HOW HUMAN DESIGN CHANGED MY LIFE

"It's easy to be awake. Live out your type, strategy, and authority for seven years and you'll be as awake as Buddha." - Ra Uru Hu

Before I get into this story there is something you need to know about me.  I like to know things.  I’m kind of obsessive about it.  My goal in life is to know all of the things.  Yes, I know it’s probably unachievable, but I’m gonna give it my best shot.  I also love to learn new things.  My curiosity factor is like 100 on the Kinsey scale.  Kidding.  That measures something completely different.  But that’s also a one hundred.

So, to sum up – if it’s new to me and I don’t know about it, I want to learn about it.  Immediately.  If not sooner.

So I’m scrolling on Instagram one day and I come across a post on Human Design.  It intrigued me immediately.  They were using words like bodygraph, centers, profile, authority, strategy, gates and not-self.  Although these were all English words that I mostly knew, I felt like they were speaking a foreign language.  The context was off.  They were using these words to describe personalities, energy management and life purpose.  I was hooked.  And so began my journey to educate myself on this strange and wonderous system.  Two plus years later, I’m still learning.

It has become so much more than just something new and shiny to learn.  It’s now a way of life for me and the rewards I have reaped so far are beyond measure.

Before we dive into all the ways my life is better because of Human Design I feel like I should explain a little about just what Human Design is.  Human Design is basically an energy management system for humans.  It’s like your car manual.  It tells you everything you need to know about keeping your human vehicle running efficiently with the least amount of fuss.  It’s also a little bit like those personality tests your employer makes you take every few years but on steroids.

It's designed to show you how to best actualize your gifts and how to accept and embrace all parts of yourself, including the shadow parts.  It teaches you how to make decisions in the most efficient way possible and that your mind should never be the decision maker for your life.  All your decision-making power resides in your body through intuition.  It does this by giving you a system that you can experiment with yourself so that you can make it your own and so that it feels comfortable and easy for you.  Like getting a tailor-made suit.  The fit is perfect.

The first thing I remember feeling after understanding started to seep in was that this system is teaching me that the things I thought were flaws in myself are actually strengths and that I was designed to be the way that I am ON PURPOSE.  That everything that makes up my personality is perfectly designed to help me live my best life.  Once I embraced this concept, a feeling of deep acceptance came over me.  I didn’t need to try and fit in and be like everyone else.  In fact, trying to fit in was making life more difficult for me.  My whole life I’s been trying to understand myself by reading the manual of a Ford Focus when I needed to be reading the one for a Hyundai Tucson. 

This led to me realizing that I now had permission to be myself.  Not that we ever need permission to be ourselves.  We’re free to be you and me anytime we want.  But society does apply a lot of pressure to conform to the norm, so to speak.  Human Design taught me that was the surest way to unhappiness and burnout.  Authenticity is the key to freedom and Human Design is the map that leads you there. 

Another insight gleaned was the answer to a problem I struggled with for years.  I was always tired.  Exhausted really.  And no matter what I did or how much more sleep I tried to get, still I was exhausted a lot of the time.  It turns out that living a Design that is incorrect for your type is draining.  We are not all meant to work the same way.  Some of us are gasoline cars.  Just fill us up in the morning and we can buzz around town all day until the tank is empty.  Some of us are electric cars and need to be plugged in throughout our travels to recharge.  And I learned that I was an electric car trying to live a gasoline life.  It just wasn’t going to work for me.

Another valuable lesson learned was how to make decisions correctly.  Did you know there is more than one way to make a decision?  And that we are all designed to make decisions in a very specific and different manner?  Me neither!  Trying to make a decision from the incorrect Design rarely has a positive outcome.  However, making decisions based on your Human Design type leads to more confident decision making with much higher success rates of ending up with a positive outcome.  It’s like trying to drive somewhere after hearing the directions one time and relying on your memory versus just turning on the GPS and having a step-by-step guide to get you where you want to be.

To elaborate on that a little further, Human Design taught me that making decisions with your mind is outdated.  It’s like having a CD player in your car while all your friends are streaming Spotify.  And I think we can all agree that’s just embarrassing.  So, if you aren’t supposed to make decisions with your mind, how do you decide what the best course of action is?  You listen to your Authority, which, for most people, is in the body.  Yes, it’s an intuition thing.  Don’t roll your eyes.  It’s the most reliable system you have for making the right decision.  You just have to learn to listen to it.

Most of us know that comparing never leads to happiness.  Human Design taught me why that happens.  We all have an energy system, but all energy systems are not created equally.  Some are designed to go zero to sixty in 4.5 seconds.  And some need to turn on their hazard lights when driving uphill.  Although most of us would probably pick the fast car at first glance, neither one is better or worse than the other.  They are just designed to work differently.  The fast car probably needs to fill up with gas every couple of days whereas the speed-challenged vehicle can go for weeks on the same tank.  The point is that we all have gifts.  And thank God they are all not the same gifts.  Human Design shows you what yours are so that you can live your best life, knowing and appreciating the ones you were born with instead of coveting the things others have that you don’t even need.

Another amazing revelation was how Human Design can improve all the relationships in your life.  Just as knowing that I was designed to be the way that I am, so I, in turn, is everybody else.  This brings an automatic increase in tolerance for those who you surround yourself with.  You realize that they are just behaving the way their design dictates.  Nothing they do is personal.  It’s all by design.  And by knowing their design, and them knowing yours, harmony follows.  I’ve been very blessed in that my best friend is on the same journey as I am with Human Design.  We are learning together, both our own designs and the others.  I cannot tell you the advantage this brings to the table.  It’s so much quicker and easier when you have someone else who is there to support and help you with your design.  And the real world experience is even more invaluable.  You can read much in a book, but to experience it, to see your design from your own viewpoint, and from another’s viewpoint adds a whole other level.   

Human Design also showed me how life can be so much easier.  When you live your Design, everything just works out.  It comes so easy.  Your life just flows.  You meet the right people at the right time, opportunities show up just when you need them, you feel less anxiety and stress.  Now I’m not saying that Human Design is some kind of miracle fix for all the problems in your life.  It takes commitment and time to learn this system.  It’s a complex system but that’s what makes it so precise.  Can you live a good life without knowing Human Design?  Of course you can.  But it would be like driving around in your car with flat tires.  Can you get to your destination?  Yes.  But it will be unpleasant and slow.  But living your Design intentionally will light up your life in ways you can’t imagine.