Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Human Design expert and Master Coach, Emma Dunwoody. Emma shares her transformative journey from struggling with mental health issues to discovering both Human Design and the Gene Keys. She explains the intricate connections between these systems and how they can be used for self-discovery and personal growth. Emma emphasizes the importance of experimenting with your design and offers practical tips for yogis looking to explore this fascinating field.
Tune in as Emma:
🔹Breaks down the components of human design, including its scientific basis, the role of neutrinos, and the significance of different energy types.
🔹Discusses Gene Keys & how they complement human design by exploring deeper emotional layers
🔹Explains how human design synthesizes ancient wisdoms like astrology and the I Ching.
💗Get Brett’s Free Somatic Yoga Workshop => https://www.brettlarkin.com/embodiedyoga
GUEST EXPERT: Emma Dunwoody | @the_human_design_coach
Emma Dunwoody is a Human Design Expert, Master Coach, Author, Behavioral Specialist, Speaker and host of the leading global podcast, The Human Design Podcast. After facing a number of personal and professional challenges including depression, panic disorder and feeling lost, broken and unfulfilled for nearly 20 years, she is on a mission to take Human Design mainstream to help millions of other people transform their lives as she has done by making Human Design simple, applicable and powerfully transformative. Her unique method of Transformational Human Design, that includes Human Design, The Gene Keys and Transformational coaching methods, empowers people to become their most authentic self, align to the authority that lies within and embody their purpose.
Emma’s website: https://www.emmadunwoody.com/
Listen to Emma’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-human-design-podcast/id1467241622
Emma’s Membership, The HDx Collective: https://www.emmadunwoody.com/membership
FREE Practice: Yoga to Connect with Your Body | Soothing Movements & Music 🎶 | Yoga Connecting the Mind and Body
Relevant Blog: What Is Human Design and How Can It Influence Your Life?
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
🐍 Kundalini Demystified
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🎧 Also Listen to:
#329 – Heal Your Subconscious with Allison Roman
#331 – Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Limiting Beliefs with Monika Tschuggnall
#342 – Find Your Purpose with Natalie Valle
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Transcript:
Brett:
Hey Emma, I’m super excited to have you here. Welcome to the Uplifted Yoga Podcast. And you are from Australia, so we’re gonna get to hear your very fun accent and tell us a little bit about, first is your story. How did you get interested in human design? Because I know there’s an interesting tale there.
Emma:
Thanks for having me.
Emma:
Yeah, so it’s quite a story. So I’ll give you the edited version. Look, I was diagnosed with depression and panic disorder at 28, which was a long time ago now. And it was this catalytic moment because I was told that I would never heal from depression or panic, but I would learn to manage it. And for me at that time, it just wasn’t an option. Like I was in the worst possible state. I’d, you know, considered taking my own life for a really long time.
So I just knew, thank goodness, that if I could work out how I got to that point, that I could work out how to get out of it. And that really was the catalyst for my purpose, for my journey. And it all began with understanding my brain, understanding my behavior, how my subconscious mind worked, understanding psychology. That sort of led into neuroscience and quantum physics. And that kind of meant that I transitioned out of my
highly stressful advertising career that I felt like I was selling my soul to the devil and into becoming a master coach. So I spent three years starting to become a master coach. I then created this beautiful little business that grew really organically. And by that time I’d healed my mental health. had, you know, a family had moved from the country in Victoria to Sydney.
As I said, I had this beautiful business that I loved. I was feeling really great, but I had still had this kind of like this hole. There was something missing and the way I articulated it was it was my purpose. It was like I knew that I’d taken all the right turns. I was on the right path. I was doing the right work, but there was still like this particular piece missing. So I kind of put it out to the universe after walking the Camino de Santiago, which is an 800 kilometer or 500 mile walk through Spain.
And as I came back from the Camino, I sort of said, okay, universe, I still feel like there’s this tiny little piece that I need filling in. I like I’ve got all the framework, but what’s the missing piece? And can you be super obvious, please? So I got home and in that time, like the first couple of days after I got home, I actually was asked about human design or I was served an email about human design.
