the safe decisions because it was what made others comfortable. What would make others happy? What would keep the peace, what they should do, especially when it came to a job or what was the path that was recommended or most acceptable in their family, in their groups. So that's where the Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide title came from. I ultimately hope to help people really feel good about their decisions and to develop this inner trust and to trust that inner guidance that they have, so that then they can make the leaps that they want to make or just to feel like they have a gift and that they do belong in this world. One of the things I've been learning lately is about the new era in Human Design, which starts in 2027. And we're moving into it. We've been feeling it since about 2024 or even before that. And what is giving me so much hope is that we all have a role to play in this new era. For those who have felt that they didn't belong in this culture and society that we've been in for the last 60 or 70 years of hustling and getting ahead and like having it all. And that they feel like they've been too sensitive or feel things too much. What's been giving me hope is that they have a role in this new era. Their gifts might have not been recognized in the old era that we're moving out of, the Era of Planning, but their gifts are going to be needed and essential and recognized in this new era called the Era of the Individual. So the main tool I work with is Human Design, and I came to Human Design through a really to tumultuous period in my life. I was in the beginning of healing from clinical burnout in 2022. I was preparing to go through a series of medicine journeys and still things were coming up for me that were roadblocks or walls. And my therapist one day said to me, "Erica, I want you to go look up your Human Design type." And she left it at that and I was like, oh, great. Is this like Eat Right for Your Blood Type? Now I have to figure out something new? What I did not realize is this was a simple suggestion that would absolutely change my life. So that night I went to work and I worked on the public service desk at the library. It was a really quiet night. And I looked up my Human Design. I looked up my type, and the chart I looked up looked so complicated. There were lines and shapes and numbers. I had no idea what it was, but there was something telling me that I needed to look up what it meant. I was really intrigued and when I learned I was a generator and it said that generators are the life force here to help lift the energy of the world. I didn't feel like I could lift up any energy to lift up anyone. I was exhausted and I had no energy. But then I read about the emotional authority and that it's based on how something makes you feel. And so I started to Google everything I could in those three hours that I was on the desk and I copied everything into a Google document. But what I read through all that research made me cry. Something that really resonated with me. I still have in a Google Doc. And that was you spread and amplify energy and you are here to be lit up by what you do, and in turn your energy lights up those around you. And like I said, I was in a really dark place at that point. I was holding out hope that those medicine journeys would help me heal. I didn't know how I could light up those around me when I was feeling so dark. Another thing that resonated so deeply was that you are lit up by what you do, and then when you turn your energy, you can light those up around you. You spread and amplify energy. The energy sustains the fire. The real kicker was this. My emotional authority feels everything and needs to ride out the emotional waves before making a decision, and I found this quote by Erin Claire Jones in Allure Magazine about people with an emotional authority. She said, quote, "if they're happy, they will say yes, and if they're sad, they will say no, and they may regret that decision later on. They need to wait to be in a calm space as long as it takes, and get off that rollercoaster of feelings before deciding what's best for themselves." End quote. It still gives me chills to read that out loud because I had felt that my entire life. I felt like I was not good at making decisions. I would make dec quick decisions like at the rest of my family, and sometimes I would have this sick feeling and wanna back out, but my brain would talk me into it because that's what I should do, because it would get me closer to what I needed to do to get further in my career, to feel like I was recognized or that I was making others happy. It was all about what I should do, not realizing that I had been overriding this internal sensation. When I would feel sick about a decision, I would tell myself that I was wrong, and then I started to reflect back on the times I had made decisions and when I felt weird about them. Like a lot of times I would make a decision, uh, or we would plan something and somewhere in my body or in the back of my mind, I would think, I don't need to get ready for this. I don't need to plan for this 'cause I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to be there for some reason. And it would really freak me out when it would come true. There would be a snow storm or I would get sick and I would not be able to be there. A perfect example of this, like just feeling like something wasn't right, was when we planned a family vacation with my parents and my sister, and the closer we got to this vacation, the less good I felt about it. I could not put my finger on it. I didn't know it was bubbling up for me. I couldn't explain it. I could just feel it. Something was off. And that family vacation did not go well. My dad could not go because he was sick. My mom was sick the entire time and just pushing through. My sister and I were on each other's last nerves the whole time. I felt like I couldn't do anything right. Little did I know that I was in the middle of burning out and everything was setting me off. I cried more on that vacation and I rarely cry on vacation. When we came back from that