In this episode of Unfolding, I’m reintroducing myself to all the new listeners and my subscribers on Substack. I share what it really means to be a Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide. Why I'm passionate about working with women in midlife, and how discovering my Human Design during burnout changed everything for me.

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Connect with me: erica[at]ericavoell[dot]com

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Welcome to the Unfolding Podcast,

a space where we explore what it

2

looks like to really trust yourself.

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Say no without guilt and live your

life like it actually belongs to you.

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I am Erica Voell, a Decision Mentor

and Inner-Trust Guide, and I help

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women in 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 the 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 who

in midlife who are done living by the

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shoulds and second guessing themselves.

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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

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you really hear yourself so you

can stop overthinking and start

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making decisions that feel grounded.

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Clear and true.

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I have a lot of new listeners through this

podcast and on Substack, and I just wanna

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say welcome and thank you for listening.

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I felt like with all the new subscribers,

it was time for a reintroduction because

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I have changed so much, even since May

. One of the first questions I get asked

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when I tell people what I do is, what is

a Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust Guide?

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I work with women in midlife and one

of the things I've noticed when I was

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talking to my clients and where they

would get stuck is in making decisions.

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But that's not where they start,

and that's not why they come to me.

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Where we start is what are the

stories that are coming up for them?

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What are the patterns and the

stories that they've been telling

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themselves their entire lives?

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This is not to blame them.

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This is just like what were their

coping mechanisms and what were

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the stories that have shaped them?

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We also talk about how they have

shape-shifted to make other people happy.

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'cause so often they have felt like

the black sheep in their family or

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that they didn't belong, or that they

were too sensitive or too inconsistent,

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or too emotional or in too intense.

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And oh my gosh, I feel that

same way my entire life.

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They also tend to compare themselves to

others a lot, and they've taken all of

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the personality tests trying to help them

find something that explains who they are.

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But they feel like they can't be defined

by a series of letters or a number.

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They have felt like Myers-Briggs

and Enneagram and StrengthsFinder

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put them into a box and they don't

feel like they fit into that box.

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And what's also come forward

is a lot of these things have

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affected how they make decisions.

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For a lot of them, they've made

the safe decisions because it

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was what made others comfortable.

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What would make others happy?

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What would keep the peace, what they

should do, especially when it came

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to a job or what was the path that

was recommended or most acceptable

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in their family, in their groups.

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So that's where the Decision Mentor

and Inner-Trust Guide title came from.

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I ultimately hope to help people really

feel good about their decisions and

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to develop this inner trust and to

trust that inner guidance that they

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have, so that then they can make the

leaps that they want to make or just

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to feel like they have a gift , and

that they do belong in this world.

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One of the things I've been learning

lately is about the new era in

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Human Design, which starts in 2027.

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And we're moving into it.

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We've been feeling it since

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And what is giving me so much

hope is that we all have a

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role to play in this new era.

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For those who have felt that they

didn't belong in this culture and

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society that we've been in for the

last 60 or 70 years of hustling and

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getting ahead and like having it all.

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And that they feel like they've been

too sensitive or feel things too much.

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What's been giving me hope is that

they have a role in this new era.

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Their gifts might have not been

recognized in the old era that we're

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moving out of, the Era of Planning, but

their gifts are going to be needed and

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essential and recognized in this new

era called the Era of the Individual.

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So the main tool I work with is Human

Design, and I came to Human Design through

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a really to tumultuous period in my life.

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I was in the beginning of healing

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I was preparing to go through a

series of medicine journeys and

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still things were coming up for

me that were roadblocks or walls.

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And my therapist one day said

to me, "Erica, I want you to go

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look up your Human Design type."

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And she left it at that

and I was like, oh, great.

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Is this like Eat Right

for Your Blood Type?

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Now I have to figure out something new?

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What I did not realize is this

was a simple suggestion that

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would absolutely change my life.

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So that night I went to work and I worked

on the public service desk at the library.

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It was a really quiet night.

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And I looked up my Human Design.

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I looked up my type, and the chart

I looked up looked so complicated.

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There were lines and shapes and numbers.

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I had no idea what it was, but

there was something telling me that

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I needed to look up what it meant.

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I was really intrigued and when I

learned I was a generator and it said

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that generators are the life force here

to help lift the energy of the world.

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I didn't feel like I could lift

up any energy to lift up anyone.

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I was exhausted and I had no energy.

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But then I read about the emotional

authority and that it's based

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on how something makes you feel.

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And so I started to Google everything

I could in those three hours that

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I was on the desk and I copied

everything into a Google document.

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But what I read through all

that research made me cry.

