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Using your Authority to Set Your Goals

ALIGNING GOALS WITH YOUR AUTHORITY ENGAGES THE LUCK OF THE UNIVERSE

January is a time of new beginnings, and many of us are in contemplation about how to shape the year ahead.

But the statistics on how successful people are at keeping their “resolutions” are grim. We set out with great intentions and even think we are committed to “do what it takes” to accomplish our plans, but more often than not we don’t succeed.

I believe this is because we set goals or intentions based on what we THINK we want to accomplish (or what someone else says we should do), never checking with our built-in Authority to see if it agrees with us.

This is where we set ourselves up for possible failure. When our Authority (which is NEVER in our mind) is not giving us a “yes,” we lack 100% commitment, which sows the seeds of failure even before we begin.

But there is hope! I offer the following suggestions for how to set goals that are in alignment with your particular Authority. Find your Authority, give it a try and see what happens!

If you don’t have your Human Design Chart, click here to get your FREE chart!

Start by creating a list of all the goals you are considering for 2025, putting each one on 3×5 card. Don’t worry if you can’t think of them all. You can always add more cards.

Then try the following suggestion for your Authority.

Emotional Authority: note how you feel about each one on the back of its card. Set the cards aside, then come back every day for a few days and for each goal, tune into how you FEEL about it. Maybe even note on the back of the card how you are feeling about each goal that day. At some point, you will be EMOTIONALLY CLEAR whether it’s a yes or no. Do not commit until you are clear that it’s CORRECT for you. In other words, you have NO EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT to the goal. You just know it’s right for you.

Sacral Authority: one at time, place each goal in front of you. Tune into your gut–your lower belly. Do you get a YES? Do you hear an “un-huh”? Does your energy rise when you look at that goal? Are you pulled toward that goal? If not, then your answer for that goal is either NOT NOW or NO. Set that goal aside for some future time. For the ones you get a YES, your Life Force wants to put energy into those goals.

Splenic Authority: one at a time, place each goal in front of you. Tune into your senses and intuition. Your Spleen will give a subtle impulse or even a whisper response…just like when you enter a restaurant and know immediately whether it’s safe to eat there. If you know INSTANTLY this goal is for you, then go for it. If you find you’re in your head THINKING about it, you’ve missed your Spleen’s response. Set that goal aside for some future review.

Heart Authority: lay out all the goals in front of you, deeply looking at each one. Which one(s) do you hear yourself saying “I want that!” Separate the goals into three piles, one that you clearly KNOW you want, one that you are not sure about, and one that you don’t want right now. Put the last two piles aside for a later review, then go for the ones your heart clearly wants.

Self Authority: one at a time, read the goal, then hold its card up to your chest, close your eyes and put your attention in your deep heart–the area in the middle of your chest where your Self Center lives. LISTEN quietly. What is it telling you? Does this goal reflect WHO YOU REALLY ARE? Does it take you in the DIRECTION you want to go? If you don’t get a clear answer, then put that goal aside for a later review. Your Self Center will know the correct time for you to take up your goals. For the goals your Self Center chose, proceed.

Outer Authority: one at a time, take a goal and INVESTIGATE the goal, EXPLORING what it means to you. Who do you need to speak with to learn more? What do you need to know? How would you go about taking action for this goal? What is your inner experience of this goal? This could take days, possibly a full lunar cycle (29 days), but the key is to take your time to EXPLORE each goal. You will know what is right when you have RESEARCHED enough.

Would you like to go deeper?

Want to learn how Human Design and Authority actually work?

My long-term colleague Shantamo Kamstra and I have created a 3-month online course, where we are personally accompanying a select group on their journey into the world of Human Design. In addition to learning about the most important keys in Human Design, you will go deeper and learn how to link your Authority with your Wisdom Stream–your built-in wisdom system.

Though our course Human Design Elementals has started it is still possible to join in the next few days.

This window closes on Jan 6th. So don’t delay!

Learn More Here

Have fun playing with setting goals using your Authority! If you’d like some help, send me an email, and we can schedule a time to chat!

