What Is Human Design? A Powerful Tool for Building a More Authentic Life

What is Human Design?

When I first learned about it over a year ago, I was in awe. No personality assessment has been as affirming for me as Human Design.

I felt so seen and understood learning about myself through this lens. It captured me with more depth than either the Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram.

So what is it, you say? Let’s dive in.

What is Human Design?

Human Design synthesizes ancient systems of astrology, the Chakras, the Chinese I Ching, and the Kabbalah with genetics, biochemistry, quantum mechanics and astronomy.

Ra Uru Hu transcribed the system in 1987.

It uses your birth date and time, city and state, to create a blueprint of your conscious and unconscious personality makeup.

Human Design is a tool to live in alignment with your true nature and life purpose.

As souls living a human experience, we learn from our family, friends and community that there are parts of us that are less acceptable.

We are conditioned to try to disconnect from these parts of ourselves.

But Human Design helps you recognize that this conditioning interferes with becoming who we truly are, causing pain. It stops us from living from our true strengths to build an authentic life that feels right for us.

We’re meant to embrace who we are. And to live in alignment with our energetic makeup. That’s how we thrive and make our unique imprint on the world.

6 ways Human Design can help you build a life you love

Human Design…

1. Shows you how to prevent burnout by managing your energy and living in the flow.

If you struggle with your energy, Human Design shows that we each have a unique way of building, creating and sustaining energy, known as your energy Type.

Your energy Type determines the correct strategy for taking action and navigating the world. One energy Type called The Projector (20% of the population), is meant to work in shorter bursts of time and may need to nap during the day.

If you’re going against your energy Type, your action will be forced rather than in flow and you’ll feel resistance. Knowing your Type, you can act in a manner that’s easeful and avoid burning out.

2. Shows you how to make correct decisions.

Decisions are meant to be made through your body’s wisdom, not mind knowledge. Because we’re constantly taking in messages about what we should and shouldn’t do, it’s hard to know what’s truly right for us using pros and cons lists.

Human Design reveals your inner Authority, which tells you how to tap into your body intelligence to make decisions that are correct for you.

I have an Emotional Authority, along with 50% of the population. As an Emotional Authority, I experience a wave of emotion as part of my process. To know if an opportunity is correct, I want to experience a continual yes response over a period of time before making a commitment. I am served well by sleeping on all my decisions.

3. Offers you an emotional signal to show you when you’re in and out of alignment.

In Human Design, we each have an energy Type that has corresponding emotional signals called your Signature and your Not-self Theme.

When you’re living in alignment with your Human Design, you experience your positive Signature state or a trademark feeling. Depending on your Type, that may be the feeling of satisfaction, peace, or surprise and delight.

If you’re out of alignment, you’ll experience your Not-self Theme, or a Type-specific feeling of discontentment that may be bitterness, anger, disappointment or frustration.

In our culture, we’ve absorbed the idea that we can’t trust our emotions and that we can’t be happy all the time. But we are meant to live in a positive emotional state, otherwise our bodies would not become sick and break down from prolonged stress.

When you’re aligned, your life has ease and flow. Your emotional signals show you if you’ve made aligned decisions.

4. Gives you an understanding of how you’re empathetic and take in the energy of others.

If you think of yourself as a people pleaser, you’re probably very empathic and say yes to people to keep a peaceful environment.

When you dig into your Human Design, you can see areas you’re empathic and experience the amplified energy of other people.

I’m an environmental empath who is very attuned to the core values of other people. Human Design helped me to understand why I’m sensitive to spaces to the point that I’ve checkout of several hotel rooms that didn’t feel right. And why I’m so attuned to my office space and the people around me. I strongly sense the needs of others and know how to bring about alignment. This is something I’ve always known about myself and led me to begin my career working as a therapist.

5. Highlights your strengths, enhancing your self-trust.

Living from your strengths allows you to feel abundant and confident.

And learning about your Human Design is very affirming. Seeing your essential nature on paper gives you the confidence to trust yourself more.

Here’s an example. My husband, Adam is next-level intuitive. When I pointed this out to him on his Human Design chart, he immediately recognized he has this trait. He relies on his intuition in his work to build and keep positive relationships with clients. Now, when he gets an intuitive hit that says he needs to be proactive and reach out to a client, he doesn’t second guess his hunch. Embracing this strength gives him an advantage in his work.

He also has a keen ability to spot problems with processes. Here’s an example. Sitting in traffic, he can see how the syncing of traffic lights needs to be adjusted for an easier flow of traffic. He has been known to call the City Manager to share his feedback and feels it’s his duty to do this to improve the lives of everyone who rides on that road. When I showed him this in his chart, it gave him the confidence to start using this strength in his work with great success.

His satisfaction with his work has grown even more since identifying and intentionally engaging these strengths.

6. Helps you understand your partner and the relationship you create.

When you know your partner’s Human Design, you can support them in ways that are meaningful to them.

Here’s an example. Adam is an athlete who played pro soccer and then became a golf professional. He’s also been a coach for these sports.

Looking at his design, I can see how his drive and willpower led him to become an expert in these sports and give him a special affinity for coaching.

His dream for retirement is to make coaching a big part of his life. I get how these aspects of him are central to who he is. And I can support him with this in any way I can.

Knowing about his design also helps us live together in greater harmony. Here’s a funny thing that was confirmed by our design. According to my design, I naturally find shortcuts and skip steps to get a job done well, but quickly. I move fast.

Adam’s Type likes to take his time to do things thoroughly and correctly.

We noticed this difference the first time we tried to change the sheets on our bed together.

He labors over creating hospital corners in his sheets and has to make sure the covers stop at exactly the right spot on the bed, measuring twice to get it right. Meanwhile, I’m happy to just slap everything on the bed.

Before we were aware of this dynamic, I rushed him along and became impatient. He snapped at me, saying I was doing it wrong and that we should take our time to do it right.

With Human Design, we now understand what drives this and chuckle over it when it comes up. We accept this difference rather than bickering over it.

I give Adam his space to do a task the way he likes to. But I also know that his way of doing things can take a lot of time in a way that feels burdensome to him. For example, he likes the dishwasher to be loaded a certain way, but he dreads doing it because it takes a long time.

I know I can help speed up the process for him by doing a quick pre-cleaning of the kitchen, so all he has to focus on is loading. We know we each have our own way of doing things and we have more harmony in our relationship.

How to explore your Human Design

If your intuition is calling you, and when the time is right, you can get started with Human Design by running your free chart using your birth date, birth time, and birth city and state at Genetic Matrix.

When you first look at your chart, you will have no idea what you’re looking at.

It’s a complex system, but you can immediately begin to benefit from it by knowing your Type, Strategy and Authority.

In my next post, we’ll explore those elements of Human Design.

YOUR TURN- LEAVE A COMMENT

Have you had a big ah-ha moment from learning about your Human Design? Leave a comment below. You may inspire someone else.