It took me a while to conjure any interest at all in Human Design. The philosophy has been trending here in L.A. for a few years and while I’d heard trusted friends gush about their readings for a while, my aversion to ‘guru culture’ and fatigue on ‘new’ wellness ideas just kept me from latching on.
Fast-forward to the weekend after my first session with Ahram Arya and I was spending days at a time unpacking everything I’d learned, reeling from just how useful the insights from my chart became in just one hour.
Key fact about Human Design: as mysterious as it may first sound, the philosophy is far from culty or manipulative — core concepts encompass self-knowledge, self-empowerment and self-acceptance — no ‘pyramids’ or sketchy leadership required.
If getting your astrological chart read is like learning your blood type, getting your Human Design chart read is like reviewing your genetic test results — the learnings are that much more specific and in-depth.
A short while ago, we shared this complete guide to Human Design with coach Ahram Arya. Since then, our readers been wanting to learn more. I asked Ahram to do another story for us to further break down the unique value of Human Design and explain more about what people can expect to learn from a session…
Human Design is a revolutionary tool to ‘know yourself’. There is a fair amount of mystery surrounding the system, including its jargon-heavy concepts, and so it presents a bit of a learning curve.
Human Design crosses boundaries, and for many of us it may challenge some long held beliefs. Yet, despite a host of initial questions, interest in Human Design is on the rise because it has undeniable advantages which stand alone in the field of self-discovery. No other system can give you this much depth. Interested in learning more? Here are seven reasons why you should know your Human Design, including a few tips to get you started:
Human Design System is pure knowledge of self. It is not fortune telling or a personality test or someone’s latest theory. It is a personalized operating system which brings your best self to life. There are no shortcuts to changing your patterns or beliefs about yourself, but through learning and experimentation, personal breakthroughs are possible.
What you need to start a Human Design session:
01. You’ll need your exact time and place of birth. You may be able to receive the basics of your chart with an approximate birth time, but the exact time guarantees that all aspects of your chart will be accurate.
02. Invest in a professional. The quickest way to dive deep into your chart is to invest your time with a professional. To pick the right kind of Human Design professional, I suggest that you select someone who will not only teach you about yourself, but will also teach you the basics of the system. Many people want sound-bites and summaries of their chart, but without a relative understanding of the big picture, you may misinterpret key concepts and send yourself down the wrong path. Editor’s note: Clearly, we trust Ahram and recommend him for personal sessions. His approach is pragmatic, professional and completely approachable.
03. Got some extra time? Explore Jovian Archive, or my personal favorite, My Body Graph.
7 Unique Benefits of Human Design
No. 1: Discover Self-Love Did you know that there is a map of yourself which shows how you are unlike anyone else in the world? This map is called the Bodygraph, and it is the centerpiece of the Human Design System.
At the moment of your birth, your body is coded by any array of signature characteristics which activate a set of unique energetic qualities within you. So first realize that this energy-fingerprint gives you a kind of vibe which is one-of-a-kind. This is the first gateway to loving yourself just as you are, and get ready, because Human Design can describe you in many ways that you never imagined.
We are all under so much pressure to be something that we are not due to the conditions of our society and the rules imposed on us by others. Breaking free from old habits, beliefs, and conditioning is hard. It can be a long journey to uncover your truth when external influences are so strong, but with Human Design, you get to discover what is already inside of you right away. The experience can be extremely validating. With this knowledge of your core essence in hand, the work ahead is to elevate your mind-body connection so that you can access your inner power with ease. Human Design lets you accept your individuality, and as you crack open your potential, you can discover self-love.
“For an adult, the road back to living life as yourself can be challenging: overcoming lifelong habits and the power of conditioning takes commitment, courage, and determination… Human Design opens the door to the potential of self-love, a love of life and the love of others through understanding… Enjoy the fact that there is truly valuable knowledge so that you too can participate in becoming a healthy, self-loving being.” – Ra Uru Hu, Founder of the Human Design System
No. 2: End Self-Hatred + Undo conditioning If you can’t find self-love through discovering your uniqueness, then take a fresh look at how you are beating yourself up.
Self-hatred can come from failing to meet expectations and not living up to ideals. Many people make decisions based on what they think they’re missing by comparison to others, or they feel pressure to go out there and “make it happen”, or else.
“Human Design explains that most people are simply caught up in trying to be something that they are not, and most likely this was never a conscious choice.”
Self-hatred comes from conditioning. Trauma, shame, guilt, addiction, and endless rationalizing can create years of self-defeating habits. You can be fooled into believing that your habits are your identity, when they are only patterns. Some of us end up hating the conditioned version of ourselves — who is not our true self — all the while believing that it is us.
People can go on for their entire lives like this, all without ever having experienced living life as their true selves, free of conditions and judgement.
When people don’t know themselves, they tend to look outside themselves for answers. To counter this tendency, Human Design focuses inward on the authentic roots of yourself, separating the real you away from those frustrating patterns which are probably working against you.
No. 3: Uncover Your Gifts Human Design shows you your gifts and talents in black and white. The system brings them to you in the form of energies and characteristics which guide you on the finer points of being yourself. You actually do have a precise purpose and role to play in the world, and your unique gifts describe how you can bring your purpose to fruition. Practically speaking, while Human Design can’t tell you how to make more money, it emphasizes that by sticking with your strengths and your defined modalities, you can create better opportunities for yourself more frequently.