Emma (02:45.132)
And back then in 2018, no one was talking about it. Like it was super rare. Like people didn’t know what I was talking about. And I was, universe, please. No, not this. It’s a bit too woo woo. You know, like I’ve got this beautiful corporate practice. I’m, know, into all the research, into all the science I’m talking about neuroplasticity. and I was like, okay, well, if this is it. So I literally Googled
like leading human design specialist in Australia. And that person happened to live 10 minutes away from me. So I know, right? And I emailed her straight away and within 24 hours, we’re sitting having coffee and this person who is complete stranger to me started reading my human design. And I was like, Whoa, you know me better than anyone knows me, you know, like this is crazy. I have to understand this. So
Emma:
That was the beginning of my human design experiment. And then I just followed the bouncing ball and, you know, introduce this into my corporate business. Then I changed the name of my podcast purely by following my strategy and authority, even though my ego was like, what are you doing? You don’t know enough. Who are you? And then created an incredibly, incredibly, you know, beautiful podcast, successful podcast, successful business.
I’ve used it to raise two incredible children. I use it every day in my life, really just to be the most authentic and confident version of myself and to be on purpose and give my purpose to the world.
Brett:And one of the things that I thought was so interesting about you is that beyond just human design and the method that you’ve developed around it, and obviously I’m going to ask you a lot about what it is, so listeners, if you don’t know what it is, we’re going to double click into all of that, but that you also really studied the gene keys. And as someone, I’m very interested in somatic work and, you know, that whole can of worms is so fascinating. Maybe you can actually tell listeners just what the gene keys are.
Emma (04:50.307)
Yeah.
Brett (04:50.406)
and how that relates to human design and then we’ll weave it back into human design because I think that really brings a kind of physical component to it that I know the yogis listening are probably going to be really interested in.
Emma (05:01.388)
Yeah, so the gene keys and it’s so funny to me. I’m like, why doesn’t everyone put these things together? But what is crazy? Like I’m a manifesting generator. I’m also a three five profile. So it is so in my design to go hang on a second. We need to like get rid of all this superfluous stuff and put the important bits together to create a hack if you like. So the gene keys is something that similarly to human design. It was channeled information.
It was channeled by a guy called Richard Rudd. Richard Rudd actually launched human design in the UK for Ra, and then he left human design just to create, to birth, and to share the Gene Keys. Now, the Gene Keys are representative of the 64 hexagrams, which is a part of human design, which is the i-ching. And in the Gene Keys, we call them Gene Keys. Now, why the Gene Keys? Because we actually know now that
these 64 gates of the hexagram are actually mapped back to our human codon. So this is actually a way that we can really understand ourselves at a really deep level. In human design, we call them the gates in the, so I will often use the gene keys, cause we have like the shadow, the gift and the acidic state overlapping with the gates that we use in human design, because it really is an incredible,
incredibly deep way of knowing yourself, understanding yourself and you know, really connecting to your authenticity.
Brett (06:36.566)
So you just said a bunch of terms that I think I’m like, time out, we’re gonna break these down. Cause I just heard like eye-ching, hexagrams, all these things. So let’s maybe talk about like, what is human design? And then maybe you can kind of help break it down into these core components. Yes, listeners, we’re gonna tie this back to the gene keys as well. But I think this is something that can feel really woo, feel really intimidating, even for someone who is, you know, I consider myself very spiritual.
And yet I still feel like it’s a little bit information overload and I got overwhelmed when I start hearing all of these terms that like people who are into the human design, know, click or just rattling off. So can you break these down for us? Like I’m a middle schooler.
Emma (07:14.764)
Yes. I love this because I literally am launching my book in the US this year, which is called Human Design Made Simple for exactly this reason. So human design is it’s a synthesis of four ancient wisdoms. So Western astrology, the Chinese i-ching. So the i-ching is an ancient kind of divination tool, but it’s also the 64 ways in which a human can change.
And as I said, we are now seeing that the 64 hexagram are mapping back to the human codon. So things that are going on in our genes are representative in this ancient wisdom.
Brett (07:57.334)
So when you use the word human codon, you’re just really meaning our genes. Okay.
Emma (08:00.95)
Yes, yes. Okay, our DNA. So then we have the Hindu chakra system. you guys are well aware of the chakra system. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we have the Kabbalah tree of life. So the tree of life is all about how the energy flows through our energetic system, through our body, our energy body, emotional body, spiritual body.
Brett (08:03.978)
or DNA.
Brett (08:10.698)
We know about that. We’re like so good on that. Okay, perfect.
Emma (08:30.336)
And again, there is a lot of science to connect the Kabbalah tree of life into our biology as well. Now, the other thing that really grounds this into science is human design is a reading like astrology. We take a reading from the time you were born. Now, the reason we take this.
