Human Design as a system is all about celebrating (and investigating to the very depths) the uniqueness of each individual. Well-trained Human Design analysts can literally sit you down, look at your Bodygraph, and talk to you for about 2 weeks without running out of material. As a genetically endowed human being living in an abundantly complex universe, there are literally limitless possibilities within you.
And yet, at the same time, when it comes to the practical application of this knowledge, there is so little you actually need to know.
Please don't let the cool, mechanical language of Human Design fool you. Beneath the Lingo lies an incredibly journey -- as real, vibrant, deep and juicy as it gets!
On this page, you can learn about the following terms and concepts:
AUTHORITY
PROFILE
DEFINITION AND OPENNESS (Nature vs. Nurture)
RED & BLACK (Conscious and Unconscious)
THE MAGNETIC MONOPOLE
HUMAN DESIGN AS A CHIROPRACTIC ADJUSTMENT FOR THE BODY AND SOUL
In our everyday lives on this planet, many of us find ourselves pulled in a million directions, often away from our own internal sense of what is right for us. Without even realizing it, we take in and come to own the values, beliefs and habits of those around us. We walk around with our parents, teachers, peers, bosses, institutions, cultural leaders, even global trends speaking to us through ‘shoulds’ in our minds, telling us what to do, and why not doing it would be a bad, even dangerous idea! More often than not, the conditioning forces in our lives contradict each other, making our task of ‘figuring out’ what to do even more difficult and confusing.
Of course, just as it is in our nature to have active crazy minds, it is in our nature as human beings to be influenced, to be penetrable. Our Openness is one of our most wonderful qualities. Without the nurturing influence of others, few of us would ever reach our full potential as unique and yet interconnected human beings. And yet, when it comes to the process of making decisions, we can get so lost. So ‘under the influence’ that we can’t feel our truth at all.
What we call Authority in Human Design is that place we can turn to for Truth -- that part of us that we can trust to make our decisions in life, and to honor our own right timing. Not everyone has the same kind of Authority, so one person’s decision-making process can look and feel much different from another’s. Just as an example: One person might be designed to rely on her intuitive 'hits' in the moment, while another might be designed to 'feel out' people, situations and opportunities over time before knowing who and what is right for him.
Human Design puts each of us in touch with our own unique truth-detecting system, so that in any given moment, we can make the most of the gifts we receive from the outside world without losing ourselves, or our ground, in the process.
PROFILE
Your Profile can shed light on your life purpose, or the unique role that you, as a beautiful unique cell on this planetary organism, are meant to play out in life. It can also shed light on some of the major themes you are likely to encounter in life, as you move toward living out your true purpose. At least when it comes to Human Design, your life purpose is nothing that you have to go out and try to make happen. It is designed to happen naturally, as a result of your living your life as yourself.
There are many different profiles in the Human Design system, each with its own gifts, challenges and set of paradoxes. Learning about yours can actually bring a great deal of relief and permission to be yourself.
BLACK & RED (Personality and Design)
In order to arrive at a complete Human Design body graph, two calculations are necessary. One is called the Personality calculation. Represented by all of the black lines in your Bodygraph, the Personality is derived by your actual time of birth, and reflects aspects of what you’re likely to find in a traditional astrology chart.
The other calculation, which is unique to Human Design, is called the Design Calculation. Represented by all of the red lines in your Bodygraph, this is a prenatal calculation, made exactly 88 days, or degrees of the sun, before the day of birth. Some say this is when the soul fully enters the body before we are born.
PERSONALITY (the Passenger)
The Black in your Bodygraph points towards what you already know about yourself, what you find most easy to relate to in your reading. This conscious part of you reflects who and what you think you are.
For the more ‘spiritually’ inclined, think of the Personality as your Soul Identity -- that part of you that is eternal, that at least in some form (or non-form), existed before you came into this body, and will exist after you leave it.
For the more ‘earthly’ inclined, think of your Personality as your mind, your witnessing capacity, the ‘you’ that goes to therapy to work on issues that you are all too aware of. This Personality is connected to -- or finds its voice through -- the neo-cortex of the brain, that part of you that can self-reflect.
It is your Personality that has so much trouble ‘getting’ that it’s not only intimately connected to, but utterly dependent on the body. It tends to want to be in charge, and to think that it actually is in charge of your life, your body, and your personal growth process -- even though it isn’t.
One of the most central premises of Human Design is that the Personality is not intended to be in charge. Instead, it is designed to hang back and enjoy the ‘ride of life’ as a highly intelligent witness, or passenger.
DESIGN (the Vehicle)
The Red in your Bodygraph points to what you don’t know about yourself, what you don’t have access to. In Human Design, the Red is termed ‘unconscious,’ although the meaning is quite different than what we normally think of in psychological circles. Unlike the Freudian or Jungian ‘unconscious,’ the unconscious in Human Design is more akin to the body’s mind, or your genetic hardwiring.
If your Personality is the passenger, then your Design is the vehicle taking your Personality for the ride of its life.
You could say your Design is that miraculous physical intelligence in your body that makes sure that your eyes blink, your heart pumps, and that you breathe while you sleep. Your Design also includes the very qualities, behaviors and habits that others are much more likely to notice in you than you are in yourself! It’s what you do, the way that you do it, whether you know it or not. The Red represents your innocence -- the genetically inherited aspects of you that can come suddenly, and as a surprise.
