My Human Design Origin Story.

a chronicle of the last seven years.

I am currently writing a zine specifically for Projectors called The Projector Handbook. It’s for Projectors who are over following their “strategy and authority,” sick of feeling broke, miserable, and struggling to receive any invitations. Stay tuned for more information at the end of the article ˚꩜。

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I found Human Design in 2018 at the ripe old age of 21. I remember sitting in the Bunnings parking lot before my shift started looking up my chart on Jovian Archive. I was already obsessed with astrology, so anything resembling a personality typing system immediately had me hooked. I found out I was a Projector. When I went home that night, naturally I turned to Google to find out more (oh, the times before ChatGPT).

Throughout 2018, between the MDMA fueled nights at deep house raves and the binge drinking blackouts, I was casually researching more about Human Design. I wanted to know everything about being a Projector; I wanted to understand what it meant to be a 3/5 with Emotional Authority. There wasn’t many blogs on the subject — it was pre-Human Design saturation point; it was still the wild, wild west when it came to scouring the corners of the internet for information. I was merely curious about the knowledge; there was little emotional investment attached, except the desire to identify with something that could tell me who I was and what I was supposed to do with my life. I was a seeker, and I was vulnerable.

My early relationship to Human Design was very innocent. Meaning, it was casual, fun, an interest I had amongst many other New Age modalities at the time. I resonated with my chart, although I don’t know how much of that was just placebo. I wouldn’t say I took to Human Design immediately; it was a slow and gradual build, a system I would continue to research in my spare time over several years. I *loosely* was experimenting with sleeping on things as an Emotional Authority. But nothing too deep. I had no idea what “source material” was, and I was turned off by the short clips I heard of Ra Uru Hu — the cadence of his voice disturbed me. I was primarily listening to podcasts with popular “spiritual” Human Design experts, who presented a more mainstream, palatable version of the system.

In 2019, I was still casually researching Human Design. I even bought several of Ra’s lecture videos from Jovian. The end of that year, I got my first reading. I was starting to experiment more with the “invitation” … testing it out in my friendships particularly during my study abroad in Amsterdam.

Still, my relationship to the information was relaxed. I didn’t know a lot about the system, only researching my own chart and occasionally looking up the people I knew. The numbers and channels were still a mystery to me. During Covid, I started taking classes on Human Design and eventually took my first course. I loved it — the teacher had incorporated it with other practices including restorative yoga and tea infusions. It felt empowering, exciting, and most importantly, fun. The pieces of the system were finally beginning to click together and make sense to me.

Then 2021 hit. And this is where the story takes a different turn.

~

I was listening to a Human Design podcast. The guest was someone I had never heard of before but was clearly highly educated on the system. They were throwing out terminology I had never come across; my mind was being blown right open.

Then came the biggest shattering of all: the introduction of Pop Human Design.

I was told that almost every spiritual Human Design expert I had been so faithfully listening to for the last three years was wrong. They had corrupted the system; they had twisted the true meaning of HD on its head, using manifestation and spirituality to sell a diluted version of the information which had nothing to do with the “source.” It was Pop Human Design; it was “mind candy.”

Holy fucking shit, I thought. Maybe this system is deeper than I originally encountered? Maybe this goes beyond astrology, beyond any other personality typing system, and actually holds the secret universal Truth?

Enter in: Source Material Era™

I started exclusively listening to Ra lectures to “correctly” educate myself. I bought more off Jovian, and then eventually stumbled into a giant folder online filled with hundreds of original books and audios. I hit the jackpot, and I went to town.

Suddenly I began to adopt a seriousness in my approach to the knowledge. “The experiment” with Strategy and Authority was no longer a side hobby; it was about to become my entire life. I was now convinced this was the most important thing I could ever do for myself — learn to live “correctly” according to my Human Design. I remember the day clearly; I had written in my journal that I was officially “giving up” all other systems and modalities because they were no longer real in my mind. This was it. I was going to surrender — radically — to being a Projector.

Having recently been let go of my job, and Sydney about to go into a major lockdown for fourth months, this was the perfect time to go “hardcore.” I decided I was no longer initiating anything in my life — not with friends, not with strangers, not with family. No starting conversations, no applying to jobs, no reaching out first to people with plans or invitations. According to my new understanding, the “mind” didn’t know what was best for me. I had to surrender to what life brought my way.