vacation, I got really sick and I could not get well. And reading about how someone's an emotional authority needs to sleep on their decisions shifted so much for me. I dug in deep to learn more about things. I want to know more about me. I've read so many self-help books and hoped that they would help me figure out myself and to fix the things that I thought were wrong with me. But the longer I studied my Human Design, what I noticed was I didn't feel like there was anything wrong with me. It was giving me language for my lived experience in a way that felt like it had read my personal journals. How could something where I put in my time, my date, and my location of my birth know so much about my life story? Not the events in my life story, but like the experiences of being in my body. So I just felt like I had to learn as much as I could. I signed up for a couple of classes, but neither of them really gave me what I was wanting. They seemed so esoteric for my logical mind. The ones I wanted were so expensive, but I didn't, couldn't spend hundreds of dollars just to learn about type and then to spend more to learn about authority. I was not in a place where I could shell out $6,000 right away for Human Design classes, and then. Somehow Erin Claire Jones came back up. I found her on Instagram and amazingly enough, a few months later, she was sharing about her course and that she was selling it in increments that were actually really affordable for me. And I started to study Human Design and in turn study myself. When I was learning something, I would not just look up my chart, but I would have my husband and my daughters also on the screen. 'cause I wanted to know everything and I wanted to know how this particular aspect was being expressed in them. I learned that in my profile that I am someone who loves to dig deep. There's sort of a joke I have with myself that I never met a rabbit hole that I didn't want to fall down once I started to dig in. I love to feel like I'm becoming an expert in something that truly brings me joy, which explains why when I started to learn how to knit, I took a lot of knitting classes and then I wanted to teach people about it. Then I got into quilting and I took several classes on quilting and I made a bunch of quilts. And then I got into sewing, and I really wanted to learn how to sew my own clothes. So I really know that I can focus and I can dig deep. And one of the things that started to happen as I was studying my Human Design and studying my family is I started to see things come to light. I started to see that I was no longer broken. I started to see why I felt like I always had to keep up with my husband who can move super fast through the house. I mean, if something needs to be cleaned, he can make it happen so fast and I'm like step by step and we're gonna fix this room and then we'll do this room and I have to do all the things in that one room before I can move on. But he can just like move through the house and do all of it. I thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn't keep up, and maybe it was because I felt fatigued and exhausted so much of the time. I learned that my natural state of being is doing things in a very step-by-step fashion. I learned that even though my daughter and I have the same type, the same profile and the same decision making strategy that it gets expressed very differently in each of us. She has a very unique way of being, as do all of us. And learning her decision making strategy and how it expresses itself differently than mine, even though we have that emotional authority. It saved us so much money. Now I tell her before she buys something that she needs to sleep on that decision, and a couple of days later, she's either forgotten about it or if it's still in the front of her mind. I'm like, okay, let's go for it. I mean, we're not talking about hundreds or thousands of dollars. We're talking about $25 of her allowance. But I want her to learn how to wait so that then she learns that she doesn't make good impulse buys and want to return things. And I also want to help her learn what it feels like to make a decision and then what it feels like to back out. Or to only have two options to choose from, so that she learns what it feels like when something is right for her. With my husband, I've learned that asking him yes or no questions is huge. He knows almost instantly what is the right thing for him, just by me asking him yes or no questions. So how did I start working with Human Design in my coaching practice? I really started digging into Human Design around the same time. I didn't realize how much I was talking about Human Design with other people in the coaching certification program until one day I was on a practice call and the person on the other end said, "when are you gonna share this with other people?" I honestly didn't know how much I knew. I didn't think I knew enough. I thought I needed to finish the Human Design course before I started to share it. Then a friend in the coaching program said, when you're ready, I would love to get a reading with you. And so I felt some pressure and I was like, oh, I guess I do know enough to share it. So I decided to finish part of the course, and then I would be ready. But then as I learned how to coach with Human Design, I realized I didn't need to know everything to share it. It was just me taking that leap. So I did a reading for that friend. It was so amazing, and she became my first paying client. And at practice I offered it to other friends just to help me get my sea legs under me and for me to feel comfortable. I learned a lot about myself and working with clients in those sessions. I learned that I can overwhelm people with lots and lots of information because I want to over-give. 