And this used to be, this was actually one of the things that really tripped me up in the beginning, because I didn’t want to ask my CEOs for their time of birth, because it sounded so woo woo. But it’s actually a time where we’re taking a reading from a moment where these subatomic particles called neutrinos pass through our body when we’re born. And as they pass through our body, they imprint us with certain themes. So we take that, so in astrology and human design, and call it our natal chart. So it’s our birth chart.
And they literally imprint us with these themes of the celestial bodies of these, like the hexagrams and neutrinos themselves. There’s this huge facility in Japan spending millions and millions of dollars and studying these things. So once all these wisdoms, this wisdom comes together and we take this reading, what we get is our energetic blueprint. Now, what is this? The way I like to explain it is
My work is with behavioral and personality tools like disc profiling, Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, those sort of things. That’s what I used to do a lot of. Now, this, we get our profile from these things by answering a bunch of questions. So if you have a really good facilitator and one of the really detailed questionnaires, then the odds are you’re gonna get a pretty detailed idea of your personality and your behavior at the end of it. But there is a…
cognitive dissonance, a gap between who you think you are, because effectively your identity and your ego are answering the questions, right? Because you’re answering them with your mind. Whereas with human design, you’re not answering them with your mind. This is an energetic moment in time that is giving you this, what I like to call as a treasure map to the most authentic version of you and your purpose. So the gap is minimal, okay? So…
Emma (10:51.188)
Effectively, human design then gives you on top of your human design. So imagine you’re born with this original frequency. This is your particular radio station that you’re born into the world with. You’re programmed for greatness, all this potential. And then our conditioning happens. So we get layered with should do this, shouldn’t do this. This is who I need to be to get love. This is what I need to do to get attention. This is how I need to behave to fit in. And we layer all of this on top of our human design.
Our self worth sits in there as well. So the more that we diminish our self worth, because we come in with 100 % self worth, okay? But all of this conditioning diminishes it. So we have our human design, then we have our self worth. And then we express our personality and behavior. Now, depending on our self worth, we’re going to express it through fear or through love or somewhere on that scale, you know, on that, that moving scale. So our human design helps us first to identify where am I at?
Like am I expressing a lot of my shadows? You know, maybe I had a lot of trauma in childhood, so I express a lot of my fears. And this is where the Gene Keys is really helpful because it specifically goes into the shadows of each part of our design. So for example, we even have a place in the Gene Keys where we can look at our core wound. So what is the wound that we came into this life with? And for example, mine is the 43 and my shadow is of deafness.
And I am literally going through a process in my life right now. I’ve I’m divorcing my husband and it’s been a year and a half and there’s so much that I’m so okay with and my adult brain is okay with, but I’m like, there’s this piece I just keep getting triggered. So I went back to my core wound and this shadow of deafness and I was like, wow, I need him to hear me and I’m refusing to hear myself. So I can literally use this methodology.
to dive into whatever real time things going on in my life. And then instantly in my ex, you know, in my case that I’m sharing now, I could hear like I could just shift my trigger because I could do, you know, certain processes to heal the energy, shift the energy. And then I knew that I had to lean into this gift of insight, meaning I need to listen to myself. I need to stop worrying about whether or not he’s listening to me and start focusing on listening to myself. So
Emma (13:14.954)
It gives us everything from the macro as in how your energy works. Like literally you walking around in your energetic bubble. What does that mean? What does that look like? How do I influence other people? How did they influence me? Right down to these very specifics like I’ve just shared with you with Core Wound. But I mean, we can look at our purpose. We can look at our environment. We can look at our superpowers. So many things.
Brett (13:39.552)
Let’s double click into, I want to kind of go back to like the birth chart idea because I think that’s something that most people listening to this podcast are very familiar with. I remember I was a great gift when my first son was born. Someone actually gifted me a birth chart reading of my son. I was like, that’s so cool. What a great gift. And, you know, obviously we’re familiar with the horoscopes. Most people listening to this podcast are very familiar with the chakra system. And I actually really loved what you said about us being born, you know, coming in at a hundred percent because
We talk a lot about Kundalini energy on this podcast too. And I always talk about how you’re born with the Kundalini awakened. Like you’re born with the Kundalini free flowing. And then it’s like, it’s life that, you know, constricts or clamps down certain parts of that natural orbit. So it seems like you were saying something very similar, right? Like we learn these programs and behaviors of what earns love and our personality starts expressing. And, and then it’s like, you know, the real us kind of gets obscured.
