Exploring the Human Design System - Part 2
Basic Components Outlined
The heart and soul of the Human Design System lie in the potential awakening that is available to you through actually living your unique design. This is a tool for awakening, and through experimentation, it can help you transform your life.
Human design helps move us out of the mind, into connecting with the body consciousness. In this post, we lay out some of the basic components of the human design chart/bodygraph. May it help you get familiar with the chart.
BASIC COMPONENT OF THE HUMAN DESIGN CHART / BODYGRAPH
Before we get started. When you generate your chart, always double-check the birth information. The date, exact local time of borth, and location of birth. Changes in minutes or hours can impact different aspects of your chart. Also, there is a lot of information that your chart holds. I recommend you start with the three main parts: Type, Strategy, and Authority. These three aspects is the core of your makeup and get start you on the path to experimenting with your design.
TWO SIDES OF THE BODYGRAPH: unconscious and conscious side. The unconscious side represents the body (red column in the Human Design chart), while the conscious side is the personality (black column in the Human Design chart). The two sides are representing the two parts that make up the whole.
The unconscious body reflects something that may surprise you, something that you’re not quite consciously aware of but you know runs in the background. The conscious personality is the side that you have a mental awareness and how that energy presents itself in your life.
TYPE:
There are different types. They are calculated based on the mechanics of which gates and channels are activated. The energy type says less about you as a conscious human being and more about the energetic aura that your soul exudes. It determines the best way for you to navigate your life and get things done, and the unique strengths you have.
The five types are:
The Generator (also known as The Builders)
The Manifesting Generator (also known as The Builders)
The Projector (also known as The Guides)
The Manifestor (also known as The Initiators)
The Reflector (also known as The Discerners)
DEFINITION:
On your bodygraph, your definition will be shown by your centers. It refers to how your centers are communicating with one another. The definition is when your centers are colored in, and your openness is anything left white. Definition reveals who you are, and remains pretty consistent throughout your life. Your openness is where you are susceptible to conditioning, and can result in what Human Design calls the Not-Self.
CENTERS:
Each of the nine centers in the Human Design System controls a different source of energy. The Centers are grouped into four categories: Pressure (2), Motor (4), Awareness (3), and Other (2).
Head Center: Pressure Center
Ajna Center: Awareness Center
Throat Center: Manifestation Center
G Center: Identity Center
Heart Center: Motor (Energy) Center
Splenic Center: Awareness Center
Solar Plexus Center: Awareness & Motor (Energy) Center
Sacral Center: Motor (Energy) Center
Root Center: Pressure & Motor (Energy) Center
STRATEGY:
This is determined by your energy type. Each energy type has its unique strategy pairing. Your strategy is all about the most correct way for you to approach and navigate through life. It tells you when it’s time to go; how to move forward and experiment with life so that you are met with the least resistance (within yourself and with others). This is how you learn about yourself.
Manifestors: Initiate & To Inform
Projectors: Wait for the Invitation; Wait to be acknowledged
Generators: Wait to Respond
Manifesting Generator: Wait to respond, inform, then act
Reflectors: Wait before making decisions (Recommended 29 days or lunar cycle)
AUTHORITY:
The authority in your Human Design is your decision-making mechanism. It is a tool for you to know if something is right for you, or not. Strategy and authority are the doorways to living as yourself, affirming who you are, and understanding and letting go of what you are not. Authority gives your guidance on the simple ways you can work with the intelligence of your body to make decisions that are correct for your unique makeup. There are seven authorities possible.
Center-Based: based on 1 of the nine centers
Emotional Authority (Solar Plexus): decisions are made after riding out the emotional wave. Ride the entirety of your emotional wave, feel all the feels, and then when you feel calm, decide.
Sacral Authority: this sacral center responds in the moment
Splenic Authority: the spleen center guides decisions in an instant
Ego Authority: Possible for Manifestors or Projectors. makes decisions through the process of talking about what you want. It is important that you listen to what you ‘say’ in order to know your truth, rather than listen to what your mind is telling you.
Self-Projected Authority: Possible for Projectors only. Talking it out with someone and figuring it out through the process (environment is very important here). The key here is for you to listen to what you say; whatever you need to know is in what you say.