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The Darkening of the Light

On October 1st the planet Neptune entered Gate/Gene Key* 36, and will stay there until February 10th. For all of us Neptune is activating this frequency in our DNA, whether you have it in your design or not. Over the next three plus months, it will push us into emotional, mental or even physical turbulence to give us the opportunity to transcend our suffering and fear of an uncertain future—our fear that at any moment disaster could strike.

Gate/Gene Key 36 is located in the Emotion Center, so its quality is always related to emotions. During this time of inner turbulence and outer instability, understanding how to navigate Neptune’s influence can help guide you through.

Human Design and Gene Keys give us insight into Neptune’s influence and provide a path to transforming your fear and suffering into compassion and open-heartedness. Here is my understanding of Gate/Gene Key 36.

Human Design Gate 36: The Darkening of the Light

When facing a new experience, you frequently may feel a sense of crisis, causing you to pause and evaluate whether to move forward or retreat. Even though crisis can feel debilitating and discouraging, once you embrace the experience and allow all the emotions to flow through you, you will gain wisdom and an inner brightness that will serve you and support others. 

Gene Key 36: From the Shadow of Turbulence to the Gift of Humanity

Uncertainty about the future creates a deep sense of unease or Turbulence. When it becomes extreme, it can throw you into a “Dark Night of the Soul,” where you feel like life itself has abandoned you. But Turbulence has a purpose. It pushes you expand into a higher state, becoming confident in your ability to navigate uncertainty and discern what is truly dangerous and what is not. Gene Key 36 offers you the opportunity to transcend your emotional suffering and break out of a pattern of fear, overwhelm and unease that keeps you trapped reacting, shutting down or repressing your pain. 

Suffering has only one purpose: to crack you open. Until you look deeply into your darkness, you will be presented with suffering after suffering, being shown the same lessons, until you choose to evolve past your emotional turbulence.

Neptune’s function is to help you develop self-observation—an ability to witness what’s transpiring inside you. It’s asking you to identify where you are vulnerable to mistaking wishes and fears for reality. Neptune’s non-resourceful influence can create overwhelm, confusion, escapism and delusions. If you are feeling these, it is urging you to look deeply within yourself and transform your fears.

If you are feeling emotional turbulence and unease in your life, Neptune and Gene Key 36 are calling you to look deeply within and embrace your fears openly and honestly. It’s a perfect time to practice The Art of Contemplation**. This will begin to transform your suffering, helping you embrace your emotional healing. As you develop your self-observation, you will evolve beyond your self-obsession and open your heart to life, giving you clearer and more profound emotional experiences without being overtaken by them.

When you no longer fear uncertainty, trusting your heart, you will realize that life is full of pain and pleasure, but you no longer will be a victim of these. You will be able to remain open-hearted to everything and will find compassion for others trapped in Turbulence, establishing you in the gift of Humanity.

If you would like to understand specifically how this impacts your design, fill out the form below or send me an email [info (at) nancylynnmonson (dot) com], and we can explore your opportunity to heal and grow with Neptune and Gene Key 36!

* Gates are also known as Gene Keys, which is a companion system to Human Design that was founded by Richard Rudd. The Gene Keys system stands alone as complete, but is most powerful when used in combination with Human Design. 

References

** Rudd, Richard. The Art of Contemplation: Gentle Path to Wholeness and Prosperity. Gene Keys, 2018.

Rudd, Richard. Gene Keys: Unlocking the Higher Purpose Hidden in Your DNA. Watkins, 2015.

Parkyn, Chetan. The Book of Lines: a 21st Century View of the IChing, the Chinese Book of Changes. Harper Collins UK, 2012.

Parkyn, Chetan. Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born To Be. New World Library, 2009.

Forrest, Steven. The Inner Sky. Seven Paws Press, 2012.

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Winter – A time for reflection and visioning

December marks the beginning of the winter season. The light wanes here in the Northern Hemisphere, and cooler temperatures dominate the day. 

It is a time of deep silence and retreat, when Nature stops, rests and gathers strength and wisdom for the coming burst of new life in the spring. In the silence of winter, is the opportunity to discover your own essence, deep in your heart. 

