Can Your Design Change?
People often ask me if their design can change. The short answer is no. The design you have is with you for life.
But that’s only the short answer!
The slightly longer answer (and yes there is also a much longer answer) is that science shows we are much more mutable than we ever knew. Recent research in epigenetics and brain neuroplasticity shows that not only can we change our mind, but also our physical brain wiring. And that means that we think differently, act differently and feel differently about ourselves and the world.
Sharon Begley says in her book Train Your Mind Change Your Brain, the brain devotes more cortical real estate to functions we use more frequently, and shrinks the space devoted to activities rarely performed. Concert violinists have much more brain wiring related to finger dexterity than you and I.
Not only that, but the way we think changes the way our brain is wired. Put another way, the very structure of our brain reflects the way we think.
You might have heard about experiments that have one basketball team imagining they can shoot consecutive 3 pointers and another one actually physically practicing their 3 point shooting. The results? The team that imagined got better results. Similarly, when we treat thoughts that make us feel bad as if they are simply unhelpful wiring rather than immutable parts of our personality, we can change our personality and our experience of life.
So even if you have your Moon in the Gate of Oppression (as I do) and have suffered from depression (as I did), there is no need to see that quality as fixed for life. Your Moon will always be in the Gate of Oppression, but how you experience that energy can change completely (as it has for me). I refused to believe that I was stuck for the rest of my life with “Life as an ordeal stripped of realization.” (Rave I Ching) and went looking for something more nourishing. I found this:
There are creepers blocking your path, but they can be swept aside. There are no real, substantial reasons not to move on … ” (Hilary Barret I Ching)
This is not intended as a critisism of Ra Uru Hu’s approach, but simply an experience I had in coming to terms with Human Design as a worthwhile tool for my own growth and understanding. Don’t allow yourself to be defined by negative expressions of your Human Design. If it doesn’t feel good to you, it isn’t! You are more creative than that, and when you think differently about who you are, you can change your life.
You will always retain the quality of each aspect of your Design, but you don’t have to be stuck in limiting expressions. You have the capacity to shift into positive life-affirming expressions of each gate, channel of your Design. That’s what Human Design is all about.
So, your design won’t change, but you can.
The future has arrived. We are the beneficiaries of a revolution in the understanding of the brain and of human potential. (1)
Here’s a TED talks video, where Courtney Griffin explains epigenetics, and the temptations she’s experienced as a research geneticist and a mother of twins. And no, she decided not to experiment on them!
Learn more about neuroplasticity, epigenetics and the Six Modern Sciences of Human Design.
(1) From Sharon Begley’s book, Train Your Mind Change Your Brain,
Thanks Kim! I ll try to see how i can turn more positive my 3/5 projector thing, with lots of 3’s in my design. Sometimes it feels like a curse which is probably blessing or at least could be not so bad viewed
My take on that Laura is that no one would come in with a ‘curse’ and nothing to redeem it. Everything is a blessing, if we look at it in the right way. And things probably only seem to be a curse because we’ve learnt to look through the wrong lense at ourselves.
One thing I learnt with Gate 47 – the Oppression and Exhaustion gate in the Ajna Centre – is that people who have it in their design are here to help others find their way out of limiting mental patterns. But first they have to find their own way out, then it’s all …. hey! it’s this way out!! That’s the blessing I found hiding under the curse of that part of my design.
thank you for shearing Kim, that helps to keep my head up!
BIG love from another 3/5 projector 🙂 just wanted to share the support, it’s definitely a blessing; one that most don’t understand. You’ve seen how few people understand the nature of the projector souls, I’ve seen the same sort of thing for my 3rd line – it’s real treasure 🙂 I hope that you have tons of luck in your movement towards seeing the blessing instead of the messing 😉
Thanks Dean! I would love to hear(read) how you see you as a 3/5 projector and the 3rd line as treasure somehow short if that’s possible and feels right
I know I could dig it out eventually myself, and some rest for body and soul would help in the process a great deal but I would really appreciate and am asking you to share some top 5 things about our type of chart
Thank you, Kim! Especially for your illmination of the Gate 47 problem. I myself have design Jupiter here, and since recently I have been constantly searching for the way out.
Your Jupter in the Gate of Oppression and my Jupiter in the Gate of Decrease should get together for a srategy session Marina … lol.
