There’s this thing called Human Design. And I’m obsessed. I got the book. I take the courses. I consume Human Design content practically daily.
However, I did not start off that way. The first time I heard about Human Design, I actually really only got into my energy type until Human Design re-entered my sphere a year or two later (from there, there was no turning back!). As it turns out, your energy type a great place to start when you’ve decided to look into Human Design!
As a little intel before I dive into my story, here’s a bit about Human Design (HD):
Human Design is a conglomeration of sciences–astrology, the Kabbalah, I Ching, the chakra system, human biochemistry–that uses your birthdate, time, and place to produce a natal chart, or what I like to call a “blueprint”, for your aura, how your energy works, strengths, challenges… Basically, your human design chart maps out how you’re meant to be your fully individual self in this lifetime. I see human design as a permission slip from the universe to be the most authentic form of yourself that you would be or would have been if conditioning from society and family didn’t get in the way. Understanding your human design aspects can show you how to optimize your energy and even your environment to be more aligned with who you really are. You with me so far?
Let me tell you… Human Design is ridiculously layered, and I’m constantly learning more about it, and all of it is fascinating to me. That being said, there are only a couple elements that you really need to know to start putting your Human Design into practice to start feeling more in alignment.
The core aspects of your HD “blueprint” are your energy type, which designates your strategy (how you’re meant to respond to the world around you). The other core piece to know is your authority (which is how you best make decisions based on your chart’s strengths).
First, a brief breakdown of the energy types:
Manifestors – The initiators of the energy types! Their aura is naturally repelling, but I prefer to say it feels self-contained. This is one of the easiest types for me to intuitively feel when I meet them because it literally feels like their energy stays within an invisible wall not far from their physical body, like a protective shield. Their strategy is to inform whoever might be impacted or involved, and then go do the thing they feel the urge to do. They like to do things on their own since they have these urges that feel like they must be acted upon.
Reflectors – The mirrors of society, reflectors are. They are the only lunar type, which means their strategy is to wait the full moon cycle of 28 days before making any big decisions. They may feel different every single day based on where the moon is! To wait that long is to make sure they feel the decision through their whole chart before centering in on their choice. Reflectors are distinct in that they have no active or defined centers in their HD chart. This means they are constantly sampling everyone else’s energy and seeing what it’s like to be all types of people. Their aura is gentle and also a little protective, so they don’t absorb too much energy. The environment is very important to reflectors, as they reflect the environment and energies around them. They are very sensitive, so they need to be able to move around a lot or choose to be around different people until they feel good.
Generators – The builders and doers of the energy types! They are the only types that create life force energy through their sacral center. While we are all meant to do work and other activities that excite us to stay aligned, the generator is truly like the light bulb that’s found the room it’s meant to be lighting up. Generators have an enveloping aura about them and it’s particularly sparkly and magnetic when generators do what they love. Generators are meant to master their craft, to get down in the dirt and spend their days doing what they love, often focused on one thing. That being said, they are not meant to initiate. Instead, their strategy is to wait to respond to the world around them, whether it’s an idea, opportunity, or question that gets them excited to take action… thus, responding to that stimuli! They’ll naturally get a physical yes/no response to whatever is presented to them. If it’s a yes, then they’ll have the energy to go forth and do it for hours upon hours. If it’s a no they feel, then their sacral energy will deplete and they will burn out. Life is meant to come to generators… and manifesting generators!
Manifesting Generators – The beautiful hybrid energy type with the sacral base of a generator with the manifesting connection to the throat center. MGs share many similarities with generators–the enveloping aura, very sparkly and magnetic when doing what lights them up, lots of energy to go and do all the things, and the same strategy of waiting to respond to what comes to them in order to to get excited and act on it (or not). The main difference is that the MGs are the multitaskers of the energy types. They are very energetic and can get a lot done quickly (though they may skip steps). Their energy is meant to bounce from one exciting thing to the next as they feel lit up by them, as opposed to the generator, who optimizes their energy by knuckling down into an enjoyable task for a long period of time. MGs may or may not finish something before moving onto another, and that’s okay. They’re meant to be the butterfly the flies from flower to flower by following their excitement.
There’s one more type and it’s my energy type…
A darling friend of mine messaged me one night in 2015 and said I ought to look up my human design to learn my energy type. Of course, my mind was like, “My what now?” But then she told me I must look it up, that it had helped enlighten her about her own aura and energy and how it worked. I popped on over to jovianarchive.com to input my birth information per her suggestion. Next thing I see is a human-shaped chart with both white and colored squares and diamonds as well as red, black, and white lines linking the squares and diamonds together. The five different energy types are meant to engage with the world in specific ways, based on the squares and diamonds activated (colored in) within the chart.
As it turns out, I am a projector.
While the rest of the chart was overwhelming and new, I knew I had to look into what it meant to be a projector in Human Design. The energy type is the baseline of what you need to know if you’re looking into your human design for the first time.
