Intro to Human Design: The System, the Chart, and How to Live Your Design
Articles / Human Design
Intro to Human Design: The System, the Chart, and How to Live Your Design
Human Design is a system of information that is based on the premise that each human is born with a uniquely programmed body, mind, personality, and purpose.
The Human Design System explains how each human is individually designed to physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically operate and interact in the world and offers information, practical tools, and strategies that any human can use to become more self-aware and live according to their true nature.
One of the most useful tools that the Human Design System provides is a chart that can be personalized for any human based on their time of birth (similar to an Astrology birth chart) which functions as a blueprint or diagram of the unique bio-genetic and energetic design that a human is born with.
Human Design is an extensive system that includes specific areas of focus like Rave Cosmology, the Primary Health System, Rave Psychology, DreamRave, Rave Sociology, and BG5 Career & Business Consulting, but even though it is a vast system in itself, Human Design is actually a component of a larger body of knowledge called the Design of Forms.
Referred to as the Science of Differentiation, the Design of Forms (including the Human Design System) is a merging of ancient systems of knowledge and modern sciences to make a new multi-faceted system and complex body of knowledge that explains and illustrates the mechanics of creation and provides information not only about humans, but about all forms in our universe, like inanimate objects, single cells, plants, insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals.
Each one of the systems and fields of study that the Science of Differentiation draws from (like Astrology, the I’Ching, Kabbalah’s Tree of Life, and the Hindu-Brahmin chakra system, as well as Quantum Mechanics, Astronomy, Genetics, and Biochemistry) has helped us explore and understand ourselves and the world around us in different ways, and has given us some answers to the mysteries of life, but the Science of Differentiation brings all the pieces together and synthesizes them into a comprehensive system that explains how the universe started, and how all forms within our universe are created to function as unique pieces of a larger whole.
The Human Design System is like a guidebook to being human. With its practical tools and strategies, The Human Design System can help us embrace our true nature, shed layers of conditioning, trust our inner knowing, make correct decisions, navigate relationships, live our life’s purpose, and do business & life the way that we were designed for less resistance and burnout, and more flow and fulfillment.
Intro to the Human Design Chart
As I mentioned before, the Human Design System is similar to Astrology in that it uses your time, date, and place of birth to calculate data and generate a chart or diagram of how the sun, moon, nodes of the moon, and planets imprinted you at the time of your birth.
A major difference from Astrology though, is that the Human Design System also uses a second date (the point in time before your birth when the sun was exactly 88 degrees from where it was at the moment of your birth, which works out to be 88 or 89 days before you were born) to calculate the data for how the sun, moon, nodes of the moon, and planets affected you in utero.
Two sets of data are calculated and displayed on your Human Design chart because according to the Human Design System, humans are made up of a form or vehicle (a physical body) which has its own unique biological and genetic programming as well as a passenger or observer (or what some people would call a soul) which has a uniquely programmed mind and personality. And each of these components (the vehicle with its biological and genetic programming and the passenger with its personality and mind programming) are held together to form a unique human being with a predetermined destination that they are pulled toward (or what some people call a destiny) — and this is made possible because we have a Personality Crystal, a Design Crystal, and a Prime Magnetic Monopole (which I talk more about later).
Your Human Design chart is a picture of your true nature in this lifetime. It is a blueprint of your natural bio-genetic and energetic programming that shows how your body, mind, and personality were created to function, and it is an instruction manual for how to do life according to your uniqueness.
Your Human Design chart does not show the nurturing and conditioning that inevitably gets put on you as you go through life, but it does give you a snapshot of how the sun, moon, nodes of the moon, and planets imprinted or programmed you while in utero and at the moment of your birth, including what is fixed, consistent, and reliable within your design, and where you are open to take in, sample, and experience energy from your environment.
Your Human Design chart shows how you are designed to operate and interact in the world, what kind of energy you will be radiating, and what effect you will have on people. It maps out how your relationship dynamics can play out, it shows where different attractions, resonances, and conflicts can happen with others, and it identifies how you are designed to show up in the world and make decisions that are correct for you.
Your Human Design chart shows your life’s purpose, your gifts and talents, your needs, your motivations, your drives and tendencies, and the challenges that you are predisposed to experience and learn from, and it even provides information about what environment is best for you to live in, how your mind is designed to perceive and view the world, and how your body and brain are designed to take in food, drink, and information for the optimal functioning of your entire being.