Many years ago in my spiritual guidance training, we learned that our soul lives in our deep heart—the area of our heart that is beyond our ego and everyday experience. It is the deep heart, where our soul lives, that whispers to us guidance on how to live our most fulfilling life, far beyond what our minds can imagine.

Each winter, Nature calls us to stop, go within, and reconnect with the wisdom of our own heart. It is there that our soul can share with us what we long to hear—the way to live a truly glorious life that allows us to bring out our full potential and live our deepest purpose.

Our soul follows the same seasonal rhythms as Nature. It goes through a rebirth just like most of the natural world. For our soul, winter is a time of letting go, clearing out all that has been from the previous seasons, and creating space for what wishes to be birthed in the coming year. If we take the time to go deeply within and cultivate inner silence, we will start to hear what our soul longs to create in the coming year.

The challenge that many of us face in December is the pull of many outward demands on our time: attending holiday gatherings, completing end-of-year work activities, entertaining guests, shopping for gifts, spending time with our families and friends. These demands can put us in direct conflict with the soul’s call to go inward. Very few of us can take the time to completely step out of our lives and turn deeply inward to commune with our soul.

And then January hits and most people scurry to set New Year’s Resolutions that, for the most part, don’t last much longer than February. When I was a gym member, I used to see the numbers of people at the gym spike in January, but wain by February.

Why not try something different this year?

There is a beautiful practice I am offer as a process to support your soul through this winter season. It has four steps, which you can do at your own pace, but ideally should be spaced out a few days apart to allow for time to distill the learning from each step.

  1. Harvest the seeds of the life you have lived
    • Take time to reflect on the past year and journal the answers to these questions.
      • What were your most important events and learnings?
      • How did those events influence and change you?
      • What are the learnings you will take forward into the New Year?
  2. Create space for the new life
    • Go through the different areas of your life and clean out everything that no longer has life or connection for you. You can do this literally by cleaning out your closets, desk drawers, files and cabinets. Unless you make space for a new life, there will be no room for something new to be birthed.
  3. Practice tuning into your deep heart—your soul
    • The birthing process takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. Cultivate a daily practice of meditation, spending time in Nature, tuning in—whatever allows you to be in the silent space within where you can hear the whisperings of your soul. Practice patience.
  4. Sort out what is essential versus what is not
    • Evaluate all you are doing and identify what you can let go of. Simplify your life so that you make more time and space to support your inner process. Creation is a two-stage process. It occurs first internally before it occurs externally. The more you can support what is unfolding internally, the more you will start to see it occurring externally without effort. You will be attracting what is needed to support your soul’s unfoldment.

I encourage you to try this process and see how it impacts your life. In a time when there is so much pressure to “do,” the process will help you “be.” Being is a much more joyous experience and will help you attract what you need to live a fulfilling soul-directed life.

This winter season, I invite you to dive deep and connect with your soul so you can birth a more fulfilling life in 2024. I’ve created a worksheet that I share with my clients at the end of each year to help them create a heart-directed vision for the coming year. You can download it here if you would like to use it to guide you on creating your vision for 2024.

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What Human Design and Gene Keys have taught me about my anxiety

On my walk this morning, I had an epiphany. I realized that my lifelong struggle with anxiety stemmed from the first seven years of my life…and it’s all there in my Design.

I have Gate 52 activated in my design—one of the gates in the Root Center. For me, Gate 52 was activated by Unconscious Venus, which in the Gene Keys system is the source of the “spiritual wound” I experienced during the first seven years of my life. Our spiritual wound sets up the story line for our life, and without recognizing and healing the story, our lives are victim to the lower, Shadow frequency of that activation. For Gate 52, the shadow frequency is Stress.

From what I can remember, the first seven years of my life were incredibly stressful for a child who is hypersensitive. I experienced a huge amount of change with, one by one, all four of my much older siblings, leaving home to start their own lives. By the time I was five, I was an only child. They had all left, married and started their own families. I was heartbroken and lonely, not understanding, as a five-year-old, why they had left me all alone.

My whole life I have struggled with managing my stress, dealing with chronic nervousness and anxiety, and at times dropping into depression—the other side of anxiety.

