In the spirit of being alive.

on breaking "the rules," honoring my ego, and returning back to self.

I’ve been having a lot of Realizations™ lately. So much clarity and awareness has emerged I almost don’t know what to do with it.  

The past three years have been… rocky. I think anyone observing from the outside can see that. It likely appears I’m in the throes of an extended quarter-life crisis (which, you are indeed correct.)

Experimenting with Human Design has been life shattering. Learning how you get conditioned by the world and your relationships, how you try to emulate and become your open centres, radically changes how you see yourself and your life as it’s happening.

It was three years ago I went fully “radical” and hardcore into my experiment. I abandoned ship on everything in my life; I stopped initiating with friendships, with work, with everyone and everything.

As with many different systems and modalities I’ve discovered in the past, I tend to have a habit of thinking I’ve found “the one.” I will hold it up as the holy grail, as the only system of truth, wholeheartedly believing this is the thing that’s going to fix me and my life.

Before Human Design it was Kundalini yoga. Before yoga it was manifestation and Lacy Phillips. Before manifestation… well I guess it was partying and getting blackout drunk 😂

As a third line profile, you are constantly banging into things which you believe are fixed and stable, only to find several years down the line you have to tell everyone “never mind, that wasn’t it.” And then the cycle repeats each time you find the next big thing, ad infinitum, forever.

I have a complex relationship to Human Design. The last year has seen me weave in and out of different perspectives, challenging this system’s beliefs, language, and rigid community, even so far that for a while I was considering writing a piece titled ‘The Cult-like Behaviour in Human Design’ (especially after reading this article and seeing how many boxes it checks off.)

But I still love this system and find immense value in the way it has helped me understand myself. I have been cracked-open many times in readings and sessions with others deep in their experiment who have recognized me in my process.  

It must be annoying how often I write about this, how frequently I flip between my pro vs con Human Design train of thought. Perhaps that’s exactly how I’m meant to be as someone with an undefined head and ajna. Maybe one day I will step out of this trip altogether and it won’t be something I think about anymore (but until then, I will continue to write about this topic into the ground.)

I desperately want to be certain about something… about anything! And I am embarrassed when I am not, when I change my opinions, my beliefs, my knowing, my logical answers, at a moment’s notice, for no reason at all.

It changes every day. It changes depending on who I am with and what information and media I am taking in. I have to learn time and time again that I am open and vulnerable when it comes to the mental plane. I am (slowly) learning the ability to discern what is healthy for me and what is not. If our open centres are where we are here to “go to school,” then my undefined head and ajna are my biggest areas of learning.

I booked a counseling session recently with someone who is very well versed in Human Design. I needed someone to talk through these larger existential questions that have been pressing me for the last several years. I cried on and off the entire two and a half hours, my eyes swollen to the size of mosquito bites the next day.

She pulled up my chart as I was sharing my current experience and feelings, and as I was looking at it, I had a real breakthrough; I felt like I was seeing my design again for the first time.  

I have a very compact, intensely physical, body-focused design. I have no definition from my throat upwards. I was suddenly hit with the horrifying realization I’ve spent the majority of the last three years living from a mentally preoccupied space.

Yes, even in the system which supposedly promotes “body awareness.”

I have been trying so hard to become this pseudo-intellectual “smart” Human Design person, and ironically, it has nothing to do with who I am.

I often reflect on my childhood as a useful barometer of who I was before I got caught in the throes of conditioning. Somewhere between ages 7 and 10, I felt the shift of becoming more insecure and self-aware of my shortcomings (aka, when the conditioning took hold.)

As a kid, I did not care about the intellectual realm whatsoever. I was deeply connected to my body, wanting to try almost everything at least once, constantly dipping my toes into new and different experiences. I was very much into doing, into playing in the material world. I was never very still; I did not care for thinking or pondering life’s mysteries. I was constantly asking “what are we doing, where are we going, let’s do something fun!!”