Granted, this was a very exciting time. I was listening to hours and hours of lectures every day, making YouTube videos about what I was learning in the early hours of the morning whilst my roommate was asleep, eventually starting an anonymous IG account where I was also sharing my key takeaways. I was brimming with enthusiasm for this system; it was practically spilling out of me. Slowly, I began to find a community online of people who were also as obsessed with Human Design as I was — but not with the “fake” version of this system, the “real” source material kind.

We were all hardcore. We were all passionate about dispelling the “myths” perpetuated by “fake” Human Design experts. We were all sharing deep, personal insights and heretical takes on the system online. We were different; we were radical.

And this sense of online community was exactly what I needed. In my real life, because I was now living as a “true” Projector and not reaching out to anybody, I lost most of my friends. I was very alone. But not when I opened Instagram. Not when I was part of this budding community of people who got it, who saw me, and who could empathize with my plight in endeavoring to live “correctly.”

I was steadfast in my belief that “waiting” was going to be the solution to everything. I believed that as a Projector I was entitled to having everything in life delivered right to my doorstep. What else was there to do? No more planning, no more goals, no more chasing after what the mind wanted. There was nothing else for me to do except go deeper and deeper into Human Design. I was a ravished beast, power hungry for knowledge. And thus, I listened to and read nearly 90% of the gigantic mega file. More than anybody I knew.

My tunnel vision grew more intense. But the signs that anything was wrong with my obsession weren’t showing themselves yet. I was still in the delusion that everything was going perfectly; that because I was living as the Perfect Projector according to my Strategy and Authority, my “success” was inevitable.

Right, guys?

~

Not meaning to be dramatic. But fuck it. I will.

2022 was the worst year of my life.

Good luck sweetie. Taken in Feb 2022.

The Human Design community I was part of on IG was starting to show its cracks. No longer a supportive space of empowerment, it became a popularity contest; a showdown of proving who was “correct” versus who was “incorrect”; a culture of shame and judgment; a space with undertones of religious dogma where anything shared that wasn’t in alignment with Ra or “source material” were dismissed and mocked. Individuals who called out this behavior were outcasted; the dramatic arguments between different sects of the community were at an all-time high.

And I am not above it. I perpetuated and fed into all of the above. I wanted to project an aura of certainty, solidity, and authority in the radical Human Design world. I was posting controversial opinions for shock value; I was doubling down on the importance of sticking strictly to “source.” I was doing sessions with people and outright dismissing their experiences if it didn’t align with my limited framework of “correctness.” I developed a Projector superiority complex, bolstered by the other Projectors around me who also felt entitled to being elitist assholes.

Eventually I stumbled onto John Martin. I know not everyone resonates with his highly provocative take on Human Design — but it cracked me open, even just a little bit, to the thought that maybe my belief in this system was the very thing that was fucking me up. John didn’t believe in everything Ra said. I remember starting to panic because suddenly my certainty in thinking there was a “right” way to “do” HD was being challenged. Maybe I had gotten it all wrong…

But I wasn’t ready to confront that yet. I couldn’t really cope with the cognitive dissonance. I had invested so much of my identity ego into convincing myself and everyone else why Human Design was “end game” and “Truth” with a capital T. I didn’t want to look stupid; I had blown up my whole life for this system. No, I must be right, Ra is always right, there is a “correct” to be a Projector or else you're just not-self.

So I put his work away and carried on with my rigidity in living as a “radical” Projector. I told myself I just needed to keep going.

~

I woke up on my 25^th birthday alone in my apartment, counting down the minutes until it was an acceptable hour to start drinking. I made it until 2pm.

I had found out on stories earlier that week that the guy I thought I was in love with (who was also my Human Design mentor, a fucked-up situation if there ever were one) had lied to me. I felt so embarrassed and publicly humiliated; that’s the closest I’d ever come to experiencing real heartbreak, the anger and sadness both threatening to consume my entire body. Not only that, but I had just screwed up my friendship with someone I deeply admired and respected because I was emotionally dumping on her daily about this situation. She blocked me, and I knew I deserved it.

Who was I? What was I doing? Why was I trying so hard to prove to everyone around me that I was “right” in my interpretation of this system? Did I even believe in what I was saying? Was I just posting these controversial opinions to prove to this person I was loyal to their “side”?

And what was the cost? My obsessive infatuation with him ruined my friendships. I pushed people who genuinely wanted the best for me away. And in the end, I was rejected anyway.

I was a broken mess. My younger sister was comforting me over the ending of this (online) relationship. She was the one who legit told me “you’re just going through a breakup” and I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that these physical sensations — feeling like I could literally curl up in a hole and die — were just the motions of going through heartbreak (I’m a late bloomer and my sister is wise beyond her years).

