Decoding your human design in 7 steps

​In this episode I'm going to be sharing the 7 layers of human design and how I navigate a brand new human design chart for someone who hasn’t had a reading before and how I advise others to read and understand their charts. So let's dive in.

Human design is a great tool for anyone who loves to get lost down the rabbit hole, where there's just so much information and so much to learn. There are so many detours to take and things to turn your focus toward.

Most people either fall into 1 of 2 categories when they learn about human design: either you LOVE the thrill of a whole new world of possibility and growth that’s just opened up to you, OR you find yourself lost, overwhelmed, confused, and wishing that someone could just give you the quick summary or outline of what you need to know and how to use it.

There's no middle, really. Trust me, I get it. No matter what side of this you fall on. And in a world where more and more people are discovering human design every day and wanting to learn more about this system, about what it’s telling them, and ultimately more about themselves.

Whether a beginner, a novice, or a more experienced human design reader, some of the most common questions I get asked are:

i) Where do I start?

ii) What do I need to know?

ii) How should I approach reading and understanding my chart?

When I first look at a new chart, I go step by step, layer by layer. And for anyone new to human design or just learning how to read their chart, focusing on one thing at a time is not just easier and less overwhelming, but it’s easier to understand and retain all the information you’re covering too.

So I’m going to take you through the 7 steps, or 7 layers of how I read & begin to synthesize a human design chart and what my biggest takeaway from each of these layers.

There are infinite takeaways and learning for each of these layers but I’m just going to give you the most generalized, top-line summary.

These are seven things that I look at right away to get that overall feel of the person that I'm reading. Their chart is, in a sense, their vibe and some of the major themes in their life. So the initial pass-through of these 7 layers takes me a few minutes.

But once I make the mental notes about these 7 steps or these 7 areas, then I go back and dive deeper into what is calling to me or what might help answer the person's questions more fully, or what may have the biggest impact on someone's day-to-day life.

And after that quick glance, then I dig in much deeper. That’s a little overview of my process as a whole. Now, let's get into it.

Step 1 - Your Human Design Type & Authority

If you know anything about human design at all, you probably know about Type and Authority. Your type is either a Manifestor, Generator, Projector, Reflector, or Manifestor Generator.

Your strategy tells you how you interact with the world around you – people, places, things as well as yourself, and it also gives you your signature, and your not-self, your signature.

As a result, my strategy as a projector is to wait for the invitation. My signature is success, and my not-self is bitterness.

Your authority is different than your type, but it often goes hand-in-hand with it because these are the fundamental elements of human design.

The first thing you need to know is that your authority is essentially your intuition. It helps you make aligned decisions and helps to give you a framework to understand exactly how your intuition speaks to you and what it's saying when it does speak to you.

Your authority is something like splenic, emotional, sacral, ego authority, self-projected authority, mental authority, or lunar authority. There are 9 different authorities, and together your type and your authority are something like a Splenic Projector, Ego Manifestor, and Sacral Generator.

In a practical way, your type and your authority are like your daily responsibilities. They give you both guideposts and directions to take a step forward or two steps forward, one moment at a time.

This is the reason strategy and authority are so frequently spoken about, and why it's truly the first thing you learn in human design and, I believe, the first thing you should learn.

Because if your type and your authority help you take small aligned actions over time, those small aligned actions over time result in huge leaps forward.

So, utilizing your type and your authority are those small daily steps, your daily responsibilities that when followed will put you on the most aligned path and knowing what they're telling you when you're off that path so that you can pivot, evolve, or turn a different direction and get yourself back on that path.

Step 2 - Your Profile

Even if you’re new to human design, you may have heard about your profile. Your profile is 2 numbers such as 5/1 or 1 /3 or 6/2.

Your profile is how you are seen in your best light. It’s how you feel most confident, it’s how you contribute to the world, and in many ways, it’s your natural leadership style.

Your profile is important when you need to step up and be that leader and it doesn't have to be in an entrepreneurial aspect. But when you're stepping into leadership or you're stepping into being a confident leader, it's how you feel the way that you feel most confident.

Each of those 2 numbers represents something different, with one side of the two is your more conscious style whereas the other being your unconscious leadership style and what other people see & love about you.

That's the type of leadership style or the way that you naturally step into something that you're aware of. And, ultimately, I like to think of your profile as your role within a team or within a group.

There’s always going to be the person who has a deep pool of knowledge, or the person who is the social butterfly & networker and each of these roles is a genuine leader but in their own way and their own style.

So what your profile tells you is your leadership style when it comes to the team. What is your natural leadership role and style within that group. I adore the profile. It's such a critical and significant energy in your human design chart and plays a big part in any readings that I do, which is why it's ranked second in these 7 steps.

Step 3 - Definition & Circuitry

Your definition & circuitry tell you how the activated energy in your chart connects & flows. Your definition might be single, split narrow or wide, triple split, or quadruple split. Your circuitry is a hybrid of your individual, tribal, or collective energy or aptitude that you have in your chart.

What your definition of your circuitry tells you

i) It tells you a lot about the environments that are good for you and which types of environments you might actually need to be in.

ii) It also tells you how you can have the most impact through your environment or in how you chose to work.

iii) It also gives you information about whether you work best alone or with others

iv) And finally, it helps you understand the impact of you & your energy on others?

