Human Design 101: Orientation

Welcome to Human Design 101!

Human Design is a revolutionary personality assessment tool created in the 1980s by Ra Uru Hu. It has caught fire in the last few years, as more and more people experience how accurate, and transformational, the information contained in their design is. Rather than answering a series of questions, all you need is your date, time and location of birth. 

The assessment starts in the form of a chart, known in Human Design as the Bodygraph, at right.

Depending on the software being used, and the variation of the system, the look of the chart may vary. In some cases, the language used will vary as well. Your design, however, will be the same no matter how it’s presented. 

The Human Design chart contains a number of elements, which when taken together, provide a unique blueprint specific to you. It is a visual image that depicts your design. The software provides the basics of the design, and the practitioner fills in the details. 

The Centers

There are 9 centers in the Human Design chart, depicted as triangles, diamonds, and squares. Each center has an overarching theme associated with it. The centers can be white, or “open,” and colored in, or “defined,” which tells me how you likely experience that theme in your life. 

Let’s use my chart as an example.

I have an open (white) Ajna Center, which means that I have the ability to analyze a problem from multiple angles. It also means I have trouble feeling certain, which might keep me stuck overanalyzing. My Throat Center is defined (colored in), which means I have a consistent way of communicating, and don’t typically feel unheard or ignored when I share. 

The Centers give us a lot of information about where you might carry conditioning that keeps you from living authentically. In other words, where you might have developed patterns or mindsets around those themes based on your lived experience, your family of origin, society, or even your DNA via epigenetics.

The Gates and Channels

You will notice in the chart there are lines between the different Centers, with numbers at the end of each line. These are the Gates and Channels in the chart. Like the Centers, the Gates and Channels provide information about themes in your life, but with more nuance. Where the lines are colored in, the theme is more consistent in your life. Where the lines are white, you likely experience those themes through your relationships rather than independently. 

In my chart, I have the Channel 53/42 defined, which tells me that I have good and consistent energy for starting things and driving them to completion. Interestingly, this is a very prominent theme in my chart - a superpower if you will. 

The numbers along the side of the chart indicate which Gates you have defined in your chart. The numbers down the right side, shown in black on the Bodygraph, tell me that these are themes that you are likely to see and know about your life. Those along the left side, shown in red on the Bodygraph, are themes that you may be less consciously aware of, but will likely recognize when I point them out to you.

So what does it all mean? 

When taken together, these elements create your design. On a basic and fundamental level, your design includes the following: 

Human Design Type

The Human Design Type provides us with information on how you can best operate in the world. It is your natural way of being. There are 5 different Human Design Types: 

1. Manifestors represent ~9% of the population

2. Generators represent ~37% of the population

3. Manifesting Generators represent ~33% of the population

4. Projectors represent ~20% of the population (Projector doesn't mean what you think it means!)

5. Reflectors represent ~1% of the population

Note: Depending on the version of Human Design, the names of the Types may vary, but the themes of each will be consistent. Those outlined above reflect the Traditional Human Design language.

Human Design Strategy and Authority

Each Type has a corresponding roadmap, or Strategy, showing how to best make decisions and how to know when to act on your great ideas. Authority goes hand in hand with Strategy, giving you insight into how your body tells you what to act on when. It influences your Strategy, but doesn’t change it. The combination of your Strategy and Authority provides you with a more reliable way to make decisions that are best for you.

Human Design Emotional Theme

Each type has it's own Emotional Theme. The Emotional Theme tells you what you may experience emotionally when you are living true to your design, or not. It serves as a guardrail to keep you on your path and living true to yourself.

Human Design Profile

The Profile speaks to your overarching character traits, patterns, and behaviors. In Human Design, we talk about this in terms of “purpose.” It tells us what you are here to share with the world - and it’s not a specific thing or job, but more so a way of being. When you learn about your profile, you will see it so very clearly as a pattern in your life, even if you never connected those dots before. There are 6 different Profile numbers (“Lines”) and each Profile contains 2 numbers (“Lines.”) 

• Line 1: The Investigator

• Line 2: The Hermit

• Line 3: The Martyr

• Line 4: The Opportunist

• Line 5: The Heretic

• Line 6: The Role Model

PLEASE don't make any assumptions about purpose based on the Traditional Human Design names outlined above. It doesn't mean what you think it means, promise!

Any basic Human Design assessment should include these foundational elements - Type, Strategy, Authority, Emotional Theme, and Profile.

Once you have an understanding of the basics of your design, you can go deeper to gain clarity on how the various themes show up for you in your life. You can also explore what drives you, what you are designed to share with the world, and how you can be most impactful, among other things.

Having awareness around these themes is empowering. It’s incredible how just knowing that a theme shows up in your chart gives you a chance to shift how you experience it. It gives you the opportunity to live more consciously day to day. 

In our next discussion, we’ll start into the 5 Human Design Types and some of the ways each type operates.

Stay tuned!

Yours in solidarity,

Jill

P.S. We’d love to share your human design with you! Order your FREE chart OR book a reading here!