You Don’t Have to Hide Your Magic
You get the chills, or a nudge you can’t explain, and you talk yourself out of it before it has a chance to land.
You were taught to be rational, so you learned to rationalize it.
In this episode, I share my first experience with the spiritual world outside of church, and it started with my cats.
Then came the dreams, the perfume, and the footsteps in the attic, and I started to embrace a side of myself that I had been afraid of for years.
I also share what happened when I first heard “gather the women” and tried to make sense of what it meant.
And how in the last year or so, I’ve leaned so far into the practical that I started to feel I wasn’t woo enough, until a nudge told me to pay attention.
I close with an invitation to notice why your intuition may be feeling more online in the forty days from the end of September to the early part of November.
* AI Transparency note: AI assisted in writing the show notes
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Transcript
Have you ever had an experience that felt a little otherworldly at the time?
Speaker:You could've sworn maybe you heard something that wasn't physically there?
Speaker:Or maybe you had a presence in the room with you that you couldn't see?
Speaker:Or maybe the hair on your arm stood up when someone was talking about something?
Speaker:We've all had these experiences, but too often we like to explain them
Speaker:away, or we try to rationalize them, or maybe you even embrace it and
Speaker:wonder what was the message for you.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Erica Voell, and I want to welcome you to the Unfolding Podcast, where
Speaker:we explore midlife and human design.
Speaker:I'm a human design guide for women in midlife, and my work is all about helping
Speaker:you connect the dots of how you're designed so you can see the whole picture
Speaker:of yourself and your relationships, and understand why you need a few days to
Speaker:make a decision that you won't regret, but your partner seems to know instantly, or
Speaker:why you keep overthinking and replaying the same conversation in your mind.
Speaker:It's all connected.
Speaker:My clients often tell me, "It makes so much sense, and I see that
Speaker:there is nothing wrong with me."
Speaker:And I would love to invite you, my listener, to start connecting your own
Speaker:dots in a dot connection session with me.
Speaker:It's available to all paid Substack subscribers.
Speaker:It's a one-on-one, 30-minute session built around what you share with
Speaker:me beforehand, whether that's a challenge you're experiencing or
Speaker:something you're simply curious about.
Speaker:We'll walk through the highlights of your human design chart that
Speaker:connect most directly to that.
Speaker:You can learn more at ericavoell.com/connect.
Speaker:That's E-R-I-C-A, V as in Victor, O-E-L-L.com/connect.
Speaker:I've had several experiences in my life, like the ones I described earlier.
Speaker:I mean, most of us know what it feels like when we have goosebumps on our arms.
Speaker:The first experience I really remember sort of freaked me out at first.
Speaker:It was more than just chills.
Speaker:My cat Chloe had passed away earlier that day.
Speaker:It was just two months after my other beloved cat, George, passed away.
Speaker:They were two peas in a pod, and they were always together until
Speaker:they were separated by death.
Speaker:I wasn't sure how I would recover from losing both of my fur babies
Speaker:so close together, and that night my husband and I were lying in bed,
Speaker:and I felt a cat jump on the bed.
Speaker:Now, there were no cats living in our house to jump on our bed.
Speaker:I remember laying there thinking I was going crazy.
Speaker:I had never had an experience like this before, and then I felt this ghost cat
Speaker:walk between my husband and I a few times on the bed before settling at my feet in
Speaker:the exact same way that Chloe had done in those weeks after George died, circling
Speaker:around twice and then laying down.
Speaker:I turned to my husband and I said, "Did you feel that?"
Speaker:He had felt it, too, but he had been sensing a cat on the bed for
Speaker:several weeks after George died, but he didn't want to tell me because
Speaker:he was afraid it would freak me out.
Speaker:But as we talked, I felt this calm come over me, knowing that they
Speaker:were both still there in some way.
Speaker:And for a few weeks, it was the same routine.
Speaker:We would settle into bed, we'd feel the ghost cat jump on the bed the
Speaker:same way Chloe had, walk between us, and then settle at my feet.
Speaker:And there were other times when it felt like both of the cats were on
Speaker:the bed at the same time tumbling around, which is why they were never
Speaker:allowed to sleep with us at night, because they were so rambunctious
Speaker:at night when they were alive.
Speaker:It was my first real experience with the spirit realm, and after that I
Speaker:had dreams of not just these two cats, but former pets visiting me, either
Speaker:to introduce me to their new friends on the other side, or to introduce me
Speaker:to the lady in white who was their new friend, who was actually helping them
Speaker:come back to this realm to visit me.
