3 steps to begin living your Human Design.

There are lots of ways to begin experimenting with the energetics of your Human Design, and every practitioner has their own approach, informed by their own Human Design and life experience.

As a 4/1 Sacral Manifesting Generator with a double dose of the 34-20 Channel of Charisma, the conscious Channel of Logic, and the half-conscious, half-unconscious Channel of Transformation, I am intuitive, logical, and super impatient to see results — which means my approach to Human Design is all about helping my clients master what they need to know to get results faster.

These are three low-stress, high-impact areas of inquiry and practice I recommend to clients when they are just starting out with their Human Design — especially if they're feeling overwhelmed by the data, jargon, and multitude of practitioners and approaches:

1. Learn your Energy Type and Decision-Making Authority — then practice.

There are layers upon layers upon layers of information to be explored, digested, and organized in the meticulously detailed world of Human Design. But knowing your Human Design and living it are two entirely different experiences.

Your mind's appetite for more information is actually your mind's strategy for retaining its control over your life as opposed to ceding its power to your "inner" authority. At some point you simply have to stop piling on more information and just start experimenting, observing, and keeping notes.

In my case, knowing that I had Sacral Authority meant trusting it when it told me to go back to the plant nursery I had been to the day before when I had nothing urgent or new on my list to purchase. Yet, when I arrived there were two black urns that matched the trim on my house and were the perfect size to conceal the gaps on either side of my arbor, providing privacy for my back yard — a problem I had been struggling to solve with my mind for weeks on end.

I had been purchasing statuary all summer at this plant nursery and had never seen any painted statuary there — it was always a natural, distressed stone like the villas in Italy, which just didn't work for this particular spot. Yet, on this particular day, in this particular moment, and with no real reason to be there, the first thing my eyes saw when pulling into the parking lot was these two black urns.

This is how the energetics of your inner authority work — they're informed by your aligned desire and go to work on your behalf.

Every time you follow your strategy and authority — with awareness — you strengthen your trust muscle in the intelligence of your body over the intelligence of your mind. Life becomes both an adventure and a game, and you realize that all the Quantum physics stuff about how our intentions influence outcomes and that there's no such thing as a passive observer becomes more and more real every day.

Most free Human Design charting tools will tell you your energy type and decision-making authority (and if they don't, they should), because these are the two most important data points of Human Design — without them, nothing else matters.

Here's where to find your energy type and decision-making authority in our free chart tool:

2. Learn the Gene Keys of your Personality Sun Gate — then observe.

I discovered the Gene Keys after already living my Human Design for a year, and when I met them, they were a powerful unlock for me.

These two bodies of work are related, but they focus on two different parts of your design. The way I've come to think of them is that your Human Design is your treasure map of all the elements that you were born with — what you're here to express and what you're here to learn — and how to get the most from your gifts and energies.

The Gene Keys are like an energetic overlay to your Human Design chart that gives you precise energetic coordinates for each gate and a dial to self-assess and tune the energies of those gates (especially the ones that have an outsized impact on the quality of your life) to higher, more magnetic frequencies.

If you want to change your energetic frequency, start with your Personality Sun Gate. Applying the 80/20 rule (or in this case, 70/30), this gate is 70% of your energetic make-up in terms of how you show up in the world. This means that, assuming you're following your energy type's strategy and your decision-making authority (see #1 above), focusing on the frequencies of your Personality Sun gate will likely lead to swift breakthroughs more than focusing on your Pluto gates.

In my case, my Personality Sun (aka "Life's Work" in the Gene Keys) is Ambition. The shadow frequency is Greed (with the repressive state of "un-ambitious" and the reactive state of "greedy"), the gift frequency is Aspiration, and the Siddhi frequency is Ascension.

When I first met my Gene Keys, I was astonished at how often I found myself living and creating out of my shadow frequencies. I was still super productive (a Generator/Manifesting Generator obsession) and "succeeding," technically speaking, but I was living in what I now call "high-functioning shadow."

I happen to have a lot of definition in my chart so I can draw on a lot of different talents to create the life I want — but having a lot of definition is a double-edged sword in the sense that sometimes these energies feel like they're in conflict with each other (which was my case).

I felt like I was always in my own way to some extent, and couldn't figure out how to get out of my way. Understanding the mechanics and dynamics of my Human Design and then tuning into all the places I was operating in a "victim" frequency — precisely because I was in my own way — was a huge turning point for me.

We are so powerful in our own right if we just embody our gift energy. When you recognize how much you're able to achieve while living in shadow, imagine how much more you can accomplish — and how much more energized and happy you'll be — when you consciously tune your energetic dial to your gift frequencies, which are the frequencies of empowerment. They are the frequencies of your higher magnetism.

The problem with shadow frequencies is that they're low-level, dense, and stuck in shaming, blaming, and being the victim. They drag you down instead of lifting you up.