The more you can let go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and focus on doing what you do best, the easier it gets to live your purpose.
Surrendering to your gifts is how you draw out their real power. So while you cannot change yourself at the core, give yourself permission to double-down on your design. This part is fun, because you get to push ahead with your God-given abilities, and often you are quite skilled at these things already.
Living aligned to your essential characteristics means that you are married to them in a sense. You cannot ever escape them because they are your laws to live by. Violating your natural laws means continually struggling against the flow of your energy. There is an easier way.
No. 4: Understand Your Body + manage your energy Human Design offers a breakthrough understanding of the body and its mental, physical, and emotional mechanisms, and so learning to clean up your own mechanics can help eliminate a lot of internal confusion, stress, and unhappiness. You are a conscious being at the controls of your machine after all! This mechanical way of looking at yourself may sound cold or unfeeling at first, but learning to use your energy in the right way is completely intuitive, reliable, and joyful.
The Bodygraph has a network of 9 chakras, and as you understand each one and its automatic processes, you can start to master your own human instrument.
Discerning how your body is talking to you helps you command the moments of your life that matter. For instance, in your body, can you easily differentiate between a gut response, an excited emotion, a spidey-sense of intuition, an inspiring idea, or an outpouring of love? Is this easy or not so easy for you?
People are wired differently, so they place different values on different energies in the body. But whatever your design, when your energies are all mixed up, runaway thoughts and emotions can have their way with you. It can be quite a challenge to disentangle thoughts from feelings from fears, but this is the process and path to self-mastery. Becoming your own best observer lets you be fully present with your body, and that’s powerful.
“These essential truths are simple because they are mechanical… Just the simple mechanics are enough to make a vast difference in somebody’s life.” – Ra Uru Hu, Founder of the Human Design System
No. 5: learn A Formula to Make Decisions It sounds too good to be true, but Human Design is the only tool in the world that gives you a personal operating system for life.
Ra Uru Hu, the founder of the system, called the system a “User’s Manual,” which made sense as a metaphor for a man who grew up in the twentieth century. Thinking of Human Design as an operating system makes more sense with the backdrop of today’s technology, but the twist is that you have this OS and hardware (your body) for life.
In the most direct way, your operating system is a formula for making better decisions, and making better decisions is the key to unlocking a life with less resistance and more opportunities.
A sample Human Design chart
In Human Design lingo, your Type, Strategy, and Authority guides you on how to engage in the right decision-making process and how to come to your final answer. This formula is all about being in the body, not the mind. Painful decisions can come from relying on the logical mind, because while logic can make sense of your past, it can’t predict your future. Human Design guides you how to listen for, trust, and follow the vibrations within your body so that you arrive at your best decision in the right moment. Receiving the go-ahead to trust your body’s sounds and sensations is healing in itself.
No. 6: manage Better Relationships Better relationships could easily be the number one benefit of knowing your Human Design. However, better relationships always start with you. If you enter into a relationship without first knowing yourself, loving yourself, and having clear boundaries, then chances are your relationships will suffer.
By bringing awareness to the roles you were born to play within dynamic relationships, you get peace of mind, and how you show up can bring out the best in others. Most importantly, being 100% authentic allows you to evaluate whether or not a relationship is correct for you in the first place.
“The problems of most relationships are that they were never entered into correctly, and that the participants in the relationship don’t operate correctly as themselves. That really is what it’s all about… To be yourself is to bring into your life those beings that are truly for you.” – Ra Uru Hu, Founder of the Human Design System
If you like Human Design, you’re going to want to know the designs of those closest to you. Many people are interested in compatibility based on design, but true compatibility is much more complex than that. Human Design teaches us to respect differences first, then to love the differences for what they are. None of us were designed to be the same, so if you agree to begin a relationship, then you must respect the other person’s nature. Remember, if you are seeking to change someone, your efforts will only condition them — as you cannot change anyone at their core.
In this way, children may have the most to gain from Human Design. No matter what, all children are conditioned in some ways that they must unlearn in order to be themselves as adults. But imagine what it would be like to be raised to be yourself instead of to be the person whom your parents wanted you to be. As a parent, you can positively impact your children by treating them in ways that bring their unique Strategy, Authority, or Profile to life.
No. 7: speak A New Language It’s hard to describe new ideas with old or outdated language. At a certain point, old terminology simply can’t fit into a new paradigm. With that in mind, know that Human Design will require you to acclimate to a few new vocabulary words.
Just think of how technology continually adds new words and concepts to your lexicon. Sometimes it’s hard to keep up! But that’s the challenge and the opportunity with a brand new set of ideas: When you level up your awareness to learn something that is more powerful, you can become more powerful too.
Much of Human Design cannot be described with comfortable ideas from popular science or psychology, and this is the special opportunity. Personal breakthroughs can happen when the language of Human Design gives voice to your long-held intuitions about yourself.
A recent client of mine said, “Human Design puts words to feelings and concepts that I never thought possible.” So take a chance on learning some of the lingo: knowing the differences between Manifestors, Generators, Projectors, and Reflectors just might change your life.
Intrigued? You should be! Whether you want to bring balance and understanding to your own life, improve a close relationship or learn more about Human Design for children, Ahram Arya is available for personal and corporate sessions and has been an incredible resource for our team and community!
