What is Human Design?: Find Your Authenticity and Purpose While Living Your Design
On the morning of February 4, 2018, I woke up crying. Like body-shaking, snot bubbles, drops-you-to-your- knees, can’t-catch-your-breath UGLY crying. The moment my alarm went off, this soul-level sob rose out of me with such tremendous force and power that I knew I could no longer ignore how truly deeply miserable I was.
On paper, I had every reason to be happy. Professionally, I had “made it.” I was “successful.” I had a fantastic title at a well-respected international educational publishing house. I was consistently crushing my sales quotas, outperforming my colleagues, winning back-to-back awards and pulling in six figures annually. In reality though, I was a giant ball of stress.
My work-life balance was, well, non-existent. The morning I woke up sobbing was a Sunday, and like most Sundays, I had to be packed, out the door, and on a plane by noon, en route to the first of four states I would work in that week. The more successful I was in my position, the more responsibility I was given, and my territory had expanded to include the western half of the United States. At first, all of the travel was invigorating. I loved being able to explore new places and collect new experiences, but waking up in a new hotel room every morning and living out of a suitcase had long lost it’s luster. I had no time to actually experience any of the places I visited, and spent most of my days racing to meet deadlines, rushing from presentations to meetings and back to the airport to hurry to the next destination, lather rinse repeat, until I collapsed back home Friday night.
I was averaging 60-70 hour work weeks and had been running on running on fumes, adrenaline, and far too much caffeine for three and a half years, so by the time the morning of February 4th rolled around, I was sick and tired and DONE. My body was screaming at me to STOP, and there was nothing I could do other than listen and surrender.
I turned in my letter of resignation the following Monday. I was at once exhilarated and terrified. I had never not had a plan. Each and every step in my career had unfolded with such effortless ease, one job or position leading to the next, that I had never really taken the time to stop and ask myself if I was happy, if each step was a step I wanted to take, if the path I was walking down led somewhere I wanted to go. Instead, I just went where I was told, trusting that if it was so easy, it must be right, right? But that easy road had ultimately lead me to illness, exhaustion and depression. Pulling over, with no plan and no path, was both completely foreign and exactly what I needed.
For that first month, my focus was on resting and recovering. It was like my body could not get enough sleep, and I was virtually bed-bound. I dragged myself to the doctor and had ALL of the blood work (13 vials worth of testing!), the results of which indicated adrenal fatigue, substantial inflammation, and vitamin deficiency. Work had literally made me ill, and I made a promise to myself then and there that I would never again accept a job or give my energy to anything that compromised my health or my happiness. But that promise lead me to another question: what was going to make me happy?
Enter Human Design.
Prior to leaving my corporate life behind, I made several attempts at a healthier work-life balance. I’d started to listen to podcasts during my flights and drives. I had gotten so far away from holding space for my own passions and interests, that I was desperate to reconnect with who I was outside of work. To compound matters, I was lonely AF. I had moved across the country twice in as many years, and knew virtually no one outside of work, so I joined the Facebook communities for these podcasts, hoping to meet some local like-minded souls.
In one podcast group, a woman had posted about having a Human Design reading and shared that it had given her clarity around her purpose, her passions and her karma. I wondered “what is human design?” It was like she had flipped a switch on inside of me. I felt personally erased by my professional life and completely disconnected from what happiness felt like for me, and had been asking the Universe “WHAT AM I HERE TO DO? WHAT IS GOING TO MAKE ME HAPPY??” on a near daily basis.
Stumbling upon this thread and this moment seemed like a sign. After a fruitless google search, I logged onto Amazon, loaded my cart with every single book sold on Human Design, and hit “purchase.” It turned out to be the best impulse buy I’ve ever made.
As I was bed-bound that first month, I started reading those books, using online human design calculators and researching my human design chart between naps, hoping this system would provide some clarity into what my next step should be. Turns out, my special happy nerdy place is anything that lives in the intersection between science and spirituality, and Human Design hit that sweet spot.
I went DEEP down the research rabbit hole and was ENTHRALLED. I learned what type was, how my open and closed centers impacted how I used my energy, and was even able to understand my dharma and karma for this incarnation. I have never experienced anything like it. And then that light switch inside me was switched on even brighter. This super dense and technical system just clicked for me on an almost cellular level. And If this amazing tool could articulate exactly who I was and how I experienced life with such truth and clarity and power, then it felt selfish and irresponsible to keep it to myself.