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Something that really resonated with me.

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I still have in a Google Doc.

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And that was you spread and amplify

energy and you are here to be lit

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up by what you do, and in turn your

energy lights up those around you.

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And like I said, I was in a

really dark place at that point.

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I was holding out hope that those

medicine journeys would help me heal.

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I didn't know how I could light up those

around me when I was feeling so dark.

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Another thing that resonated so deeply

was that you are lit up by what you

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do, and then when you turn your energy,

you can light those up around you.

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You spread and amplify energy.

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The energy sustains the fire.

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The real kicker was this.

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My emotional authority feels everything

and needs to ride out the emotional

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waves before making a decision, and

I found this quote by Erin Claire

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Jones in Allure Magazine about

people with an emotional authority.

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She said, quote, "if they're happy,

they will say yes, and if they're

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sad, they will say no, and they

may regret that decision later on.

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They need to wait to be in a calm

space as long as it takes, and get off

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that rollercoaster of feelings before

deciding what's best for themselves."

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End quote.

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It still gives me chills to

read that out loud because I

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had felt that my entire life.

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I felt like I was not

good at making decisions.

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I would make dec quick decisions like at

the rest of my family, and sometimes I

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would have this sick feeling and wanna

back out, but my brain would talk me

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into it because that's what I should

do, because it would get me closer to

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what I needed to do to get further in

my career, to feel like I was recognized

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or that I was making others happy.

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It was all about what I should

do, not realizing that I had been

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overriding this internal sensation.

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When I would feel sick about a decision,

I would tell myself that I was wrong,

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and then I started to reflect back

on the times I had made decisions

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and when I felt weird about them.

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Like a lot of times I would make

a decision, uh, or we would plan

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something and somewhere in my body or

in the back of my mind, I would think,

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I don't need to get ready for this.

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I don't need to plan for this

'cause I'm not going to do it.

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I'm not going to be there for some reason.

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And it would really freak me

out when it would come true.

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There would be a snow storm or I would get

sick and I would not be able to be there.

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A perfect example of this, like just

feeling like something wasn't right,

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was when we planned a family vacation

with my parents and my sister, and

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the closer we got to this vacation,

the less good I felt about it.

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I could not put my finger on it.

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I didn't know it was bubbling up for me.

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I couldn't explain it.

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I could just feel it.

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Something was off.

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And that family vacation did not go well.

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My dad could not go because he was sick.

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My mom was sick the entire

time and just pushing through.

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My sister and I were on each

other's last nerves the whole time.

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I felt like I couldn't do anything right.

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Little did I know that I was in

the middle of burning out and

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everything was setting me off.

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I cried more on that vacation

and I rarely cry on vacation.

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When we came back from that vacation, I

got really sick and I could not get well.

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And reading about how someone's an

emotional authority needs to sleep on

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their decisions shifted so much for me.

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I dug in deep to learn more about things.

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I want to know more about me.

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I've read so many self-help books and

hoped that they would help me figure

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out myself and to fix the things

that I thought were wrong with me.

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But the longer I studied my Human

Design, what I noticed was I didn't feel

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like there was anything wrong with me.

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It was giving me language for my lived

experience in a way that felt like

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it had read my personal journals.

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How could something where I put in my

time, my date, and my location of my

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birth know so much about my life story?

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Not the events in my life story, but

like the experiences of being in my body.

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So I just felt like I had

to learn as much as I could.

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I signed up for a couple of

classes, but neither of them

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really gave me what I was wanting.

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They seemed so esoteric

for my logical mind.

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The ones I wanted were so expensive,

but I didn't, couldn't spend hundreds of

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dollars just to learn about type and then

to spend more to learn about authority.

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I was not in a place where I could

shell out $6,000 right away for

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Human Design classes, and then.

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Somehow Erin Claire Jones came back up.

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I found her on Instagram and amazingly

enough, a few months later, she was

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sharing about her course and that she

was selling it in increments that were

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actually really affordable for me.

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And I started to study Human

Design and in turn study myself.

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When I was learning something, I

would not just look up my chart,

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but I would have my husband and

my daughters also on the screen.

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'cause I wanted to know everything and

I wanted to know how this particular

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aspect was being expressed in them.

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I learned that in my profile that

I am someone who loves to dig deep.

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There's sort of a joke I have with

myself that I never met a rabbit

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hole that I didn't want to fall

down once I started to dig in.

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I love to feel like I'm becoming an

expert in something that truly brings

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me joy, which explains why when I

started to learn how to knit, I took

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a lot of knitting classes and then

I wanted to teach people about it.

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Then I got into quilting and I

took several classes on quilting

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and I made a bunch of quilts.