Though you cannot control or intentionally access your Design, you can certainly come to know and recognize it over time -- through your life’s journey and the feedback you receive from other people. Ideally, you can learn to make decisions in a way that honors this invisible yet very real part of you.
MAGNETIC MONOPOLE (Feel free to take this literally or symbolically.)
If your Design is the vehicle and your Personality is the passenger, then the obvious question becomes: Who's driving?! In a sense, you could say that the driver is the marriage between the Personality and the Design. In Human Design, we call this strange, yet divine union the Magnetic Monopole.
Simply put, the Magnetic Monopole is like a powerful magnet sitting smack dab in the center of your body (right inside the Bodygraph's only diamond shaped center, the G- or Identity Center). This is the center that is associated with your sense of love and direction.
This is not your ordinary magnet, in that it doesn’t have both a positive and a negative pole. It doesn’t both attract and repel. It only attracts. A magnetic MONO pole. One pole. Mechanically speaking, it literally pulls everything towards itself. For example, it pulls your Design (body) and Personality (soul) together. And in doing so, it gives you the experience of being whole and unique. Through this holding together of your different parts, it also gives you the experience of being an independent entity, separate from everyone and everything else -- which according to most mystical and scientific thinkers, is an illusion.
The Magnetic Monopole doesn't just pull your 'parts' together. It also pulls toward you the people and relationships you are meant to have. In that sense, you could say that it pulls you along in life, in the direction you’re meant to go in, with the people you’re meant to be with. It’s often talked about in Human Design circles as a cable car that is hooked up to an invisible grid.
The Magnetic Monopole is the driver, because only it knows where you're meant to go as a 'whole.' Your conscious identity (i.e. your Personality, the Black part of your Bodygraph, your thinking mind) has half of the story. And your unconscious body (i.e. your Design, the Red part of your Bodygraph, your genetic hardwiring) has the other half. Only the monopole has the whole story. And that’s why it must be in charge of the driving. In this way, you (or at least who you're accustomed to thinking you are) must ultimately surrender to a life much greater and perhaps quite different than you had 'in mind.'
YOU ARE SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU THINK!
Human Design, in essence, celebrates that we are not just our Mind, but a deeply interconnected combination of body and mind (or body and soul). It gives us a very practical strategy for living that takes our ‘unconscious’ potential, our body’s intelligence, into consideration. It allows us to live our lives in ways that honor the marriage between what is conscious and unconscious in us, between those things we have at least some control over and the many many more things that we don’t. And in doing so, it helps us rejoice in and surrender to the incredible uniqueness that comes out of that marriage.
In a way, Human Design is an invitation to think of your body and mind as the ultimate soulmates!
Imagine a life where you truly felt that your body was exactly the one that 'you' were meant for, exactly the one that you needed to express all of who you were!
NATURE VS. NURTURE (Definition and Openness)
One way to think of a Bodygraph is as a blue print of your genetic make-up, your hard-wiring. It’s like a snapshot look at the “DNA” of your waking personality, a map of how energy flows within your body, and between you and your environment. The Bodygraph includes what you put out, what you transmit into the world, as well as what you take in.
DEFINITION:
When we speak of Definition in Human Design, we’re referring to your Nature. We are talking about what you are uniquely designed to be and do in life, your potential, your life force.
The colored in areas of your Bodygraph have so much to say about what kind of ‘student’ you are when it comes to the school of life. They indicate what is fixed and reliable in you, what makes up those parts of your nature that are consistent and free from outer influence. They also reflect what you transmit into the world around you, simply by being you (as well as what you most likely take for granted!).
An example: Any time you have a center that is colored in, it means you have a consistent way of processing the kind of energy represented by that center. So if you have a defined or fixed Ajna center, this means that you have a specific and consistent way of processing information. You have a consistent way of thinking.
When we speak of Openness in Human Design, we are referring to the parts of you that are open to beingNurtured. Through the ‘white’ (or transparent) parts of your Bodygraph, you can see the specific areas in your life where you are open, flexible, where you take in the ‘other’ and the world around you.
While your Definition speaks to the kind of student you are, your Openness shows you where you are meant to go to school in life.
While you can be deeply nurtured by others through your openness, you can also be deeply and negatively conditioned. Knowing your design does not only allow you to see how ‘negative conditioning’ operates in your life; it teaches you how to turn negative conditioning into positive nurturance – simply by learning how to make decisions in alignment with your Nature.
Human Design doesn’t ask us to ‘get rid’ of anything; for everything in us has a value and purpose. But it does invite us to allow things to shift things around a bit. Most importantly, it takes the authority out of the Mind, which is usually busy trying to convince us to be who we’re not, and delivers that Authority to the very parts of us that we can count on to be consistent. In other words, it takes our decision-making out of our Openness, and returns it to our Definition. The more decisions we make from our Definition, the more free we are to enjoy and learn from our Openness, with a sense of healthy non-attachment.
Instead of losing ourselves, we find our wisdom. And our Mind, instead of spending all of its precious energy trying to solve our own problems, based on an over-identification with everything we’re soaking up from our environment, becomes this incredible place of wisdom. No longer meddling in our own decision-making business, it is free to become the “Outer Authority” it’s meant to be -- to be able to teach, awaken and stimulate others with its unique form of brilliance.
Check out the Designed to Blossom Self-Study Program & Creative Workbook/Foundational Course and RESOURCE BOOK.