Have you ever traced a turning point in your life back to one decision? One small “yes” that set a whole new course in motion?

In this episode, I take you on a walk back through time—from a yoga class on a farm, through a series of deeply personal decisions, friendships, spiritual nudges, and healing journeys. All the way back to one moment that, at the time, felt simple and small: attending a Unitarian church while my husband and I began our adoption journey.

That single decision created a ripple effect that would introduce me to dear friends, a Facebook ad for a journaling planner, an invitation into deep transformation work, coaching, Human Design, and eventually—my work as a full-time coach.

This is a story about following the nudge. About noticing the invisible threads that connect the dots. About honoring the nonlinear, magical ways life unfolds.

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Website: ericavoell.com

Hey there.

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Welcome back to unfolding audio

letters from the middle of Becoming.

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I'm Erica Vol and I use tools like human

design coaching and Reiki to help women in

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midlife say no to what drains them because

they just trust their decisions and

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they understand their unique strengths.

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And together we clear old patterns so

that they can make confident decisions

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and start putting themselves first.

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I believe your human

design is your roadmap.

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And your permission to do things

differently and confidently.

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Have you ever thought about how

one decision in your life can have

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this butterfly effect and influence

everything after it in ways you

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didn't even realize until later?

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I was recently at Yoga on the

farm here locally, and I was

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chatting with a former client.

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I told her that she is the one source

of all of my monthly coaching clients

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since her, and it totally blows my mind

that she even reached out to me in the

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first place because her sister-in-law had

mentioned human design on her podcast.

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And as I drove home from that yoga class,

I started piecing it all back together.

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How did I meet her sister-in-law?

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And then how did that

connection come to be?

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My mind kept tracing further and

further back, and I realized it

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all started with one decision, One.

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Small decision that has ended up affecting

my entire life for the last 14 years.

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That one decision was attending

the Unitarian Church one Sunday.

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We were going through the adoption

process and I figured we needed to

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meet people who shared our values

and who had been through the process

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before who could maybe support us.

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And we met two families that day

and they became dear friends.

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One of them is still one of my closest

friends, and through her and starting a

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book club together, we met another friend

and another friend from that church.

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Liked a company on Facebook, the

Dragon three apothecary, and at

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the time that I saw this ad, I

was really struggling at work.

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I knew I needed something to help me

process what I was going through and

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something to anchor a journaling process.

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I really wanted to start a regular

journaling process, and that ad was for

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the Dragontree's Dream Book and Planner.

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Something in it lit me up.

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I looked it up and like a good

librarian and now I know as a good

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five one profile who loves to research.

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I researched that planner for several

days before I bought it, not even

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realizing that I was using my emotional

authority and sleeping on my decision,

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and that one purchase has set in.

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So many things into motion.

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The day that that dream

book arrived, I was hooked.

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I dove into the front section where you're

invited to write about what you want your

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life to look like in six different areas,

livelihood, relationships, community,

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physical health, creativity and play,

and psychological and spiritual health.

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And to really dream about what your

life could look like in three years.

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I had never really considered my dreams

in that way before I knew I wanted

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things, but this was like asking me to dig

deeper and actually put into words things

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that I would love to dream about, but I

thought that they were too farfetched.

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But then I started to see that I could

have dreams, that they could actually

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fit into something that was not that

neat little box that I had felt like

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was expected of me and that I had

done for my entire life up until then.

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I'd always felt a little

bit different in my family.

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I wish I could say that.

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I was always fine with that, but I wasn't.

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But something about writing in the Dream

Book started to shift things, and about

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six months later, Peter and Brianna Borton

released Rituals for Transformation.

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I saw this short promo video for the book,

and I knew instantly that I needed it.

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I remember watching the launch

party and just feeling like.

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This book is gonna change something in me.

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I didn't know what it was, but it

just, something just was bubbling

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and it really did change me.

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It was 108 days of digging deep and

diving into parts of myself that I had

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shoved into a cabinet, thrown a blanket

over, and hoped it would go away.

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It helped me face some of the

body image issues that I had

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dealt with for my entire life.

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Head on and other parts of my life

that I had just tried to push aside.

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for the longest time, I had hoped that

if I could just fix one thing, that

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everything would fall into place and

then some of these issues would go away.

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I thought if I had lost weight

or if I was in a different place,

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or if I could just have the right

job where I liked my manager.

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But the Rituals for Transformation

Book actually invited me to pull away

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that blanket, unlock that cabinet, and

invite those things to come forward.

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It was scary.

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I didn't wanna do it, but it

shook me in the absolute best way.

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And about a year later, Peter

and Brianna launched Sacred

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Expansion, which is the first part

of their coach training program.

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And I knew I absolutely

had to be part of it.

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I thought it was a one time thing.

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I didn't realize that it

would be an ongoing program.

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I was not ready to take on the full

coaching training, and financially

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it wasn't even an option for us.

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I thought I had to figure out more

things, but this part felt right.

