When the Flare Goes Up

Dear wild-hearted wanderer,

This year’s solar return has felt like a flare. A stark illumination. I can feel myself drawing closer to the heart of my Uranus opposition — that midlife turning point where life insists: you can’t keep drifting; you must decide where you stand.

Douglas Murray opens his latest book* with a quote that truly encapsulates the essence of the current times:

The death of Charlie Kirk was one such flare for the collective. Writing about it became a flare for me personally. Some of you resonated. Others pushed back. But one thing became clear to me — I am no longer willing to shrink or betray myself for the comfort of others.

It made me realise how much of life is shaped by social pressure. It isn’t just a mental concept. Succumbing to it has physical consequences in the body. Personally, I feel it as activation in my chest, as the impulse to soften my words, as the temptation to trade belonging for self-betrayal. Even as I write this, I can feel both the steadiness of my sacral yes — the convictions I stand by — and the flutter of fear in my chest. Both are here. And still, I stand.

Human Design shows how social pressure seeps through our open centres: the Head needing answers to all the questions, the Throat filling the silence with noise in order to be heard, the Solar Plexus acting as a peacemaker, and the Ego constantly proving one’s worthiness as a good human being. These are just some of my own patterns that keep creeping up on me.

And I’d emphasise here that neither of the centers is working alone. We need to look at the bodygraph from a holistic viewpoint which means the reality is usually more complex than each center on its own, and involves a lot of nuance. But the point I’m making is that each openness has its own flavour of social pressure, and each can pull us away from our differentiated truth.

With that said, pressure isn’t always the enemy. Sometimes it wakes us from our mindless slumber and ignites our courage. When the flare illuminates where we stand, pressure often leaves us with a choice: do I betray my own truth here or do I root deeper into my own ground?

Our Human Design definition is where our ground supports us. This is the steady rhythm we can trust when the world grows loud and noisy. The work is learning to pause long enough to ask: is this mine, or am I amplifying what isn’t?

Since that fateful September day, the threads of my life have been pulling tighter. This is why values matter. They are the ground we return to when the flare fades and pressure creeps in. They are our compass.

What I’m landing on is clearer mission, firmer boundaries, and heavier but steadier responsibilities. There’s a sense of readiness that’s emerging, a sense of courageousness to live within my own convictions, an integrity that I can no longer bypass. And I know that this is not the final destination. But it is the compass I keep returning to.

When external pressure tempts me to abandon myself, the ground I root into will hold me. So in case this hasn’t been clear thus far, here is where I currently stand. And since you’re here, I know each one of them speaks to you in your own way.

I stand by radical self-trust. I will always empower you to listen inward before seeking answers from the external world. This means refusing to silence your body’s knowing.

I stand by spaciousness. It’s the refusal to let external urgency and pressure dictate my life in every sense of the word.

I stand by embodied belonging. It begins in your body, not in external validation or approval.

I stand by individuality over conformity. The collective thrives when each individual is rooted in themselves and honours our differences.

I stand by bridging soul and spirit with body and mind. I weave the mystical with the human, so neither is abandoned.

I stand by interconnectedness. I want to see the ripples we are all here to create, and honour the web without erasing our differences.

And I stand by presence. Your State Is Your Transmission With that comes responsibility.

These are no longer just words for me. They are what I return to when the flare lights up the sky. They are how I know the difference between social pressure and my truth. They are the core of my work and offerings.

They are also why I created Your Living Body Map — to make it more than just words. I wanted to make it into a living, breathing process. It’s the remembering of what it feels like to move through life with trust, satisfaction, and a deep-rooted yes/no that rises from within.

Because what I’ve realised is this: it is not our responsibility to manage each other’s triggers. Our individual responsibility is to stay in integrity with our own state, to honour what our body knows, and to keep standing here whilst allowing the other the same.

So I want to leave you with a question:

What flares have gone off in your life lately? What did they illuminate about where you stand, and where you long to root more deeply?

Before you move on, I invite you to pause for a moment.

Notice how this letter has landed in your body. Did it soften something? Did it stir resistance? Did it invite breath, or contraction, or clarity? There’s no right or wrong answer. There’s only the truth of what’s here for you.

With love always,
Silvia

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