Let's use the concrete example of my shadow of Greed. Having spent most of my life self-employed, I had become super stingy with how I used my time. I spent every waking moment working in my business or on my business and I had a tendency to label any time that wasn't "productive" (the driving desire for Generators and Manifesting Generators), like time spent socializing or on a walk, as a threat and opportunity cost to my business. I was judgmental and dismissive of these activities that are so vital to nurturing and self-care and the long-term ability to sustain my business because they didn't go along with what my logical mind valued, which was "all business, all the time." Ugh, what a bore!

This shadow of Greed was then compounded by the shadow of Inertia (Gate 9, "Focus," which is also my Vocation sphere in the Gene Keys), causing me to feel overwhelmed by all the details of working for myself and relying on myself, which led to me numbing myself with television to "decompress" and chocolate to self-soothe — these are not high-frequency activities like a walk in Nature or a cup of coffee with a friend — they're the opposite.

Once I started contemplating the gift frequencies of Aspiration (Gate 54) and Determination (Gate 9), combining them with the gift frequencies of a few other key activations in my chart where I was also living in shadow, my life became much more fluid and creative — "problems" resolved themselves on their own; creative breakthroughs came through that led to entirely new businesses that didn't just align with the material aspirations of my highest self, they did so while also serving the greatest good (my 4-line); and helpful people and situations and clients started coming through at the exact right time and in the exact right way.

Here's where to find your Personality Sun in our free chart tool:

3) Learn your Profile Lines — then experiment.

Your Profile Lines are a way of describing your modus operandi — how you move through life and how others experience your "way." They're derived from the line numbers to the right of the decimal point for your conscious Sun and Earth (your "Personality" in black) and your unconscious Sun and Earth (your "Design" in red).

There are 12 profile line combinations and mine is "4/1", the 4 being my conscious Personality and the 1 being my unconscious Design. Each profile line and combination has a number of interesting details to get lost in (like most things in Human Design).

In my case, two features in particular changed how I show up in the world — especially with my clients.

Back in my early 30's, when I was experimenting with different forms of entrepreneurship, a friend had said to me "You're too nice to be a CEO." Small, seemingly insignificant and benign quips like this are what we call "conditioning" in the Human Design world. They're programs of thought that, if you're not following your internal GPS to know what's correct or not for you, you fall prey to believing what's not true, then trying to make that work for you.

In this moment, kindness in a professional context was demonized, and yet kindness is a substantial activation in my chart. It's Gate 13 (Listener), with the Siddhi frequency of Empathy, and, in terms of the Gene Keys Venus Sequence (how we love and bond through relationships), it dominated the 14 years of my life from age eight to age 21. But I don't know my Human Design in my 30's, and I still have two more decades to live my life before I discover it. So I internalize this program and create a mask that becomes an invisible barrier between me and my clients. I don't allow myself to be my whole loving, child-like, eccentric self because I might be judged for not being "professional."

Well, guess what? This "professional" mask is not how the 4-line works — in fact, it's the polar opposite. The 4-line is filled with warmth and humanity and the 4/1 profile in particular is equipped with a unique faculty to bridge diverse people and teams by emphasizing all the things we have in common — like a desire for love and play.

The 4-line is also about networks and sharing inspiration within and across those networks. Those networks are also the primary source of opportunity, which was a difficult moment for me when I discovered that the networks that felt authentic to me 20 years ago — and even ten years ago — no longer felt authentic to me.

The prospect of "pruning" my network as a small business owner with a highly-bespoke storytelling business terrified me until I realized that, in the 10 years of my storytelling business, every project my business partner and I ever did came through word-of-mouth. (She also has a 4-line in her profile.) I have since pruned more than 70 connections from my LinkedIn profile and I feel so much lighter and authentic for it. Superficial popularity has never been important to me — substantive connection is.

This was such a transformative moment for me. When I realized that my 4-line was already playing out without my awareness, I began showing up with awareness for my clients. I brought more love and delight and tenderness than ever before, and my clients are becoming deeper allies in this game of life, and also beloved friends. I even made a set of Human Design Swiftie friendship bracelets for one of them.

If you're a 4-line, beware the mask of "Professionalism." You and the people who are correct for you will thrive in an environment of love, play, and affection.

Here's where to find your Profile Lines in our free chart tool:

Are you living the life you really want — or settling for the one you've got?

What I love about Human Design is how it helps you master the intricacies of who you uniquely are. When you start living your design and experiencing the early impact of your decision-making using your strategy and authority, you can't help but continue the energetic experiment of being uniquely you. You came into this life as a perfect human being, imprinted with energetic gifts to help humanity evolve. Your Blueprint for Life™ will help you "see" where you've been living in alignment, where you've compromised or settled, and how to get back home to the best and highest version of you.

These three practices helped me move the needle quickly to create a life I truly love instead of a life I was merely living, and I want nothing less for you.