Completely reenergized, I pestered family and friends for their birth info, ran their charts, and gave many an unsolicited reading. The more I learned, the more Human Design transformed how I viewed myself and those around me. It gave me a new language with which to articulate who I was, what was authentically mine and what wasn’t, and it became increasingly clear that I was here to teach and share this powerful resource with as many people as possible.
Here's a rave mandala chart - combining I-Ching, Astrology and my Body Graph... every single little thing on this chart has serious meaning.
So, what is Human Design? Channeled in 1987 by Ra Uru Hu, this system combines ancient teachings from Astrology, Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, the Chakra System, and the I’Ching with the modern sciences of biochemistry, genetics, and theoretical & quantum physics. Every single person on earth, as psychology and sociology suggest, is a unique combination of nature and nurture, traits that we’re born possessing and traits we’re conditioned to a adopt based on external influences such as our families, friends, teachers, members of our community and society/culture as a whole.
Human Design is concerned with the nature aspect of this equation, and provides a map of who you are and what you’re here to do during this lifetime based on your date, time and place of birth. The idea is that by gaining insight into who we are at our deepest, most authentic levels, we can start to identify limiting beliefs and damaging ways of being in order to release them and find our way back to the purest versions of ourselves. Each of our maps (called body graphs) includes several important pieces of information:
• which of our centers are open and which are closed
• what type we are and what our decision-making strategy is
• which internal or external intuitive authority we should defer to for guidance when making decisions
• which gifts we’ve been given and which lessons we’re here to learn, as determined by our combination of gates and channels (which live in our conscious personality or unconscious design, on lines in the hexagram, and in specific planets and carry the influence of all of these factors)
• our profile & incarnation cross, which give specific insight into our purpose and karma
My life has made a sharp 180 degree turn from what it looked like that tear-soaked February morning. Today, I own my time. My sleep is restful and restorative and thankfully, I don’t wake up sobbing anymore. My vitamin levels are slowly improving and my stress-levels are basically non-existent. More importantly, I’m learning to see the world not from a place of scarcity or fear, but from a place of love. I’ve used what I’ve learned about my Human Design to create a career and a life that is in deep alignment with what gives me joy, and I spend my days helping others understand their charts so that they can start making the shifts in their own lives that invite in more happiness, grace, ease and flow.
My clients are amazing women from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences and are all doing the important work around owning who they are, stepping into their worth, and holding space for reflection and deep growth, and Human Design provides a powerful road map for that work. As I research and unpack my clients charts, I’m able to share with them:
• the most effective ways for them to use their energy (i.e. are they built for stamina or meant to work in short bursts and then rest?)
• insight into their emotional landscape
• the most effective strategy for entering into commitments and making decisions
• how to get out of their heads and into their bodies to make decisions in a way that’s authentic and personal to them
• insight into their dharma (their purpose during this incarnation) and their karma (the lessons they are here to teach and the lessons they are here to learn)
• insight into the origins of their gifts and their fears
If you’re interested in learning more about Human Design
• Head on over to mybodygraph.com to run your chart for free. You’ll need to know your birthdate, birthplace and time of birth. If you’re not sure about the time you were born, check out your long-form birth certificate, ask a parent, or estimate to the closest hour. Just like your astrological natal chart, even slight variations in time will impact your overall chart, so try to get your birth time as close to the minute as possible.
• My website interiorcreature.com is dedicated to teaching the modern woman how to hack her Human Design chart in practicable, easy-to-understand language. Start with the tab “New to Human Design?” and follow the click path to learn about your unique makeup of open and closed centers, your type & strategy, your authority, and the lines in the hexagram that influence your gates, channels, and profile.
• If you’d rather not go it alone or have a ton of questions about your personal chart, I also offer 1:1 chart readings virtually where I take my clients through the finer details of their chart and hold space to answer specific, individual questions. They are truly the best part of my day and would love to connect with you!
Jaclyn Michelle is the writer and reader at interior creature. She’s intentionally disrupting the existing paradigm around Human Design. No gurus. No spiritual bypassing, just Human Design for the real world.