Like an owner’s manual for your body, mind and personality, your Human Design chart gives you information that you can use to properly nourish and take care of yourself, live in alignment with your true nature, make correct decisions, serve your purpose, be in relationship with others, meet your own potential, and experience more ease, flow, expansion, and fulfillment in relationships, business, and life.
Click the button below to generate your personalized Human Design chart on the original Human Design website.
Living Your Design: Self vs Not-Self
Living your Human Design is the practice of operating according to your true nature and shedding any layers of conditioning. There are many benefits to living your design, and also, I want to state for the record that the Human Design System does not promise that by living your design you will be the most wealthy or popular or that everything will be perfect and never challenging. That may end up being part of your destiny, but the only guarantee that the Human Design System gives, is that if you live your design, you will be the Self that you were born to be in this lifetime and experience everything that goes along with that.
The interesting part though, is that (according to the Human Design System) if you live as your true Self, then things will tend to flow, work out, or fall into place with little to no resistance, and your life will feel natural and “right” in your body. If you live according to your design, you will be drawn to the right places and connect with the right people, your energy will be used efficiently, your life will nourish you, and your physical health will benefit. This doesn’t mean that things will always be easy and perfect, but even when things feel challenging or complicated, you will be able to make decisions that are correct for you, that support your health, that align you with your destiny, and that contribute to the fulfillment of your life’s purpose.
On the other hand, if you do not live as your true Self according to your design, your life will likely feel harder, because there will be resistance — like swimming upstream or walking into the wind — and things probably won’t “line up” or flow for you as well as they could. If you operate in a way that you were not designed to, things can feel forced, suppressed, unnatural, confusing, or stressful in different ways, and you will also likely experience various forms of suffering, burnout, and even physical ailments.
Living in a way that you were not designed to, and constantly dealing with resistance is exhausting, painful, and literally puts wear and tear on your body. But knowing, embracing, and actively showing up as who you were born to be is what can allow you to stop doubting yourself and navigate life with a sense of self-trust, self-acceptance and self-love, and live a healthy life filled with peace, satisfaction, success, or surprise.
Sounds great right? And so simple. Just be yourself and live a healthy and fulfilling life! But even though the concept is simple, we all know it’s not always easy.
One of the complicated things about being a human is that we are born as our true selves, but from the moment of our birth, we start to be nurtured and conditioned by the energy around us coming from parents, siblings, caretakers, teachers, friends, society as a whole, and even the shifting energy of the planets. In addition to the intentional and unintentional nurturing and energetic conditioning that we receive as we grow up, we also inevitably live through situations where we experience various forms of hurt, disappointment, rejection, shame, and other unpleasant feelings. So (according to the Human Design system and popular psychology theory) our minds come up with strategies and try to make decisions that prevent us from experiencing painful feelings again.
So by the time you are reading this, you may not know who or what your true Self is, because your true Self is likely mixed up with or hiding under what the Human Design system calls the “Not-Self”, which is basically a bunch of thoughts, pressures, feelings, fears, strategies, and ways of being that your mind uses, identifies with, and reinforces, but that are not actually you. So if you want to start living as your true Self, you’ll have to distinguish between what is you and what is not you, what is your design and what is conditioning, or in other words, what is your Self and what is your Not-Self.
This is where your Human Design chart (and the Human Design System in general) can be really useful, because like I mentioned, your Human Design chart shows you the natural design or programming that you came into this lifetime with as well as where you are open and susceptible to conditioning from the outside world, and the Human Design System gives us information about the mechanics of how we receive conditioning and how our minds create the Not-Self and its strategies and ways of being that pull us away from our authentic life path.
Living Your Design: The Vehicle, The GPS, and The Passenger
So now you have an introduction to the Human Design system, the Human Design chart, and the concept of living your design as your true Self, and all this information is a great place to start, but if you want to experience the benefits of living your design, you will need to take action.
Human Design can just be fun information for your mind to play with — but real changes in your life happen when you take the information in and then put it into practice and experiment with it, and according to the Human Design system, the way that you do this is by convincing your mind to take the back seat, and letting your body’s intelligence move you through life.
To break it down even further, let’s go back to the Personality Crystal, Design Crystal, and Prime Magnetic Monopole that I mentioned earlier. This will give you some more information about how Human Design works, but more importantly, it will explain the mechanics of how we are meant to operate as our True Self (according to the Human Design system).