'Cause I'm like, I know all this. You need to know all of that. But having a lot of information doesn't help them. So I've refined my approach and started working with people on a monthly basis instead of sharing all of that information at once. And during that time of retooling, I was trying so hard to be a general life coach. But it wasn't until that first client, who's also a coach, said to me, "Erica, I would not send people to you for life coaching. I would send them to you for Human Design." I was a little taken aback. I was like feeling really pigeonholed. But then I sat with it and I talked to my business coach at the time and she said, "why not go all in on Human Design?" So I did and I got my first monthly clients after that. I also co-hosted a retreat where I taught about Human Design and have since led multiple workshops in person and online. And I love sharing it. I love talking about it. When I meet people, I'm like, I wanna know what your Human Design type is. I wanna know all about you from your Human Design. I love sharing it with new people and I'm just like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to see if this is who they are. And like I can really tend to spot the projectors around me. It's really fascinating. And I love when I just pull out a couple of things. I love the aha moments that happen and there's this look on their face that they get and they're like, "oh my gosh, how do you know that about me?" Because I know how much this can transform people's lives and how it can transform relationships 'cause I've seen it happen with my family and I've seen it happen with my client's families. It still blows my mind every time I sit down with somebody and I'm sharing what I'm seeing in their chart. It happened to me yesterday. And when I ask how is this resonating with them? And they're like. Yeah. Wow. You know that about me? You can tell me about that from this chart? It's so fascinating and I've learned that as I guide them in helping them learn more about themselves, they start to embody it as opposed to me just giving them lots of information. And it may not surprise you to learn that I was a librarian for 19 years. I mostly worked as a children's librarian and I spent 10 of those 19 years purchasing children's and teen materials for libraries. So this natural curiosity in this research part of me is just so innate. I loved the library, I loved the concept of the library, but one of the things that happened as I was healing from burnout and learning my Human Design is that I realized I had followed the "should" path. It was a theme my entire life. I have three college degrees. I have a social work degree because my mom's friend loved being a social worker, so I thought I should try that. And I loved the classes and I thought, oh, this could be fun. I could do that. But in practice, I did not love social work. I tried different aspects of it through working in the elderly population, and I interned at a public policy department at Planned Parenthood. Even going to lobbying days in the Kansas legislature, I thought that's what I wanted to do. I was gonna get my master's in public policy. But thank goodness for my dad, he noticed that my heart wasn't in it. So my parents, took me for aptitude testing, and I tested high in computers and math. So I did some research back then. This was in 1997, and you had to go to the Federal Department of Labor office and get this booklet about jobs in this field and what jobs I could do in that area. And I have to tell you, there was not a lot online about what careers were available in that area. I mean, I knew sort of what it was, but the more I read about it, the more excited I got about it. So I enrolled in a computer science degree program. I loved it. I loved learning the new things. I loved digging in. I loved how learning about how coding worked and the problem solving aspect of it. And so after graduation, I got a job at a large corporation, and within a few months I knew it was not the right place for me. That job was not right. It sounded great. But it was not what I wanted to do. I didn't want to be digging through code to find bugs and to fix them in legacy code on mainframe computers. So I found another job within that same company as a software tester and analyst working on software for actuaries in the insurance industry. And all that time I didn't really feel like I fit in. Part of it was that I didn't want to socialize with people outside of the organization, and I actually got dinged on that for my performance review. But even after a year, I found my interest waning. It wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and I'll never forget realizing that once again, I was in the wrong job. I dreaded it every single day, and I was late most days. I now know that this is a sign for me, that it's that I'm not in the right job. When I have the Sunday scaries and I have to drag myself into work. I know it's not the right place for me. And then in 2002, I met my husband. He was a librarian. He loved his job. He was so good at it. We actually met. Because of his job. He did a Yahoo search and found my website because I had listed an obscure band on my website. So about a year after we started dating, I started to volunteer at the library 'cause it looked so fun. I had so much fun as a volunteer and I'll never forget going to see the movie Garden State and crying in the car afterwards. I was so stuck in that job as a software tester and I felt so hopeless about what else could I do? I was learning that the computer industry and being in a large corporation were not where I wanted to be. So I thought, I love volunteering at the library. I should go to library school. So we decided a year after we got married to quit our jobs and for my husband to go to library school because I did not get in on my first try. I did not get in on my second try. But I got in on my third try after working at the public library for a year. And I loved school. Are you seeing a theme here? I loved school. I loved learning. I went the route of the youth librarian track and I really felt like I found my people. I was thriving. I loved my literature classes for the first time because I had not liked my English classes in undergrad. I dove deep, and maybe because I was in my thirties when I was in graduate school. I made a conscious decision I was not going to make the same mistakes I made in undergrad 10 years before. Then I got into the working world