Born This Way...

I was a weird little girl. When I was small I had an “imaginary” friend named, Thomas, who went everywhere with me. I have a lot of memories of riding around in the back seat of my Mom’s car, enjoying long conversations with my magical friend.

When I was four Thomas gave me two important directives for my life. He told me that I am here to teach alchemy and that I am to go out into the world and teach only love.

Those two statements rolled around in my head my entire youth. My journey to becoming a teacher of alchemy and love has been a long and sometimes convoluted one. (I didn’t even know what alchemy meant until I was about 30!)

Over time, after being bankrupt, divorced, losing a house, getting my car repossessed, and struggling for many years with finances and, finally learning how to gain the financial “upper hand”, I naturally grew into being a teacher of alchemy.

But the teaching love part was hard.

I confess, I’m still learning about love and relationships.

One of the aspects of love that I have always struggled with is the notion of unconditional love. As child with huge religious fantasies and a deep love of martyrdom and sacrifice I cognitively understood the concept of unconditionally loving someone.

In my very dramatic mind, I could easily conjure up fantasies of being smacked in the face and then graciously turning my other cheek while whispering, “I love you” to my victimizer. (I told you I was a weird kid.) In my innocence, I thought that was how you unconditionally love someone.

Of course, that was before I learned to love myself. (Now I would lovingly kill anyone who treated me that way.)

When I became a mother, my understanding of love moved to a level that, still to this day, exceeds my cognitive ability to understand and certainly defies my ability to articulate. The love I feel for my children is bigger than my heart, larger than my body and stretches way beyond the rational confines of my mind. Mother Love is this unending ribbon of light and love that I will dance upon through all my days here in this lifetime and beyond…

But is it unconditional?

I think it is as unconditional as it will get in my limited human expression. I am certain that I will always love my children, but are definitely places that come from my own human conditioning that give me pause for thought.

For example, my Dad was the first person to go to college in his family. He went to Marshall University on the GI Bill while working full time and starting a family with two small children and taking care of a third child from his previous marriage. Working hard to get ahead is a big deal in my family.

I now have four teenagers living in my house. (Yes, they are all mine.) The oldest two are in college, one at a four year school and the other in junior college. I would be lying if I said that I am thrilled that my oldest daughter is choosing an Associates degree over a Bachelor’s degree. Oh, and did I mention that she’s moving in with her boyfriend at the ripe old age of 19???!!!

I’ve really had to wrestle with my own judgments about my daughter’s choices. And I feel guilty that I’m so thrilled about my oldest son’s success in college and I’m proud of his “A” average (…like I’m the one who did all the work to earn the A’s, right?).

And now, my youngest son, who is sixteen, is talking about joining the military and not going to college at all…more stretches for the human limits of my heart…

Aaaaahhh….but there is still My Great Hope…my middle daughter wants to go to M.I.T. and get a double major in engineering and design.

Please know that my tone here is kind of self-mocking. I don’t think that I love my children any less because of their choices but I do feel that I am still attached to how they show up for their own lives, like it’s really any of my business!!!!

And, I do believe that my judgments about their choices does lend a certain subtle “conditional” slant to the way I love them. (And yes, I can hide behind the idea that I just want what’s “best” for them and this is why I’m reacting, but that’s not really true. I do still have a charge on wanting to be viewed as a “good” Mom by others and, of course, we all know that “good” mother’s have children who get Ivy League educations and all the other mothers are just “average”, right?)

AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

Of course, I’m talking about my Mother Love which is the easiest and, arguably, the most powerful kind of love on the planet. If I’m still struggling with conditionality related to how I feel about my kids, imagine how challenging it can be to be “unconditional” with our lovers, our other family members and friends.

This is why I love Human Design so much! Human Design is truly a powerful tool to help you understand others and to see that so much of what we judge, criticize and even dislike people for, is often just an expression of their personal energy, or the dynamics of your composite energy and…

IT’S NOT PERSONAL.

Let me share some examples with you. (You might find that you have some of your own examples in your life, too.)

I have a friend who is extremely powerful by design. If you look at his Human Design chart you would see that he is all about bringing change to the world. He is driven by opinions, provocative, emotional, and he’s not designed to initiate. He’s a Generator with an undefined Throat Center and needs to wait to be recognized by the people who are ready to honor and value the change he is here to share with the world.

He’s also doubtful and suspicious by nature so he thinks most of what I do is Woo-Woo-Hooey.

Most people think this guy is an arrogant *****. But that’s because they don’t understand his place in the Human Puzzle.

Let me explain.

All of humanity is like an amazing puzzle with 7 billion (or more) pieces. A puzzle is only as beautiful as the conglomerate of its pieces.