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And then I got into sewing, and I really

wanted to learn how to sew my own clothes.

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So I really know that I can

focus and I can dig deep.

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And one of the things that started

to happen as I was studying my Human

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Design and studying my family is I

started to see things come to light.

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I started to see that

I was no longer broken.

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I started to see why I felt like I

always had to keep up with my husband who

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can move super fast through the house.

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I mean, if something needs to be cleaned,

he can make it happen so fast and I'm

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like step by step and we're gonna fix

this room and then we'll do this room

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and I have to do all the things in

that one room before I can move on.

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But he can just like move through

the house and do all of it.

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I thought there was something wrong

with me because I couldn't keep up, and

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maybe it was because I felt fatigued

and exhausted so much of the time.

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I learned that my natural state

of being is doing things in

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a very step-by-step fashion.

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I learned that even though my daughter

and I have the same type, the same

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profile and the same decision making

strategy that it gets expressed

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very differently in each of us.

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She has a very unique way

of being, as do all of us.

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And learning her decision making

strategy and how it expresses itself

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differently than mine, even though

we have that emotional authority.

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It saved us so much money.

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Now I tell her before she buys something

that she needs to sleep on that

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decision, and a couple of days later,

she's either forgotten about it or if

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it's still in the front of her mind.

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I'm like, okay, let's go for it.

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I mean, we're not talking about

hundreds or thousands of dollars.

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We're talking about $25 of her allowance.

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But I want her to learn how to

wait so that then she learns that

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she doesn't make good impulse

buys and want to return things.

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And I also want to help her learn what

it feels like to make a decision and

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then what it feels like to back out.

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Or to only have two options to choose

from, so that she learns what it feels

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like when something is right for her.

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With my husband, I've learned that

asking him yes or no questions is huge.

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He knows almost instantly what is

the right thing for him, just by

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me asking him yes or no questions.

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So how did I start working with

Human Design in my coaching practice?

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I really started digging into

Human Design around the same time.

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I didn't realize how much I was talking

about Human Design with other people in

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the coaching certification program until

one day I was on a practice call and the

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person on the other end said, "when are

you gonna share this with other people?"

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I honestly didn't know how much I knew.

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I didn't think I knew enough.

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I thought I needed to finish

the Human Design course

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before I started to share it.

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Then a friend in the coaching program

said, when you're ready, I would

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love to get a reading with you.

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And so I felt some pressure

and I was like, oh, I guess

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I do know enough to share it.

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So I decided to finish part of the

course, and then I would be ready.

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But then as I learned how to coach

with Human Design, I realized I didn't

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need to know everything to share it.

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It was just me taking that leap.

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So I did a reading for that friend.

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It was so amazing, and she

became my first paying client.

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And at practice I offered it to other

friends just to help me get my sea legs

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under me and for me to feel comfortable.

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I learned a lot about myself and

working with clients in those sessions.

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I learned that I can overwhelm people

with lots and lots of information

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because I want to over-give.

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'Cause I'm like, I know all this.

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You need to know all of that.

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But having a lot of

information doesn't help them.

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So I've refined my approach and

started working with people on a

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monthly basis instead of sharing

all of that information at once.

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And during that time of retooling, I was

trying so hard to be a general life coach.

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But it wasn't until that first

client, who's also a coach, said

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to me, "Erica, I would not send

people to you for life coaching.

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I would send them to

you for Human Design."

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I was a little taken aback.

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I was like feeling really pigeonholed.

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But then I sat with it and I talked to

my business coach at the time and she

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said, "why not go all in on Human Design?"

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So I did and I got my first

monthly clients after that.

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I also co-hosted a retreat where I taught

about Human Design and have since led

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multiple workshops in person and online.

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And I love sharing it.

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I love talking about it.

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When I meet people, I'm like, I wanna

know what your Human Design type is.

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I wanna know all about you

from your Human Design.

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I love sharing it with new people and

I'm just like, oh my gosh, I can't

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wait to see if this is who they are.

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And like I can really tend to

spot the projectors around me.

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It's really fascinating.

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And I love when I just pull

out a couple of things.

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I love the aha moments that happen

and there's this look on their face

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that they get and they're like, "oh my

gosh, how do you know that about me?"

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Because I know how much this can

transform people's lives and how it can

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transform relationships 'cause I've seen

it happen with my family and I've seen

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it happen with my client's families.

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It still blows my mind every time I

sit down with somebody and I'm sharing

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what I'm seeing in their chart.

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It happened to me yesterday.

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And when I ask how is

this resonating with them?

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And they're like.

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Yeah.

