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 strength. Using human design as a lens, we clear the noise of conditioning so their no feels powerful and their yes feels true, which allows them to move forward without self-doubt, guilt, and pressure to prove anything. On this show, we have honest conversations about self-trust, boundaries, energy and identity, especially for women 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. So something unexpected happened to me this week. I posted on LinkedIn a version of an email that I had sent to my subscribers. It was about how AI is a terrible decision making partner as more and more people are outsourcing their decisions, and many times are turning to AI to help them make decisions. What was unexpected was that four men commented. One of them said that AI is a great decision making tool because it learns about you, but he seemed to completely miss my point and obviously he did not read the entire post, but it brought up something for me. As women, we were constantly questioned about our decisions as kids and as teenagers and we are really definitely questioned As adults, we are asked, are you sure? Don't you think you need to think about it more? Especially when our decision goes against what is comfortable for our families or our employers or our group. But men are often seen as strong and confident in their decisions and are rarely asked, are you sure? Even when their decisions don't make sense. I mean, I don't know how many men in high positions are being asked, are you sure? AI has been sold to companies that it will streamline decision making and it will solve problems before they happen, which then allows companies to take a large amount of data and get insights. And AI is also entering into our thought processes all over the place. It's in a Google search, it's in our emails. We are learning how AI talks. My daughter was like, oh mom, that's an AI video. And I was like, it is. But it's been also touted in the last few years as this great writing help and if you have technology questions, ask ai. And through word of mouth we hear other people using it. And so we try it out and if it can help us figure out how to structure an email that we think will be more powerful and it also has a magical way of asking questions and offering help, then maybe it's good at helping us make decisions. I mean, it's helping companies all over the world, but are companies making better decisions or are they using it to streamline their workforce and to get rid of the people who used to do the simple tasks. Because if it can help you make decisions at work, then maybe it can help you in your personal life, right? Earlier this summer I heard about a teen's family who was suing OpenAI, which is the owner of Chachi pt because their son committed suicide after having multiple conversations with it about suicide, and it sent up a little radar antenna for me. The more people I've heard talking about using ai, the more comments I've heard about using chat GPT to help them make decisions. Then I recently overheard a conversation with somebody. And she was talking about how she'd had this long, drawn out conversation with her chat bot because she didn't know what to do with her ex-husband and couldn't make a decision. I didn't hear the end of the conversation, but it just, it sparked something in me because as humans, we love the next thing that will make our lives easier, more comfortable, the next life hack that will ease our stress. Think about how many self-help books are out there about the life hacks, the ones that will make our lives easier. And more and more people are turning to AI for advice according to psychology today, 20 to 50% of people have consulted AI for advice. That's not technology questions or writing help. That's advice of what should I do. And kids and teens are learning how powerful AI is. I use it myself. It is amazing. I mean, it has helped me in my business when I am trying to remember what I said on various podcasts, but I also know that there are limits to what it can do, and I also know how it is affecting my brain and training my brain. My daughter, I found a conversation on her iPad. About with chat GPT about how to argue with your mother. Logically, I had to laugh at its answers because none of them would've worked on me. She tried a couple of them and I was like, where'd you get that? She hadn't told me that she was using chat GPT for this, but the more we turned to ai, the less we trust our inner guidance. And yes, it can ask you questions. It may be able to ask you, have you thought of X, Y, Z? But the questions that need to be asked are more likely to come from you or a trusted friend. It's powerful to ask yourself questions on a voice memo and then listen to them back. I mean, that's your own voice and you can feel how your body responds if you're a generator or manifesting generator. AI can't read your body language and it can't call you on your own BS. It's an echo chamber. It learns more about you. It learns how you think and you process, and so it adjusts. You can have AI ask you questions about how so you can then respond to them, but asking it for advice isolates us from the relationships and the community that we need now more than ever. It also disconnects us from our inner knowing. That inner experience of knowing what's right for us, even if the outside world disagrees and has plenty of opinions, there's been an expectation that everyone makes decisions and choices the same way. It's been that way for centuries. That we make decisions with our minds. And as women in midlife, we are more conditioned than at any other time in our lives. We are experts in conditioning. We have had decades of practicing the old way. We have spent decades shape shifting and making the safe decisions. What would make others comfortable? What would make our partner or our kid or our parents happy? What's acceptable within our community and even what's acceptable within our own spiritual and religious beliefs? Our mind center, depending on its definition in human design. Wants certainty, even if it's an open center, it's open to the influences of other people who might expect certainty from us. We can see others' points of view, and those can factor into what we will, how we might make a decision, especially if it goes against the group in our community. If your mind center is defined, that center wants things to be not only certain, but to be consistent and confident. It struggles with new perspectives that your choices may bring into the mix. We have so many messages of what we should do, what we should be. How we should look, how we should present ourselves to the world. And if you're in a position of authority within your community or field, there are expectations that can heavily influence your decisions because a decision can then reflect poorly on you and you lose others' trust and it doesn't feel safe to decide differently. I had a client panel on my recent masterclass this last week. My clients talked about how learning their human design decision making process started to move them out of that cycle, out of making a decision to keep the peace and to keep others happy, and those decisions that maybe they made that felt resentful. Of afterwards and leaning into that decision making authority is a lifelong lesson. We won't get it perfect and we will still have decisions we want to back out of or we will grit our teeth through because we said yes out a feeling. An obligation or we felt rushed. We're processing so much information that our mental bandwidth is depleted and we have decision fatigue. So when we have decision fatigue, our mind is can't process what our body is telling us. And then you add in the additional layers of our safety, our health, the political and the climate related stress we were