Several years ago, I spent a year studying Vedic Science at Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, where I learned Ayurveda, the ancient framework of health. Ayurveda states that each person is born with some combination of three “doshas,” that make up our basic constitution*: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Me being thin and quick all of my life, I discovered that I have a fair amount of Vata in my constitution.

Vata is all about movement and air. Vata people are wiry, quick, thin, learn fast but forget fast, and are prone to poor digestion and sleep. The seat of Vata is in the gut—the lower part of the digestive system. When Vata is “out of balance,” it causes anxiety, nervousness, and digestive issues. Stress and poor diet aggravate Vata.

But it wasn’t until I had the epiphany on my morning walk, that I made the connection between my anxiety, my Vata tendencies, my childhood, my health and Gate 52!

Three months ago, I was diagnosed with Leaky Gut, a condition that I’ve struggled with off and on for years. (In January I wrote about Leaky Gut—excessive gut permeability—and what causes it.) I was recommended a specific diet and supplement protocol for nine weeks. The protocol recommended a Paleo diet—no processed foods, sugar, legumes (beans), grains or dairy. While I’ve been dairy and gluten free for years, I still ate grains and legumes even though they frequently gave me gastric distress.

I get pretty serious about following recommended protocols for my health. I dove in, cutting out all baked goods, sports gels and drinks, and the few remaining processed foods that I still enjoyed (I have had a serious potato chip addiction for most of my life). After getting my certification as a Culinary Nutrition Expert last December**, I had no trouble creating loads of yummy and nutritious meals that met my Paleo diet criteria. I added daily time outdoors and strength training to help me balance my overabundance of Vata by increasing my Kapha energy (Kapha qualities are solid, calm, steady and strong).

My gut and digestion have improved enormously! And, I’m calmer. My sleep is deeper and more restful. I laugh a lot more. I’ve slowed down. I take time to listen to the birds and look at the flowers and trees. My mind is clearer. I’m just happier and more at ease. I feel more grounded and solid.

Contemplating all of this on my morning walk was when I made the connection with my Human Design and Gene Keys. The gift quality of Gate 52 is Mountain! Healing my gut—the seat of Vata—helped me to move from being a Victim of Stress to the Gift of Mountain—strong, solid, peaceful, present, patient.

For over a year I have been exploring the question of whether there is a physical connection between our Human Design and Gene Keys. I wondered if the ancient system of health—Ayurveda—was a key to unlock this connection. At least for me, I have discovered a direct connection between the activations in my DNA—my Human Design—and my health.

My working theory is that there’s a similar connection for everyone. If I am correct, then linking Ayurveda to Human Design and Gene Keys can give us a system of diagnosis for improving our health and lifestyle to help us move out of our victim frequencies and into our gift frequencies!

I’m excited to explore this further! If you would like to as well, let’s talk! We can look at your Human Design and Gene Keys alongside your Ayurvedic doshas and health situation to see if there’s a connection. Use this link to schedule a call or send me an email to set up a time for a chat. I would love to explore this possibility with you!

* “Vpk® Dosha Quiz Explanation: Maharishi Ayurveda Products.” Maharishi Ayurveda Products International. The Art and Science of Health, www.mapi.com/doshas/vpk-explanation.html.

**Want to know more? Click here to read about my new program to help you makeover your diet to support optimum health.

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The Wall

The fear gripped me; I could barely breathe. As I looked up at my white-knuckled hand frantically grasping the fraying root, I searched with hawk-like intensity the cliff wall for another handhold. A part of me knew that at any minute the root would snap, and I would plummet into the black yawning abyss below. Tears streamed down my face as I sobbed and gasped for air through my constricted throat. My chest felt as if 200 pounds were pressing down on it. I was sure that at any moment the end would come.

With my free hand I probed the cliff wall, desperately seeking any possible other handhold. There had to be something else I could grab to feel safe, but I was unable to find anything in the crumbling burnt-red cliff wall.

Below my feet dangled in the vast airiness of the chasm. I could feel the void calling me, pulling me down. The voice in my head seemed to be coming from the black abyss below, “Just let go. It will be alright.”