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I felt like I could do this.

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I had had such an amazing experience

with Rituals for Transformation.

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I thought that this could

be even more life altering.

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Sacred expansion asks you and demands

of you to peel back more layers and

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to notice that you're not broken.

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That was what I didn't realize I needed.

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Learning I was not broken was amazing.

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It was.

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Really where I started to see

these glimpses of these gifts that

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I have, and that led me to have

a short email exchange with Anne,

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who is also local to Kansas City.

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I did sacred expansion and she went on

to complete the full coaching program

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and I became her first practice client.

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I will never forget sitting in her office

for the first time, and I had this.

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I was in a really bad work situation

right then, and like I said earlier,

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I was feeling really broken.

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I had this sadness, not like a clinical

kind of depression, just this heavy

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soul, deep sadness from being in

a job that drained me every single

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day with a verbally abusive manager.

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And in that session, Anne saw a light in

me I had never been able to see in myself.

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Something shifted in my work with Anne.

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And a few months later, I got a new job.

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For a year, things started to feel

better and then the pandemic hit

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and we were all home all the time.

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But it gave me a chance to reconnect

with Anne in a group that she was

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leading, which was really amazing.

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And then fast forward three years, and

I'm the one going through the Dragon Tree

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Coaching Program and at our penultimate

retreat for the Illuminator program.

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I finally got to meet

Brianna and Peter in person.

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It was amazing.

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And then Anne was there as an assistant

and oh my gosh, talk about full circle.

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Going from her first practice client

to then me being in this space where

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I was doing the exact same thing.

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It was amazing.

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And life altering in a way that I have

never been able to explain to others.

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And then a few months later, I did a human

design reading for Anne, and she mentioned

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it on her podcast and her sister-in-law

heard it and reached out to me.

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And now she was my first monthly client

and we've hosted a retreat together

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and she has introduced me to people

who have introduced me to people.

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And the web keeps growing

and it doesn't stop there.

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With all of the things that this one

decision did, Brianna introduced me

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to Sarah Jenks and her Holy Woman

Program, which then introduced me to

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three incredible women who are part

of a sister circle together, and we've

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been together for almost four years.

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And that circle became a space where I

finally started to embrace parts of myself

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that I could feel bubbling to the surface.

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And I wasn't really

sure how to accept them.

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This like spiritually witchy side

that I had never felt safe to express.

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They gave me something in a way that gave

me permission to step into this slowly

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and in a way that just felt so good.

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And during our sister circles, I started

leading the meditations and I started to

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be able to lead us through soul journeys

and just trusting what came through.

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And one sister in our circle

would share her love of astrology.

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And it always felt a little

too complicated for me, which

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it makes me sort of laugh now.

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'cause then now I got into human

design and I started to see, she would

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talk about patterns and parallels.

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And I could see these parallels

between those two systems and astrology

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helped me see some patterns that I

didn't know were there before and

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together, like these really seemed

to fit so beautifully and they gave

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me permission to like dive deeper.

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Sarah Jinx also introduced me to Becca

Piastrelli, who wrote a book called

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Root and Ritual, and it was Becca who

introduced me to a woman named Erin Claire

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Jones on her podcast in October of 2022.

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I was dabbling in human design, but

Erin Claire talked about human design

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in a way that I had never heard before.

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It.

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Instantly resonated with me.

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I wanted to know more.

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I wanted to know how she knew human

design in a way that like made sense

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to people and then sounded logical.

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So I found out that she was releasing

a course, and so she launched it

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the following year and piecemeal.

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I purchased all the classes and I

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Right before I gave that reading to

Anne and then this past December , Erin

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Claire offered a certification program

and I took the exam and I, that's

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when I became a certified human design

guide through her Blueprint Pro.

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And it's so cool to me that like all of

this web and all of these people that

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I have met that I can trace back to.

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This one decision, this one sim, what

felt like a really simple decision

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at the time to go to the Unitarian

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I had this nudge in my body and

I was just feeling like we needed

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support as we started that adoption

journey and a journey that would

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change our lives forever because

that's how we have our daughter.

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But little did I know that that decision

would then impact me in different ways.

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Other than being a mom 14 years

later, that that nudge could

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change the course of my life.

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Have you had this experience?

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Have you ever traced a story back like

that one decision that then followed

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you and changed things for you?

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I really invite you to piece these things

together and see what comes out for you.

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'cause it's really freaking amazing 'cause

so often we're in our heads that we.

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Miss the moment when something shifts

and when we drop into our hearts and

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into our guts, sometimes we can feel it.

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We can feel that nudge.

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We can feel that moment that

it might lead to the next one.

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We might not know it at the time,

but as we start to trace back, we can

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see the steps that like this person

introduced me to this person and this

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person to introduce me to this person.

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And it's like this magical web.

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So.

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Thank you for joining me.

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I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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conversations, please share it with them.

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I really love to share these with you.

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Have a good one.

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Be well.

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I will talk to you next time.

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Bye.