Have you ever hesitated to spend money on yourself—but not even blinked when it came to your kids, your partner, or your work? In this episode of Unfolding, I’m diving into the worthiness wound—why it runs so deep, how it shows up in everyday choices, and what Human Design can reveal about the stories we carry about proving our value.

From the pressure to be the “good one” to the resentment that simmers beneath over-commitment, this episode invites you to gently examine your relationship with self-worth—especially if you have an undefined Ego Center or resonate with Gate 18 energy.

✨ Want to explore your own Human Design chart?

Book a free session with me at ericavoell.com/intro-new and let’s uncover what your chart says about your worth—and what’s not yours to carry anymore.

Resources Mentioned:

• Christine Inge on Gate 18
• Glennon Doyle’s quote: “Your duty is to disappoint someone else.”

Welcome to the Unfolding podcast.

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I am Erica Voell.

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I am a Decision Mentor and an Inner Trust

Guide, and I work with women mainly those

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in midlife – trust their inner guidance,

understand their unique strengths, and

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stop saying yes to what drain them.

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Using Human Design coaching and reiki,

we clear the noise so that their no

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feels powerful and their yes feels true.

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You know how sometimes you'll

have a conversation with

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a friend and things keep.

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Popping up in your world that

remind you of that conversation.

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I'm not talking about the weird

ads that suddenly appear in

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Facebook or your Instagram feed.

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I'm talking about someone else mentioning

the same thing to you that was not

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part of the original conversation.

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Or you see an article headline or you're

listening to your favorite podcast and a

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guest starts talking about the same thing.

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I know you've had these experiences.

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Well, I've had that same

experience with the last few

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podcast episodes I've recorded.

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I recorded them.

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I published them and then out of

nowhere, something completely related

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comes up in a conversation with someone.

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Someone who doesn't even listen

to the podcast, most likely.

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So I'm taking it as a sign that I'm

not done talking about this subject

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because it keeps coming up several

times in several different places.

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It's happened after the last few

episodes about self-help books and

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strategies and advice, and with the

expectations and the disappointments.

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And maybe it's 'cause I need to learn

it more than you need to hear it.

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Isn't that the case for most things?

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I was at a gathering recently and the

conversation turned to spending money

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on ourselves and it hit me again, this

is all connected, the wrong strategy,

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the expectations and worthiness.

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Someone said she had no problem

spending money to send her kid to

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summer camp, but has a really hard time

spending that kind of money on herself.

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Spending $600 on herself feels

unheard of, but she's willing

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to spend that for summer camp.

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Not for a retreat for herself,

or even a weekend getaway, or

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even a a hundred dollars massage.

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I get it.

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I do the same thing.

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If I do spend that money, then

there's that sense of guilt.

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That money could have gone to buy

new shoes for my kid who seems to

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outgrow them every few months or

groceries or something more practical.

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When you fly, how often are you

told to put on your own oxygen

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mask before you help everyone else?

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It's every time you fly, but how

often in everyday life do you actually

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put on your own oxygen mask first?

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Most of the time as women, we

don't, because we're taught.

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Especially as women in our society to

be self-sacrificing, even if it means

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being over committed, we need to be the

helper, or we need to be the volunteer

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for the school trip, or we need to

contribute baked goods to a group meeting

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to be the good one or the reliable one.

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And deep down resentment

really starts to build.

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And our kids, and sometimes our

partners then begin to expect us

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to drop everything for their needs.

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And yeah, I know when kids are

tiny, they don't know any better.

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But I'm talking about the teens and

the tweens and the adults, that then

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creates this expectation that they

need to be the ones catered to and

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that their needs come before your own.

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And we wonder why we feel so

exhausted and sometimes invisible.

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I talk to a lot of moms who are

just like, I just feel like I'm

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doing everything for my kids.

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And we start to believe that our

own needs come last or worse, that

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our own needs don't matter at all.

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Glennon Doyle says, "Every time you're

given a choice between disappointing

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someone else and disappointing yourself.

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Your duty is to disappoint someone else."

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But how often do we actually do that?

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I would bet it's less

than 10% of the time.

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So many of us live in this fear.

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This quiet fear of disappointing others.

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We're afraid of disappointing our

kids or our partners, or our bosses

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or our coworkers because we may

not see ourselves as good enough or

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being worthy or deserving of that

time or that money for ourselves,

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and we don't wanna spend the money.

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And even worse, we don't

want to bother people.

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We don't want to take up their time.

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And here's what I wanna say, that

story, it did not start with you.

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It was taught to us and crazily enough.

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It even shows up in our human design

chart for some of us proving our worth

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shows up in the ego or the will center.

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That's the little triangle

off center in your chart.

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And if yours is white or open, that

means worthiness has been a life-long

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journey and it is a life lesson.

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You have nothing to prove and

you are worthy just for existing.

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That belief that you're worthy

just for existing is not something

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that we were taught as kids.

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I do think that things are getting better

for the younger generations, but for those

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who are in Generation X and the older

millennials, it was not taught to us.

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It was not taught to me, and

this shows up in my chart too.

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It explains so much about my

entire life from about age six.

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That need to prove that I need to

feel like I need to earn my worth,

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that my worth was tied to how

productive I was, how good my grades

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were in school, how kind I was, and

that gift that I made for a friend.