Speaker:Since then, I've been more open to allowing the messages to come through.
Speaker:Our previous house was the house where my grandmother grew up, and I would
Speaker:smell her perfume outside of the bedroom where she slept when she was a kid.
Speaker:I would hear footsteps in the attic of the house, but it let me know that I
Speaker:wasn't alone, that we weren't alone, and it actually brought out a part of me
Speaker:that I had always feared a little bit.
Speaker:I was sort of fascinated by ghosts and witches as a kid, but I…
Speaker:as I got older, I got a little bit afraid that I might dabble
Speaker:into something that was bad, so I just shut that part of me out.
Speaker:Now, I will tell you, my ancestors settled in Salem, Massachusetts in 1630.
Speaker:So I have felt that fascination of the Salem witch trials for a really
Speaker:long time, I think because when I was a teenager, when I was so
Speaker:fascinated by it, I had no awareness that my family had settled there.
Speaker:So fast-forward a few years to 2022, and I was in the middle of burnout.
Speaker:I had just completed a sacred feminine spring equinox ceremony with Sarah
Speaker:Jenks, and I was getting water from my fridge when I heard, "Gather the women."
Speaker:The voice was that of an older woman, and she was so calming.
Speaker:She repeated herself multiple times, and I had to check to make sure
Speaker:that the TV was off just in case.
Speaker:It was, but the voice remained for three days, whispering, "Gather the women."
Speaker:But what was so fascinating is that this was not a whisper that
Speaker:I was hearing in my head, it was a whisper I was feeling in my body.
Speaker:I had no idea how to respond, and I didn't even think to ask how it
Speaker:was happening or what did it mean.
Speaker:The first time I heard it was two days from the 20th anniversary of my
Speaker:grandmother's death, the same grandmother whose perfume I smelled when we lived
Speaker:in her childhood home At my next therapy appointment less than a week
Speaker:later, I mentioned it to my therapist,
Speaker:and she asked me what I thought it meant.
Speaker:I said I had no idea.
Speaker:All I knew was that the frequency I was feeling during the ceremony was
Speaker:one word that I wrote down: "Blossom."
Speaker:By the end of our session together, I knew I needed to explore
Speaker:coaching certifications because I felt like I was being called to
Speaker:something more than library work.
Speaker:I had been feeling it for a while but kept trying to push
Speaker:through, which was burning me out.
Speaker:I went back to my notes from that session recently, and it said,
Speaker:"Sometimes the greatest struggles bring the biggest shifts."
Speaker:If only I had known then what I know now.
Speaker:And if you've followed me for a while, you may have heard this story before.
Speaker:I thought "gather the women" also meant something literally, so I
Speaker:started to invite people over to my house for solstice circles, but
Speaker:I felt like I was playing a part.
Speaker:It didn't really feel like me.
Speaker:I tried for over a year to host gatherings, and each time
Speaker:I thought, "This is great."
Speaker:And at the same time afterwards, I was like, "This is not me."
Speaker:And I wish I could say that all of my experiences with these
Speaker:sixth senses of clairaudience and clairsentience were good.
Speaker:With every intuitive gift, there are actually two sides,
Speaker:and it's not always rainbows.
Speaker:Sometimes when you have these gifts, you're so sensitive, and you can't
Speaker:ignore it when you feel something else.
Speaker:In our new house, it never quite felt light.
Speaker:There was a heaviness about it.
Speaker:There was a, almost a sadness.
Speaker:And the more I tuned in, the more I realized it wasn't just
Speaker:COVID or the matte gray walls.
Speaker:There was a sadness within the house that was deeper than that.
Speaker:So I asked my Reiki teacher to come energetically clear it, and
Speaker:she found energies that were not ours and helped them move on.
Speaker:So my sense that I felt was right.
Speaker:But then I started to learn more about human design, and I started working
Speaker:with clients, I found myself m- leaning more towards the practical parts of my
Speaker:work, the kind that I can do a workshop on, and my human design profile is
Speaker:known as the practical leader, the 5/1.
Speaker:And the more I've learned how practicality comes into play in my
Speaker:design, the more I've really leaned into a lot of embracing that practical
Speaker:side of me, that logical side, and not trying to be something that I'm not.
Speaker:But something has happened over the last month or two, and I can't ignore it.
Speaker:I have felt this spiritual side of me gently tapping, and then
Speaker:something happened t-today.