I used to think this was just conditioning, that I must have been over-amplifying all the sacral energy around me. And true, I probably was to some extent. But… I’ve always had energy. I’ve always had a thirst for life, an intense need in wanting to experience the world, to get all my energy out. I was honestly, always kind of obsessive; I had no chill.

Learning I was a Projector ran counterintuitive to everything I had known about myself up until that point. I was never considered lazy. I always had energy to burn. I was ambitious, took initiative, was willing to throw myself into anything I wanted badly enough.

And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t always correct. I’ve said yes many times when I actually wanted to say no. I’ve been bitter working too long at jobs which didn’t fulfil me. I’ve been bitter in relationships where I felt like my sole purpose was to be the person they could vent all their frustrations to, whilst never wanting my input.

But I was a Projector who was very involved in the material life. Never had I wanted to be extricated out of it.  

When I look at my design, it’s so obvious everything connects through the ego. Even though I have emotional authority, I always felt like my ego played a central role in my decision-making. I genuinely have to want to do something and have the willpower to follow through for it to be correct for me. There is a level of needing to prove myself — a deeply physical, motorized need that originates in the body.

Nothing in our designs can be neglected. Without tending to, without honoring and acknowledging these parts of ourselves, they atrophy and lose vitality.

It is commonly said that the sacral will atrophy for Generators/MGs, built up from years of ignoring one’s internal response. Over time, we learn to override what is our natural energy, what is our individual truth, usually for the sake of pleasing others or conforming to what is considered “acceptable.”  

In the last three years of not working, it has felt like my ego has been atrophying and slowly dying.

Without something to commit to or show up for, I have felt lost and useless.

When I don’t have something to throw my heart into, I easily fall into depression.

I have been ignoring these simple truths for a long time in the name of “deconditioning” and “the experiment.”

I have gaslit myself into believing it was just my mind which wanted to work and make money.

I have been told as a Projector that I am “not here to work,” that I have no energy as a non-sacral being.

Projectors have been lumped into one homogenous group, as if we all require the same things and experience life in the same way.

I have not found this to be true.

I have found that trying to fit myself into this box of “who I should be” has deeply affected my spirit and self-esteem.

I am a Projector with all three motors connected in a single definition. I have energy to burn. Maybe not all day everyday, but boy, can I work powerfully in short intervals when the energy is switched on.

In these years of suppressing the gnawing feeling that something isn’t right, I’ve continually told myself that “one day it’s going to get better, one day this is going to pay off.”

But what if that isn’t true?

What if the only gift of this system is awareness?

What if I’ve been waiting for a train that will never arrive?

What if the point of all this is to simply experience being alive?

I heard myself say out loud recently I sometimes feel like I am dead (sorry for the melodrama.) I know many of us have experienced crises of meaning since the pandemic. I am definitely not alone in this — coupled with entering into my mid-20s, it is a confusing time to be navigating the world.

But in my radical approach to Human Design these last years — where I very much threw my entire heart and soul into this experiment — I became more and more disconnected from the real world.

Some might say that’s because “I’m special” and I’m part of “the 4% of the 4%” (elitism is one of the hallmark signs of cults by the way.)

Yet, I feel like I’ve been neglecting the part of myself which wants to say fuck it and experience life to the fullest. I’ve turned away from my internal needs, wants, and desires; I’ve tried to make them wrong; I’ve tried to banish them; I’ve tried to shame their existence as my “not-self mind.”

The harder I’ve tried to “do” this experiment and be “perfectly” aligned with my design, the more the fire within me has dwindled.

My childhood self who has a tenacity and driven will to go forth into the unknown, who has a fearlessness in experimenting and trying new things, has been told to sit in the corner and shut up. She’s been crying out for years for someone to listen to her.

I will never have certainty on the mental plane. I will never know if what I’m doing is correct or incorrect. I will never learn or discover what I need to in life when I am afraid of doing anything at all.

That’s where I’ve been these last years: suspended in paralysis.