Its true there are gates that are troubling and perplexing and even straightout difficult. They’re part of our pathway to consciosness, like a personal maze to keep us engaged and entertained on our journey.
Kim, would you care to tell which gates would you call difficult? I’m very interested in the blessings undercover part 🙂 I love that you add epigenetics to hd, what a wonderful way of looking at things! A bit like a card game: take a look at what you have and make the best of it instead of feeling doomed.
thanks Kim (as always:) for your great insights!!! Shout out to all you projectors- I am a 5/1 emotional projector with a son who is indeed a 3/5 spleenic projector.
I love the idea of the “blessing in disguise”- which in my opinion is written beautifully about in Richard Rudd’s Gene Key book. There is no such thing as a “difficult “gate in that ALL the gates have their shadow frequency levels. I really believe that to be true in my experiences- the shadow (which in of itself is a Jungian spin which really speaks to me) is merely a frequency level which by its very nature can not be “fixed” or altered but rather- acknowledged and accepted- which then (paradoxically) transforms it to the Gift. And eventually to the Siddhic level. I find Ra’s interpretations – as well as the I-Ching’s absent of the poetry of symbols and archetypes. The I-ching itself expresses itself as a SYMBOL (hexagram) but once the interpretation is squished into WORDS the “magic” of that very symbol seems to dissipate and become distorted. Maybe it is like the moon itself- in order to grok our moon placements (and our design placements-unconscious) we’re better off with a soft sense of wonder rather than the laser focus of concentration and discipline….hmmmm
Dear Kim!
I would like to say, that I believe Our Design can change after a near-death experience, as mine have , my type, my gates my centers , my priorities, my relationships, my chakra senses even my skin tone, however, I was given the chance to “go”or to “stay” as I have done all I have chosen for myself for that incarnation….the reason why I`m sharing this information, as according to the angelic guides on the “other side” This walk-in experience/ or Emergence( embracing your I AM Presence) will happen to quite a few people in the next couple of years, and it will be a much smoother transition for them if they know that by checking their new energetic system they do not have to feel that lost ….
luv to You and everyone who is reading this
Hi Kim – I am really interested in how to shift my 47 in a blessing 😉 – its my concious sun gate and every info about it including the book from richard rudd sounds negative to me… thus I would love to hear a solution out 😉 – thx a lot – could you give me some advice (of course I will pay for it!) greetings from Munich, Nadine
Hi Nadine,
It might take some time to set it all out, and I’m going to do that soon, but for now, my take on 47: the traditional I Ching imagery for that gate is a plant that has become root-bound for being in too small a pot for too long. If you think about the connection between 47 and 22 (programming partners in the Genekeys language) the 22 says you have this kind of superficial social way of being in the world, but there is something more truly authentic underneath. Gate 47 says you can only create change by going within and taking time to meet this new more authentic part of you, because any attempt to create change by taking external action will only create something from the old you and that’s not going to be satisfying at all! Also, there is always that sense that people don’t help, or don’t see you, or respond to what feels inauthentic or shallow in you, that’s so painful in the 47. So, it’s very much about learning to say no to anything that feels inauthentic, spending more time alone and in communion with what’s arising within you. I hope that’s supportive!!
Kim, this is where I love Richard Rudd’s genekeys structure of Shadow to Gift (& Siddhi). There is no other choice we have, given a design we are born with. In fact, that’s I think our purpose in life .. And moving to higher frequencies open up a whole new world we can create our of our own design.
HI Sanjay, I was so excited when Richard Rudd brought that movement into the Human Design gates. It was a game changer for how people saw themselves through the lens of their Design.
The planetary archetypes evolve too! They are on their own journey to arrive at higher frequencies, so that’s another layer of shift happening.
I am a 1/3 generator with gate 47 three times. After going ‘within’ with the help of a fantastic therapist I am now a psychotherapist/counsellor myself, a passion I don’t think I could follow without my 47. My next challenge is to make peace with the chaos of my gate 3 in my consciousness north node after the order of the 50 in the first half of my life. Thank you Kim
Amanda, Gate 3 is about being sensitive to new patterns emerging, it’s the MOST creative gate in Human Design – I call it the big bang gate because it’s what happens when you put Gate 1 (yang) and Gate 2 (yin) together – a whole new world is created! Enjoy!