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Wow.

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You know that about me?

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You can tell me about

that from this chart?

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It's so fascinating and I've learned

that as I guide them in helping them

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learn more about themselves, they

start to embody it as opposed to me

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just giving them lots of information.

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And it may not surprise you to learn

that I was a librarian for 19 years.

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I mostly worked as a children's

librarian and I spent 10 of those

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19 years purchasing children's

and teen materials for libraries.

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So this natural curiosity in this

research part of me is just so innate.

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I loved the library, I loved the concept

of the library, but one of the things that

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happened as I was healing from burnout

and learning my Human Design is that I

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realized I had followed the "should" path.

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It was a theme my entire life.

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I have three college degrees.

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I have a social work degree because

my mom's friend loved being a social

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worker, so I thought I should try that.

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And I loved the classes and I

thought, oh, this could be fun.

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I could do that.

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But in practice, I did

not love social work.

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I tried different aspects of it through

working in the elderly population,

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and I interned at a public policy

department at Planned Parenthood.

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Even going to lobbying days in

the Kansas legislature, I thought

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that's what I wanted to do.

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I was gonna get my

master's in public policy.

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But thank goodness for my dad, he

noticed that my heart wasn't in it.

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So my parents, took me for

aptitude testing, and I tested

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high in computers and math.

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So I did some research back then.

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This was in 1997, and you had to go to

the Federal Department of Labor office and

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get this booklet about jobs in this field

and what jobs I could do in that area.

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And I have to tell you, there

was not a lot online about what

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careers were available in that area.

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I mean, I knew sort of what it

was, but the more I read about it,

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the more excited I got about it.

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So I enrolled in a computer

science degree program.

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I loved it.

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I loved learning the new things.

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I loved digging in.

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I loved how learning about

how coding worked and the

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problem solving aspect of it.

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And so after graduation, I got a job at a

large corporation, and within a few months

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I knew it was not the right place for me.

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That job was not right.

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It sounded great.

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But it was not what I wanted to do.

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I didn't want to be digging through

code to find bugs and to fix them in

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legacy code on mainframe computers.

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So I found another job within that

same company as a software tester

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and analyst working on software for

actuaries in the insurance industry.

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And all that time I didn't

really feel like I fit in.

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Part of it was that I didn't want to

socialize with people outside of the

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organization, and I actually got dinged

on that for my performance review.

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But even after a year, I

found my interest waning.

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It wasn't what I wanted to do

for the rest of my life, and I'll

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never forget realizing that once

again, I was in the wrong job.

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I dreaded it every single

day, and I was late most days.

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I now know that this is a sign for me,

that it's that I'm not in the right job.

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When I have the Sunday scaries and

I have to drag myself into work.

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I know it's not the right place for me.

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And then in 2002, I met my husband.

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He was a librarian.

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He loved his job.

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He was so good at it.

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We actually met.

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Because of his job.

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He did a Yahoo search and found

my website because I had listed

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an obscure band on my website.

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So about a year after we started

dating, I started to volunteer at

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the library 'cause it looked so fun.

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I had so much fun as a volunteer and I'll

never forget going to see the movie Garden

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State and crying in the car afterwards.

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I was so stuck in that job as

a software tester and I felt so

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hopeless about what else could I do?

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I was learning that the computer

industry and being in a large corporation

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were not where I wanted to be.

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So I thought, I love

volunteering at the library.

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I should go to library school.

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So we decided a year after we got

married to quit our jobs and for my

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husband to go to library school because

I did not get in on my first try.

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I did not get in on my second try.

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But I got in on my third try after

working at the public library for a year.

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And I loved school.

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Are you seeing a theme here?

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I loved school.

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I loved learning.

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I went the route of the youth

librarian track and I really

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felt like I found my people.

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I was thriving.

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I loved my literature classes for the

first time because I had not liked

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my English classes in undergrad.

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I dove deep, and maybe because I was in

my thirties when I was in graduate school.

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I made a conscious decision I was

not going to make the same mistakes

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I made in undergrad 10 years before.

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Then I got into the working world and

I loved being at the library, but there

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was something that just didn't feel quite

right, and about 18 months after I started

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that first library job, I knew that

that was not where I was going to stay.

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I was getting into trouble for stepping

on people's toes because I tend to step in

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when I see something is not getting done.

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I was having issues where I was

being told I was being too forward

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and rocking the boat too much.

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So I found another library job where I

was buying materials for the library,

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and I loved that job for about 18 months.

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And then the same pattern started to

show up from my previous library job.

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And after those first 18 months,

I also started to see that

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verbal abuse from my manager.