Process-Based: have a process to them
Environment Authority (mental projectors): Possible for Projectors only. No centers are defined below the throat center, so they receive guidance from sensory information about the environment. Environmental Authority is the inner knowing to enter into environments and trust the feelings of ease or dis-ease in their open centers to inform what is right for them.
Lunar Authority (Moon): this is the authority of Reflector types (no centers defined in a chart). Lunar Authority is the inner knowing to wait out an entire moon cycle. Recommended they spend one lunar cycle contemplating and discussing the issue. This is due to them constantly sampling their environments. If they understand their strategy and rely on their lunar Authority, they can achieve clarity in their decision-making process and enjoy being constantly surprised and delighted by life.
NOT - SELF THEME:
Similar to the body communicating through pain or illness, the energetic system has its own symptoms when something is not aligning to the individual-- ‘not-self’ theme. This is like a signal that lets you know that something is out of alignment and invites us to reflect. Every type has a signature that they’re here to experience, that lets them know they are living true to their design. The not-self theme is the opposite of the signature. Not-self is not a bad or good thing, it just is. It’s a signal/messenger-- or better yet, an invitation.
Generators: are here to feel satisfaction and their not-self theme is frustration
Manifesting Generators: are here to feel satisfaction and peace and their not-self theme is frustration and anger (aka impatience)
Manifestors: are here to feel peace and their not-self theme is anger
Projectors: are here to feel recognized and successful and their not-self theme is bitterness (or as I like to say, unfulfilled)
Reflectors: are here to feel awe and surprise and their not-self theme is disappointment
GATES & CHANNELS:
Within the Centers there are numbers, those numbers are the Gates. The Gates are based on the 64 hexagrams of I Ching. These add a layer and take you deeper into your uniqueness and truth. Gates are potentials, energies, intelligence, and resources. The black-colored Gates are your conscious resources; the red-colored ones, your unconscious energies. The former was being activated at your birth time; the latter, 3 months before. Red and Black Gates are combining into a unique configuration of potentials and your uniqueness.
When activated – colored red and/or black – Gates are stable, reliable forces of your uniqueness. If a Gate is undefined – colored white – it is open; as such it mirrors what’s around; hence it is one of your vulnerability points; vulnerable to the corresponding energy when this later close to you hits it in. This is called “conditioning”.
Every one of the 64 gates has at least one corresponding gate from an adjacent center. If both of the corresponding gates are active, they connect forming a bridge of themed energy between the two centers, creating a channel. There are a total of 32 channels on a human design bodygraph. When you have a defined Channel, this can shed light on the characterizations of specific themes in your life, a gift or function that is reliable as it is a part of you.
PROFILE:
Based on the changing lines of I-Ching- this is how you interact with the world. This is how you express yourself (a combination of unconscious traits and unconscious traits). The profile tells a lot about a person’s personality, how they interact with the world, and how the world physically receives them.
It is expressed as two numbers separated by a forward slash- like a fraction. The profile is typically in the information panel of your Human Design chart, but it can also be determined by looking at your body graph. The first number of your profile represents the conscious (personality), while the second number presents the unconscious (body).
Line 1: The Researcher/Investigator
Line 2: The Wise Man/Hermit
Line 3: The Scientist/Martyr
Line 4: The Networker/Opportunist
Line 5: The Mentor/Heretic
Line 6: The Influencer/Role Model
PROFILE TYPES:
Right Angle Profiles: 1/3, 1/4, 2/4, 2/5, 3/5, 3/6, 4/6
Left Angle Profiles: 5/1, 5/2, 6/2, 6/3
Juxtaposition Angle Profile: 4/1
Whew! So there you have it. A starting point, or additional information, to help you explore your human design chart and get familiar with the terminology. I’ll try to continue to post more blog posts, going a bit deeper and more specifically into specific aspects of the system. Feel free to drop questions below, and/or share your design type and authority. I’d love for us to support one another as a community, as we explore the Human Design System and live our most authentic lives!
I love you, and I am so happy to share this space with you.
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P.s. Beginning August 2021, we will be hosting Human Design Workshops by Type, starting with Projectors. If you’e interested in staying updated with this, join the wait list here. Details for Our upcoming workshops can be found here. Also, feel free to send us a message, here.
Resources:
Bunnel, L. & Ra Uru Hu. 2011. The Definitive Book of Human Design: The Science of Differentiation. HDC Publishing
Magnusson, B. 2020. Human Design Deck: 124- Card visual study deck and booklet.