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In this episode, I share a personal story about losing my voice during a week when our entire household was sick, and how the quiet brought unexpected relief. That experience led me to a deeper reflection on when I first began to lose trust in my own voice. I trace back how small moments of doubt slowly shaped how I saw myself as a writer and whether I had anything valuable to say.

I share how discovering Human Design and learning about our unique communication styles changed the way I understand my own voice and can help my clients claim their unique voice.

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Welcome to the Unfolding Podcast,

a space where we explore what

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it looks like to really trust

yourself, say no without guilt.

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And live your life like it

actually belongs to you.

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I'm Erica Voell, Decision Mentor

and Inner-Trust Guide, and I help

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women and midlife trust how they are

uniquely designed to make decisions,

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reclaim their authority, and

understand their unique strengths.

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Using human design as a lens, we clear the

noise of conditioning so their no feels

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powerful and their yes feels true, and

they can move forward without self-doubt,

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guilt and pressure to prove anything.

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On this show, we have honest conversations

about self-trust, boundaries, energy

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and identity, especially for women

in midlife who are done living by the

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shoulds and second guessing themselves.

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If you have taken every personality test,

followed the recommended path, and still

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can't shake the feeling that you've been

spending your whole life trying to fit in.

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When what you really wanted was to

belong, you're in the right space.

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You'll hear stories, insights,

and tools rooted in human

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design, coaching, and real life.

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Not to tell you what to do, like

another self-help book, but to help you

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really hear yourself so you can stop

overthinking and start making decisions

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that feel grounded, clear, and true.

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Most of last week, our whole

house was sick with a nasty

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cold or possibly the flu.

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All three of the humans in our

house were sick except for the dog.

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Thank goodness Vince was well enough

to be our emotional support dog.

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As tends to be the case.

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I struggled to talk without

coughing, so I didn't talk and

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it was oddly such a relief.

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I didn't have to talk.

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My husband wasn't talking because

he was struggling to not cough also.

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It was the quietest.

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Our house has been in a really long time.

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Every time I've lost my

voice before I've worried.

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What if I can't say what I need to

say in a meeting or to communicate

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with patrons at a public service desk?

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That was when I was

working at the library.

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That was just such a worry for me.

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But this time as an entrepreneur,

this time felt like such a relief.

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I didn't have to have any reason to

talk, and most of my communication

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can be do, done through text or email.

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I had to cancel several appointments

because I couldn't talk without coughing.

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But everyone was so understanding.

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One of those mornings I was sick.

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I had this dream about high school,

and upon waking so much came rushing

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back about when I started to lose trust

in my voice and what I had to say.

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In elementary school and most of

middle school, I was considered

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one of the smart kids, but that

was until I did not test into the

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honors level classes in high school.

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High school was a bit of

a rude awakening for me.

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It was the first time I would raise

my hand and would not have the right

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answer or know what to say and what

I had to say wasn't good enough.

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I did great in science classes, but

it was in my freshman English class

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that I started to feel like I didn't

have anything important to say.

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My teacher was the cheerleading

coach and she called on the athletes

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more than the rest of us, and I was

starting to enter my alternative stage.

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I was dressing differently.

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I was listening to alternative music

like the Cure and Depeche Mode, and a

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lot of the other music you would see

on MTV's 120 minutes on Sunday nights.

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I loved to write and we had

daily writings in that freshman

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English class that I loved.

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Sometimes they were about the readings

for the day, or she would give us

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a prompt and I could express myself

through my clothes, what I listened

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to, and also through my writing.

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Then sophomore year was the

rudest awakening of all.

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I enrolled in journalism class

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'cause I was so excited.

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My parents had met in journalism

school and I wanted to go

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to journalism as a career.

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I started in journalism class and

it was the first time I experienced

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a male chauvinist teacher.

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He was the baseball coach and

elevated the voices of the guys

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in the class above the girls.

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After sophomore year it, I was one of the

last girls in the class, except for our

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photographer who she spent a lot of her

time out taking photos around the school.