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I was made to feel like I was

the problem and not the manager.

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But I didn't know where else to go.

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The library world is small, especially

in Kansas City, where we have

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four library systems in the area.

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But I had already worked at two of

them, and one of them was where my

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husband worked and they had a nepotism

rule where I couldn't work there.

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And the other one was a 45

minute drive one way for me.

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I was a new mom and I didn't wanna drive

that far, so I felt really stuck and I

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ended up working that job for six years.

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And then the library where my husband

worked, changed their policy on nepotism,

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and I was able to apply for another job.

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About a year and a half

later into that job

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things didn't feel like they were right.

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A year after I'd started was

the beginning of the pandemic.

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So everything was really topsy-turvy,

and I thought that that was the

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problem, but I was also made to

feel like I was the problem again.

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I wasn't falling into line

with the organization.

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I was asking too many questions.

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I was not fitting in with my coworker.

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So I changed to another library

branch, and about a year after

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that, burnout started to settle in.

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I thought I just needed some time

off, so I went on a retreat by myself.

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I came back refreshed and things

just never felt right, and

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burnout really settled in hard.

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I was pushing through feeling exhausted

every single day, wondering what was

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wrong with me, why couldn't I feel better?

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And just before I was diagnosed

with clinical burnout, I had an

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experience where I heard a voice

telling me to "gather the women."

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It had me doing a lot of soul searching,

and it made me realize that I was

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being called to something different.

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Now, all of this happened before

I ever discovered Human Design.

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And what often happens when you have

that kind of experience is you can't

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live with the discomfort and becomes

even more uncomfortable the longer

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you try to keep yourself there.

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I worked with a career coach

shortly after some burnout healing.

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Because I was trying to help me find a

new job, and what she told me was that

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that I had a lot to unpack before we

could focus on what jobs I could do.

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I was so desperate and I wanted her

to see something in me that would

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help me find the right job, but I

didn't need to find the right job.

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I needed to figure out what

I really wanted to do instead

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of finding another job.

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Because that next job could

potentially be another one where I

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would be miserable 18 months later.

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I didn't realize I had this pattern until

after I healed from burnout and after I

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started to really learn my Human Design.

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As I studied my Human Design, I

started to notice other patterns

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that had come up in my life.

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Things that just kept presenting

themselves until I learned the lesson.

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And honestly, have I learned

the lesson all the time?

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No, not always, but I am so much

more aware of when it's coming up.

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And that's one of the things I

work with clients on, is noticing

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the patterns that are coming up in

their lives and when those patterns

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are around making decisions.

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In a recent podcast interview with

Heather Wick, I had a realization that

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if you had told me two years ago that I

would be working with women in midlife,

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and that's where I would be focusing.

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I would've been like, "oh

my gosh, middle-aged women.

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No way."

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'Cause I didn't consider

myself middle-aged, even

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though I was 49 years old.

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I had always assumed that people

in midlife were older than me.

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But then I was listening to a podcast

with someone, who is now my mentor,

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Julie Ciardi, and she said, what if

midlife is not a crisis, but a calling?

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That whole episode was about

seeing midlife, not as a crisis,

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but as a midlife awakening.

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She talked about it as a woman near

50, and I was realized, oh, the

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people I'm working with are women

in midlife around their forties

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and their fifties, and I love them.

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So now that's why those are the

people I focus on working with

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and why I feel so excited every

day to work with women in midlife.

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To help them feel like they can stop

comparing themselves to other people.

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That they can stop feeling like they have

to live by other people's expectations.

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That they can stop making decisions based

on what will make other people happy or

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keep the peace and not rock the boat.

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And women who know that they can

take all the personality assessments

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and that they can't be defined by

a series of letters or a number.

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So that's the long story of who I

am and who I work with, and why I'm

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so passionate about Human Design

and working with women in midlife.

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I am also happy to report that I

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and I have become a full-time coach,

Decision Mentor and Inner-Trust

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Guide, and I love it every single day.

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I love waking up on Monday

mornings, getting to do a job

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that brings me so much joy.

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If this episode resonated with

you, I would love to invite you

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into my Life Patterns Review.

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It's where we look at how you've been

moving through your life, the roles

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and responsibilities you've picked

up, the patterns you've repeated

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so often without even realizing

it because you're on autopilot.

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The overgiving, the fixing, the

saying yes when you mean no.

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The trying to be a version of you

that made everyone else comfortable

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and who you thought you should be.

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You can find the link in the show notes.

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If this episode resonated with

you, I would be so grateful if

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you would click the plus sign to

subscribe and share it with a friend.

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I'll see you next time.

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Be well.