What is Human Design?
How surrendering to our uniqueness leads to aligned personal growth
Introduction
This article is aimed at complete beginners, those curious about Human Design but who want guidance. It’s for people who are subconsciously itching to dip their toe into this kind of energetic work, and are ready to understand themselves better without being overwhelmed.
And most importantly, it’s for people who have always felt different - the ones who have never quite fitted in.
Welcome to the club!
This article provides an overview of Human Design, and will hopefully initiate you to learn more, run your own chart and book a reading to explore further.
How it all started - the ultimate ‘drop out’ story
The founder of the Human Design system was a Canadian business man called Alan Krakower, who ran a successful advertising and TV production company in Montreal.
He was by all accounts a pretty structured, practical, logical, grounded kind of guy.
In 1983 he had some kind of personal crisis, dropped everything to move to Ibiza, and changed his name to Ra Uru Hu (as you do). He went into an 8 day meditation and heard what he called ‘The Voice’. He downloaded the full Human Design system and started to share it.
Ra toured with his teachings and founded the International School of Human Design in 2000, now known as the Jovian Archive.
He died in 2011 and since then Human Design has grown massively.
Ra said himself that he wasn’t a spiritual man - it just came to him and became his life’s work. He actually called it ‘a story of madness’!
He was a Manifestor (like me), so not your average Joe.
Ra’s message was ‘You are here to be you, nothing else’.
How perfect. What a sigh of relief.
Watch and hear Ra’s fascinating account of ‘The Voice’ and the download:-
What is Human Design exactly?
Human Design is essentially an x-ray of your conscious and unconscious energy.
It shows you how to use your energy in a way that works for you.
It’s not meant to put you in a box or to label you.
As with astrology, HD provides information about your energetic design. You have ultimate free will and choice, but it shows you the easiest way to use your energy - the path of least resistance.
Human Design is unique because it combines four ancient traditions:
Astrology tells us when you were born and what energies were present.
The I Ching gives us the language to understand these energies.
Kabbalah shows us how these energies circulate in your body.
And the chakra system helps us understand how all this concretely manifests in your daily life.
It is this combination that makes Human Design so precise and applicable. For me, this provides a credible background to what could be seen as the ramblings of some bloke tripping out in Ibiza.
My own HD journey - comforting evidence for my ‘unusual’ personality
I’ve studied astrology, tarot, kabbalah, colour therapy, Myers Briggs (based upon the work of Carl Jung) palmistry, crystals, Reiki, aromatherapy and more, and over the years, some of my studies have revealed that I am a fairly unusual person, statistically at least.
Finding evidence to back the fact that I am ‘different’ made me sad for me as that little girl and teenager who was often on the outside looking in, trying and struggling to fit in, but as I’ve matured, it has brought me great comfort.
I always knew I was different. Not in a good or bad way, just different. Like I’m operating on a slightly different wavelength to most people I’d met.
The following are examples of ‘evidence’ that helped me to embrace and explore my uniqueness.
Myers Briggs Type Indicator: I came across this during some group coaching when I worked in a large team in regional government. I found that my type is ISTP - only 4-6% of the collective, and an even fewer 2 or 3% women have this type.
Enneagram: I am type 8- The Challenger type, which is around 6% of us.
Blood type: A miscarriage confirmed that I have Rhesus negative blood, only 8% of the population have this type, yet we are known as ‘Universal Donors’.
Human Design was the next exciting thing to discover
I had my first reading in 2021 where I discovered I am a Manifestor, and that Manifestors are 8 or 9% of the collective, it was yet another sign that I am obviously not meant to fit into what is considered ‘normal’.
Hallelujah!
Taking it further
A couple of years later I met a Human Design coach. We’ve worked together since autumn 2023 and in that time, I’ve;
Completed several HD journals of research
Closed down a completely unaligned business
Remembered how to live in alignment as a Manifestor (in peace)
Studied my family members’ HD, transforming our dynamics
Learned to slow down, be quiet and listen to my intuition
Understood what my profile lines mean
Met lots of lovely people in the HD world
Learned how to give readings to other people at the start of their journey
As I’ve studied HD in a lot more detail I’ve found that it sits perfectly with my Freedom From Self Sabotage coaching - it’s now been incorporated into my client coaching offer - Your Year of Change - for clients who want it.