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I became the news editor junior

year, but it became clear that the

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baseball jocks who were in class

were there for an easy A, and they

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were listened to more than I was.

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I.

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It was the first time I really

questioned my voice and what I had

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to say, but I stayed in journalism

class through the early part of

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senior year because I loved writing.

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I loved writing the news articles

and I loved writing the feature

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stories about fellow students.

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I grew up in a family of talkers.

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Our large family gatherings were loud

with lots of side conversations and people

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talking over each other, but at home we

talked all through dinner, but it was

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not this ruckus larger family gatherings.

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But I learned something.

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I learned to talk to keep

up with the conversation.

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I learned to talk to fill the

silence, and still I continued to

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write through high school and in

my English classes, my stories and

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my papers would get good grades.

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So I was shocked when I got

to college and my A papers.

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In high school or now getting C's and D's.

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I learned that I used a

lot of comma sp places.

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I tend to write as I talk, but I never

learned how to fix those comma places.

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And as a freshman, I had declared my

major as journalism and I wanted to

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follow in my parents' footsteps, but

that changed about halfway through

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my first semester, freshman year.

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I had a TA that I really liked, and

he told me one day after class when

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I had gotten a horrible grade on an

essay, he said, I should reconsider my

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major because my writing wasn't good.

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I didn't know enough about TAs to

know that this guy was probably

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only four years older than me and

I wasn't confident in myself enough

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to know to brush off his comment.

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He was English ta and I thought if

he knew my writing was bad, then

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I figured others would as well.

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So I did what any, IM

impressionable freshman girl does,

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who is lacking in confidence.

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I changed my major.

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Looking back, I can see the patterns now.

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Every time I thought I had something

to say, someone else's comment or

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grade would have me questioning myself,

and I believed them over myself.

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I thought they knew better and knew

something that I couldn't see in myself.

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As I progressed through my English

classes and required Western civilization

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classes in college, I was continually

greeted with less than stellar grades.

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I was grateful to eke out a C in

some of those classes, even the

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papers, my parents helped me edit.

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I was getting Cs in.

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But my love of writing was slowly

being killed off, and I began to not

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only question whether I had anything

important to say in my writing.

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But also to say out loud as I didn't feel

I had a lot to contribute to the classes

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that I took until I reached my next

major of social work in my junior year.

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After graduation, I didn't have to do any

writing except for form letters because

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I was an intern at Planned Parented for

a while between my social work degree

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and starting my computer science degree.

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In my computer science program,

there was very little writing

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that was not technical writing.

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No one ever mentioned comma places,

but my love of writing had always

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been almost completely killed off

except for random poems that I

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wrote here and there in my journals.

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So fast forward a few years and the

dawn of personal websites and blogging,

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and I started to write again, it

was more like a personal journal.

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But I really wrote regularly and I also

married a former English major Shocker.

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It really astounds me that I married

an English major, even though English

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had been a subject I struggled so much

in college with and in library school,

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almost 10 years after graduating with

my undergrad, I struggled with writing

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papers, but I felt like I was gaining

some confidence back in my writing.

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My husband helped me edit my papers,

and I'll never forget how proud I felt

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when he said that a piece that I had

written for my book arts class was one

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of the best papers I had ever written.

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It was my personal history about reading

how my parents and my grandparents

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instilled a love of reading in me.

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And after library school, I wrote

book reviews for the library, but I

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was never considered a good writer.

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I found other ways to express myself

through knitting and sewing and quilting.

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And then about two years

ago, something shifted.

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I started my business and I had to

write Instagram posts and I felt a

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pressure to start an email newsletter.

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But even still in the back of my

mind, I didn't, didn't think I was

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a good writer because my Instagram

posts didn't gain a lot of traction,

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no matter how much I posted.

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And my newsletter didn't really grow much.

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I was talking about human design

and general life coaching topics.

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Usually whatever struck me that

week, I tried following so many

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different templates that I had

received from my business coach,

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but nothing ever felt like me.