and I loved being at the library, but there was something that just didn't feel quite right, and about 18 months after I started that first library job, I knew that that was not where I was going to stay. I was getting into trouble for stepping on people's toes because I tend to step in when I see something is not getting done. I was having issues where I was being told I was being too forward and rocking the boat too much. So I found another library job where I was buying materials for the library, and I loved that job for about 18 months. And then the same pattern started to show up from my previous library job. And after those first 18 months, I also started to see that verbal abuse from my manager. I was made to feel like I was the problem and not the manager. But I didn't know where else to go. The library world is small, especially in Kansas City, where we have four library systems in the area. But I had already worked at two of them, and one of them was where my husband worked and they had a nepotism rule where I couldn't work there. And the other one was a 45 minute drive one way for me. I was a new mom and I didn't wanna drive that far, so I felt really stuck and I ended up working that job for six years. And then the library where my husband worked, changed their policy on nepotism, and I was able to apply for another job. About a year and a half later into that job things didn't feel like they were right. A year after I'd started was the beginning of the pandemic. So everything was really topsy-turvy, and I thought that that was the problem, but I was also made to feel like I was the problem again. I wasn't falling into line with the organization. I was asking too many questions. I was not fitting in with my coworker. So I changed to another library branch, and about a year after that, burnout started to settle in. I thought I just needed some time off, so I went on a retreat by myself. I came back refreshed and things just never felt right, and burnout really settled in hard. I was pushing through feeling exhausted every single day, wondering what was wrong with me, why couldn't I feel better? And just before I was diagnosed with clinical burnout, I had an experience where I heard a voice telling me to "gather the women." It had me doing a lot of soul searching, and it made me realize that I was being called to something different. Now, all of this happened before I ever discovered Human Design. And what often happens when you have that kind of experience is you can't live with the discomfort and becomes even more uncomfortable the longer you try to keep yourself there. I worked with a career coach shortly after some burnout healing. Because I was trying to help me find a new job, and what she told me was that that I had a lot to unpack before we could focus on what jobs I could do. I was so desperate and I wanted her to see something in me that would help me find the right job, but I didn't need to find the right job. I needed to figure out what I really wanted to do instead of finding another job. Because that next job could potentially be another one where I would be miserable 18 months later. I didn't realize I had this pattern until after I healed from burnout and after I started to really learn my Human Design. As I studied my Human Design, I started to notice other patterns that had come up in my life. Things that just kept presenting themselves until I learned the lesson. And honestly, have I learned the lesson all the time? No, not always, but I am so much more aware of when it's coming up. And that's one of the things I work with clients on, is noticing the patterns that are coming up in their lives and when those patterns are around making decisions. In a recent podcast interview with Heather Wick, I had a realization that if you had told me two years ago that I would be working with women in midlife, and that's where I would be focusing. I would've been like, "oh my gosh, middle-aged women. No way." 'Cause I didn't consider myself middle-aged, even though I was 49 years old. I had always assumed that people in midlife were older than me. But then I was listening to a podcast with someone, who is now my mentor, Julie Ciardi, and she said, what if midlife is not a crisis, but a calling? That whole episode was about seeing midlife, not as a crisis, but as a midlife awakening. She talked about it as a woman near 50, and I was realized, oh, the people I'm working with are women in midlife around their forties and their fifties, and I love them. So now that's why those are the people I focus on working with and why I feel so excited every day to work with women in midlife. To help them feel like they can stop comparing themselves to other people. That they can stop feeling like they have to live by other people's expectations. That they can stop making decisions based on what will make other people happy or keep the peace and not rock the boat. And women who know that they can take all the personality assessments and that they can't be defined by a series of letters or a number. So that's the long story of who I am and who I work with, and why I'm so passionate about Human Design and working with women in midlife. I am also happy to report that I left my library job in May of 2025, and I have become a full-time coach, Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide, and I love it every single day. I love waking up on Monday mornings, getting to do a job that brings me so much joy. If this episode resonated with you, I would love to invite you into my Life Patterns Review. It's where we look at how you've been moving through your life, the roles and responsibilities you've picked up, the patterns you've repeated so often without even realizing it because you're on autopilot. The overgiving, the fixing, the saying yes when you mean no. The trying to be a version of you that made everyone else comfortable and who you thought you should be. You can find the link in the show notes. If this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you would click the plus sign to subscribe and share it with a friend. I'll see you next time. Be well.