If you have dogs or small children, you know that puzzle pieces get torn or otherwise mangled. (Or, if you are a Manifesting Generator with an open Root Center and the urge to complete the puzzle and your frustration gets the better of you, some pieces get sort of smashed into an incorrect spot because you can’t be bothered to find the right one…)

When the pieces of the puzzle are torn or missing, it affects the full expression of the puzzle. Each one of us is a crucial piece in the Puzzle of Humanity. And, even though in relative comparison, each piece seems small, we cannot come together and express the full magnificence of humanity if some of our pieces are torn or missing. We are all hugely significant.

When we don’t allow each other to be the fullest expression of ourselves as our Magnificent Selves, we, in essence, are mangling and tearing pieces of the Human Puzzle.

Here’s the deal.

Not everyone is designed to be nice. Some people are moody, emotional, provocative, bossy, critical, wimpy, nurturing, sweet, compulsive, impulsive, obsessed or lacking in focus by Design.

Some people are here to experience all that life has to offer. Others are designed to stay at home and cook big pots of stew and kiss boo-boos. Some of us are designed for adventure. Others are here to maintain the status quo. Some of us have direction and we know it from the start of our lives. Others of us are here to experience all the permutations and directions that life offers us.

Some people are easy to get along with and like. Others are more challenging.

And we all play a crucial role in the Human story.

And being loved for who we are…warts and all…is something we all deserve.

The mechanics of personality and even the mechanics of how we interact in relationship are not personal. It’s just energy and we can’t necessarily control the energy.

Be we can control our response to it. That part IS personal.

I would not love my children with the same degree of openness and willingness to allow them to be the fullest expression of who they are if I didn’t understand their unique piece of the puzzle.

According to Human Design, my oldest son is subject to the expectations of others. He is also here to be a leader and a change agent. But I will never know if I really see him for who he is or as a projection of my own expectations. I have to work doubly hard with him to allow him to own his own accomplishments (and failures).

My oldest daughter is designed to learn about life through experimentation. Falling down and getting back up is crucial for her to become the very wise woman she is well on her way to becoming.

My youngest son is emotional, moody, romantic and nurturing. He is the Incarnation Cross of Laws and has a life story about taking care of others and preserving rules and values for the greater good of the whole. The military might be a great place for him to have a consistent way to take care of people.

My middle daughter is designed to question her lovability. She might really want to go to MIT or she might unconsciously know that would “please” me. As a mother, I am working hard to detach from her choices so she can make the right choices for herself, not the ones she thinks will make me love her more. I already love her madly.

And my baby is designed to be intense, manage and guide others and to think about things in new and unique ways. Her energy is very different from my other kids and I know we’re going to have a delicious adventure together!!!

Knowing these little tidbits about my children (and more…) allows me to support them in the natural unfolding of who they truly are and who G-d designed them to be. I am grateful for this knowledge because it helps me transcend my own parenting baggage and serve as a better steward for these precious souls who have entrusted me with their care.

As we enter the holiday season, I invite you to remember the Puzzle of Humanity and the unique role each one of us plays in completing the puzzle.

Take this time to ask yourself how you can love yourself, your friends, your lovers, your family and even strangers more deeply, more “unconditionally”. And then celebrate the immense and breath-taking diversity of All of Us.

Pretty frickin’ awesome, isn’t it???

Be Yourself

*  In an effort to help you learn more quickly, I have recorded this blog post for those of you who prefer to listen rather than read.  To listen, click here:

http://karencurry.audioacrobat.com/download/1eb726f8-f636-2ef1-5e46-8bd822569487.mp3

Our lives are the sum total of all the decisions we’ve made. Where we are today is directly a result of our choices.

There is great power in understanding these statements.

You can either beat yourself up because you’re not where you want to be and you wish, in hindsight, that you’d made different choices. Or, you can embrace the thought that you can change your life right now by making different choices.

One of the keys to creating a life you love, is knowing how to make great choices.

That’s where things get complicated.

There are so many reasons why we struggle to make the choices that are correct for us. The truth is most of us are taught to use our minds to make decisions. We learn to find “logical” and reasonable reasons why we “should” or “should not” do something. We give our thoughts power over the rest of our ways of “knowing” and often make decisions that feel bad in our hearts or our “guts”, but we push forth anyway because we’ve been trained to give our minds dominion over our lives.

One of the reasons I love Human Design so much is that it gives you a unique strategy that allows you to make decisions in a way that is correct for you. My intention for this article (and the ones that follow) is to show you how your unique Human Design empowers you to make good, strong, abundant decisions for yourself in a way that honors who you are and is correct for you.