We see this in Ayurveda as well, right? You’re born with your true nature, the pakriti-vakriti, and then you kind of become a little bit like an altered version of the real you. So, but I want to just make sure I really understand because I think, you know, like hanging your hat on the science of all of this is really what is going to encourage people to be like, I want to investigate this and it’s worth, you know, taking all the…
I love what you said too about the quizzes like Myers-Briggs and a lot of those ones that we’re familiar with being coming from the intellect, right? Because it’s not really, it’s us judging ourselves and it’s like, how clearly can we really see ourselves? So when we’re born, what I remember from the birth chart kind of story was that when I’m born, the planets and the astrology is in a particular place
in time or organized in a certain way that’s somehow going to affect my energy. I think you’re saying that, but you’re saying something more. You’re saying something about, maybe you can recap for us, like the neutrinos and the subatomic particles. It’s like, what is that? Because I think if I can figure this out, I feel like the rest of it makes sense.
Emma (15:53.046)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. what’s actually happening? You’re you’re absolutely explaining it perfectly anyway. So it’s a snapshot in time of all the celestial bodies. OK, so all of these celestial bodies have an impact on our reality, whether they’re outer planets, which is like our collective or the inner planets that are our personal planets. So when we are born, these actual these particles that have just passed through
or are passing through Pluto, they’re passing through the sun, they’re passing through Mars, all of this at this moment in time that you are born. And what neutrinos actually do is they pick up and drop off the things that they move through. So they literally pick up a bit of dust, you like, powerful dust from these celestial bodies, and they drop it into your body. So it literally makes you this melting pot, if you like.
And human design actually takes two moments in time because we look at your personality, which is your birth time. And then we look at, it’s actually 88 degrees of the sun, but it’s approximately three months before you’re born. when the soul comes in according to human design. So we actually have these two readings and this is the body and this is the soul. So we actually have these two moments in time that create our human design. And…
We talk about it like our body and that the, if you’re looking at a chart, the left-hand side of the chart, our body, our soul, this is our vehicle. Okay, this is what we came here to drive through life in. And then our personality is just that, it’s our personality. It’s the passenger that sits in the passenger seat and like it’s gone through this life and it’s witnessing everything and having all of these experiences and deciding what it means about itself. So all of these themes, all of these,
really intricate details because as you said in the beginning, thing about human design is it’s super complicated. There’s so many layers and it really doesn’t need to be. But the point is, is it’s like all of this kind of happens in that moment of birth when your soul decides to enter the world. And for those out there that are like, but I was premature or I was induced or I was a caesarian, it’s all perfect. Whatever time you were born is the correct time for you. That’s exactly the design you were meant to come in with.
Brett (18:16.426)
And what did you say about something happening three months later? Did I hear that right?
Emma (18:19.534)
Three months before, so three months before you’re born, that’s actually when human design believes the soul comes into the body.
Brett (18:26.504)
I see. Okay. That’s actually not that different from the Kundalini yoga tradition. I think they say three months after the egg is fertilized is when the soul comes in. So, I mean, a little bit, months different, but we’re tapping into a lot of the same ideas here. Okay. So, and then the neutrinos, am I just thinking of these as like atoms? Is that like the best thing I could think of them as? okay. So basically like just stuff in the air that’s like passed through Pluto and is potentially like passing through my hospital room where I’m born.
Emma (18:34.638)
Mmm.
Emma (18:44.494)
Well, they’re even smaller, but yes.
Emma (18:49.315)
Yep.
Emma (18:53.428)
Exactly, exactly. And they do actually, they’re really important to quantum physics and really understanding how the whole universe works and consciousness works. I can’t give you a lot more detail on that, but yeah, they’re studying them at length in many places, Japan being one of the biggest facilities. It’s fascinating.
Brett (19:12.5)
No, it’s cool. You’ve already talked a lot more to it than other folks that I’ve talked to about this. So it’s very nice. And then just tell me again, the hexagons or hexagrams, how they’re playing into this in the moment.
Emma (19:21.76)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the eyeching, the eyeching is the hexagrams. So we call them the hexagrams because they actually have in human design, you’ll see that the numbers one through six, they appear a lot. We call them your profile lines, or you might have, let’s say in your, I don’t know, design Mars, you’ve got a line three, I don’t know. So you see this one, two, three, four, five, six everywhere.
So this is actually made up of the hexagrams. Again, this goes back to the i-ching and each hexagram has a different configuration, whether it’s a full line or a broken line. And it basically, if you think of it almost a little bit like Morse code, like each thing brings in each line or configuration of a line brings in a certain theme. And when you put those things together, it means something. So.