This relationship was so deeply intertwined with my connection to Human Design. They felt like two sides of the same coin; if one side broke down, it would impact the other.

Yet, I was still gripping very tightly to being a Projector. It was my only lifeline; I could fuck everything else up but at least I still had this system to coddle me and keep me safe. If nothing else, I had the knowledge, and if I had invested this much of my time, energy, and resources into following this path, I had to keep going to see where it led. Yes, I was miserable, but in my delusional state, I believed this way of living — “waiting” in passive observer mode, not taking action in any direction at all — would eventually pay off. Sunk cost fallacy. I was committed to seeing it through.

~

In 2023, I moved to Santa Fe in New Mexico. The opportunity had come via invitation from someone I had met at a Human Design conference the previous year. I can clearly trace the invisible string which had led me here: if I had never started that anonymous IG account, if I had never started sharing my writing online, if I had never stumbled into the “radical” HD community, if I had never been head over heels obsessed with my mentor, if I had never shown up to that conference — I wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t be living in Santa Fe. I wouldn’t be living in my apartment. I wouldn’t have met many of the most important relationships I have in my life currently.

This was the year I had a rebirth in my creativity; I was beginning to really claim my title as a “writer,” not just a “Human Design person.” I was slowllyyyyy continuing to question my dogmatic approach to this system (but hadn’t quite cracked it yet). I started re-incorporating previous practices I used to do like meditation and yoga. I started opening up my perspective again to different world views, reading everything from Alan Watts to Rick Rubin. My scope was widening; there were other possible ways of interpreting life outside of Human Design.

At the end of 2022, I had booked a foundation reading with perhaps one of the most “radical” Projectors out there. At the time I had booked it, I was struggling emotionally, torn between my desire to get a job and my belief that I needed to keep waiting as a Projector. He was so booked out I had to wait an entire year to for our session together. Of course, I was in a totally different place a year later. As I was continuing to open myself up to a life outside of Human Design throughout 2023, and as the date of the reading drew closer, I was seriously considering cancelling. I was wary of being conditioned back into the “source”-heavy interpretation of Human Design, especially when I feel like I had only *barely* broken out of it.

But alas. I had waited an entire year, and the sunk cost fallacy struck me again. So what the hell. We did the session together.

It was of course exactly what I expected. He gave a very structured reading of the information presented exactly as Ra suggested. He said all the “correct” things according to the system; he encouraged me to keep radically waiting, and that I was doing everything “right” as a Projector. Basically, don’t initiate. Certainly don’t go get a job.

The reading made me recommit to my experiment. It soothed the doubts and questions my mind was delicately trying to unpack, giving me permission to tuck them back into a box in the basement of my psyche. I wonder though if I had cancelled that reading, whether I would’ve woken up sooner from my spell. But I guess I just needed more time. I could keep waiting a little longer…

~

2024 was the year it all came crumbling down, the effects of living this way for so long finally taking shape in my reality. I could no longer avoid the uncomfortable truth: I was depressed. I was unhappy. I didn’t like my life. I wanted to change.

But I was scared. I didn’t know “how” to be a “normal” human again. I literally was afraid to start conversations with strangers at this point. I didn’t know how to “initiate” anymore because I had hammered into my brain for years that it was “wrong,” “bad,” and “incorrect.”

I would stare at the cashier at the local coffee shop and try to work myself up to asking them if they had any job openings. But I couldn’t do it; I convinced myself that the reason I felt so uncomfortable walking up to them was because it was “unnatural” to initiate as a Projector. It took me a while to realize my feelings of discomfort were simply because I was challenging my entire belief system. Of course it was going to feel scary and “wrong” when suddenly I was disrupting the “rules” I had been strictly abiding by for so long.

It took me most of the year to finally summon the courage to seriously start applying to jobs. To let go of “waiting” for invitations and instead take action on my life. I eventually got a barista gig in the fall, and I believe this is when my new beliefs began to truly solidify.

Suddenly, I was around “normies” again. I was around people who knew nothing about Human Design and seemed to be doing just fine. Nobody was following their “Strategy and Authority” — yet, they appeared a hell of a lot happier than the people I was surrounded by in the pits of Human Design. I had finally broken through my belief that living as a Projector was the “only” way to exist — and the only way I really did that was by proving a different life was possible through taking action. The spell was finally broken; I was beginning to heal. I reconnected with the realization I had agency over my own life. I had the power to choose, and I never wanted to renounce that power ever again.

