Practicing Authenticity: how to use the Human Design System to cultivate authenticity.

If you are ready to explore how the Human Design system helps you live true to yourself — this article is for you. 

As we learned in Part 2 of this series, authenticity is a daily practice. In Part 2, I also shared the Four Components of Authenticity ™ and four guidelines to cultivate authenticity. This article ends the three-part series by describing how the Human Design system helps you implement these daily practices and empowers you to live a life true to yourself.

What is Human Design?

I define Human Design as a system that guides you to a life of ease and authenticity by integrating science and spirituality. The Human Design system was documented after a revelation by Ra Ura Hu in 1987; the system synthesizes four parts of ancient wisdom — the IChing, the Chakras, Kabbalah, and Astrology. Like Astrology, the Human Design system centers around charts based on your birth date and time.

Human Design translates the positions of a specific set of celestial bodies (that I’ll also refer to as “planets”) into information displayed on a chart.

There are three types of charts:

•  Individual Charts — that help you learn about yourself, 
• Composite Charts — that help you learn about yourself in relationship with others and 
• Transit Charts - that help you learn about yourself in relationship to the present moment.

Now you may be thinking — “Seriously?! How does the position of the planets impact my life? What does all of this have to do with authenticity?!”

I totally understand that perspective. In the beginning, it did seem odd to look for insights about myself and others in the planets’ positions (especially that is all based on some guy’s “revelation” from 1987). 

Nevertheless, I was drawn to Human Design; although conflicted, I felt compelled to learn more. After some time reflecting, it hit me — the planets profoundly impact life on Earth each and every day. Here are two quick examples:

1. Have you ever reflected on what causes the seasons on Earth? The planets. The Earth’s position relative to the sun gives us our seasons. 
2. Did you know that the tides are based on the position of the Moon relative to the Earth? A tremendous amount of water is moved based on that relationship. For example,  160 billion tonnes of seawater flows in and out of the Bay of Fundy every day based on the planets’ positions.

Next, I realized (1) my life, (here in Ontario, Canada) is quite different from season to season — the clothes that I wear, the activities I participate in are all impacted by the seasons and (2) our bodies are 50% to 70% water by weight. If the planets’ position can cause the seasons as well as the movement of millions of gallons of water, perhaps there is some way it affects me (and you).

After making those connections, I drove deep into articles, books, and courses about the Human Design system. I’m thrilled that I did because Human Design has changed my life. Human Design complements everything that I learned via the coaching, counseling, and academic-based approaches I tried before. Moreover, Human Design provided a robust framework for living true to myself, which helped me cultivate authenticity more efficiently and faster.

How does Human Design relate to the Four Components of Authenticity™?

Human Design gives us a framework to learn about ourselves and our relationships. The study and application of Human Design enable you to explore and reflect your true self. 

I recommend that you approach Human Design as a reference and resource — not a belief system. I'll admit that there are still parts of the revelation that I am very skeptical about. Nevertheless, I encourage you to first learn about Human Design and then test out the concepts via experiments. Through the experiments, you’ll identify how the concepts work with your life and you’ll also learn more about yourself (and others).

Think of Human Design like a dictionary. A dictionary is only of use if you reference it and then practice applying what you learn. Human design is similar, it is only useful if you learn the meanings of the concepts and then apply them via experiments.

There are three more ways Human Design is like a dictionary:

1. Dictionaries include multiple meanings for one word; Human Design is similar, where one concept can have various interpretations.
2. Dictionaries have multiple words with similar meanings — the more you speak and write, the more you'll gravitate to some terms and not others. This is similar to the different interpretations of Human Design concepts — multiple areas of your Human Design chart may point to the same interpretation.
3. Dictionaries have hundreds of thousands of words — but not all of them are useful to you in your everyday life. You may observe the same with Human Design, where some concepts and aspects are more meaningful for you than others.

A dictionary provides you with the words to express yourself and connect with others. Similarly, Human Design provides a language and a framework to easily explore and apply each of the four daily authenticity practices. 

Specifically,

Individual Charts empower you to:

• embrace who you are by highlighting your strengths and potential weaknesses
• cultivate courage by inviting you to explore and trust your conscious and unconscious strengths — and use those strengths to craft healthy boundaries and maximize opportunities
• exercise compassion by making you aware of the strengths that others have — this can help you identify how to best work with others

Composite Charts help you:

• exercise compassion by showing you what each person brings to the relationship and how you complement each other
• cultivate courage by highlighting the strengths you bring to the relationship and the area(s) for you to be a leader in the relationship
• nurture connection by helping you appreciate what you each bring to the relationship, enabling you to understand and improve the dynamics of the relationship

Transit Charts enable you to:

• cultivate courage by highlighting the types of boundaries that would be beneficial to you and when you need to introduce them so you can align your life with the available energy of the moment
• exercise compassion (for yourself and others) by making you aware of how the planets’ position impacts you (and everyone else on Earth) moment to moment; through that awareness, you can show kindness, understanding, and empathy to yourself and others

How can I get started with Human Design?

I invite you to use the tools and resources here at Live Your Design to cultivate authenticity via daily practices. 

Through Live Your Design, you’ll learn about the Human Design system in a way that is easy to understand and use. Specifically, three core areas make it easy to integrate Human Design into your life.

• Charts: Live Your Design allows you to quickly and easily create Human Design individual, composite, and transit charts. In addition, Live Your Design offers a Transit Timeline Planner that helps you access transit information within your online calendar (like Google Calendar).
• Training: Live Your Design provides free training videos to help understand the charts you create and how to use the information in the charts to cultivate authenticity.
• Community: Live Your Design’s community forum, meetings and workshops help you create daily authenticity practices aligned with your true self. 

You are only three steps away from enjoying all of the benefits of authentic living!

The first step is to create your account and choose one of the three Live Your Design passes. You can access all of the features and join the community for just $1 per day!

The second step is to learn more about yourself and others by using Human Design charts. All Live Your Design members can create an unlimited number of charts. In addition, all members can access training videos, and participate in the community that helps you use the charts to live authentically.

The last step is to cultivate authenticity by applying what you learn every day. As an Annual Pass member, you'll access to additional resources and support to help you maintain daily practices for authentic living.

Are you ready to get started? Click here to get started with Live Your Design. (You can get started for FREE!)