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I believed that the more I did for

others, the more worthy that made me

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of their love and their friendship.

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And as I have dug into this, I have

learned that this isn't just me.

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This is not a story that I, the

only person that inherited many,

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many, many, many others did.

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I taught a recent class on the human

design centers, and I asked everyone

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to raise their hand if they felt that

they needed to prove their worth.

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Every person that raised their

hand, I knew exactly who they were.

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They all had an undefined

ego center or will center.

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People with defined egos were shocked.

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They had no idea that their friends, their

colleagues, or even family were walking

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around with this heavy story of that I am

not enough and I need to prove my worth.

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This didn't surprise me.

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This has been the story of my life.

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And I've learned that others who also have

this undefined, that this has also been a

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struggle for their entire life, and that's

why human design has been such a life

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changing tool for me and for my clients.

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It's about finally having a language

for your lived experience and knowing

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that there is nothing wrong with you.

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It's a language that says you are worthy

even when you're not producing, even when

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you say no, and that rest is valuable.

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And then take this worthiness,

but then also pair it with the

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cosmic energy that we're in.

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In human design.

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There are transits a lot like astrology.

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It's the placement of each planet and

the sun and the moon within the system.

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In human design, think of it as a large

circle divided into 64 sections or gates,

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and that's comes from the Chinese I-Ching.

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And right now at the end of September

into early October, the sun is in gate 18.

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And 18 is all about wholeness, about

seeing where we cut ourselves into pieces.

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The parts we like, and the parts that we

hide because we think they are unworthy.

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Every gate has a positive side or healthy

side, and a negative or unhealthy side.

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Sometimes you'll hear it called

the wisdom and the shadow.

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And human design coach Christie Inge

wrote in her latest newsletter about

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Gate 18, and it just gave me chills.

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" On the positive end of the gate

18 spectrum, she wrote, human

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design Gate 18 is the energy for

seeing the wholeness in all things.

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Gate 18 understands that the only thing

that needs to be fixed is the stories we

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tell ourselves about ourselves and others.

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"It easily sees the stories of

brokenness that are playing out in

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the collective and helps others to

transform those stories into wholeness.

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"And on the negative end of the

spectrum, gate 18 is the energy for

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beating yourself up with negative

self-talk or being hyper-focused on

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the flaws and the mistakes of others.

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"It drives complaining, gossiping,

worrying, and needing to be right.

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This, of course, only perpetuates

stories of brokenness."

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Wow.

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Like I said earlier, when I read that

it gave me chills because I've been

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there and I actually have gate 18 in

my chart, so it feels very real for me.

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But let's be honest, we may know

we're worthy in one area of our life,

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but there's another part of us that

doesn't feel worthy, like thinking

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we're not worthy of a promotion or

of spending money on ourselves or of

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someone else's time, whatever it may be.

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It's a story we have attached to

ourselves and it makes us feel like

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we either need to be right in an

argument or we're hyper-focused on how

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others are not doing it right, which,

when we dig in a little deeper, is

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really a statement about ourselves.

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And these worthiness stories can grow and

grow and grow under the surface until one

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day it pops up at the most random time.

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For me, it often happened during

performance reviews at work, I

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would underrate myself, even if part

of me thought, "I did this really

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well, but I didn't do a plus work.

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I only did B plus work."

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And it's not always about money either.

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It shows up in the stories we

carry about not feeling seen.

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Not feeling like our work deserves

to be shared or feeling like we

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don't want to ask for help because

we don't wanna bother anyone.

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It's not trusting ourselves to

be worthy of taking up space.

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I was on a call recently with

someone and I knew I had struck a

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nerve when I asked if she felt stuck

because she didn't feel like her work

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was worth being out in the world.

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She paused and shared some things

with me, and as we kept talking.

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I noticed it really came back to worth,

but she wasn't willing to say that.

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Who was she to take up space with

her work when there are so many

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others doing something similar?

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But she can only do it

with her unique voice.

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And, and that's what this episode

is really about, that quiet voice

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that says, who am I to want this?

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Who am I to do this?

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And my answer is for

me and to you, You are.

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You are worthy of this.

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And that's all that matters.

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That's enough.

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So as we wrap up today, I

wanna leave you with this.

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Where are you feeling unworthy?

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Is there a part of your

life that you feel unworthy?

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Is there something that

doesn't feel quite right?

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Is there something that you're

telling yourself that you can't do

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or somewhere you can't go because

you don't feel like you are worthy?

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Maybe because you feel like you

aren't worth the money, not because

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it's impossible, but because

you don't think you deserve it.

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I truly get having financial constraints.

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I'm right there with you.

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But are you spending money on

your kid or on your partner?

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And could you set aside some for yourself

to do what you truly desire, something

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you really want to do, something that

may help you make that next step.

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This is something I'm

working on with myself also.

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So until next time,

thank you for joining me.

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If you wanna learn more about your human

design, I invite you to hop on a call with

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me so we can talk about where worthiness

shows up in your human design chart

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and what it says about your worthiness

story, and we'll take a look together.

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If you love this conversation, tap

the plus sign to follow the show.

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And if you're feeling generous,

leave me a quick review so

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more people can find Unfolding.

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And of course, if there is someone

you care about who needs to hear

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this, please send it their way.

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Be well and I'll talk to you soon.