Retirement is a significant transition in most people’s life. Perhaps, it is a transition that is staring you smack in the face right now. Whether it’s letting go of a long-term career, shifting into new work, becoming an empty nester, or simply moving through a new phase of life, it can be challenging, stressful, scary, and can feel like a kick in ass.
It’s a time when we step away from the identities we have built through our work and careers and start to seek new meaning and purpose. However, this journey towards alignment and authenticity can be challenging, as we often carry the conditioning and expectations of our culture.
Let’s explore how Human Design can create greater alignment back to your purpose as you consider or enter into retirement.
Understanding Alignment and Unlearning Conditioning
In retirement, many individuals find themselves questioning their sense of purpose, identity, and direction. We have been deeply conditioned by our work, environments, and careers, and stepping away from that can leave us feeling lost. Finding our true essence and reconnecting with our authentic selves becomes a journey of unlearning and deconditioning.
Our culture often devalues individuals in retirement, assuming that they will simply sit on a golf course, shop, and basically do nothing. However, for many, retirement is an opportunity to finally pursue their heart’s deepest desires and live in a more authentic and aligned capacity.
Alignment is a deeply personal journey, and it looks different for everyone.
One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to compare our own journey of alignment with others’. I call this a state of comparisonitis. When we play the comparison game, we keep ourselves small and tend to people-please.
We also often put our dreams on a shelf, as a result
What need to remember that what feels aligned for one person may not feel aligned for someone else. As the meme goes, no one else needs to approve your dream … it wasn’t a board meeting.
We must let go of “shoulding” and shaming ourselves based on others’ expectations and our limited ones. Each individual’s path is unique, and their alignment is shaped by their individual Human Design.
Understanding Your Human Design
So, how do you gain access and insight into what alignment looks like and feel like for you? For too many people the notion of alignment seems far off, somewhere in the distance, and additional anxiety can present itself when exploring how to tap into it.
This is where Human Design can help.
Human Design is an energetic blueprint, your specific operating plan, based on your individual wiring and coding, that provides insights into how you give and use energy, how you interact with the world and others, and how best to work, rest, and play.
It is a synthesis of Eastern philosophy, Western science, astrology, numerology, and the evolved nine-center chakra system to give you a comprehensive understanding of your unique operating plan.
Defined and Open Centers: The Key to Alignment
One of the key aspects in exploring and contemplating your Human Design is understanding where you have definition versus openness in your chart.
Your definition represent the energies you consistently have access to, while the openness represents the areas where you are most susceptible to getting knocked out of alignment.
The openness in your chart is where you tend to be more prone to taking in the energy of others and the external environment, where you allow programming and conditioning to take you out, which leads to imposter syndrome and burnout.
Learning to Discharge Amplified Energy
To stay in alignment, it is essential to learn how to discharge the energy you attract, absorb, and amplify from others. You are doing this in any and all of the openness in your design, whether you know it or not.
When we accumulate this energy without discharging it, it can build up and impact our well-being and how we show up in the world. For this energy literally gets stuck in your body, and in many cases, starts to ricochet around and confuse you as to which energy is truly yours.
Therefore, taking care of ourselves and practicing self-care becomes crucial in maintaining alignment. Understanding our unique Human Design chart and the nuances of our own energy can help identify areas where we may be pulled out of alignment and provide insights on how to prevent it by creating self-care management and practices that really serves us, not just creating another habit for the sake of a habit.
Permission to Be Yourself
The most impactful thing I believe we gain in our understanding of our Human Design is that we give ourselves permission to be who we truly are.
We tap into our innate coding and remember our essence, which we may have forgotten due to societal conditioning, our culture, and any other form of programming that we have received from others.
Human Design allows us to break free from the guilt, shame, and shoulding and redefine our own sense of who we are, bringing us back to our Authentic Truth and Soul Purpose.
It is a powerful tool for self-discovery and aligning with our natural wiring.
Embracing Your Role
We start with the five Types in Human Design: Manifestor, Generator, Manifesting Generator, Projector, and Reflector. Each Type has a specific role it’s here to play and way of showing up in the world.
Understanding our Type can provide clarity on how we are meant to contribute and evolve as individuals. When we are faced with retirement, or any other major transitions, understanding our role through the lens of Human Design can connect us back to our innate purpose and help us redefine success from a place of well-being, satisfaction, and peace.
Planning for Retirement with Human Design
Integrating your understanding of Human Design into retirement planning can be quite transformational. By aligning our plans and decisions with our unique coding, we create a fulfilling, meaningful, and peaceful retirement.
Otherwise, we risk bringing the same limiting beliefs, conditioning, and programming into our planning. Thus, what we can create will also be limited. Instead, in leveraging your own Human Design, you can find the expansive energy to tap back into infinite potential and possibilities. It’s as if you can close the old book, and look to start a new one.
I often say to my clients, and share this when I am on stage:
“As long as there is breath in your lungs and a fire in your belly, it’s never too late to reinvent yourself and remember you truly are!”
Human Design helps us shift our focus from achievement and accomplishment to one of satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, and peace, allowing us to lead ourselves and create a life that aligns with our true purpose.
Conclusion
Retirement is an opportunity for self-discovery, alignment, and finding true harmony in our life, work, and relationships.
Human Design acts as a guiding light, helping us understand ourselves on a deeper level and navigate the journey of retirement and major life transitions with intention and purpose. By embracing our unique coding and following the path that feels aligned for us, we can create a retirement plan that is truly fulfilling and enjoyable.
I invite you to discover your Human Design. Explore the nuances of your own chart, and embark upon a journey of self-discovery. The more we understand ourselves, the better we can shape our retirement years, and live a life aligned AF with our true essence and purpose.