Key takeaways from my first rabbit hole into being a projector:
My strategy as a projector is to “wait for the invitation”–which means I’m meant to be recognized for who I am and what I have to offer, and then invited into opportunities. This is more for those big decisions or those that involve people outside of myself… So, to enter into a new relationship, a new job, a new place to live (if moving in with someone), etc., I should feel recognized and have a clear invitation (whether physical or energetic) to say yes or no to in order to use my energy correctly.
This “wait for the invitation” mode of being immediately struck me. As I did a quick glance down jobs past, nearly every single one of my jobs that I had acquired I had been invited into.
- My best friend recruited me to be a delivery girl for a cheesesteak cafe in high school.
- My writing abilities were invited in to work for a family member’s company to help with writing their newsletter (which I’m still spearheading).
- A producer I had met while working a media internship for my university’s athletic department invited me to apply for the internship at the news station he worked at (which I ended up working for beyond the internship).
- I was invited to apply for the communications job that I ended up working for two years before I moved to New York.
- Once in New York, a wonderful woman I met invited me to help her with editing work, and has since kept inviting me to help out in various capacities for the companies she assists.
- Working on one play within my first two months of arriving in New York introduced me to many actors and directors who would then later invite me to be a part of their productions, all of which I had a blast with when I could participate.
When I thought back to when I was applying for jobs and internships, almost none of them worked out and it felt incredibly draining to have to try and prove myself to people I didn’t know. Almost every single job I did end up having and succeeding in, I had been invited into in some way or another. Someone had recognized what I brought to the table and said, “Hey, we want to work with her!” Isn’t that funny how naturally that played out already before even knowing my energy type?
That alone blew my mind about being a projector. I could immediately see how “waiting for the invitation” had served me already. That’s part of the magic in my human design!
The other things I learned about projectors also seemed to resonate.
Projectors are meant to be the guides of the energy types. We have a cone-shaped probing aura that is meant to see into others and situations very easily, so projectors are easily able to see what’s working, what isn’t, and how to make it work even better. We just need to make sure that we have permission to “probe” or offer advice, or else people will think we are Miss Know-It-All-Bossypants (been there!). Due to our ability to hone in and to make things more efficient, we can get a lot done in a short amount of time… which is interesting since projectors are really only supposed to work for about 4 hours a day. The rest of the projector’s day is supposed to be filled with enriching activities, learning about what interests us, making ourselves visible so people can find us to invite us in, and resting.
Oh, the resting…
All energy types require proper rest, however, society is not built to sustain projector energy types. The go-go-go, put your head down and do the work 9-to-5 mentality comes from the Generator and Manifesting Generator types that have run the world for so long (projectors are one of the newer types to the planet, only arriving in the last couple hundred years). That’s not the way of the projector, so we are here to help usher in a new age of being. To show that the hustle lifestyle is not sustainable or desirable for everyone. That rest can be just as important and impactful as doing.
Resting is very important for projectors since we’ve often been conditioned to behave like the Generators and Manifesting Generators of the world. And that will drain us and eventually burn us out. The differentiating factor between Projectors and the Generators and MGs is a defined (colored in) sacral center (second square from the bottom), which is the center that creates life force energy. Since Projectors do not have this center active in their chart, they do not create consistent life force energy ono their own and instead often have to share the energy that Generators and MGs create to have enough energy to keep working and doing beyond their capacity. This gives Projectors a little boost in terms of energy… but too much of anything isn’t a good thing and that “borrowing” of energy will burn us out by the end of the day since our bodies aren’t meant to harness that energy for too long. Since we don’t have our own source of life force energy brewing within us, projectors have to rest often. There are different types of Projectors (since I’m actually what’s called an energy projector, but that’s a discussion for a different day. 😉
And you know? Growing up, I thought I was such an odd-ball in my family due to my sleep patterns. I was always the one sleeping in on the weekends, while everyone else would have this magical ability to be awake before 8 a.m. But I also was the biggest night-owl of the bunch (which is indicated in another part of my human design chart, but that’s for another day). Unable to control myself, I fell asleep in class often too, particularly around the 4-hour mark or the after-lunch period one. The best comment I ever got from a teacher who’s class I fell asleep often in: “If you don’t wake up, I’m going to decorate you like a Christmas tree.” Even when I started working a 9-to-5, at times I’d have to fight off the ZZZ monster mid-afternoon. Guess my projector aura was done early, ha! Yet I always still got my work done, often quicker than expected.
Those were the basic points that I gathered from my energy type based on my human design chart when it first graced my attention… Ever since then, I’ve discovered and unlocked far more from HD that has helped me step more into my power, my authority, and to trust my natural flow of energy. Let me tell you… It helps!
There will certainly be more to come through my experiment in living more in alignment by following my human design. Stay tuned!