We Can't Blame the System (or the Guy Who Channeled It)

Hey wild-hearted wanderer,

I have a hot take for you today.

It’s a pattern I’ve noticed lately, specifically among people who have been on a spiritual path and done all the “correct” things to live a life of alignment. And yet, their take on systems like Human Design is still so infused with bitterness and frustration. And it made me wonder: is the system to blame or perhaps the person who channeled it? Or maybe there’s a more nuanced and complex third thing that’s worth exploring?

It’s rather funny—a system like Human Design that’s supposed to take us closer to our own inner authority, more often makes us abandon our own body knowing. Just because a guy called Ra said so doesn’t mean we have to follow it.

Often, we arrive at these modalities
in our dark night of the soul.

We’ve either gone through something traumatic or we feel generally lost in our lives. There’s a level of discontentment that’s bubbling away underneath our seemingly “perfect” or “operable” lives. We find ourselves in search of a language for the ache within we can’t quite name. Systems like Human Design offer relief, validation and hope. But the danger is when we mistake the map for the healing itself.

Human Design, like any system, is not here to fix us. It’s not here to become our identity. It’s not here to give us a perfect life. Rather, these systems are here to invite us back into an honest relationship with our bodies. But too often, the way we engage with them pulls us further into the mental realm.

So, let’s talk about some of the most common ways I see people giving their power away to and with these systems. And I am no more immune to these ways than any other being. In fact, I’ve had phases in my life where I’ve experimented with certain elements of my own design, sometimes to an extreme, only to find more nuance and complexity than the core teaching offered.

As someone with 3rd Line characteristics and a tendency to take things to extremes, this has often felt correct for my body. In hindsight, these experiments almost always came about through a genuine inner desire to learn.

In the four and a half years I’ve explored Human Design, any part of the experiment I’ve entered into has been a conscious choice. More often than not, it’s been rooted in a simple desire to want to see what happens. They don’t call me naturally inquisitive for nothing. ;)

These personal experiments have mostly been fuelled by a desire to learn how the mechanics of the bodygraph actually work. What would happen if I stopped initiating from certain shoulds or societal expectation; if I simply allowed my mechanics to lead? And in that process, I would often bump up against my many not self patterns and behaviours. And that’s where the main challenge to remain detached would begin: can I remain the passive observer who’s having this experience through my body or will my mind kick in and try to fix the situation somehow?

And I want to make it clear that it’s not the experimenting with the extremes that is necessarily bad. It simply is what it is. And in fact, we need some of us to do the heavy lifting (I’m looking at you, 3rd Lines).

What’s more important is how we approach these experiments. It’s our relationship with the system that matters. After all, our Human Design experiment is very much a relational thing. It has to be, otherwise we’re simply giving our power away. And that is the opposite what this system intends to do.

So, these five pitfalls are not just something I’ve seen in others. My own experiment has taken me into each of these patterns in different ways too. What follows are five tendencies I’ve witnessed both in myself and others, and ways we can start to recognise and track the pattern, as well as reorient to our body’s truth.

1. Our bodygraph becomes a cage.
   Instead of allowing Human Design to be a compassionate framework for unfolding, it becomes a rigid lens of judgment and self-criticism. We explain and justify our actions—or inactions—due to being a certain Type, Strategy or Authority. It becomes a matter of labeling our dysfunction rather than a language to help us move toward self-acceptance. We use it for self-diagnosis rather than explore it as a map of self-understanding and self-intimacy.
   
   Notice when you’re using the system to explain away your pain, confusion, frustration or any other uncomfortable state of being.
   
   Reorient with pausing and taking a deep breath. Then ask yourself: What if I didn’t have to justify or fix anything? What if I could simply witness what’s here, through the lens of compassion?
   

2. We seek salvation not sovereignty.
   We come to Human Design looking for answers. Often—on entry—we feel truly seen and heard perhaps for the very first time in our lives. Here’s this bodygraph that validates our existence and past experiences. We’re mesmerised by its pure ability to name our deepest most intimate thoughts. We get blindsided by it all, believing that the system will save us from our misery. But in the process, we lose our sovereignty and disconnect from our self-responsibility.
   
   Notice when you’re expecting the system to tell you what to do or who to be, or not to be.
   
   Reorient with bringing a hand to your heart and asking yourself gently: What part of me is asking to be reclaimed? Where have I given away my power in the name of being 'correct'?
   

3. We overidentify with the mechanics.
   At first, the mechanics of Human Design can feel like a big sigh of relief. We feel like we’ve finally been recognised for something we knew to be true within us. We discover the underlying stories that have kept us stuck in the same old patterns. But instead of allowing these parts of us to move through the pain and grief, we pin these stories and beliefs to our design. We give away our vast and nuanced humanity because we’re a Generator or we have an undefined Ego. The bodygraph becomes a way of identifying with the pain instead of allowing it to help us move through it.
   
   Notice when you’re using a label as the reason why you’re stuck or lost, instead of exploring what wants to be moved through you.
   
   Reorient by enquiring what the deeper truth living beneath this label is. Let your breath make space for it.
   