~

I’m not going to sugar coat it: this was an incredibly traumatic period of my life.

I fell into a cult-like mentality around this system and had imprisoned myself for years. Whilst no one was technically enforcing the “rules” of Human Design over my head — it had embedded itself so deeply into my brain that I couldn’t even comprehend the limitations were self-imposed, that I could simply just walk away. I never felt more lost and confused as I battled with my various states of cognitive dissonance during this time; I was constantly fighting the desire to listen to my intuition (knowing this way of living wasn’t working for me) from the yearning to believe this was just the price of living a “correct” life (suffering, because that was the “burden” of awareness).

Of course I was angry, upset, sad, and in a state of shock over having lost myself for so many years.

Of course I was going to need to take a significant amount of time off from this system in order to recover and find my center again.

Of course I was going to flip the bird and burn this body of knowledge to the ground as part of my process of healing (and grieving).

This was the system that supposedly promoted “claiming your own authority.” And yet, I had given my power away to very thing it was supposed to liberate me from.

I do not blame anyone for my experience. I refuse to point fingers at specific people or label others as the “reason” I had such a tumultuous relationship with Human Design. I refuse to take the bait whenever someone tries to get me to confess it was somebody else’s fault (because it wasn’t).

After all, many individuals come to Human Design and have a completely different experience which is incredibly empowering. It never falls into dogmatic, cult-like territory; they never even stumble across the idea there is a “correct” way to do Human Design or not.

After publicly denouncing this system, I genuinely believed I would never look back. I wanted to bury my past in the ground, move on, and forge a completely new identity.

But over the last several months, something has shifted. I can feel myself developing an entirely new relationship to this system, firmly rooted in my own experience. It now comes from a place of actual integration, from a place of trusting myself first rather than blindly accepting the information as fact.

I am no longer trying to mould myself to fit the map; I know now that the map is not the territory. One’s lived experience will always differ from static theory.

I now actually understand what it means to live this as an experiment. I validate what is true for myself; I do not believe in everything Ra said just because he founded the system. I have many points of disagreement, but I also understand that others might find truth in the same thing that doesn’t resonate for me personally. I don’t solely subscribe to Human Design as my one world view; I am forging my own path and my own unique perspective. I take from whatever I find useful and I choose to discard the rest.

I think the most important thing to remember — and what might have saved me from going through this long, arduous process and can perhaps prevent others from the same — is understanding that you can’t get it wrong. There is no such thing as making a “wrong decision.” It doesn’t matter what you do or what you don’t do. It doesn’t matter if you follow your Strategy and Authority or not. You can make up the rules to your own life. You can literally do whatever you want; no one is stopping you.

THIS is what I believe Human Design was supposed to be about: honoring your own individuality, trusting yourself above all else. If it is not empowering you, then please, walk away. Find your own means of empowerment.

Ironically, this was my seven year deconditioning journey. Who is to say that everything I went through was exactly what needed to happen? I don’t know if I could have learned what I did any other way. I third lined the hell out of this system and now I am here to universalize my experience. To share what worked for me, encouraging others to find what works for them.

I genuinely hope nobody else has to endure the same level of mental anguish and pain I went through with Human Design. If being “radical” works for you, then keep going. But if you have ever felt a *sliver* of an inkling that perhaps there is another way of living out there for you — I promise you, it’s possible.

✮ ⋆ ˚。𖦹 ⋆。°✩

I am SO excited to finally be launching my very own zine!! I am currently in the midst of writing and creating The Projector Handbook.

It’s part memoir, part practical guide, on how to become an Empowered Projector who lives by their own rules.

This is for the misfits, the anarchists, those who genuinely want to experiment with Human Design and find what WORKS for YOU.

This is for any Projector who has ever felt limited and boxed into the “correct” way of living their design.

This is the permission slip given to all Projectors to fuck the invitation so you can live a full, inspiring, badass life.

This is NOT a copy-paste teaching of “what Ra said.”

This is me sharing from my lived, embodied experience so you can shine like a motherf*cking star in your Projector brilliance.

Articles will include topics ranging from understanding the Projector Aura, to navigating relationships, to alchemizing bitterness into a constructive tool which actually benefits you. I will also be including my heretical take on the invitation and my thoughts on whether “waiting” is a legitimately helpful strategy or not.

Expected release date is October. More details (and teasers) to come soon ⚡️