Brett (20:10.922)
And these lines are what? Sorry, these are like lines.
Emma (20:13.774)
We just call them lines, but I suppose in the actual, if you actually look at the i-ching, they are physical lines. there’s a, the hexagram itself is made up of six lines and whatever that is, like a broken line or two broken lines or a thick line or whatever it might be. And it depends if there’s on the, on the bottom three is one theme. It’s what we call the ground floor. It’s the personal lines. And then the top three, the transpersonal lines.
Brett (20:43.104)
And you’re getting these lines from me through knowing my birthdate and time. Okay.
Emma (20:43.286)
So.
Emma (20:47.694)
Correct. Correct. So you’ll see it all over your chart. You’ll see that when you see numbers, you’ll see, let’s say a 37.3, 0.1 point something. And whatever comes after the point, that’s a line number. And your top two, if you’re looking at your chart on the right hand side, you’ll have, let’s say, in fact, let’s do yours. So
Brett (21:11.51)
Well, I think this is leading into the next thing, which is like to know my human design, I need like a software, right? It’s like, need to input some stuff and then it calculates this and then spits it out to me with the lines that you’re talking about, correct?
Emma (21:24.34)
Correct, correct. and I mean, you can just go to my website and get it for free. We offer it, you can put your details in and get your chart from our website. And then we’ll actually send you to the episode numbers of the podcast that are gonna be talking directly to your type, perhaps, or your authority, whatever it is, particularly to your design. I think there’s over two billion expressions of the human design chart.
we really are incredibly unique. Again, this is something that’s kind of stands human design apart from the others because of its differentiation and specificity.
Brett (22:01.846)
So we have two billion unique charts, let’s say, of different information that could be spit out from different people. But then I hear my friends saying, like, I’m a manifesting generator, or I’m a this, that, and they kind of just have, like, two words. So how do we go from the chart to the two words?
Emma (22:14.734)
Yep. So cool. So we start with human design in a place called type. So there’s four types plus a hybrid. So we’ve got the manifestor, the generator, the manifesting generator, which is our hybrid, the projector and the reflector. So if you imagine this is the macro, like it’s the highest level of your human design. And there’s some really important information in there that’s going to guide your everyday life. Things like your
understanding how your energy is designed. for example, you and I are both manifesting generators. We have a lot of energy. We also have, you know, we’re on the planet to demonstrate human potential. We can sometimes feel like or seem like a lot, but that’s who we’re here to be. We’re really here to be that way. Whereas let’s say a projector, for example, they’re here to be very wise. They’re here to be guides. They actually don’t have anywhere near the energy that we have to
you know, work every day to do what we love every day. So when you understand your type, you can start to create a life and a business and a career around the way your energy is designed. So let’s think about it in your context. Let’s think about it as being a yogi. Let’s say if you’re a manifesto, you’re going to probably be the sort of person that’s like, my God, I just have to do this class. Like all month you’re like, you’re fired up. You’re like, I’m doing it. I’m doing it. I’m doing it.
And then all of a sudden you have no energy for it. And this could be a week, could be a month, it could be days, like it’s totally on your rhythm. But like you could have gone from being able to do yoga 24 seven for five days straight to no energy to do anything. That’s because manifestors have to follow their own creative energy that’s moving through them. Now for us manifesting generators and for generators, we can go to yoga, we can do it every day perhaps, we can keep a routine, we’re quite happy to just do it day in, day out.
We have more of a consistent ability with our energy just to keep showing up. Now the thing is with us is that we have to have energy for it, meaning we’re lit up. We enjoy the things that we do. So the challenge for us will be in this environment is maybe we’ve been doing the same particular routine and we’re just like, I don’t have energy for this anymore. I can do it, but I just can’t be bothered. That’s because our body is telling us, our type is telling us we need to find something that lights us up.
Emma (24:39.906)
So we need to tweak it, change it, whatever it is, so we still have energy for it. But our energy is really consistent. Then let’s say you are a projector or you’re teaching a projector. Now these are people that do not have consistent energy. These might be people that wanna take it a little bit slower. These might be people that wanna do it in smaller bites. Same with the reflectors. could be wanting, like less is more is a big theme for these people.
