I’ve never met a personality test, astrology reading, or Buzzfeed quiz that I didn’t like. Call it ego or curiosity, but if a system claims to understand my personality traits and deepest desires, I’m all in. While I’ve dabbled in zodiac signs and am a fan of the Enneagram, learning about Human Design left me in awe. No matter how much I identify with the Type 2 Enneagram and how many times friends tell me “That’s so Libra of you,” finding my Human Design type didn’t just tell me the information I already knew but gave me insight into how I’m meant to live. I’ll let the experts explain.
According to Shayna Cornelius and Dana Stiles, Human Design experts and cofounders of DayLuna, Human Design is Astrology meets Myers-Briggs—but it’s a little more complicated than that. Created by Alan Krakower (who used the pseudonym Ra Uru Hu), Human Design is a very specific and detailed system to learn more about your emotions, energy centers, and life purpose. But that’s not all: It can give you insight into everything from how your body digests food to what emotion you’ll feel when you’re out of alignment. If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend a book like Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be to dive deeper. But for a breakdown that will help you get started on your Human Design journey, read on for what Human Design is, finding your Type, and how to use the information to live out the life of your dreams.
Experts Consulted
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SHAYNA CORNELIUS and DANA STILES
Shayna Cornelius and Dana Stiles are Human Design experts and co-founders of DayLuna on a mission to help others achieve personal freedom and radical authenticity. They specialize in the realm of self-purpose and conscious entrepreneurship, covering topics such as spirituality and the new paradigm on their successful podcast, the DayLuna Human Design Podcast.
What Is Human Design?
Human Design is also called the Science Of Differentiation, the New Astrology, or the Science of The Aura. It’s a system that combines modern science with ancient modalities including Western Astrology, The I Ching, The Chakra System, and Kabbalah The Tree of Life. Based on these elements and your birth information, Human Design tells you how your energy is unique, how your aura works, how you are designed to make decisions/follow your form of intuition, what your unique set of gifts are, what your life purpose is, and much more. Once you know your Human Design type (more on that below), your Human Design Chart shows the “map” of your unique energetic makeup and gives you the owner’s manual on how to operate your energy correctly.
The idea behind Human Design is to support you in experiencing personal alignment. When we’re in alignment, we feel less resistance and more harmony, abundance, and ease. Instead of swimming upstream, we learn how to get in alignment with the flow of energy that can support us in living our purpose, with less effort and struggle. When you start making choices that are true to who you are, rather than letting external pressures or others’ expectations steer you, you’ll find more peace and fulfillment.
What Sets Human Design Apart From Personality Tests?
Like Human Design, personality tests like Enneagram and Myers-Briggs are tools that can shed light on how you may be different from others. While we can find great meaning and support in systems like Enneagram and Myers-Briggs, they are self-assessments, whereas Human Design is not. In personality-type systems, you’re answering questions about yourself to see what profile you fall into. Human Design is based on a calculation from your birth date, time, and place. In that sense, it’s similar to Western Astrology because it uses information about your birth, but Human Design uses specific energy systems (chakras) in addition to astrology at your time of birth.
Human Design represents the innate qualities you were born with and will have throughout your life. This distinction between self-assessment frameworks and Human Design is important because, from a very young age, we learn and adapt to take on qualities that will make us feel loved and accepted. It can be easy to define who we are based on who we think we should be instead of who we really are, without even having the conscious awareness that we’re doing it. As a result, you might find yourself in the wrong job or relationship, whether because of family influences or the weight of societal expectations. Your Human Design shows you with great specificity what your soul inherently is, not who you have been conditioned to be.
What’s My Type?
You can generate your chart online for free using your birth date, time, and place. Look for the written category “Type” to see which Type you are. Every person fits into one of five different energy types: Manifestor, Generator, Manifesting Generator, Projector, and Reflector. These energy types describe how your energetic body (aura) is designed to function and the key role you are meant to carry out.
- Manifestors are here to impact and inspire others to make a change or start something new.
- Generators are here to use their ample creative energy to create, work on, or build what they love.
- Manifesting Generators are here to inspire others as they use their ample creative energy to create, work on, or build what they love in a diverse and varied fashion.
- Projectors are here to guide the energy use of others toward more efficiency and authenticity.
- Reflectors are here to empathetically feel the people around them to gauge the overall well-being of their environment.
I Know My Type…Now What?
Once you’ve discovered your Type, you’ll see that you have a corresponding “strategy” or method to start putting your purpose into practice. By experimenting with applying this strategy to your daily life, you naturally start to use your energy correctly. Practicing this one aspect of Human Design is by far the most powerful place to start.
- Manifestors: Your strategy is to inform. This means communicating how you’re really feeling and what you’re thinking of doing next with the world around you.
- Generators: Your strategy is to respond. This means focusing on being more present and tuning into your body’s positive energetic response to guide how you should use your energy in each moment.
- Manifesting Generators: Your strategy is to respond and then inform. This means focusing on being more present and tuning into your body’s energetic response to guide how you should use your energy in each moment and also keeping people in the loop as you go.
- Projectors: Your strategy is to wait for the invitation. This means not sharing your gifts, advice, or insight with others until they seem to be genuinely inviting you to do so.
- Reflectors: Your strategy is to wait for a 28-Day Lunar Cycle. This means giving yourself an entire 28 days to feel things out and find clarity before making any big shifts.
How Do I Make the Most of My Human Design?
While some might dismiss it as too woo-woo since the science isn’t there (yet), Human Design can offer a grounding perspective when you’re feeling lost or unsettled. Fully understanding who you are and how your energy operates will lead you to instinctively live out your life’s calling. We often think of our purpose as one thing we’re here to do, but really, it’s the energy we came here to be in all of the things that we do. When you dive deeper, Human Design will show you many different facets of your bigger picture beyond just your Type. But even without knowing the nuanced layers of your design, just following your strategy and leaning into what feels right can be enough to make a difference. Because Human Design isn’t about changing who you are, it’s about getting back to who you’ve always been.
Feature graphic images credited to: Cameron Murray | Dupe, Максим Славов | Adobe Stock