How often over the past decades of my life had I heard that voice deep inside, and how often had my ego-personality responded in terror and resistance? I believed that letting go would mean death—dissolution, like a snail in salted water…dissolved away into nothingness…to fall forever in the darkness and emptiness…to become the emptiness…to be nothing. I fought even harder and clawed at the cliff. Anything is better than nothingness, even terror.

Why was this voice so sure that letting go would be alright? My ego-mind was completely baffled. Surely I would die. With every slip of my hand on the root, I was more sure of that fate. The fear-ball in the pit of my stomach validated that outcome. And yet the voice persisted.

All these years the situation has been the same. I find myself clinging to a crumbling reality, my ego believing that death is eminent. And the voice has always been there telling me that everything is alright and to just let go. Insane. How could “falling” be “alright?” How could “death” be “alright!?” Yet something, some small quiet place inside me knew that the voice spoke truth. My grip relaxed, and I slipped just a bit. Panic. My grip tightened.

Why do we struggle against letting go and trusting that deep inner voice that is trying to guide us? Why is letting go into the effortlessness of “falling” so terrifying to us that we stay clinging to the most devastating situations that hurt and disrespect who we are? We think we are “safe.” But we are trapped on our cliff wall of illusion, forever clinging to the imagined safety of our cliff-reality.

The ego-personality seems be obsessed with clinging to something, anything outside itself for validation, safety and “love.” Yet, never is true fulfillment achieved from that endless struggle. The sages say that fulfillment and true liberation come from within, from that black “abyss” inside us that seems so empty. How can that be? How can fulfillment come from emptiness? My ego-mind reels from the paradox and clings more feverishly to my cliff-reality. I slip a little further.

In the end, I’ll fall, whether I let go or just give up. I know that without doubt. And I also know at my deepest awareness—that small quiet place inside me—that falling will be a relief…a letting go of effort and struggle and pain. How long can I hold on? How long will I hold on? How long will my ego-personality continue to struggle and toil away searching and grasping for the perceived safety and love on the crumbling cliff-wall of my reality?

Salvation only exists in the letting go and trusting that the void that lives at the core of my being will set me free. It’s up to me when I choose to let go and fall into Love.

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I Know I’m Meant for Something Greater

We are born with a profound purpose, but most of us lose connection with the truth of who we are not long after we are born. The challenges of parents and caregivers and society, even with the best of intentions, directing and reinforcing us to conform to some notion of who they think we are or want us to be creates a split in our psyche, typically in the first few years of our lives.

Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to unravel the acceptable persona that we have created to “fit in.”

That’s not what we were meant for. We are meant to be a unique expression of our soul’s purpose, buried in our DNA. In my 20-minute video, I share tips on how to reconnect with that purpose…your soul’s unique expression.

When we live our soul’s purpose, who we are meant to be, we experience joy, fulfillment, support and contribution. Our relationships are more loving and fulfilling. Our work in the world is more rewarding. Our health improves and we radiate a vital glow of joy that emanates from deep within.

Click on my image to watch my 20-minute video on the RHG TV network. I hope it will serve to connect you with the beautiful unique human being you are waiting to be born!

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Winter Is a Time to Go Inward

December marks the beginning of winter. The light wanes here in the Northern Hemisphere, and cooler temperatures dominate the day.

It is a time of deep silence and retreat, when Nature stops, rests and gathers strength and wisdom for the coming burst of new life in the spring. In the silence of winter, is the opportunity to discover your own essence, deep in your heart.

Many years ago in my spiritual guidance training, we learned that our soul lives in our deep heart—the area of our heart that is beyond our ego and everyday experience. It is the deep heart, where our soul lives, that whispers to us guidance on how to live our most fulfilling life, far beyond what our minds can imagine.

Each winter, Nature calls us to stop, go within, and reconnect with the wisdom of our own heart. It is there that our soul can share with us what we long to hear—the way to live a truly glorious life that allows us to bring out our full potential and live our deepest purpose.

Our soul follows the same seasonal rhythms as Nature. It goes through a rebirth just like most of the natural world. For our soul, winter is a time of letting go, clearing out all that has been from the previous seasons, and creating space for what wishes to be birthed in the coming year. If we take the time to go deeply within and cultivate inner silence, we will start to hear what our soul longs to create in the coming year.

