What You REALLY Need to Know To Get Started With Human Design

It's a lot less than you think.

“There is no handicap in a design.” - Ra Uru Hu

Beginnings Are Hard and Chaotic 

There’s no denying that. Hell, there’s even a channel in Human Design (60/3: Channel of Mutation) that shows us that. We’re either terrified to get started, worried about what others will think, and/or afraid it will all come crashing down and failure is the only option. Welcome to the human experience. It’s not easy; which leads me to the first tenet of your Human Design experiment:

You have to accept what you have, who you are, and release all the shit you think you want, should have, or believe you deserve. 

One of the things Ra talks a lot about in his teachings is “choicelessness”. That’s to say, you have no choice in the energy you were given. You can’t change it, modify it, or swap it out (permanently) with anyone else. You can’t just go to the Universe and request a refund or exchange.

You were given your Human Design for a very specific reason, and the more you experiment with who you are and how it all comes together, your True self starts to reveal itself with little effort beyond simply following your Strategy and Authority. 

Just know that what you have is yours to understand, accept, apply, and share with the rest of us so that we can learn from your wisdom. 

You’re not broken. You’re not incomplete. You’re exactly who you’re intended to be and given the energy that was meant for you. There is no such thing as a handicap in a design despite what your Mind wants to convince you of, which leads me to the second tenet. 

Your Mind Will Desperately Hang Onto Control

You are not your Mind. Your Mind is in no position to make decisions for you.

This is where we all falter. We hang onto this notion that the Mind is what runs our lives. It’s the source of our decisions and the only way to figure out how to move forward in this life.

BULLSHIT. There are 7 Authorities (decision making strategies) in Human Design. The Mind is not one of them. 

Your Mind isn’t an inception center. It’s a collection center. Studies have actually proven your body responds to stimulus faster than your Mind does. Your Mind collects the data your body gathers and then attempts to translate it to stay in control. The only problem is it doesn’t understand what it’s translating. 

The Mind collects its misguided interpretation of your energy - whether it’s defined or undefined in your chart - jumbles it all together into this indistinguishable bullshit story, which then becomes the source of your Not Self.

For example, let’s take my Not Self Messages:

I’m a simple split definition, meaning I have two separate areas of definition split from one another. My defined Ajna connected to my Throat is NOT connected to my defined Spleen, Sacral, and Root, which are all connected to one another. To connect these separate areas to one another it takes one gate - EITHER gate 16 or 20. When connected, I have complete, unbroken access to my full energy. 

So right off the bat, my Not Self Mind interprets that small gap as a missing piece. According to it, I’m broken and incomplete. That gap is all my fault and something I need to fix. NOPE! Sorry Not Self Mind. That “gap” serves a very unique purpose. I’m here to experience ALL the variations of those gates in other people and learn what Gate 16 - the gate of skills - and Gate 20 - the gate of contemplation - mean for me so that I can determine when that energy - coming from others - is correct for me. 

Next all my undefined centers: Head, G, Ego/Heart, Solar Plexus. 

Because my Not Self doesn’t understand the wisdom to be found in these undefined centers, it convinces me that I need to avoid rocking the boat with other people so I can prove I know who I am and where I’m headed by answering all of the questions that flood my Mind.

This is how the Mind keeps control. Biologically, you seek what you’re not. Meaning you genetically “crave” the energy available in any split or open/undefined center. So your Mind uses that against you. It combines all of your “gaps” into this message you’ve carried around your entire life and convinces you THAT’S who you need to be in order to get what you want. 

Just because you genetically crave the energy you don’t have doesn’t mean it’s correct for you. 

And that Not Self message your Mind keeps playing on repeat is how you make decisions until you finally discover your true inner authority. 

So for the better part of three decades I’ve been making decisions based on the false perception that… 

I need to stay busy building skills to prove I know who the fuck I am and where I’m headed in this life and, oh by the way, don’t piss anyone off…

rather than letting my gut and intuition tell me,

Oh HELL yes! This is what we’re doing right now - the future and what it means for me and my direction as well others’ emotions about it be damned!

Which leads me to the third and final, for now, tenet. 

Focus on Your TSA and Not Self

No matter the details of your Design, it all comes back to Type/Strategy and Authority. 

During a Discovery Reading, I go through what are called the Four Views:

• Type/Strategy

• Authority

• Definition - Not Self and True Self

• Profile

It’s A LOT to take in, but I do my best to give you the highlights so you’re not overwhelmed. Without fail, your Mind wants to step in and find all the answers immediately. That’s not the point. The point is to internalize the information you receive during a reading and pick one, maybe two things to start experimenting with to determine its validity.

My recommendation? Focus on TSA (Type | Strategy | Authority) and Not Self.

LEAN ALL THE WAY IN to your TSA. And yes, it’s helpful to think of yourself as a TSA agent. You’re standing behind the screen, watching all this random shit filter through your life, and you get to decide, based on those details, what gets through and what doesn’t.

EVERYTHING about Human Design ALWAYS comes back to your Strategy and Authority. Everyone rushes to understand their True Self energy. What does it mean? How does it work? How do I make sure I’m doing things correctly?

Simple: Follow your Strategy and Authority. Every other part of your Design falls into place the moment you approach life according to your Type and make decisions from your true inner authority.

That’s why it’s important to also focus on getting out from under the control to which your Mind desperately wants to cling. It will do EVERYTHING in its power to override your Strategy and Authority. So it’s imperative for you to know where it’s misinterpreting the language of your open/undefined centers and/or splits. 

Back to me as an example. I now recognize when I’m making a decision through the lens of trying to prove myself and/or when I’m trying not to deal with the emotions of others. Those of us with undefined emotional centers can bend over backwards keeping our mouths shut and avoiding our own truths because we don’t want to deal with (aka: we don’t know how to process) the emotional backlash of others.

To Sum Up

This truly isn’t rocket science, but diving into the world of Human Design can rock your world. At the end of the day, what will take the most time and practice, is reminding your Mind to fuck off while simultaneously accepting what it is you were given to work with in this life. From there, that’s when the magic of your Strategy and Authority really starts to come alive and all the juicy details of your Design start doing their thing without any help or interruption from your Mind.