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But if they worked for her.

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And others.

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Then I thought, well,

I should follow them.

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I was also buying $27 prompt

guides from various coaches

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hoping that something would stick,

something that would sound like me.

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And then about a year ago,

something drastically changed.

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I learned from a mentor, Julie

Ciardi, that I have a unique

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voice based on my human design.

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It absolutely changed everything.

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Looking at the communication

center, which is also known as the

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throat tells us how we communicate.

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For me, my center is undefined, which

means it appears white on my chart.

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So I don't have a consistent

way I communicate.

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Shocker!

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I felt so free and a

huge boost of confidence.

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I had known that people with an undefined

throat centers had an inconsistent

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way of communicating, but I had

not known it in quite the same way.

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I learned that it's common for people

with an undefined throat center to

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feel that they don't communicate

well because they've either talked

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too much to fill the space or they

feel that they, if they don't speak

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up, that they won't be noticed.

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I also learned that I do have somewhat

of a consistent way that I communicate,

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and that's through my experiences.

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I speak from my emotions and

feelings and expressing the emotional

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tone of the environment I'm in.

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I naturally say I feel not because I don't

think something or believe something, it's

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just what naturally comes out of my mouth.

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Each number within the communication

center expresses itself

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differently depending on which

number is either attached to or

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pointing toward another center.

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So, for example, my daughter expresses

herself through her mind saying, I

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think, and I know, well my husband,

he has seven of the 11 gates.

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The numbers in his.

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Throat center.

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So he has multiple ways.

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He expresses himself through writing

and art, his beliefs and his opinions.

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He tends to say, I think,

and I am, and I have.

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And I know a lot of women who have both

defined and undefined communication

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centers who don't trust their voices.

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I mean, is it any wonder in a world that

can't stop talking and self congratulating

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itself for being the loudest with a

president in the White House promoting

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misogyny and chauvinistic attitudes?

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It really makes me wonder how this is

affecting the girls who are growing

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up today and the women who have

come of age in the last 10 years in

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this culture of loud male voices.

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I mean, that's not anything new.

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But the tone seems to have shifted to

shutting down women's voices as much as

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possible unless they're promoting the

same hateful and hurtful messages that

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women should be quiet and compliant.

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Are more women losing the

trust in their own voices?

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Are there girls in high

school who are experiencing

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something similar to what I did?

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So what can you do to gain

trust in what you have to say?

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If you don't trust your voice, if

you don't think you have any-anything

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important to say, learn about

your human design and what your

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unique way to communicate is.

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I'm gonna be sharing more about

voice in the coming months.

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Because if we feel like we are

always shutting into the void,

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we begin to wonder, do I have

anything important to say?

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Does my voice even matter?

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I can assure you, you have

something important to say.

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Everyone has something important to say.

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We all communicate differently, and as

we move into a new era, different voices

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are going to become more prominent, not

as these know-it-alls and these gurus

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and the loudest voices, but it's going

to be collective voices rising up.

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We are seeing it happen in Minnesota

with groups of moms and women

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who are standing up for immigrant

families, not with one leader.

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But as smaller groups who are all

rising together, we all have something

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valuable to share, something important

to say, and learning your unique

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way of communicating can bring that

confidence and that conviction to what

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you are here to share with the world.

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I know that this voice stuff

does not live in isolation.

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It is one of the roots of the patterns

we all develop, especially when

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we've been running on autopilot,

when we've been overgiving.

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Saying yes, when we really mean no.

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Trying to be the version of us that

makes everyone else comfortable

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and who we think we should be.

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In the Life Patterns Review.

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We look at it, all of it together.

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The roles you've picked up, the

patterns you've repeated so often

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that you've stopped noticing them.

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We start to untangle what's actually

yours and what you've inherited

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or picked up along the way.

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If you are ready to take a look,

I would love to sit with you.

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You can schedule your

review in the show notes.

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That's our episode for today.

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I hope you are well.

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Thank you for listening.

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Be well.