This post is about the 3/5 profile in Human Design, otherwise known as the “Martyr / Heretic” profile.
If you have this profile, those words may sound pretty intense!
However, the 3/5 is a super powerful profile. The most important thing is, don’t let the mind make meaning out of those two words “Martyr” and “Heretic”. Keep reading because we’re going to dive into what what they actually mean in the context of human design in this post.
If you are a 3/5, you can learn how to tap into the power of your profile.
Or if you know anyone who is a 3/5, such as a family member, partner or friend, this post will support you in understanding them better and will help you to appreciate their unique 3/5 gifts in the best way.
Looking Deeper into the 3/5 Composition
Like all profiles, the 3/5 profile contains a conscious energy and an unconscious energy.
The 3/5 profile contains the conscious energy of the 3, the energy of the Martyr and the unconscious energy of the 5, the energy of the Heretic.
So what does that mean? Let’s look closer at an example chart of a 3/5 profile design.
An Unconscious 5th Line (Design)
Looking on the left side, the design side, you will see the “unconscious” activations. These are the planetary positions at the moment 88 days before the moment of birth, which is when the Soul entered the body. It’s what your unconscious mind and the wisdom of your body will draw you to.
In this case, the Sun and Earth are in the 5th line, and their respective gates are followed by “.5”
A Conscious 3rd Line (Personality)
On the right side, on the personality side, are the “conscious” activations, which are the related to the planetary positions at the moment of your birth. This is connected to your ego, identity, and personality. It’s what your conscious mind will naturally want to do.
Looking at the Sun and the Earth gates, you will notice that both Sun and Earth gates are followed by “a decimal three “.3”, meaning both the Sun and Earth were in the third line of their respective gates at the moment of birth.
Because the Sun and Earth are responsible for so much of the imprinting, those four gates carry a really heavy weighting in your chart.
If you want to discover more about that, check out this Youtube video about quantum physics that explains the quantum physics behind Human Design
Within this 3/5 profile, there is a tension between the conscious part of the profile, the 3rd line “Martyr” energy, and the unconscious 5th line “Heretic” energy. Let’s look a little deeper…
The Third Line Martyr
Don’t let the word get to you – the “Martyr” energy is not as bad as it may sound! It doesn’t mean you’re here to die for your cause or to go out in a blaze of fury.
The Martyr is really about trial and error. Society may look at you as someone who makes a lot of “mistakes”, or who has a really hard time navigating the world. But what they don’t understand is that your design, the 3rd line energy, is actually designed to “make mistakes”…
… But in the grand scheme, you’re not actually making mistakes. You’re finding the holes in society and community that no one else has found yet. It’s often that you’ll find all the ways to do something “wrong” before you do it right. But you’re only doing it “wrong” because there’s a hole that you found. And from this process comes a deep wisdom that is unshakable.
If the third lines of the world didn’t find the holes, didn’t find out what doesn’t work, we would never be able to develop and evolve as a collective. We would just keep building on top of faulty foundations and be running around wondering why things aren’t the way we want them.
As a third line, you find out why things are that way and you’re a genius at it.
One of the big challenges for 3rd lines is that you may have been actively discouraged from “making mistakes” when growing up, especially in your younger childhood. You may have grown up in an environment where parents, teachers or peers discouraged you from living your natural talent of finding out what doesn’t work, of exploring, experimenting and of bumping into the world. You may have been disconnected from your natural talent of finding all the ways that things don’t work, so that they can then be addressed and improved.
The most important thing for you with a third line in your profile is to let yourself off the hook, to be gentle, and to realize there’s no such thing as failure! Yes, it may sound cliché, but it’s really, really important for a 3/5 profile to redefine your relationship with the trial and error process.
Reframe the concepts of “making mistakes”, or with “getting it wrong”, because that’s how you discover what works and what doesn’t work. It is a part of your genius. You never actually make mistakes. You experiment and discover. Allow a levity around it. Allow yourself to laugh about it. As much as is possible, given your environment. Practice not taking personally any projections on you from the outside.
As you continue through life, you continue to develop this deeply experiential wisdom which becomes part of what you then bring to the world with the five energy, the fifth line energy of the Heretic...
The Fifth Line Heretic
Again, the word “Heretic” may seem a little intense! But what it really means in Human Design is that you are here to universalize a message.
For 5th lines, your aura naturally has the power to influence a lot of people.
You’re designed to influence not only people you know in your network, but people you’ve never met, or people outside of your network that you think of as strangers.
As an example, this could look like speaking on stage to an audience filled with people you’ve never met before, or it could look like speaking on podcasts. It could look like being invited through your network to opportunities that also involve people outside your network.
The Five energy is called the Heretic because of it’s strong ability to influence others. However, influence can go both ways. The 5th line energy can be very influential, alluring and seductive. This energy can easily manipulate people, for better or for worse.
