A lot of us here at Brit + Co love our typology systems. Whether we're discovering more about our zodiac signs, reading up on our Enneagram types, or optimizing our lives for our MBTI types, we've found that there's a lot we can learn about ourselves by leaning into the archetypes that underpin our personalities.
Although I'm very familiar with the systems described above, I'd never really learned much about human design. I'd definitely heard of it — my impression was that it was an uber-specific system that pulled from many different philosophical traditions, including astrology — but I'd never really learned what made it different from other systems, or how it could help me.
I recently sat down with Dana Stiles and Shayna Cornelius, the founders of DayLuna, a human design website and podcast, to talk about what human design is and how you can get started with it. And I have to admit, after hearing a little more about the system, I'm intrigued.
What Is Human Design?
Chart via DayLunaLife.com
In a nutshell, human design uses information similar to that of your birth chart (the time and place of your birth), and pulls from that astrological data to create a map of energy. The idea is that based on your birth time and place, energy flows from different body centers — like a hyper-specific chakra system — and by looking at where energy flows most freely and which centers have reciprocal energy between them, you can determine your strengths, how you make decisions, how you utilize energy, and other important aspects of your personality and life purpose. From your birth info, you can generate a detailed chart (you can do this on DayLunaLife.com, as I did with the faux-birth time chart above) that shows you these energetic centers.
But really, you don't need to understand all this info up front: Dana and Shayna really recommend that to start on your human design journey, you pay attention to three major pieces of info generated by your chart: Your human design type, your type's strategy, and your inner authority style.
The Human Design Types
Based on these energetic patterns, you will fall into one of five categories, known as human design types. Here's an overview of these five types:
- Manifestors are trailblazers, free thinkers, and often entrepreneurs. They comprise less than 10% of the world's population. "Manifestors are initiators. Their energy is here to be a starter, an innovator," says Dana. "Independence and freedom and being able to really trailblaze are key to their happiness."
- Generators are highly energetic beings, who have the capacity to get sh*t done and make a big difference in the world through taking action. They make up about 30% of the population. "Generators have this enormous power that they're meant to use doing things that they love," says Dana. "This powerful energy source can really dwindle and drain if they're not doing something that they love."
- Manifesting Generators have aspects of both of the two previous types. They have the capacity to be highly imaginative and creative like Manifestors, and also have the energetic drive to accomplish big things, like Generators. They make up about 35% of the world's population. "Manifesting generators often have multiple passions, like a jack-of-all trades type person. They often have several careers at once," Dana says. "They're designed to let themselves start new things and then move on when they're bored."
- Projectors are the world's teachers. They reflect knowledge and purpose back to others, making them great leaders, but they are not highly energetic, so they need to structure their lives differently than the first three types. They make up less than 10% of the population. "They're not here to do, they are here to see, and to share what they see to guide other people toward more efficiency, and toward becoming more authentic," Dana says. "They're only meant to work for 2-4 hours per day, and if they're using more energy than that, they can really burn themselves out over time."
- Reflectors are quite rare, and make up only 1% of the world's population. These people are true intuitives, and are highly sensitive to energy. They are the most prone to be affected by the cycles of the moon, and are characterized by their sensitive and intuitive nature. "They are extremely empathetic people; all of their energy centers are open, so they're really taking on the energy of the people around them," Dana explains. "They have this sacred purpose of gauging our well-being."
How Can Your Human Design Type Help You?
Once you know your Human Design type, Dana and Shayna recommend focusing on two aspects of your human design blueprint: Your strategy (which is determined by your type) and your authority (which varies even within types).
The Types' Strategies
For Manifestors, the first thing to focus on is that because people can't predict you, they may try to control you, or may project things onto you that aren't true. Therefore, the strategy for Manifestors is informing. In short, make your ideas and intentions clear to others. The more you communicate with others about what you're going to start or create, the better your energy will flow.
As for Generators, in order to find out what you love and what's worth putting your energy into, you need to use the strategy of responding. Let yourself experience things in your environment, and then check in with your body to see if those things are really calling you. You'll know from your physical experience if something you come across is a resounding "YES!" or a "HELL NO!".
Manifesting Generators, because they have aspects of both Manifestors and Generators, will benefit from both of the above strategies. Focus on responding to stimuli in your environment (this will require being in touch with your body, which may be a challenge at first), and then when you know something's a go, inform others around you of your plans.
Projectors need to learn to work less and share more of their insight and guidance. In order to guide other people, you need to use the strategy of waiting for the invitation. If you offer guidance and advice to someone who doesn't want to hear it, it will be a waste of your energy. Wait for others to ask for your input or invite you to share your perspective before doling out advice.
Finally, with their sensitive nature, Reflectors are extremely connected to the moon. Your strategy is to wait 28 days before making your big decisions. By allowing an entire moon cycle to pass, you'll be able to tell whether the decision you planned to make was really your own, or someone else's energy mixing with yours and potentially misleading you.
Inner Authority
The next thing Shayna and Dana recommend focusing on is your inner authority. Because this differs within types, you'll need to generate your chart in order to see what your inner authority is.
Your inner authority represents the best way for you to make decisions. For example, if you have splenic authority (as I do), your decisions are best made through instinct. Someone with emotional authority, on the other hand, will make decisions from the heart. Once you know your inner authority, you can focus on tuning into that aspect of yourself when making decisions.
Tips for Getting Started
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to human design. Beyond knowing your type, strategy, and inner authority, you can discover all kinds of information about your personal gifts, your life purpose, and other important aspects of your being.
“There’s never going to be a one size, general answer to anything, because it gets so specific - just as specific as we are as humans,” says Shayna.
The first step is to generate your chart and take a look at your type. Get to know your type in depth, so you can start to become aware of how it's impacting your lifestyle.
“Once you generate your chart, the first thing to look at is your type. While human design gets very detailed beyond that, if you only looked at your type and understood what type you are, and how your aura works because of your type, you can use that aura with your strategy that really helps eliminate resistance and increase ease and flow and alignment in your life," Dana explains.
After you understand your type in depth, learn to utilize your type's strategy, and then start tuning into your inner authority. From there, you can go deeper if you want to — but according to Dana and Shayna, your life will already be vastly improved just by paying attention to those three factors.
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Featured photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels. This post has been updated.