It works so well, because I can run the client’s shadow chart which shows the areas of struggle - the areas where conditioning and self sabotage are bound to turn up in the client’s life.
How Human Design helps with aligned personal growth
When you know yourself, you can be yourself. That is all. It’s really not complicated.
Identifying and undoing conditioning - which means coming back to yourself - is essentially what Human Design and Your Year of Change is all about. During Your Year of Change, we break the societal, familial and cultural conditioning.
The Human Design element gives further insights into your main areas of energetic conditioning.
Essentially, this work is all about getting rid of stuff you’ve picked up over the years that is not yours… ideas, beliefs, stories you tell yourself and so on. It builds a 360 degree picture of which areas to work on, thereby removing overwhelm and providing a clear pathway forward.
This is why Human Design leads to aligned personal growth - it pin points the exact areas you need to decondition from. It becomes your life’s work, stripping back the layers of BS to remember who you really are: Unique, and exactly who you’re supposed to be.
How to get started with Human Design
You need to know your exact birth details.
Create a free account on Genetic Matrix and enter your details
Download your chart (also known as a bodygraph).
You will receive something like this:
It will tell you which of the five energetic types you are and you can get an immediate idea of how many of your type there are in the collective. All of the types are special and have their unique ways of operating and this is just the beginning.
It will also show what kind of the five energetic types you are - in this case, the chart shows an Emotional Projector. This essentially explains how the Projector is designed to make decisions. It’s this particular Projector’s Authority.
The profile lines (in this case 1 / 3) show how you see yourself and how others see you, and the channels show particularly strong areas of accessible energies in your chart - things to look into further down the line.
The incarnation cross holds a great deal of information and forms the basis of another personal growth tool known as the Gene Keys which I will write about in another article - this has also been transformational for me - so much so that I chose to use one of my most significant Gene Keys as my logo (in case you were wondering!!).
Start with the basics
The chart itself is confusing and full of complex information which is why it’s worth booking a reading with someone with more HD knowledge than you who can start with the basics, and teach you about the elements that are the most important to begin with.
Sit with your chart. Print it off and pop it into a new file you’ve dedicated to your HD journey. Buy the book I suggest below, and see what you’re drawn to.
I find I refer back to this particular book time and again, as the information in your Human Design chart takes a while to integrate and to be understood.
Exploring your Human Design is not a mental process, it’s more like a remembrance; a deep inner knowing, an intriguing puzzle that’s hiding under the surface and unfolds over time.
It took me several years to begin to integrate my chart and its secrets into my day to day life, so please take your time.
The best book for beginners is this one:
Human Design: The Revolutionary System That Shows You Who You Came Here to Be by Jenna Zoe
Book a reading with me to make sense of it all
I learned to give HD readings from the teachings of a wonderful medium and HD expert. It is her method that I use, and I call my readings ‘Energetic Foundations’.
My teacher found that most HD readers overshare - probably due to their own conditioning around needing to ‘add value’ and overdeliver (sound familiar?).
Throwing everything and the kitchen sink at people brand new to HD is very overwhelming, and often detrimental.
The method I learned cuts through the woo and the technical stuff (which I love, but a newbie doesn’t need) to provide a reading that is concise, easy to understand and implement, and leaves room for the client to digest the information and return in their own time for further, often deeper readings.
The framework I use works so well because as a Manifestor, my energy is here to initiate. An Energetic Foundations reading will do just that - initiate your HD journey and your curiosity to dive deeper.
Human Design isn’t supposed to make you feel intimidated or overwhelm you with heavy, technical information.
It’s supposed to feel like RELIEF.
“Bloody hell, that makes sense.”
“Now I know why I get so angry!”
“Now I realise that if I sleep on it, the decision I make tomorrow will be the right one for me.”
During your reading I’ll give you loads of practical examples of how I’ve integrated HD into my daily life. It is SO helpful, it’s also fun and fascinating.
Central to my work is the knowledge that we are not broken, we do not need to be fixed, and we can take our time to really enjoy finding out more about who we really are underneath all of the conditioning, programming and BS we’ve been subjected to.
Visit the ‘Work With Jackie’ page to find out more.
I trust this article has given you a good overview and my personal take on using Human Design within the wider arena of aligned personal growth, and how you can get started with your own journey.
Here’s to your aligned personal growth.
Jackie x
Splenic Manifestor 1/3