When people project onto you without fully understanding your gifts and talents, it can feel good but result in a challenging impact upon you. People may project onto you the role of their “savior”, looking at you as the person that can finally help them in some way, rather than seeing the true you.
Initially, it may feel really good to be looked upon in that way. And, if you’re not aware of it, the shadow of this energy could result in you taking power over people rather than empowering them. It’s always important to look out for this, because it will diminish the abundance and impact that’s possible for you – while creating challenge for others.
On the other side of things, if you try to help everybody that projects onto you as their savior, including the ones that your Authority has said “No” to, you won’t be able to meet the unrealistic expectations of the projection they’ve put onto you. If you are not able to meet their “expectations” of who they think you are, you may find people quickly flip from seeing you as a “savior” to seeing you as the cause of their challenges!
To check if this is happening, you can contemplate: Does this person really recognize you? Do they recognize your unique genius and talents? Or, are they projecting some other talents onto you that aren’t really yours? Are they projecting onto you that you are the person who will “finally save them”? Be careful, because you can’t save them. And, if they end up blaming you, it can harm your reputation. And reputation is key for a 3/5 to universalize their message.
How the 3rd and 5th Lines Work Together
As a 3/5, you’re here to universalize a message that you’re learning through your experimentation process, through trial and error, and through “not always getting things right the first time”.
The 3/5 profile, when living in full alignment, is very hands on, experimental, and playful! They do not take what society says at face value. They are here to poke at things in life to see what is true, what isn’t, what works, and what doesn’t.
The 3/5 is the most entrepreneurial of all the profiles.
Through your experimentation and experiential process, you truly discover a message that can be universalized and impact a lot of people in a big way.
Follow Your Strategy and Authority to Universalize Your Message to the Right People
Your aura is alluring and seductive, which supports your message to be influential but also can cause false projections… so, always follow your Strategy and Authority!
Through following your Strategy and Authority, you will be guided to know which audiences to universalize a message to, which experiments to play with through trial and error, where to use your energy in the world, and which people are yours to help.
With a 5 in your profile, you’ll likely get a lot of requests from others to support them with their challenges. Make sure you’re following your Strategy and Authority to guide you of which of those requests to follow.
If you agree to help someone, or a group of people, even though your inner authority said “no”, you will likely never be able to meet their expectations and then they will blame you.
Reputation is very important for a fifth line because a good reputation supports you in having opportunities to universalize your message.
The 3/5 can develop a very strong reputation through following their Strategy and Authority to the correct opportunities and people to support. They can also be the least easy-to-impress profile:
- With the 3, you can quickly see what doesn’t work in something
- With the 5, you can quickly see the best way to make it work
So, if you are in a relationship with a 3rd line, try not to take it personally if you are excited to tell them an idea of yours, only to have them point out the flaws and say “well what about this instead?”. It doesn’t mean they don’t see value in your idea! They are here to challenge, poke, and bump into ideas and have a gift to see what can be improved.
Questions to Ask Yourself if You’re a 3/5
Overall, the trial and error process allows you to create, realize and discover a message that can continue to support the growth of society or community as you universalize it.
Get curious as you are reading this, if you are a 3/5 profile.
Do you know what your findings are so far? Do you know what your messages might be?
What discoveries has your journey led to?
If you’re a 3/5 and you don’t see this “trial and error” process unfolding in your life… or if you don’t see yourself playing and experimenting in life, ask yourself these questions:
Did I learn that I shouldn’t bump into the world as a child because I got made fun or, got yelled at, or got punished?
How can I let myself start to experiment and play again and be in that genius?
In what ways is my environment safer to let myself experiment and bump into the world?
How can I be gentler with myself about “mistakes” and treat them as learnings?
Because as a 3/5, your profile is the costume of your purpose. The more you lean into this 3/5 profile, the more ease and abundance and purpose will move through you, move to you. So, really get curious about where you might have been discouraged to express yourself fully to strangers or where you were discouraged to play and experiment or “make mistakes”.
I hope this post has provided some insights into the 3/5 profile.
Pease leave your comments and questions below.
And if you haven’t downloaded your Free Personalized 19-Page Report yet with your unique Human Design Report, go ahead and do that now! It has personalized information about your Type, Strategy, Authority, and Profile:
There are many places you can generate your Human Design Chart. But most leave you wondering what to do with it . . . or charge for the guidance.
Here, in your Personalized Human Design Type Report, you get a detailed overview of your Human Design Type and Strategy for FREE, as well as tips on how to apply what you learn and tap into the wisdom of your body.
More importantly, this personalized report removes the complexity and makes it easy to implement and change your life IMMEDIATELY through The Phoenix Method, which puts Human Design into a greater transformative context.