The Not-Self is an often-overlooked aspect of Human Design and yet is one of the most important aspects. It doesn’t have the sexyness or allure of the Type, Strategy, and Authority. In fact, it is often very hard to look at and accept within oneself. 

For me, it definitely is hard to look at!

But, whether you like it or not, your Not-Self is there and it is acting in ways that prevent you from living your design. It’s not bad. It’s not a problem to be fixed. But it’s also not to be ignored. 

Your Not-Self is the conglomeration of behavior patterns and belief systems in your neurology and nervous system that you’ve created over the years to help you navigate society. In any way it wasn’t safe to live as you’re designed to live and be fully expressed in your uniqueness, you automatically and often unconsciously created protection patterns in your neurology and nervous system to help prevent that pain and rejection. 

So the Not-Self is not “bad”. In fact, it’s pretty incredible. It’s a perseverent, adaptive, amazing part of you that learned how to navigate a world that didn’t want you to be you. That helped prevent you from feeling the pain of being rejected for being you. 

Now, with that said, the Not-Self is often misguided. It is often using protection patterns that are years past their expiration date. 

For example, one of my protection patterns was to suppress my joy. Joy wasn’t safe in my home growing up around my dad. I had to play quietly and out of sight. And that was very painful for me to not be able to fully express my childlike wonder and playfulness. So, without realizing it at the time, I “decided” unknowingly that joy wasn’t safe and I built patterning in my neurology and nervous system to automatically suppress my joy and expression. And up until just the last 2 years, I was still suppressing my joy and expression automatically! And my dad passed away 20 years ago. 

The danger that I created the protection pattern to protect against was no longer present. Yet, it was still operating… simply because I forgot to turn it off. I forgot that I ever turned it on!

Isn’t it incredible?!

You, as a human, do this intricate programming automatically and with no contribution needed from your conscious awareness or logical mind. It all happens mechanically under the surface. You naturally protect yourself and create patterns to do so. 

So please, don’t beat your Not-Self up. Don’t beat yourself up. Practice not getting upset with your Not-Self patterns. If you get upset with them, you won’t create space for something new and will instead engage in a never-ending fight with yourself. 

These are not problems to fix. They are patterns to shift. 

The key is to bring awareness to them and understand why they’re there. And then, with love and acceptance, to bring awareness to the Truth that they aren’t needed anymore. And, from softness, you create space for the firing of electricity in your nervous system and neurology to slow and relax. 

And in that space, you can follow your Strategy and Authority more effectively. 

As you dive deeper into your Human Design journey and more deeply understand your Type, Strategy, Authority, Profile, and some of your gates and channels, you might notice you find solace in the theoretical understanding. 

And you might even find joyous celebration as you successfully listen to your Strategy and Authority to guide you to better and better choices!

And this is all very important. 

AND, at the same time, are you also noticing the times that your Not-Self patterns kick in to keep you from following your Strategy and Authority? The conditioning patterns in your neurology and nervous system can sometimes be so deeply ingrained from such a young age that they can be really sneaky.

In my journey, I discovered the Human Design system back in 2014 and from 2014 to 2018, I was really good at using it to coach others in following their Strategy and Authority. And I was practicing it in my life and seeing some amazing results. 

Yet I was in some blind spots. My sneaky Not-Self was convincing me I was following my Authority in times I wasn’t. I didn’t realize this until 2018. I started to become more aware of the intricate patterns built into my neurology and my nervous system that were making me think I was following my Strategy and Authority. But it was really an old conditioned way of thinking about how I should move through the world. And it was operating at a deep unconscious level, a layer under other belief and behavior patterns I’d uncovered and unlearned. 

It was humbling and reminded me that the healing journey happens in layers. And to always approach myself with a curious mind and be open to considering where I may still be in blind spots. 

Because the nervous system is wired mostly in your childhood and based on your early years, challenges, and emotional / physical / mental traumas you went through, the protection patterns are often deeply ingrained underneath your conscious awareness.

They are trying to protect you from perceived danger, whether there is actually danger or not. 

And one of the biggest dangers that they’ll try to protect you from is following your Strategy and Authority. 

Because you grew up in a society where it generally isn’t safe to follow the wisdom of your body…. where you were taught to follow logic and data over your own Knowing. Where parents and teachers and society often said you needed to be logical. Where you were told you need to write out pros and cons. Where you were told to be “realistic” when you share your deepest desires. That you need to be smart about your decisions. That you need to make sure you’re making the right decision for the rest of your life. Or you’re going to be broke. Or you’re not going to have a retirement fund. Etc.

This creates fear of following your own Knowing: your Strategy and Authority. 