So when you understand, and even if you think about yourself as a yoga instructor, like when do you want to show up? Well, if you’re a generator or a manifesting generator, you can easily show up to the same class every week, fine. But if you’re a manifester, if you’re a projector or a reflector, then you actually want to really understand like, when do I have energy for this? What does it look like for me to be the best I can be to lead this class? So, and that’s just at our macro level.
But then we can go right down into the super micro, really understanding everything from, you know, what your life’s work is perhaps, or the things that drive you or your best environment. Like we can get super, super deep and detailed as well.
Brett (25:56.192)
Wow, so much information to take in. I mean, I’m just like, whew. Okay. And then it’s a lot. It’s a lot. I have written, and I think one of the things you explained really nicely is how there’s like four kind of different wisdom traditions merged into essentially what’s this software, right? Where I put in my date. And so it’s kind of funny because I almost feel like human design is like a technology almost, right? Where this software is telling you this information that
Emma (26:01.762)
There is a lot.
Brett (26:26.304)
Previously you might have had to see an I Ching expert and Ayurvedic person and studied Kabbalah and been an expert in Western astrology, but now because of what human design has done, we can just enter our birthday and kind of get a fusion of all of this at once. Am I thinking about this in the right way?
Emma (26:46.638)
Well, yeah, look, I love what you’re saying. And I think that the distinction though, is that if you think about it this way, this is the way I think about it, is they’ve taken these ancient wisdoms and mathematically mapped them together. So instead of them being like you said, four separate things that you go to four separate wisdom keepers, let’s say, instead you actually have this opportunity to see all of it fused together. And there’s still,
It doesn’t mean that it there’s no need for these individual wisdoms anymore because that’s, know, human design. Let’s say with astrology, probably uses astrology in different ways than astrology uses astrology. But it absolutely is this this this mathematically mapped together really to understand how our energy operates, you know, given that we live in a quantum reality and everything is energy.
This is our energetic blueprint. And yeah, once you bring these four wisdoms together.
Brett (27:50.55)
Does it tell me in my chart anything about the chakras or it’s more like melded in? It’s not saying.
Emma (27:56.526)
So yeah, great question. So in human design, we call the chakra centers, the chakra centers. And we actually have instead of the kind of the central, know, what we would have is would be like the third eye, the throat, the heart, the solar plexus, the sacral, the root. We also have the spleen and
we have the head and the Ajna. So we kind of split it out into a couple more chakras if you like. Now, apparently this happened in around 1880. We actually turned into these nine centered, what we call nine centered beings. Now in each one of our chakras, when you’re looking at your chart, you’re gonna see that some of these shapes or centers are colored in and some of them, excuse me.
Emma (28:53.612)
and some of them are white or empty. Now, this is a really big, this is actually, I think, one of the most powerful things with human design that’s really not talked about enough because what it’s telling us is where we have a defined center. So for you, you have a defined throat, a defined what we call G center that sits where the heart center is, a sacral and the spleen. So these are all your innate consistent energies, meaning that
You are born to speak. You were, you have an innate direction within you. your life force energy, your passion, what, you know, what lights you up? It’s innate. It’s in you all the time. and your wellbeing and like survival instincts, they’re there all the time. And the combination of this energy and the nuances of the gates that sit in there, that’s who you feel you are. And that’s who people experience you as. Now in your
design, you have what we call an undefined head, Ajna, will center, solar plexus and root center. Now all of these centers, what you would call chakras, this is where you actually take in other people’s energy, you amplify it and you reflect it back. So I’ll give you an example specific for your chart. Let’s say, and obviously I know nothing about your history, so I’m just making this up. Let’s say as a kid, you’re in a family that there was a lot of emotion.
and you were either pinned as the emotional one or you just were very aware that you were trying to manage other people’s emotions. Now the truth is, is you’re a non-emotional being. You actually have an undefined solar plexus, but you feel everyone else’s emotions amplified. And as a kid or an adult today, you don’t realize that those really big emotions, they’re not yours. So what happens is you create an identity around being an emotional person or I’ve got all these emotions that I just can’t deal with and you can’t deal with them or
process them because they’re not actually yours. So when you start to understand it, know, undefined centers, how much you’re being influenced by others, you can also start to let go of other people’s stuff really easily because you get to know, hey, what do I feel like when I’m on my own in my own aura? And for you, you probably don’t feel very emotional. You probably feel like, like I, if something happens, I have a cry or I have a laugh. Boom. And I just move on.