In other words, I want to help you understand your Human Design so you can learn how to know how YOU know and how to trust yourself and your own “knowing”. You are, after all, the only one who can make good choices for yourself.

Over the next few weeks I will be writing about the Nine Centers in Human Design and how these energy centers can be leveraged to help you make good decisions in your life. I have found, after doing Human Design readings for more than 10 years now, that giving people an understanding of their personal energy blueprint (aka Human Design) helps them make empowered, authentic choices.

(In other words, when you know who you are and how you operate, your decisions won’t be as likely to be influenced by false obligations, guilt, lack of clarity, old conditioned patterns and limiting beliefs.)

In addition, I will include Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) setups and instructions along with affirmations to support you in embracing the magnificence of YOU in the easiest way possible.

Change is good. Transformation can be fun. Learning will be easy!

I’m going to start with some simple Human Design information. (If you’d like to learn more, check out the Human Design Level One training or…stay tuned…I’m offering a nice “treat” for Halloween…that will help you learn more about your personal chart.)

When you look at your Human Design chart you’ll notice that some bits are colored in and some are white. The colored in parts are called “defined”. Because this is essentially a “map” of your personal energy, the colored in parts are consistent parts of your energy. These are aspects of yourself that stay the same over time and are, in essence, your authentic self. 

Defined aspects of your chart are energetic signal transmitters. These are the energies that you send out into the world.

The white parts of your chart are called “open” or “undefined”. Open parts of your chart are places in your energy system where you take energy and information in from the world and people around you. And you don’t just take energy in here, you actually amplify energy here so it can feel pretty intense sometimes, depending on who you’re with and where you are. 

Where you have openness in your chart is where you can become wise about energy and where you truly “know” others. But, because undefined energy is inconsistent, meaning it changes depending on who you’re with and where you are (and, to a certain degree, with the movements of the planet), these energies are not reliable or dependant. They can change, and they do, all the time.

(If you want to learn more please view my free webcast and slideshow: http://www.humandesignforeveryone.com/freegiftsignin.html)

Because we not only perceive energy in our open Centers and Gates in our chart, but we also amplify these energies, it’s very easy to feel like we are what we are not.

Our open Centers take in energy in unpredictable ways and, over time, we develop consistent behavioral patterns that help us manage the unpredictable nature of our open energy Centers. These behaviors can sometimes help us but usually keep us from living authentically.

(If you want to learn more, please view this 45 minute webcast about Open Centers and conditioned behavioral patterns: http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=22538910

So. Let’s keep this simple.

1. If you are raised by a person who has an energy that you don’t, it’s easy to feel like you have that kind of energy and to mistakenly act as if you do.

2. When you grow up and leave home, you aren’t around that kind of energy, but you still act like you do.

And trying to be what you’re not is exhausting and causes you to feel confused about what you want for your own life.

Ok. Back to this issue of clarity, thinking and decision-making…this part is kind of funny…

Most of us don’t have consistent energy for thinking. Only one out of eight people get their inspiration from the inside of their heads (aka “thinking). The rest of us get our inspiration from outside of ourselves.

Yet, we are deeply conditioned by belief systems (and even an educational system) that teach us that “thinking” is the way to clarity and good decision making.

For most people, “thinking” doesn’t really create clarity! In fact, someone who has an open Head Center and is designed to experience unlimited inspiration from the world outside of him or herself, is bound to be overwhelmed with choices, questions, thoughts and possibilities and the more they “think”, the more confused they can become.

When you understand your unique energy blueprint, the magnificence of your definition and the wisdom of your openness, you begin to understand how you operate. And when you truly know yourself, it gets much easier to make good choices.

I have to digress on one more important introductory thought for this week’s post.

This is a very personal thought that is the foundation of everything I do and teach. I hope you will embrace it deeply into your heart because understanding this thought can give you the keys to a truly joyful life.

We are hard-wired to be abundant in every way. We are supposed to be happy, healthy, loved, loving, prosperous, safe, excited, joyful and everything else good you can think of.

It is our conditioned resistance to this natural state that keeps us from our good.

You are an incredibly special and magnificently unique Divine Creation.

Period. The end.

And to live out your unique “niche” in life, you need to know who you are and how you operate. You don’t have to figure things out. You don’t have to meditate, say mantras, write affirmations…all you have to do is be yourself. The rest falls into place naturally.

I believe that understanding your unique Human Design gives you the knowledge necessary to line up with your Divine Inheritance of authentic abundance.

Human Design gives you a solid strategy that helps you live Your life. Your way.

I hope that in the next few weeks I can show you how simple it can be to claim your abundance and create a life that feels good to you!

And I look forward to the honor of working with you personally to show you exactly how to Be Your(magnifenct)self.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Karen