It’s easy to villainize what we don’t understand.
Take Human Design, for instance …
Recently I received a comment on one of my posts about the foundational Human Design readings I was offering at the end of the year telling me that I was now “practicing extreme witchcraft.” I’ve had another person quip that I am part of a cult. Initially, I have to admit I was a little caught off guard, as I’ve never considered Human Design to be either.
I laughed out loud at how ludicrous both accusations were. As neither could be further from the truth. I then also felt a deep compassion wash over me for for the two people who offered those comments as I realize we often resist that which we don’t, can’t, or aren’t willing to understand.
Human Design is a relatively new player on the scene, and for many, still a huge unknown. While I have been deeply studying it for nearly six years now, the conversation has only really started to hit the masses in the last year or so. It seems more and more people are talking about. So, it makes sense that there would be a lot of confusion and resistance.
It’s easy (and natural) to get locked in on our ideas (and ideals) and ways of thinking. Once we accept something, we find it hard to let go and consider opening the pathways for new possibilities. When it comes to what we don’t know or have experience with, we tend to automatically turn away from it, or run away, claiming that it’s invalid and not a real thing.
However, we take great stock in the things we “claim” to be true, that we’ve come to understand and accept. We did our heels in, and often refuse to believe they could be another perspective. Let’s take a look at assessments such as DiSC, Myers Briggs, and even the Enneagram, for example.
We often use these tools to create labels in order to put people into boxes.
We evaluate their personality, behavior tendencies, and communication styles. Yet, when we explore how those assessments are conducted and performed, we see that they are actually quite subjective in nature.
For each, we answer a series of questions, selecting the one that feels most “right” to us. We claim the answer we picked is what feels like alignment, when in reality it often stems from our conditioning, not our truest nature.
And, we allow it to define us.
Assessments are only as good as the input we put into them. Our answers stem from a combination of our emotional state in that moment, current beliefs and biases, programming, conditioning, our past experiences, and our current environment and lifestyle.
Sometimes, I might add, they’re a result of whichever way the wind blows.
I always found it interesting when facilitators of such assessments would claim that your profile doesn’t change. That your DiSC or Myers Briggs will remain constant through the course of your life.
That’s complete and utter bullshit.
As a facilitator of many of these assessments, myself, I know that not to be true, as well as experiencing it firsthand in my own profiles. For instance, I shifted from being a pretty hardcore ENTJ during my corporate days to moving more towards being a softer ENFP. I would say if I took it now, my E might even truly be an I. The same happened with my DiSC. In corporate when me stress was through the roof, I was a high DI, with both nearly coming off the chart. Since starting my own business, I now resonate more with being a high ID with a little more balance in my S and C.
The point is we change. And, so does your profile. It’s not a static evaluation of who you are or how you function. It’s an assessment based on a specific point in time, and whatever energy you bring to the table when you take it. As we mature, our beliefs and biases shift. We evolve and grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. Thus, giving us new filters and perspective by which to answer the questions.
Meaning your profile may change at different times throughout your lifetime, depending on when you take the assessment and what might be going on in your life at the time. Your motivators also change. What matters most to you and emotional state shifts over time. When I was younger in my career, I was more of a “show me the money” kind of girl, whereas financial security and surplus were my motivating drivers. Now, my motivators come more from a place of deep service and impact. Leading my Living Legacy is my top priority, and I am taken care of, as a result.
Whereas, Human Design is completely objective. Our natural state and energetic blueprint doesn’t change. Our coding is what it is, as is our Soul Curriculum. That’s not to say we won’t find nuances as we grow and evolve.
How we experience what lives in our own Human Design may alter over time. As we move out of the shadow energy of our defined gates and into their gifts, along with de-conditioning the programming and amplification we absorb in our open areas, we find ourselves aligning more and more to the authentic truth of who we are. Som the resonance (and experience) of what lives in our charts may change. The chart itself does not.
Part of our Soul Curriculum in this incarnation on Earth is to bump up against and navigate those challenges within our journey to live out both our Life and Soul Purpose. As such, we have generational karma to heal, conditioning to unpack, and consciousness to shift. It’s in living out our design that we remember who we truly are.
So while we give a lot of street cred to our favorite assessments as being the end-all, be-all of who we think we are, they only represent a fragmented, filtered snapshot of an aspect of how we tend to operate in different circumstances and with different people.
Human Design, on the other hand, is an energetic blueprint, based on your date, time, and location of birth. It’s a comprehensive mapping of your unique, innate wiring and is the operating plan of you.
To be clear, Human Design is not who you are. You have agency and freewill to decide that for yourself. Human Design is “how” you are. It maps out how your broadcast and take in energy. It shows you how you make decisions that are right and correct for you, how you work, rest, and play best, how you interact with others and the world. It’s like having an operating manual on all things YOU.
It’s based on Eastern philosophy and Western science, bringing in the influences of I Ching (the hexagrams), the Kabbalah (the Tree of Life), the Chakra system, astrology, numerology, and quantum mechanics.
It’s a coding unique to the energy present and available upon your birth. If you’ve ever seen the Pixar movie Soul with Jamie Foxx, it’s symbolic of the contract he signs and then the line he has to wait in in order for the portal to open up so he can enter the world as a jazz musician.
Human Design is much of the same.
We have a design date, which is the date when we “sign” our soul contract for who (and how) we will show up in the world when we incarnate into it. We then have an 88 day waiting period (akin to Jamie Foxx’s character standing in line) where we wait for the right portal to open up that aligns with our contract, so that we can enter the world and live our our Soul Curriculum to fulfill our Life and Soul Purpose.
It’s simply energy or physics. Essentially, quantum mechanics at play.
What I love most about Human Design is we can even map out individal leadership markers. It provides a map to better understand how we activate specific energy and how we lead best. Because even two high DI’s on the DiSC scale don’t lead the same. There energy comes from different sources. In understanding this, we can explore deeper nuances. We also are able to coach and develop people on an individual basis that feels more aligned.
As leaders, we have a responsibility to understand on innate wiring and how to best tap into and access our gifts. In my work and experience, I know Human Design is the best path to help us get there. Call it witchcraft or a cult, makes no difference to me. I know firsthand for myself and the clients I have worked with how powerful a tool this can be. I invite you to explore it for yourself … see what resonates for you, and leave the rest.