Human Design + Embodiment
You are more than what meets the eye
So, who are you really?
The Human Design System is a framework by which we can unlock areas of deep conditioning to express ourselves truthfully and in harmony with the greater community of our world. By implementing this knowledge into your self-work, re-parenting process and your everyday, you begin to live closer to your design, your original truth.
A comprehensive reading will feel more like being handed a user manual or a road map, rather than a diagnosis. When we choose what is most truthful for our soul and our body, we become healthier, encounter less resistance, and live with purpose.
Human Design is a synthesis of ancient and modern sciences; conceptualized at the intersection of astrology, the Vedic chakra system, the I Ching, the Kabbalist Tree of Life, biochemistry and quantum mechanics. It was originally downloaded in meditation by Alan Krakower, aka Ra Uru Hu, and made popular through the International Human Design School. In recent years, however, chart readers have emerged from a variety of backgrounds to share and teach this framework. Although intricate and sophisticated, the system is a learnable tool that can dramatically change the way you see yourself and the world around you.
Human Design is meant to be accessible.
Much of Human Design is taught in a linear, incremental way. However, the beauty of the system is how it all works together. If you are familiar with astrology, you understand that a person cannot be defined only by their sun sign. There’s multitudes of factors and layers at play in each individual. Two folks who share the same sun sign but have different rising, moon and/or mercury signs will each express themselves quite differently. And that’s what makes these frameworks so fun to work with: the cohesion of elements that serve individuation.
A Human Design reading requires your birth date, time and location. That information is then cross-referenced with your Design date (about 88 days prior to birth). The chart is expressed as a bodygraph or quantum mandala, which is similar to an astrological natal chart but in such fine detail to the extent that it can determine such aspects as correct eating habits and harmonious geographical environments for an individual.
Check out your free bodygraph at mybodygraph.com
How do we use Human Design?
Understanding your Human Design can illuminate your strengths, provide insight into your challenges and impart a deeper sense of purpose. It is a tool of individuation, self-discovery, and self-mastery. It provides a framework for understanding yourself on a physical, energetic and emotional level, as well as practices for the most harmonious way to interact with the world and other people.
Not only does it outline what and who we are, but how to be the most genuine expression of ourselves.
Many of us have had experiences that lead us on quests of truth or understanding. Some of us have had strong inner visions of the world we’d like to create or be a part of, and yet don’t know how we actually fit into that landscape or how to achieve it.
When you are working with your design, you amplify your ability to co-create success, contentment, peace, and be delightfully surprised by life. It’s not that you will never be challenged or you will get what other people have. You will find, however, that life is enriching and self-fulfilling; that you can truly enjoy the experience and be supported in and by it. Most importantly, you become a clear conduit for your purpose.
The first step is reading the chart. There are countless resources available to understand your chart on your own, however even the most well-read among us can have trouble “reading the label from inside the bottle.”
Receiving a session from a reader is incredibly validating, to hear someone speak your truths back to you. A reading can also provide perspectives that you may not be able to objectively see or struggle to admit. Especially when it comes to strengths and gifts—so many of us are conditioned to believe that we are not powerful or we are flawed, when in fact it is quite the opposite. There are readers of every background, education, energy type and intention. Choose someone you click with.
The rest is experimentation and experience. Often the place to start is by practicing your Strategy and listening only to your Authority. In order to do this in a way that is truly correct for your individual design, you can embrace your Motivation, Sense, and Perspective; seek your correct Environments; rely on the strength of your Cognition; master the lessons of your Saturn placements; and tune into your natural rhythms.
Relearning how to trust yourself, how to hear your inner guidance, releasing outdated narratives, shifting perspectives, and stepping into new timelines will all happen naturally as you embrace these elements of your design.
You can learn more about Honored Body’s Readings and Human Design offerings here…
Individuation
A tenet of Human Design is the Jungian theory of Individuation. This is the process by which our individual self develops out of an undifferentiated consciousness. Paradoxically, individuation makes clear our difference from the collective whole but also our inextricability from it. It is through individuation that we can understand our power and purpose in the unity of the Everything. Human Design not only helps to outline our uniqueness, but shows us how we fit into the harmony of the Cosmos.
The Bodygraph
Getting specific…
When I first saw my bodygraph over a decade ago, I had no idea what I was looking at.
I was just getting familiar with astrological natal charts and this collection of shapes and lines and numbers was dizzying. But when I revisited it several years later, everything clicked.
The Human Design system is the intersection of astrology, the Vedic chakra system, the I Ching, the Kabbalist Tree of Life, biochemistry and quantum mechanics. Each of these five elements are represented in the bodygraph.
