What to expect when you start living your Human Design
I've always been a searcher, experimenting with any and every tool that might give me some insight into who I am and why I'm here — Myers-Briggs, Clifton Strengths, the Enneagram, Astrology, et al. But no other system compares to what I've experienced through Human Design.
Human Design is a vast, layered system that leads you to a life without resistance or regret — a life that is meant for you and you alone. It offers a logical path into the esoteric mysteries of your mind, body, and soul, and all you need to do is follow your Strategy and Authority one decision at a time.
It's simple, but it isn't easy.
So many of our decisions are clouded by a lifetime of conditioning and self-imposed limitation known as the "should's". It's why courage is the defining quality of those who willfully step into their unique design with eyes wide open, because once you let in the idea that maybe you've been living your life for others instead of living it for yourself, there's a whole lot of unknown that wants to be seen and heard.
If you've been curious about your Human Design but frightened by the prospect of “blowing up your life,” this post is for you. These are the seven stages I've experienced in my own Human Design journey, and my hope is that they encourage you to test the waters of your own design. There's so much unexplored territory and adventure waiting for you on the other side.
😳 STAGE 1: Recognition + Shock
There's nothing that compares to an in-depth, synthesized reveal of who you uniquely are — how you're built intellectually, energetically, and emotionally. The shock of Human Design's accuracy is felt deep in your bones. You feel a sense of awe and disbelief that the inputs of something so banal as your birth data can yield something so familiar, distinctive, and deeply, deeply true. This doesn't come through in the free online charts that simply name and catalog discrete elements of your design. It comes through in a detailed report or integrated reading from a qualified Human Design professional.
🫣 STAGE 2: Fear
A lot of people get stuck here, and it's easy to understand why. This stage is about recognizing the uncertainty of the unknown. We shape our lives one decision at a time and these lives we've built are entrenched in commitments we've made to ourselves and others. What happens when we peer inside our decision-making apparatus to find their origin and source? What happens if you discover that some of your "wiring" is off? What does it mean for your career or your marriage or your family?
This is where the fear of the unknown sets in. Your mind begins to catastrophize the implications of making any changes in your life because of how it might affect the status quo (another conditioning force). It will serve up images of a life unraveling to keep you from breaking out and moving in a new direction.
🤤 STAGE 3: Curiosity, excitement, + crossing the Rubicon
Getting to Stage 3 happens when you start to feel like the opportunity cost of living within the boundaries of the status quo is greater than the risk of giving your Human Design a try. You're a bit like a pilgrim embarking on a new adventure. You have a map (your Bodygraph) and a compass (your Type, Strategy, and Authority), and you take your first steps without really knowing the destination but trusting your ability to navigate. Every decision is met with anticipation of where it will lead and what it will reveal. (It helps to have a buddy in this stage who is also living their design so you can compare notes and support each other as you face and heal your conditioning.)
🤓 STAGE 4: Testing + trust-building
This is the R&D stage of your experience. You're building your muscle of discernment, listening for the soft voice or physical signals of your Inner Authority while taming the bossy intrusiveness of your mind. You're observing and responding with detachment instead of reacting. You're gathering evidence of what happens when you follow your Inner Authority and what happens when you don't. Your life starts to lighten up and feel more easeful. Your relationships shift — some deepen and some fall away, but without the drama. This is the stage where evidence compounded over time equals trust — trust in your unique operating system, trust in your inner GPS that doesn't come through logic, but through your own higher knowing.
🥺 STAGE 5: Grief, mourning, and regret
This is one of the more difficult stages, emotionally. After gathering evidence and proving to yourself through your own experience that some of your past decisions betrayed your true self, it's hard not to be disappointed or feel like you've wasted different stages of your life. Maybe you stayed in relationships or jobs too long or you said 'yes' when you should have said 'no' or you spent years numbing yourself because you just didn't feel like you had a reason to be here or that you fit in. It's okay to mourn. In fact, it's essential. The 5 Stages of Grief by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross are very helpful here, because you are grieving the loss of your former identity — a fabricated, masked identity worn to appease others because it was too dangerous or frightening to bring your whole self to the table all the time.
🥹 STAGE 6: Resignation, surrender, and acceptance
This is a quiet turn inward. It's a gentle recognition that there is only one way you can be going forward — your way. The cost of being anything else is just too great to bear. Your mind has become your ally by now, supporting you and your alignment instead of limiting you or trying to control you through fear-based narratives and other people's expectations. This is where you might be drawn to learn more about the deeper levels of your design so that you may better understand the sophisticated details and inner workings that inevitably lead to your fullest expression and higher purpose. You realize that you want to live your design with greater determination and intention.
🥳 STAGE 7: Celebration + gratitude
This is the ultimate pay-off. You look around and find that you are operating consistently at a level of peace and satisfaction you never thought possible. You experience delight and success in everything from the simple day-to-day events of your life to the more complex — family, relationships, career, calling.
You're grateful to wake up every day in your own skin — no masks, just gentle and loving truth, with nothing to prove to anybody. You realize that the journey was faster than you thought it would be, and that there were fewer stumbling blocks and casualties than your mind had you believing in Stage 2.
The regrets you had in Stage 5 are lovingly re-framed as you realize they were a necessary part of the process to get you here, wiser and gentler. You're surrounded by others honoring their own uniqueness, living authentically according to their design, and you are collectively healing and re-weaving the fabric of humanity one decision at a time.
At its most atomic level, Human Design is about one thing: decision-making. It's about shifting your decision-making authority from the fear-based conditioning of the mind to the inner authority you feel in your body. Your decisions are the building blocks of your life. If you're not in love with your life, you are free to make a new decision, and when it's informed by your Strategy and Authority, magic happens.
I've been living my unique Human Design for nearly four years, and my only regret is that I didn't discover Human Design earlier in my life's journey — it would have saved me from unnecessary heartache, business failings, and financial setbacks. But, then again, it's precisely because of these experiences that I know this shit works.
It's never too late to meet and live your unique Human Design.
Note: Every Human Design chart is more than the sum of its parts, and every element of a chart affects — and is affected by — every other element. Human Design is a deeply layered, complex system that integrates eastern and western traditions and wisdom. When I share discrete elements of a chart, I am simply sharing glimpses into the mechanics of Human Design (and the Gene Keys) to show others how they, too, can discern practical insights from their own charts into their uniqueness and the patterns of thought, behavior, conditioning, emotions, and psychology that keep them from achieving their highest potential or living their best life.