The challenge that many of us face in December is the pull of many outward demands on our time: attending holiday gatherings, completing end-of-year work activities, entertaining guests, shopping for gifts, spending time with our families and friends. These demands can put us in direct conflict with the soul’s call to go inward. Very few of us can take the time to completely step out of our lives and turn deeply inward to commune with our soul.

However, there is a beautiful practice that stems from Advent that I am offering as a process to support your soul through this hectic and potentially challenging time. It has four steps, which you can do at your own pace, but ideally should be spaced out a few days apart to allow time to distill the learning from each step. If you are able to take a few days between Christmas and New Year’s, this is a wonderful activity to do in retreat during that time.

Harvest the seeds of the life you have lived

Take time to reflect on the past year and journal the answers to these questions. What were your most important events and learnings? How did those events influence and change you? What are the learnings you will take forward into the New Year?

Create space for the new life

Go through the different areas of your life and clean out everything that no longer has life or connection for you. You can do this literally by cleaning out your closets, desk drawers, files and cabinets. Unless you make space for a new life, there will be no room for something new to be birthed.

Practice tuning into your deep heart—your soul

The birthing process takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. Cultivate a daily practice of meditation, spending time in Nature, tuning in—whatever allows you to be in the silent space within where you can hear the whisperings of your soul. Practice patience.

Sort out what is essential versus what is not

Evaluate all you are doing and identify what you can let go of. Simplify your life so that you make more time and space to support your inner process. Creation is a two-stage process. It occurs first internally before it occurs externally. The more you can support what is unfolding internally, the more you will start to see it occurring externally without effort. You will be attracting what is needed to support your soul’s unfoldment.

I encourage you to try this process in the month of December and see how it impacts your life. In a time when there is so much pressure to “do,” the process will help you “be.” Being is a much more joyous experience and will help you attract what you need to live a fulfilling soul-directed life.

This winter season, I invite you to dive deep and connect with your soul so you can birth a more fulfilling life in 2019.

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The Impact of Conditioning: How You Are Limiting Your Possibilities

Likely most of you have seen this picture at some point. It’s been around for many years. I used it 20 years ago when I taught Stephen Covey’s landmark personal effectiveness workshop, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

We would divide the workshop participants into two groups. One half would close their eyes, and we would briefly show the other half a similar drawing but was clearly an old lady with a scarf on her head. Then we would switch and have the other half briefly see a similar line drawing but was clearly a young lady wearing a necklace. We then had the entire group see this picture and asked them what they saw.

Almost unanimously those that had been shown either the young or old lady would immediately see the same lady in this picture. Many really struggled to see the opposite lady. We would even have to trace with our pointer the outline of the other lady to help their minds grasp the alternative reality in the picture. It was fascinating to see how easily everyone was “conditioned” to see a specific image!

This simple yet powerful exercise demonstrated how we see only what we are conditioned to see! True to Covey’s words,

“We see the world as we are, not as it is.”

The latest neuroscience research confirms this disturbing reality as it has discovered that as much as 80% of our behaviors are driven by our unconscious conditioning. This unconscious conditioning dramatically shapes our reality and therefore greatly influences our response to that “reality.” What we see in the world and how we respond depends on whether we have been conditioned to see either “the old lady” or “the young lady.”

But the truth is both the old lady and the young lady exist. Both “realities” exist, illuminating that there are many ways to see the world—to see reality. This simple exercise of how unconscious conditioning limits a person’s ability to see alternative perspectives begs the questions…

What are you not seeing in your life?

What opportunities are you missing?

What creative solutions are blind to you?

What do you perceive about your relationships that are shaped by your conditioning from earlier experiences?

What if the solutions to your challenges were right in front of you but you couldn’t see them?

With a limited perspective of reality, you hinder your ability to find creative solutions, see opportunities, respond to situations, and make truly conscious choices.

You are victim to your unconscious conditioning, reacting to situations in the same way over and over again, missing alternative perspectives that could potentially give you insight to a more creative, fulfilling and successful outcome…and life!

So how do you release your conditioning in order to expand your perception and interpretation of reality?