There are nine Centers of energy and/or awareness, each containing several Gates which correspond to the 64 Hexagrams of the IChing. These Gates have matches that form energetic channels between centers. The location of the Centers, Gates, and Channels never change from one bodygraph to another. What does change is the definition: which Centers, Gates, and Channels are colored in or highlighted. To have a Center defined means to have the ability to experience* the energy or awareness of that Center consistently and reliably; if it is undefined or open (not colored in), there is an inconsistency to the energy or awareness in terms of its intensity and its sustainability. Let it be clear that to have something undefined does not mean you are missing or lacking it. Every one of us has the entirety of the chart. What makes us unique is the combination of what is reliable and consistent within us, and what we are here to work with, learn from, or master. Defined Gates function like filters of the energy/awareness of their respective Centers.
*Note: “the ability to experience” Nothing is given and conditioning from open or undefined centers can strongly influence how we experience ourselves and our lives.
To define a Gate, there must be a planetary placement in that Gate.
This can be a placement from your conscious/mind/personality—based on your birthdate—and/or a planetary placement from your unconscious/body/design—based on your design date (88 days prior).
As mentioned before, a defined Gate acts as a filter for the energy or awareness of a Center. The definition of two opposite Gates defines a Channel—an energetic connection between the Gates and an augmented experience of the theme of those Gates. A Channel then defines the two Centers on either side of it, giving the individual consistent access to the energy or awareness of those Centers, as filtered through any of the Gates that are defined therein.
Unconscious Venus in Gate 18 + Conscious/Unconscious Neptune in Gate 58 = Channel of Judgement and a defined Spleen and defined Root.
The Basics
When you begin learning about your design, the first thing you usually encounter is your Type, Strategy and Authority. Your whole design is dependent on your definition; what gates, channels and centers you have defined determines your Type (your aura) which outlines your Strategy, and your Authority which is your individual decision-maker. There are four aura types that determine how we move in relationship to the energy of the world and other auras. It is this foundational energy, this cornerstone of our energetic blueprint, that sets the tone for the rest of our individuation. Committing to your auric field and its operation, although it can be tempting to push or force something else, allows us to move at exactly the correct pace for us and to relate to others with as little resistance as possible.
A note about Strategy + Authority: You do not necessarily have to defer to your Strategy and Authority for the mundane choices and decisions that pepper your day to day. However, when making any kind of course-altering decision or one that requires or affects other people, your Strategy and Authority will inform you of the most harmonious pathway or alternative.
For example, if you are an emotional Manifestor, you do not need to wait an emotional cycle to determine what you’re going to have for dinner or tell your partner what you’re going to wear in the morning. But, when asked to be in a relationship or before starting a new project that in any way involves other people, you will encounter less resistance and be clear in your decision if you give your emotional wave the time it needs to become neutral and then inform your potential new partner or the folks you’re working with about your decision.
What is Embodiment?
Embodiment is a practice of awareness, acknowledgement, and expression of the physical elements of our thoughts, feelings and beliefs. When we embody something, we give it concrete form and provide it with a bodily expression. Quite often we are unaware of what we have and have not given this form and space to. Usually we recognize when we are out of balance after the fact, but by tuning into your body’s systems you begin to notice the subtle cues much more readily and easily.
You can practice embodiment as a state of being by first noticing the sensations within your body as they happen and acknowledging the context of the impulse; this method will help to inform you of the thoughts and beliefs that you are holding about yourself, another person, or situation.
What does your resting heart rate feel like?
Where are you holding tension when you lay down to sleep?
Noticing cues like an increased heart rate, a vibration in the gut, the tongue pressed against the teeth, a flushing of the skin, a spark, a jolt, a kick, pins and needles, indicate changes in our current state. And then…
Where do you feel it in your body when someone tells you that they love you?
What signals do you notice when you see your pet?
To fully embrace transitions in life, we must embody the progression. Heightening the awareness of your body’s cues through daily check-ins and exercises in bodily mindfulness strengthens your ability to make harmonious decisions for yourself as well as to be adaptable and minimize stress during challenges and conflicts.
If we rely on our rational minds to sort out the messages from our tissues and our nervous system, we overlook the body’s natural wisdom that has protected and developed us as a species. The mind creates more problems than it solves, the body is the key to our survival and empowerment. Using somatics, we can begin to understand the language of our own bodies. And frameworks for self-understanding, like the Human Design system, are most effective if they can be applied to the physical form.
The Human Design system is not meant to be intellectualized. It is meant to be embodied.
This is why sessions with Honored Body are combinations of comprehensive chart readings, and somatic coaching. It’s all fine and good to know that you are a pure generator, but how does that feel in your your body? What does Sacral response feel like? What do you do? What are the physical cues that you are following your Innocence Motivation versus Desire? A lot of times, folks think they are following their design, but that’s the problem… they’re thinking! Even a Mental Projector, whose authority requires the mind, must be adept at embodiment in order to discern what is their own energy/feelings/beliefs and what is conditioning from their surrounding environment.
Ready to take the first step?