experiencing. The financial instability and the wellbeing of our families, it's a lot. And our culture rewards speed and certainty and often shames us for any hesitation. And if we appear that we might need more time to process. If you're in that position of authority, tuning into your body can seem too airy, fairy, or woo. And as women, it can feed into that old narrative that women are too sensitive or emotional to make the hard decisions. I mean, can you imagine what our world would look like if more women were making the dhar decisions? And not just that, but making them from a grounded place instead of being flooded with their ego. We know clear decisions come from being grounded and regulated, not rushed, but when you have someone asking you over and over for a decision. It doesn't give you that space to feel grounded. Fear is also a huge factor in our decisions. Fear of judgment, fear of making the wrong choice, fear of not having enough information, fear of the unknown. This is where the ego comes in fast and furious. We also know if we don't feel safe in our home, our community, or our bodies, that the clarity won't feel safe. It feels overwhelming. A desire for something more feels risky, and the idea of ease can feel like pressure. And while AI can make you think you have certainty, what your mind loves isn't always the best decision for your body. Your mind loves comfort, and it will go with the choice that feels the most comfortable and safe. Asking yourself, is this decision true for me in my body, or is this choice what my mind loves can be super powerful. When your mind is coming up with a long list of reasons and justifications, then that's the first signal to tune in and notice what's coming up in your body. It's most likely. A choice that your mind loves and your body is telling you is wrong. Your mind might be overriding that sick feeling that you have because it thinks it knows better depending on your human design decision process. Your process might be that you need to have someone ask you yes or no questions to help you get clarity. If that is it, then ask them. Have someone ask you those questions. If your process is to talk it out with a trusted friend, do that. If your design says you need to sleep on it for a few days, then definitely do that. Your body knows more before your mind. And sometimes it takes our minds a while to come around to what our body is telling us. Our minds are. Powerful. They can conceptualize things that we can't even fathom. And for years they were the ones that were making your decisions. It can feel hard for your mind to trust something as illogical as your body. 'cause your body doesn't have to explain itself. It doesn't have all the reasons. But once you lean into listening to your body and your mind starts to trust what your body is telling you, that is so powerful. Your mind starts to relax and sometimes it even wants to check out when a decision has to be made because it trusts the signals in your body so much. So when you are in a spiral, some of the things that you can do to help you tune into your body are to be in a space that relaxes your mind. Go for a walk without listening to anything. But I've learned to take my phone, not to listen to anything, but because there's always something that comes through and I want to voice record it. Being out in nature, it has an amazing grounding and calming effect, and when you can't get outside, you can even close your eyes and focus on breathing 10 breaths to help your mind calm down. It can be helpful to say, I am breathing in one. I am breathing out one. I am breathing in two. I am breathing out two. That gives your mind a job to do to slow that spiral for many who have a mind that's grasping for certainty. Free writing can also be really powerful, and just letting the thoughts flow, giving yourself 30 minutes to write and to see what comes through. It might not even be those 30 minutes that you need because the act of writing activates different parts of your brain and it can help you process through the fears that are coming up. Okay. One of my favorites recently is tapping. It helped me through some really bad anxiety and fears that were coming up. I would tap for six or seven rounds on what was coming up for me. The first things in my mind were what I said out loud, and by the fourth or fifth round, I could feel a shift from darkness to light. There are a ton of tapping meditations and videos out there to help you work through whatever is coming up. But I find when I can't come to a clear decision, even after I've slept on it for a few days, which is my decision making process, that there are lingering fears that still have plenty to say. And tapping and saying all of those fears out loud seems to not only calm my mind, but it calms my body because not all of these fears live in our minds. They are deep in our body. They're in our instinctual center and our emotional center. That fear of rejection from our family members and our community doesn't live in our minds. It's deeply emotional. Technology is powerful. And I've heard people looking at their smartwatch and looking at their heart rate when they're making a decision, but the heartbeat can be shifted with the mind while also being connected to the rest of the body. And when there's a disconnect and we don't trust ourselves enough to make a clear choice, our mind jumps into fear mode and what ifs. And when we can calm the mind, we can really tune in giving the mind work to do, such as focusing on things such as drawing, or painting, or gardening and cooking. They can be really, really helpful to get your mind out of those spirals if the other techniques are not working the way you hoped. Those things make our minds take a break, and often because the mind is occupied with other things, we can get a sense of what our best decision might be. Yeah. With everything going on in our world, coming back to our vision and knowing what we want helps us make clearer decisions. And it helps make choosing easier because you know that each opportunity that presents itself, it in line with that vision. And if it's not, then it's an easy no. I know your vision won't help you at the grocery store all the time or when you need to make a snap decision, but for those bigger decisions, that vision helps That next ask from the PTA. Can be a simple decision if you have decided that being more active with your kid and your community is part of your vision, but if it would take you away from a commitment to yourself, then that makes the decision easier. And overwhelm is a choice. Leaders within the US government and all around the world know that. They know that when people are overwhelmed and there is chaos, that that brings complacency. Things in our world feel really hard and heavy. Right now, we have a choice to get mired in the overwhelm, doom, scrolling, or making a conscious choice that we will slow down and focus on the most important person in our lives ourself, and then we can choose to make one small step towards what we want our life to be like. And our world to look like. It may be a simple thing, but it's one thing. It's one thing to celebrate. If that one thing to celebrate is you getting out of bed. It's something that you chose to do and is worth celebrating if that is in the space you are in right now. So I want to tell you. If you are sick and tired of feeling stuck in the spirals or making decisions to make others happy and comfortable, you don't have to be there. I want to invite you to schedule a clear decision audit with me to help you get out of those spirals, to help you come back to what really matters most. Thank you for joining me on this journey. If this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you clicked the plus sign to subscribe and share it with a friend. I'll see you next time. Be well.