Speaker:On the way home from seeing Practical Magic 2, I heard a nudge.
Speaker:Not a voice, just a nudge.
Speaker:It said, "We're still here.
Speaker:You don't have to hide us."
Speaker:It was like, again, like "Gather the Women" from four years ago.
Speaker:It was calming, and this time it felt actually a little sparkly.
Speaker:In the personal development realm, we talk a lot about not hiding your light and not
Speaker:playing small and not hiding your magic, but they all really mean the same thing.
Speaker:They all point to the same thing, of being afraid to bring your
Speaker:full self out into the world.
Speaker:And I will say, for centuries, it was not safe for women to be fully
Speaker:out and to be fully themselves.
Speaker:But this was a reminder for me that I have been hiding parts of me.
Speaker:I have felt that I either needed to be practical or woo.
Speaker:And in some ways, I was worried I wasn't woo enough.
Speaker:But I know now we can be both, and embracing both is a life lesson.
Speaker:Because for centuries it's not been safe for women to be spiritual in
Speaker:any ways other than Christianity or other organized religions.
Speaker:But in the last 10 or 15 years, women have started to embrace a
Speaker:more spiritual side of themselves.
Speaker:We've been taught to ignore our intuition or our sixth senses.
Speaker:We've been taught to be rational and practical, and there's a bit of, "I
Speaker:have my crystals, but I'm not too woo."
Speaker:As my friend Charlotte Webb describes it, she said they check
Speaker:their spirituality at the door when they go into a corporate office.
Speaker:But what if instead of being either spiritual woo or practical, we could
Speaker:embrace both sides of ourselves?
Speaker:To share our stories of when we get the chills, or when our spirit animal
Speaker:repeatedly appears in various forms, or to trust that inner knowing and not
Speaker:have to rationalize it to other people.
Speaker:Or someone says something or you read something and you get the chills because
Speaker:intuitively you know it's exactly what you need to hear at that moment.
Speaker:We love to embrace the witchy movies, especially at this time of year,
Speaker:or that witchy side of ourselves.
Speaker:We'd like to dress up.
Speaker:But what if we didn't have to dim our light or hide our magic
Speaker:at other times of the year?
Speaker:I know it's October when I'm recording this, and the veils are thinner, and
Speaker:we're in a highly spiritual season.
Speaker:And it's not surprising that over forty days between the last days of
Speaker:September and the first four or five days of November, that the sun moves
Speaker:through every gate of the intuition and instincts center in human design.
Speaker:There are seven gates within this center, and as we move through all
Speaker:of them over these forty days, we are more sensitive at this time of year.
Speaker:But we've been taught to ignore that intuition and that sixth sense we have.
Speaker:So where have you been dimming your light?
Speaker:Where have you been hiding your magic?
Speaker:Or where have you been playing small and not trusting that inner knowing
Speaker:because it doesn't make sense?
Speaker:You don't have to explain it to anyone.
Speaker:In fact, you might not even be able to explain it to your own mind.
Speaker:But it's all messages for you to either pay attention or a sign
Speaker:that you are on the right track.
Speaker:As we move through the energies of the intuition and instinct center
Speaker:in human design, notice where your intuition feels like it's more online.
Speaker:It carries different flavors when the sun moves into a different energy, but they
Speaker:are all related to that inner knowing.
Speaker:One might have felt like the fear of the future and your
Speaker:mind trying to figure it out.
Speaker:Another is all about the patterns and the potential with a fear
Speaker:that the past will repeat itself.
Speaker:We all have an intuitive sense, and it shows up differently for each one of us,
Speaker:and we'll be exploring more about how our intuition shows up this fall as we explore
Speaker:more about relationships and looking at the centers within human design.
Speaker:And if this episode resonated with you or something, like, brought the
Speaker:chills to you, I want to invite you to a Dot Connection session with me.
Speaker:It's available to all of my paid Substack subscribers.
Speaker:It's a one-on-one, 30-minute session built around what you share with me
Speaker:beforehand, whether it's a challenge you're experiencing or something
Speaker:that you're simply curious about that's coming up in your chart.
Speaker:We can walk through the highlights of your human design chart that
Speaker:most directly connect to it.
Speaker:You can learn more at ericavoell.com/connect.
Speaker:That's E-R-I-C-A, V as in Victor, O-E-L-L.com/connect.
Speaker:Thank you for joining me.
Speaker:Be well