Emma (31:18.008)
Whereas an emotional being, I’m an emotional being, we have to kind of ride the carousel a few times before we process, before we move through things. So the centers or the chakras are so important because once we understand where we’re being influenced, then we can basically cut that stuff out, stop doing it, heal our conditioning, heal our shadow. And that’s where we actually build some of our greatest talents.
because it’s something we’re not born with, but something that we will build, you know, great strength over time. For example, I’ve got an undefined head and Ashener. So structured clear thinking’s never my thing. I was dyslexic. I am dyslexic, diagnosed as a kid. So one of the things that I felt a lot in my conditioning, especially growing up and in my twenties and even thirties was that I was stupid. I felt like I was stupid. Now,
The person I am today is I know I’m actually a brilliant thinker. Like I can bring some of the craziest things together, but I have built that muscle over time. I’m great at asking questions, built that muscle over time because it wasn’t something I was born with, but I’ve now learned to stop taking on other people’s energy. So the centers themselves are incredibly profound when we just experiment with them.
Brett (32:41.416)
I love everything you’re sharing. mean, it’s really cool because in a lot of the trainings I have, you we talk about the chakras as these projectors and assimilators also of different energy types. So it’s interesting to think that, I have certain chakras that are more projecting. I have others that are, you know, more easily influenced by the outside world. So I think that’s a very kind of cool idea that I definitely, it makes me want to like do the chart and noodle on it more, which I think is kind of a good place to kind of navigate to as we slowly
wrap up here, but is what are the pitfalls or like tips that you have, especially for yoga practitioners, if they get a reading, you know, like things that we might want to pay special attention to, like what you just mentioned, or, you know, what are kind of some no-nos if someone’s like interested in exploring this? Like I always say, for example, you know, if someone’s interested in Ayurveda, you know, it’s like do an online quiz about your, you know, your constitution, but know that it might very
well be inaccurate because it’s an online quiz. You know, you really need to go see a real Ayurvedic practitioner who’s going to analyze your tongue, take your pulse, you know, do all these other things to really understand your Prakriti and your Vakriti. So I’m just wondering, like as an insider in human design, there things like that that you would have us know or direct us as yogis to pay particular attention to in our chart?
Emma (34:04.054)
I absolutely love this question. So at the, it’s kind of similar to what you’ve already said. The best advice I would want everyone to receive is the understanding that human design is an experiment, not a dogma. So the information was literally bought in with this guidance. And I’ve even created my own experiment model, you know, like this is how you experiment with your design. The point being is I am
not an expert in you and you are not an expert in me. Human design is this experiment that you have to discover what’s true for you. And there are so many people out there teaching you, well, if you’re a manifesto or a projector or a MG or a generator or a reflector, this is who you are. And I’m here to tell you that is not true because even at like at a type level, so many people can find out their type.
and then go down the Instagram rabbit hole and go, well, that doesn’t resonate for me. And it’s because of what’s going on beneath type. So you have to experiment, like learn the different parts of your chart. The first place you always wanna start is your strategy and authority. They’re very simple to play around with. So for example, your strategy is to respond and inform.
and your authority is sacral, meaning that everything for you is yes, no, uh-huh, I have energy for this, uh-uh, I don’t have energy for this. The moment you override your decision-making with a thought, you’ve lost it. So it’s about experimenting with, what does my inner authority look like, feel like, sound like? What do know when I’m listening to it? Because at the end of the day, you’re the expert.
not all of us out there that, you know, call ourselves experts in human design. We’re an expert in the tool, but you’re the expert in you. So don’t believe everything that people tell you. Don’t just take it at face value. I’m always saying to people, pay attention to the things that you resonate with in your chart. So that feels like, yeah, that feels true. And pay attention to what you resist, because whatever you resist is also probably true, but you don’t like it. And you’ve put that part of you in your shadow. So you want to pay attention to those things.
Emma (36:23.0)
But again, at the end of the day, it’s an experiment. Run the experiment, see if this whole making decisions using your strategy and authority works for you. How does it work for you? Is life getting better? Then great, keep doing it, learn more, go deeper. But if it’s not, put it down. Maybe you pick it up later, maybe you don’t.
Brett (36:42.678)
Do you think that we can do this looking at the chart by ourselves, or do you think someone really needs at least one or two consults or a guide to have them go through it? Like I tell people, if you’re really serious about Ayurveda, I would invest in at least one Ayurveda consult with a professional.