Your Personality Crystal
Your Personality Crystal (which is not technically a crystal) is a microscopic crystal-like structure that is located in your aura just above your scalp in what is called your Head Center and it is what manifests your mental consciousness and creates the self-aware witness, observer, or passenger part of you that is connected to your human body. At the moment of your birth, your Personality Crystal is the intelligence that received and translated information from the sun, moon, nodes of the moon, and planets, and used it to design and manifest the personality and mind of the passenger part of you, which you are consciously aware of. Because you are consciously aware of it, your personality and mind programming is what you probably identify with and it is what makes up who you think you are.
When you read or are told about the personality and mind side of your design, it will likely sound correct or not surprising, but there might also be other things in your identity or in your idea of your Self which could be either Not-Self, or it could be temporary conditioning from the transiting planets, because after the initial imprinting of your personality and mind design at the moment of your birth, your Personality Crystal will continue to receive information and energy from the sun, moon, nodes of the moon, and planets which are constantly moving, and use it to temporarily influence or affect your mind and personality. If you become really self-aware and track the moving planets, you can start to notice how you are affected, but it’s important to note that this transitional energy that you will experience throughout your life does not change your true nature or original mind and personality design. Like the energy that you take in from other people, it’s just energy that you are meant to sample, taste, or try on, and learn about for a period of time, but not identify with it.
Your Design Crystal
Your Design Crystal (which is not also technically a crystal) is a super tiny crystal-like structure that sits in your brain in what is called the Ajna Center (or the third eye) and is the intelligence that received and translated information from the sun, moon, nodes of the moon, and planets while you were in utero and used it to design your biological and genetic programming and manifest your physical form. Ever since your physical form was created, your Design Crystal has been operating and maintaining your body and will continue to do so throughout your life, but all of the work and functioning of your Design Crystal is done below or outside of your mental awareness, so although your Design Crystal and body share their own form of intelligence and functional programming, you are not mentally conscious of it. And because you are not mentally conscious of it, other people can often see the characteristics of your body’s design more clearly and easily than you do and it can come as a surprise to you when it shows itself. However, with that being said, it’s possible that with experience, self-inquiry, and self-reflection, you can come to know your body’s needs, tendencies, reactions, responses, and wisdom — but you won’t be conscious of your body’s functioning in real-time, and you can not change or control it.
So the cosmic joke is that when it comes to the two sides of your design, the part that you are conscious of and identify with (your mind and personality) is not the part that you are meant to use to navigate life. Nope, the part of you that is meant to move you through your life correctly is actually your body, but you don’t have real-time conscious awareness or control of your body, so it’s a bit of a joke, and this is one of the reasons why being a human is so tricky. So how are you supposed to correctly move through life? What are you supposed to listen to? And how are you supposed to make decisions? Well, this is where your Prime Magnetic Monopole comes in.
Your Prime Magnetic Monopole
Your Prime Magnetic Monopole is a teeny tiny single-pole magnet located in your chest in what is called the G-Center. Your Prime Magnetic Monopole holds your Design Crystal and your Personality Crystal (the design of your body and the design of your personality and mind) together in a sort of magnetic tension within your body and creates the illusion that the body and personality/mind components of your design are one unified entity that is separate from all the other humans and forms in the universe as well as from the cosmic whole that we are all a part of.
Your Prime Magnetic Monopole also pulls you toward your pre-programmed destination and draws certain people into your life as it moves you along the course of your life journey. Your Prime Magnetic Monopole knows where you are, where you are designed to go, and how to get you there. Your Prime Magnetic Monopole is in charge of taking you to the places and attracting the people and events that you are here to experience in this life. All you need to do is let it drive.
I’ve already used this vehicle and passenger analogy when I was introducing the Design and Personality Crystal, but the relationship between your Design Crystal, your Prime Magnetic Monopole, and your Personality Crystal can be thought of as someone riding in the bed of a self-driving pickup truck, where the structure of the truck is like your physical human body, the programmed computer system that operates the truck and the functioning of all its components is like your Design Crystal, the GPS or navigation system that guides the truck toward a programmed destination is like your Prime Magnetic Monopole, and the passenger sitting in the back of the truck is like your Personality Crystal. The passenger has a beautiful and unique personality and mind, but they can’t see where they are going, they didn’t program the destination, and they can’t see or control what’s happening to make the vehicle operate. All they are in a position to do is sit back, watch the scenery, and enjoy the ride. However, as you’ve probably experienced, your mind (the passenger) loves to think it’s in control, and it will try to grab the wheel and steer your vehicle. So the trick is to let your Prime Magnetic Monopole and body do their job of guiding you through life.