4. We forget that the experiment is not a mental exercise.
   Quite commonly I see people post about their Human Design bodygraphs with a mental agenda. So many of us try to out-think embodiment. We talk about our Strategy and Authority without ever dropping into the body. We know the words and what they mean but more often than not we don’t know the felt sense experience behind them. We’ve never truly explored our bodygraph through our felt sense. No wonder so many of us in our “experiment” then feel more lost and disconnected.

   
   Notice when you’re thinking about your desing more than actually living it.
   
   Reorient by pausing, placing one hand on your heart and the other on your belly, then ask what does your body know in this moment that your mind hasn’t caught up to yet?
   

5. We make HD the authority instead of listening to our own body wisdom.
   This is the most subtle form of abandonment but arguably the one with deepest repercussions. When we trust the system more than we trust our own inner truth, we end up following someone else’s instructions over our own knowing. We replace our inner truth with external rules because a guy who claimed to hear a voice said so. It’s not that we can’t trust the system but we have to run it through our own body first. When we trust the tool more than we trust our own body knowing, that’s when it becomes a rigid belief system, a box to fit into, and a label to identify with.

   
   Notice when you’re putting more trust in the tool than your own body.
   
   Reorient by taking a deep breath and ask your body what it knows about this specific element. What’s your truth—outside the rules and the teachings of Human Design?

Human Design is not about belief. It doesn’t matter whether we believe it to be the ultimate truth or not. What matters is that our bodygraph can open up portals of possibilities. It can open up portals of deep intimacy with all the parts of us. It can open up doorways of radical self-honesty and self-responsibility. But for that to be the case, we have to approach it relationally. We can’t be giving our power away to the system or the guy who channeled it.

That also means we have to take responsibility for the role we play in it. And that is not always easy to do. But we can’t be blaming the system when we’re the ones who decided to override our body’s signals because the bodygraph said otherwise or our nervous system is out of whack and we’re simply doing what we think will keep us safe.

Just because we disagree with a core teaching or we’ve found that our own lived experience doesn’t quite match it, doesn’t mean that the system is wrong or that we’re wrong. It simply means we’ve connected with our living truth. And no one has the power to take that away from us, unless we allow it.

Because ultimately living our design is a relational field between our bodygraph and our lived experience. It’s an attunement to our body’s wisdom, not a set of rules to adhere to. It’s a return to our own sacred pace, a remembering of our core being, and the living frequencies
that flow through us.

I want you to know that it’s never too late to begin again. The real experiment begins when we stop trying to “do it right” and start living from a place of honesty and integrity—through our body and breath and not just the mind.

If you’ve been feeling heavy, rigid, or disconnected in your Human Design experiment, or you simply want to connect with it in a more body-led way, here’s a gentle practice to reconnect with your body inside the system. It’s aim is to invite you into curiosity rather than performance. It aims to encourage self-trust in your body knowing and invites you into a relational existence with your design. This is ultimately what Your Living Body Map is here to do, but on a more personal level.

So, find a comfortable spot where you won’t be disturbed or interrupted. Feel free to put on some meditative music or embrace the sounds of the world around you.

Let’s explore!

1. Choose one part of your design that’s been feeling stuck or heavy lately.
   Maybe it’s your Strategy. Maybe it’s one of your open centres. Maybe it’s one of your channels you’ve been “trying” to embody. What part of this feels true—or confusing—right now? How does your body respond to this part of your design in this moment? Take a breath. Let the sensations come forward.

2. Now, let’s be with this felt sense experience.
   If it feels right, close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Place a hand anywhere that would feel supportive. Then ask your body what’s here. how has this part shown up in the past? How has this part lived through you before? What is your living truth of this part within your design?

3. Now, let go of the rules and definitions.
   The aim with this part of the practice is to loosen your grip on the textbook meaning of that element of your design. Simply notice what’s moving in the body. How does your body respond to your living truth? Does your breath get deeper and more expansive? What’s your posture like? How does your nervous system feel in this moment? Is it activated and unsettled or calm and grounded? 

4. Ask your body how it wants to relate to this part.
   Let’s forget about the textbook definition for now. What is your felt sense experience of this part? How does your body want to relate to it now, in this moment? What’s the truth that wants to emerge and be expressed through you?

5. Take a final breath here.

   Let the truth of this part settle into your body. This is not something you have to figure out. This is something that already lives in you. It’s part of you. And the more you’re able to attune to your own felt sense experience, the more you’re able to meet the external experiences with openness, compassion and curiosity.

I’m curious: would you find it useful if these practices were recorded with my voice and frequency? (I must say, I have secretly felt the nudge to want to vocalise things recently, and I wonder if you’d like that too.)

Also, I’d love to hear what came up for you in your exploration or whilst reading this letter. My inbox is always open.

Sending you a deep and nourishing breath,

Silvia

You don’t often need more information.
But you might be ready for a space that honours your way of coming home.

Your Living Body Map is a guide for reconnecting with the intelligence already living inside you—through your body, your rhythm, and your breath. If your sacral lights up or your body softens, you can read more and apply here.

PRICE: £122