Emma (36:59.704)
Yeah, so again, would say, mean, funnily enough, I’ve done most of mine myself, but again, that’s the way I’m designed to be. The thing that I would recommend you do is you wanna follow you. So go, if you go and get your chart and then you go to my podcast, the Human Design Podcast, and start to understand your type, your strategy and your authority. Then what’s gonna happen is they’re gonna literally guide you. Like, actually I do, I wanna have a…
I wanna have a session with somebody. We’ve got a bunch of coaches, readers on our website, or you might be looking at Instagram and go, well, she sounds good. And you’ve learned to listen to your authority. You’ve learned to listen to the guide that’s within and the universe that’s guiding you. So I think sometimes what can happen a lot with readings is that people go and they have their readings and please by all means go and have one because it’s great to hear all these things about yourself. And then you walk away.
And you’re like, well, what do do with this? You know, like, yeah, you just told me all of these things about myself, but how do I actually do this? Which is again, why I’m on the planet, why I do what I do is the practical integration of all of this, this knowledge so that you can actually go, okay, so if I’m looking at, let’s say my profile, I’m a three, five profile, you’re a one, three profile. I know that that means X for me and this is how I do it.
because it’s actually about getting out into the world and being this version of you and knowing how to actually integrate it as opposed to just being told, hey, you’re an epic human, look at this, this is who you are, but you have to be able to actually integrate it once you leave.
Brett (38:38.912)
Well, we’ll absolutely put the link in the show notes so people can go do that. I think I’ll go do it too, because I love how you’ve set that up, you know, that we can go, we can find out and then kind of get, you know, like listen to these three podcasts to know more. Before we close, you know, one closing question I have is who, remind me who came up with this? Like the people who actually made the, like, I don’t know, who pulled all the technology together? Is this like a team of people or this was?
Emma (39:02.432)
No, so this is actually it’s like like a course in miracles. It is channeled information. It was channeled by a guy called Alan, but he actually goes by the name of a route. Sorry, Ra Uru who now? Unfortunately, he did pass away a number of years ago, but he actually channeled all of this information over eight days. And I think one of the things for me that is
you know, important about that fact is that there is no human brain that could mathematically map together all of this wisdom in eight days alone. I mean, even with a team of people, I don’t think we could do that. So he literally heard what he called the voice and the voice was like, you need to write this down, go write it down. And he came up with all of it. You know, what is now the software, lot of the methodology, it all came through over this eight day period.
Brett (39:55.7)
And just to close the loop, the gene keys, which you mentioned earlier, I think I’m hearing, correct me if I’m wrong, but these really come in when we start understanding our human design and we have certain core wounds that we want to work on. And that’s when we can start potentially layering in some of the work there.
Emma (40:16.408)
So the Gene Keys, you can just do the Gene Keys separately. One of the best descriptions I’ve heard of human design and the Gene Keys is human design is like the skeleton, the structure, the masculine. It’s all of the functionality. And then the Gene Keys is like the feminine and the muscle and the skin. So it’s the expression of that. The thing with the Gene Keys is that, I mean, Richard Rudd, who
created the Gene Keys. He’s a poet, he’s an artist. So where human design can be very functional. Sometimes when we come to the Gene Keys, it can feel like a lot and it’s kind of like, I don’t really know what that’s saying. So I always recommend like, just take your time with the Gene Keys, just don’t overwhelm yourself with all the information. I mean, we even have a like a PDF that’s just like a summary of all of it to try and help people get their wrap their head around it. But the Gene Keys themselves is
you the more you get to know them, the more you work with them, it’s something that you do over time, you contemplate these things in you over time. And it’s kind of like the knowing drops in and then it kind of helps you to raise your consciousness. And the more you raise your consciousness, the more you get access to the wisdom that lies in there, if that makes sense.
Brett
Well, I love the analogy of it being kind of like a Shiva Shakti or a Purusha Prakriti or unmanifest manifest polarity, because I think that really helps frame both of these in a way that people can understand, like the human design really being more structure and then the Gene Keys maybe being more felt or experiential. So yes, I know when I first read the Gene Keys book, I felt very, overwhelmed, but I think this is great. think, you know,
Thank you so much because I feel like I really learned and I have a much clearer picture of human design than I ever have before. Friends, if you’re listening, absolutely go check out Emma’s show. take her software that we’ll put in the show notes and start listening to some of the podcasts just to see. I everyone in yoga world, I feel like is kind of also a self-development junkie. So it would be kind of crazy to not at least check it out and just see what resonates with you.
Emma, thank you so much for being with us and I learned so much. Thanks for being on. Namaste.
Emma
Thanks so much for having me.
