Unfolding: Audio Letters from the Middle of Becoming

My "Good Mom" Identity and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

18 min · 11. maj 2026
episode My "Good Mom" Identity and the Stories We Tell Ourselves cover

Description

We all carry identities. The good student. The reliable one. The good mom. And most of us don't realize how tightly we're holding them until something happens that really shakes us and all the old stories come rushing back. In this episode, Erica shares something personal and how a recent family situation brought up one of her most charged identities – the "Good Mom." With it came old stories of rejection, not being good enough, and the feelings that once again something was wrong with her. This episode is about the identities we carry, the stories that get attached to them, and what happens when they get questioned. Erica also shares her story of how she became a mother and why that journey makes the "Good Mom" identity one of the most complicated and tender identities she carries. Book your Life Patterns Review [https://ericavoell.com/life-audit] here. Follow me on Substack: https://substack.com/@ericavoell [https://substack.com/@ericavoell] Get the latest email newsletter: https://ericavoell.com/newsletter [https://ericavoell.com/newsletter] Connect with me: erica[at]ericavoell[dot]com Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericavoell.coaching/ [https://www.instagram.com/ericavoell.coaching/]

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49 episodes

episode Shame and Self-Love artwork

Shame and Self-Love

It's rarely one moment. It's a hundred small ones, each time you didn't measure up to an expectation you thought someone had of you, until that becomes the story you tell about yourself. In this episode, Erica explores how shame quietly shapes our inner critic, how it fuels perfectionism, and how it keeps us small. She weaves together Brené Brown's research with the real stories of women in the Summer of Self-Love series, including a romance novelist whose creativity was crushed by one negative review, a woman whose inner critic nitpicked every meeting and every mirror, and a woman who played small for years rather than risk being seen failing. This is part of the ongoing Summer of Self-Love series exploring women's complicated relationships with self-love and self-criticism through the lens of Human Design. Read the Substack article here: Shame and Self-Love [https://open.substack.com/pub/ericav/p/shame-and-self-love?r=5bla2] Book your Life Patterns Review [https://ericavoell.com/audit] here. Follow me on Substack: https://substack.com/@ericavoell [https://substack.com/@ericavoell] Connect with me: erica[at]ericavoell[dot]com Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericavoell.coaching/ [https://www.instagram.com/ericavoell.coaching/]

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