Most people come to therapy because they’re stuck in some way. Their usual ways of dealing with things have stopped working and they’re not sure what else to do; their nervous system and coping strategies have been hijacked by past traumas. They are frustrated,unhappy, and distrustful of who they are.

Before Human Design, I would work with clients using my usual psychotherapy methods, energy psychology tools such as Emotional Freedom Technique, and other accelerated processing techniques. We would clear traumas, emotionally charged experiences, and limiting beliefs. We would anchor better-feeling beliefs and ways of being. It was helpful and effective. But we were sort of “flying blind,” as there wasn’t any informed method of discerning a “sure path” that would be correct for them. If it felt better, that was a good guide, but how do we know for sure? What if we were trying to “fix” something that wasn’t broken?

What is Human Design, anyway?

Human Design offers a way of understanding how people are wired to be. It’s system that integrates elements from astrology, the I-Ching, the Kabbalah, quantum physics, and genetics to explain the wiring you were born with. It’s more or less a map to your True Self, and gives me and the client a much deeper understanding of why they feel the way they do, how they came to do the things they do, and what gifts got distorted while they were busy surviving their childhoods.

“Fixing Her Over-emotionality?”

“Teresa” came into my office to deal with what she described as her “over-emotionality.” She would be having a conversation with her husband about something important, and at some point she would lose it — break down crying, yelling, then either leave the room or just shut down. It was exhausting. Teresa had been this way since she was a kid.  She felt terrible after each incident, and wondered what the hell was wrong with her. Why was she so emotional? 

I ran her Human Design chart. As it turns out, Teresa is actually designed to run pretty “cool” emotionally. In HD terms, she has an open Solar Plexus, which is the emotional center. If a center is “open,” the energy of that center comes and goes; it doesn’t operate consistently. But it also means that when she is with someone for whom that center is “defined” (like her husband) she will feel that emotional energy from him in an amplified way. The problem is, unless she understands that, she has no way of knowing that all that emotional intensity isn’t really hers. She’s taking in her husband’s emotional energy, amplifying it, feeling overwhelmed by it, then discharging it any way possible so she doesn’t lose her mind. And she doesn’t consciously realize any of that.

We focused on clearing the trauma from her emotional backlog, and re-framed her experiences through that different lens. We came up with strategies for how to deal with all that energetic sensitivity. This approach made much more sense to her and resonated with what she felt was true for her. 

None of this had to do with fixing what was “wrong” with her. We didn’t have to spend weeks and months trying to get to why she had such “anger issues.” We had the explanation right there, and could address it directly.   

Fixing His “Emotional Stuckness”

“Bob,” on the other hand, came in because he felt emotionally stuck. He considered himself a smart, logical man, but couldn’t figure out how to re-light his spark and decide what his next professional move should be. He felt bad about himself for this — he felt he should be bright enough to figure out what he wanted to do and then go do it!

His design showed that he was wired to be, in fact, quite deeply emotional. At first Bob protested, but then said thoughtfully, “Well, that explains a lot of my childhood.” He suddenly remembered incidents when he responded with strong emotion to something and his family mocked him for it. He learned that being emotional was “bad.” His survival strategy was to suppress his feelings and depend on his rational mind.

As we cleared those early traumatic experiences, Bob got reconnected to the deeply feeling part of himself. He cultivated new ways of using the rich wisdom of his emotions to help find that spark again, and reassigned his brilliant mind to do what it was meant to do.

Nothing to “fix” about him, just understanding what had happened and why, then clearing the trauma that had created that misunderstanding. 

It Might Have Been Helpful to Know…

And just the other day I was listening to an interview with a highly successful investment broker. He talked about the pressure, the continuous anxiety he felt even while achieving obvious and clear success. His turning point was when he realized that he had good pattern recognition and intuition, and that’s where his successful decisions came from. He had spent years trying to do it like others did it, not quite trusting his way of doing it — hence the anxiety. 

Think of all the suffering he might have avoided if he had known that all along!

Powerful Clarity and Transformative Relief

In my practice, I run everyone’s design, if they’re willing. For me, it’s powerfully helpful to understand how people are wired to be, and how that lines up with the issues they struggle with. It gives a language to their experiences, a powerful re-frame, and a sureness to our path.   

What gives both the client and me even more confidence in that path is the resonance that occurs when we articulate an aspect of their design. When they get a reading, I tell people that  it’s unlikely they will say, “Wow, I never knew that!” while it’s highly likely they will say, “Ahhh. That’s what that is.”   It’s relief, not revelation. But that relief in itself can be revelatory — it  can be life-changing.

In Human Design, there are nine energy centers, each with their own function and frequency. Depending on your design, they may be “defined” or “undefined,” and while either one of those is not better than the other, there are implications for you depending on what it is. Understanding how these centers operate for you and interact with each other is incredibly helpful in understanding how to be yourself, and how to trust who you are. 

And beyond the centers are deeper layers that reveal how you’re wired in greater detail. They all fit together in a beautiful integration that makes a perfect You. But we get so conditioned to try to fit into other people’s ways of doing and being, that we lose our connection to the perfect design that is us.

I use all of it in my work, and it is so magical and wonderful to witness that resonating shift when people realize, “ hey — maybe there actually is nothing wrong with me.”