Your circuitry & definition really helps you protect your own energy, be aware of any environments or situations that might negatively impact you, and put yourself in places that optimize your ability to make forward progress… in whatever way that is important to you.

Step 4 - Your Centers

There are 7 authorities and 9 centers in your human design chart- Head, Ajna, Throat, G-Center, Ego/Will Center, Emotional Solar Plexus, Sacral Center, Splenic Center, and Root Center.

Each center represents your relationship with something uniquely YOU, it represents your unique relationship to inspiration, and your beliefs, your self-expression, identity and direction, desire and commitment, emotions and spiritual awareness, creativity, health and wellness, and growth and evolution. All of which are very important.

And depending on your unique energy and activations, your will experience these relationships differently - both as strengths and as potential roadblocks. There are sources of wisdom in your life that you can use, like, to gain wisdom to become a role model in that particular area, so you can use each of these centers.

You can use each of these centers as an anchor or as a launching pad to understand yourself and others on a deeper level and leverage your gifts & strengths in your own unique way and more easily navigate roadblocks.

In many ways your centers are your toolkit at your disposal - you might not have every tool ever created, but you always have exactly what you need when you need it. Especially when you take the time to learn all the ways your tools can be used and leveraged.

You will always have exactly what you need through these centers. It might look a little bit different than you might expect but you always have exactly what you need when you need it and in a way that is just perfectly designed for you to get the lessons that you need out of it and to take those lessons with you going forward.

Step 5 - Your Incarnation Cross

Your incarnation cross is made up of the 4 most prominent energies in your chart, the same 4 that make up your Gene Keys Genius Activation sequence, which I've talked about in a lot of previous episodes, but just want to continue to make that connection.

In a way, your incarnation cross is the essence of who you are, and it's like your job description is in this lifetime. It's how you impact others and how you activate others or initiate others and kick-start them in their journey or in their purpose.

In a way, think of it as you are the lighthouse for others. This is your purpose, but it has nothing to do with WHAT you do and everything to do with who you are and how you inspire others and the collective as a whole.

It's the effect that you have on others around you. Knowing how your energy inspires & activates others, can help you put yourself in the right situations (relationships, jobs, businesses, offers, environments) so you can maximize your impact.

Understanding your incarnation cross helped narrow that zone of practice into where I knew I could be my best, which was very helpful and brought a huge sense of relief and the ability to let go of aspects of my business that were too broad or too much.

Step 6 - Your Variables

We are getting into the nitty-gritty details of your human design when we start talking about variables. However, this nitty-gritty of your variables can also be some of the most fascinating parts of your chart.

What you can learn and glean from them is how to be the best version of yourself and how to be seen and recognized by others as the best version of yourself. Your variables help you discover how you best receive, process, and perceive information- whether it be food, information, or intuition.

It cultivates your super senses & instincts - how your mind & body best digest, transmute and absorb what you receive and how you can effectively guide & motivate others with your message and insights.

Your variables also give you a framework to recognize when you are operating and being seen clearly in your best light and perhaps where you are forcing or distorting the information you are receiving and aren’t able to see & perceive information clearly, which happens when you go into your transferred variables

This is much more nuanced, but it's really interesting to understand how you see things or how people see you. Or how you can distort what you're receiving, and then how you project that distorted information as well. Your variables give you information about your environment, your determination, and how you take things in, plus also show what your view of the world is, and how you motivate yourself and others.

Step 7 - Your Gates & Planets

Here we are in the 7th and final step or layer of decoding your human design chart and we are talking about the influence & impact of individual gate & planetary placements.

When I think of this step or layer, I think about it in terms of both your natal human design chart and your transit chart.

This is getting into the nitty-gritty. As you can imagine, with 13 planets for your conscious design and then 13 more planets for your conscious design, each with their unique gates and lines.

And then also within that, you have 13 more planets and gates and lines for what's happening in transit. This can get very deep, very detailed, and overwhelming very quickly.

So this step, this layer is when you have a solid understanding of everything else I’ve mentioned, because this step, this layer, is almost like the extra credit. It's the cherry on top of the ice cream on Sunday.

When you think about your aura and your energy as a whole, these are the teeny-tiny little alterations. It's like I said, it's the cherry on top. It's a little teeny tiny bit of alteration.

So, of course, it can help, but it's not the thing that makes the biggest impact and with the least amount of energy, so I'm going to give you a couple of examples of how I use the gates and planetary transits in my experiments and human design exploration.

First Example: Natal Mercury can give you clues about your communication, and Venus about your values, and paired with the gate & lines and now we are getting VERY granular.

When these understandings are combined with the gate and the lines, that gate and the lines help you understand your unique flavor of values as well as how you communicate and receive information.

Second Example: You can use human-designed transit to plan projects or launches in your business. You can time things to know when Jupiter, the planet of expansion and growth and abundance is in good transit so you can make sure to launch in that.

Honestly, this last level is something that I am not even an expert in. I know a lot about certain things, but I'm also still actively exploring, playing, and learning.

And there are a lot of other pieces that I haven't mentioned today in human design. The elements, placements things that I haven't even mentioned. So I might be missing things, but at the same time, if you take your time going through each of these 7 layers in each of these 7 steps, it will take you plenty of time, or even a lifetime, to explore, to understand, to embrace, and to master.

But I hope today I’ve given you some clarity, some direction, and a nice clear plan of action to begin understanding your own human design chart and why it’s important.