This is not to say it was not valuable. I have learnt a tremendous number of things about myself in this absence of “doing.”

In this experiment of waiting — of “radically” living as a Projector and adhering to the principles of this system — I got to be an observer of life rather than the active participant.

I got to experience not working at all for the first time in over a decade.

I got to experience life with no schedule or structure. No school, no university, no job to show up for.

I got to experience what it was like not making my own money.

I got to experience a profound amount of time in solitude.

I was able to learn to distinguish what is me from what is not me.

I got to intimately learn the nature of my inner authority.

And yet… I have reached my limit. I need to experience the world. I need to be a part of life. I need to be a 20-something messing about in her 20s.

The 37-40 is keynoted as a design of the part seeking the whole — I never really understood what this meant until recently.

What I’ve come to understand is that I have a deep need to find my place within a larger community. That community can also be called life itself.

I cannot feel fulfilled living in isolation forever. I need my tribal bonds and bargains. I need to feel I have value and purpose. I need to be deeply interwoven with the material world.

I do not want to live a life lost in mental constructs. I don’t want to be a philosopher who solely resides on the intellectual plane.

I need the mundane.

I need to be a part of the messy, intricate way of the maia.

I need to be able to make mistakes without shame, without following any kind of rulebook of “shoulds” and imaginary “laws.”

So, does this mean am I abandoning Human Design?

I don’t know. I don’t think it’s possible to abandon something that is now embedded into your cells.

But am I abandoning the rulebook? Yes.

Am I loosening my grip on certain concepts of what it means to live as a Projector? Yes.

Am I entering into a new phase of my experiment where I am basically saying fuck off to everyone else’s opinions? Yes.

Each realization I’ve had these last few months has set off a domino effect of awareness, each leading into the next. I realized I didn’t want to do sessions anymore. I realized I didn’t want to be a human design influencer or content creator. I realized I don’t like spending that much time online. I realized I don’t like self-employment as much as I thought I would.

I realized that nobody could give me an answer besides myself.  

No mentor, no teacher, no guru. Not even Human Design.

No one can tell me how to live my life except for me.

No one can know what’s correct for me except for me.

Now this is a new frontier of self-trust. Beyond any system, any intellectual framework, any mental concept that exists outside of myself.

I have been applying to jobs again. It has felt incredibly uncomfortable and scary, my mind screaming no no no you’re not allowed to initiate! You’re not supposed to do this as a Projector!

But I had to be honest with myself. I had to really question if this way of living is working for me anymore.

It’s not.

I got used to it and normalized depression as part of my experiment.

Yet, I’d like to believe that we’re not here to be miserable. That persistent and prolonged feelings of hopelessness is not something we’re here to just suffer through and ignore.

I’d like to think there is a spirit of aliveness in all of us. We all require different things to keep the flame burning. I am now more aware of what is needed to stoke mine.

I will never not be able to throw my entire heart into whatever it is I’m passionate about. It’s who I am; it’s how I’m designed. I threw my heart and blood into Human Design. I don’t know many people who went to the lengths I did with this system. The ability to leap blindly into the void is coded into my being.

So now I will leap into another void.

Into my fuck it / fuck off everyone era.

Into my let’s see what happens when I honor my desires era.

It feels disorientating. I am experiencing a lot of discomfort and fear around breaking habits, of disrupting my routine and mentally fixed ideas of “correctness.”

But I also feel excited to be back in the Game of Life. To be taking ownership and responsibility for myself in tending to my core needs and values.

Of course, the fates usually get the final say in how things will turn out. But I am opening myself up again to a life of possibility — I want to be the active participant and main character of this movie. I want to experience what it means to be fully alive in form. I want to lead a life of richness and substance, filled with all the emotional intensity that comes with being human.

It’s messy and gritty and not always aesthetic or glamorous. But it’s real. I would rather live from this fertile soil of imperfection than pretend I am fulfilled by the delusions of mind alone.