Living Your Design: Type, Strategy & Inner Authority
Okay, so we have established that according to the Human Design system, we are designed to let our Prime Magnetic Monopole and body guide us through life. But how do you actually do that? How do you know what your body is telling you? And how do you actually receive directions from your Prime Magnetic Monopole? The answer is to follow the Strategy for your Human Design Type and listen to your Inner Authority. This is because your Prime Magnetic Monopole communicates to you via your Inner Authority, and following your Strategy is how you sidestep your mind and allow your body to function correctly according to how it was genetically programmed to operate and interact with the world.
Type & Aura
The Human Design System divides humans into four different Types based on what Centers are defined and connected on their BodyGraph. The types are not psychological or personality classifications — they are specific ways that people are designed to function according to how they are genetically and biologically designed. The four Human Design Types are: Generator, Projector, Manifestor, and Reflector.
The Centers that are defined and connected on your BodyGraph also determine what kind of aura you will have. In case you are unfamiliar, auras are an electromagnetic energy field that surrounds and extends out from each living thing. Your aura communicates non-verbally and radiates energy that can be received and felt by anyone within about two of your arm’s lengths from you. Your Human Design Type is expressed through the aura for others to feel, and so your Type gives you information about how you are designed to interact with other people and how your energy will affect them.
Strategy
The aura that corresponds with your Human Design Type is also what determines your Strategy for operating and interacting in the world. Following your strategy will minimize resistance and maximize the goal feeling for your Type, which is either satisfaction, success, peace, or surprise.
Generator Types have an open and enveloping aura that magnetizes people and opportunities into them. The Strategy for this aura Type is to wait to respond. When a Generator follows their Strategy, they will minimize frustration and maximize satisfaction.
Projector Types have a focused, penetrating, and absorbing aura that gives them the potential to connect to the Prime Magnetic Monopole of other people, read the energy of others, and know how to guide them. The Strategy for this aura Type is to wait for the invitation. When a Projector follows their Strategy, they will minimize bitterness and maximize success.
Manifestor Types have a closed and repelling aura that gives them the potential to initiate things and make an impact. The Strategy for this aura Type is to inform. When a Manifestor follows their Strategy, they will minimize anger and maximize peace.
Reflector Types have a resistant and sampling aura that allows them to feel the energy around them while still maintaining a sort of barrier. The Reflector aura gives them the potential to read others and reflect or mirror everything around them with perfect equanimity. The Strategy for this aura Type is to wait and experience a full lunar cycle. When a Reflector follows their Strategy, they will minimize disappointment and maximize surprise.
Inner Authority
As I mentioned above, your Prime Magnetic Monopole (your internal GPS) communicates to you via your Inner Authority, and you are designed to consult our Inner Authority when it comes to making decisions — even if our social conditioning tells us to listen to authorities outside of ourselves, seek approval, or make decisions with our minds using “pros and cons” lists — especially when it comes to making decisions that have more serious consequences or impact on your life.
Your Inner Authority is determined by the Centers and Channels that you have defined in your BodyGraph, and there are eight different Inner Authorities, which are: Emotional, Sacral, Splenic, Heart Manifested (aka Ego Manifested), Heart Projected (aka Ego Projected), Self-Projected, Environment, and Lunar.
For easy access, you can find your Inner Authority listed in the info below your BodyGraph when you generate your chart on my website).
What’s Next?
Check out the links below if you want to learn more about Human Design, if you want to be notified when new articles are published, if you want to see where I sourced my information from, or if you want to generate your Human Design chart for free on the original Human Design website.
And if you’re now feeling the urge to start experimenting with Human Design, please read my post: Human Design at the Tenth House.
:) Steph
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Click the link below to generate your Human Design chart on the original Human Design website for free.
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The Human Design System by Ra Uru Hu
From The Book of Letters: A Guide to Human Design Analysis Based on the Human Design System by Ra Uru Hu
The Science of Differentiation: The Definitive Book of Human Design By Ra Uru Hu & Lynda Brunell
Rave Cosmology III: Dying, Death, and the Bardo Stages by Ra Uru Hu
Rave Cosmology VIII: Mystic Monologues by Ra Uru Hu
Rave Cosmology V: Brahma's Night and Beyond by Ra Uru Hu
Living your Design: A New Manual for Awakening by Ra Uru Hu, revised & edited by Richard Rudd
Living your Design: A Manual for Cellular Transformation, Instructor Manual by: Lynda Bunnell
https://www.jovianarchive.com/Products/377/A_Look_at_the_Rave
https://www.jovianarchive.com/Stories/10/Introduction_to_the_Human_Design_System
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Click the link to browse all Human Design articles that have been published in The Tenth House.