It’s a conditioning that following the illogical wisdom of your body is not safe.

So what Human Design is doing, when you go beyond just learning about your chart and you start living it and practicing it, is taking you outside of the comfort zone you created based on all that conditioning. It is going to guide you outside of the comfort zone your protection patterns are diligently holding in place. 

And therefore, your neurology and nervous system will often register you following your Strategy and Authority as a danger to your emotional, mental, and/or physical safety. That is the time to bring gentle awareness to the patterns that are arising… the fear, the anxiety, etc…. to breathe deeply into the discomfort and to create space for those patterns to soften and slow. 

Remember, don’t fight them. Or try to force through them. Or try to fix them. That is just fighting against yourself and will never get you anywhere.  

So, since your Strategy and Authority will always guide you to what you deeply desire and what is best for you, which almost always exists outside the approximated comfort zone you created for yourself, your Not-Self will get triggered. And ignoring it will keep you forever from following your Strategy and Authority. 

Utilize your Not-Self Theme as a marker to realize you weren’t living your design. Slow down and take a deep breath to create space to bring to conscious awareness the habituated unconscious pattern that happened without you realizing it. And then, with love and gentleness, create space for it to shift. 

Use your Not-Self theme to change course more quickly. 

It’s about noticing the protection patterns that you built long ago, based on what you were told was safe and not safe, in your nervous system, in your neurology .It’s about noticing them and beginning to unravel them, to decondition them, to unlearn them, because they are the resistance in between you and truly following your Strategy and Authority.

The Not-Self theme is different for each type. 

For Generators, it’s Frustration. 

For Projectors, it’s Bitterness.

For Manifestors, it’s Anger. 

For Reflectors, it’s Disappointment. 

And these themes are emotional, energetic intelligences that let you know that you recently made a decision that wasn’t in alignment with your Design.

So you can take that marker and make an adjustment. 

If you’re a Generator and you’re feeling Frustration, it most likely means that you said Yes to something that your Sacral was a No to. That you didn’t respond in accordance to your Sacral Response from an emotionally clear place. If you try to “fix the frustration” and push even harder by putting more energy into the direction, it will get even worse. Instead, breath. Slow, Create space and change course. 

If you’re a Projector, Bitterness is usually felt when you speak or act when you weren’t invited to. Then the people who you’re speaking to or acting with are not able to receive your wisdom or your expression. And so there’s a feeling of not being recognized and a feeling of bitterness. Use that bitterness as a guide to notice in what ways your protection patterns had you speak when your deep inner knowing knew it wasn’t the right time. Breath. Slow, Create space and change course. 

If you’re a Manifestor, Anger is your Not-Self marker. It usually arises when you’re following your Manifestor spark to initiate projects as you’re designed to BUT you’re not informing people of what you’re about to do before you do it. This will create a lot of resistance in your path as others will be impacted by your actions and they won’t have been prepared. You can remove resistance from your path by informing them first. So, if you’re feeling Angry about the resistance you keep meeting from others, that’s a good sign you weren’t living your design and informing. Remember, informing isn’t about asking for permission, it’s about removing resistance from your path. And if you don’t, then you’re going to keep butting heads with people who are being impacted by what you’re initiating.

If you’re a Reflector, the Not-Self theme is Disappointment. You’re designed to be surprised and delighted by life. And you will be if you’re allowing yourself to go through the lunar cycle. To really wait out that lunar cycle for the medium and big decisions. As you let the moon travel through all the gates over 28 days, each of your channels will get activated in a familiar pattern and you’ll find a consistency in that unfolding. And you can let yourself be surprised by all the various experiences you get to have in that journey and as the decision becomes clear. If you’re instead comparing yourself to others and trying to force a certain conforming or certainty based on the 24-hour Sun cycle like the other types, you’ll feel that disappointment. Life won’t feel surprising and delightful to you. Let this be a marker to breathe deeply into the discomfort. Slow. Get curious about the Not-Self patterns that showed up. And create space to change course. 

 For all 4 Types, if you don’t actually pause and slow down to build awareness to the patterns in your neurology and nervous system that are blocking you, that you created when you were a kid to help you navigate a society that told you you shouldn’t listen to your body, then you are going to keep being blocked from following your Authority.

No matter how much you understand your Authority, you’re going to be blocked from actually following it. So practice being gentle and soft with your Not-Self patterns to create space for them to actually shift and for electricity to fire in a new way in your neurology and nervous system. 

I hope this post supported your journey! If you haven’t gotten your Free Personalized Human Design Report yet, you can do so below! And I’d love for you to join the free Human Design Applied Facebook Group so I can support your journey more directly and get to know you.