It starts with awareness.

The more you can stand apart from your thoughts, feelings and judgments, the more you can observe and be at choice. This takes practice and patience. Your conditioning has been functioning automatically for many years, and it will take time to “decondition” yourself. A regular meditation practice is incredibly helpful to cultivate this ability. If you don’t have one, you can start by sitting and focusing on your breath for 5 minutes each morning. This is an easy practice that can yield a huge return.

Be curious about a perspective that is different than yours.

If you “see the old lady” and someone else “sees the young lady,” be excited and inquisitive! Seek to really understand their perspective. This practice can foster a genuine curiosity in life—the key to eliminating judgment and evaluation which lock you into a limited perspective. Practice makes permanent; so the more you can seek first to understand instead of sharing your perspective, the more you will open yourself to other “realities.” You’ll start to cultivate the ability to see both the old lady and the young lady…and who knows what else?

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What’s Love Got to Do With It?

It’s the summer of 1986. I’m standing in the living room of my newly inhabited apartment. I have just started my job as a computer scientist after graduating with my BS in Mathematics. Getting my degree and landing this job is the fulfillment of a huge goal that took me six years of working while going to night school. I should be delightfully happy, yet inside I feel something missing.

I lift my hands in the air, look to the heavens and pray, “God, please show me unconditional love.”

In meditation this morning, this prayer from 30 years ago flooded my awareness, giving rise to a reflection of my life journey. Little did I know back then how that simple, innocent prayer would launch my life into an amazing series of profound experiences to teach me unconditional love.

What does it mean to love unconditionally? So much of my own experience of love has been conditional. If I’m a good girl, I will be praised or get a special treat. If I get “As” in school, I’ll get money. If I am like my sisters, I’ll win my mother’s acceptance. If I dress or look a certain way, I’ll be liked. If I behave like what the preacher says, I’ll get into heaven. If I be the wife you want, you’ll love me.

What I took away from each of these experiences is that I am only lovable if I am a certain way, and to me that meant who I am at my core is not acceptable or lovable.

I’ve had numerous relationships over my life, yet still 30 years after my prayer, I find myself without a life partner. This morning’s reflection of these past 30 years revealed two painful truths. I don’t fully love and accept myself. I’ve done a mountain of personal work, and yet, still I find places where my harsh inner critic keeps me from fully embracing my unique self. This pattern of self-criticism reinforces my belief that I’m not good enough to be loved.

The other, even more painful realization, is that my unwillingness to face and break through the pain of not believing I’m lovable has kept me from having the depth of relationship I truly desire—one that allows me to open my heart to its most vulnerable and authentic depth of honesty about who I am.

Half-jokingly I’ve always said, “If you truly knew who I was, you’d run screaming.” On some subtle level, I was saying this to prepare myself for my partner—at some point in the relationship—to bolt. However, there is a harsh self-truth in that statement. I don’t unconditionally love myself. My heart remains guarded and my “acceptance system” filters and manipulates my behavior to avoid the pain of not being good enough. It keeps me in fear of losing the conditional love I believe the other person has for me. It sabotages my relationships.

The truth is, it’s what we believe about ourselves and about our partner that keeps us trapped in this torturous conditional love cycle. And quite likely, the pattern of accepting conditional love is playing out in our partner as well. It becomes an unconscious pact—if you accept and love me, I’ll accept and love you. This keeps us trapped in conditional love that establishes lovability only from the other in relationship. That inevitably sets us up for disappointment and manipulating behavior, never experiencing the deep acceptance we so long for.

One of my great teachers, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, said, “All love is directed towards the Self.” When I first heard that, my insides bristled as that sounded so selfish and narcissistic, but upon reflection this morning, I think I finally get it. It is the unconditional love of myself—the brilliant parts and the wounded parts—that sets me free to express who I truly am in the world, allows me to unconditionally love others, and opens the door to the depth of love and joy in relationship and in life that I so deeply long for.

It’s a journey to love myself—unconditionally.

Fortunately, there is a way to accelerate the journey to unconditional love so it doesn’t take 30 years of painful experiences. The revolutionary Human Design System reveals who we truly are—our authentic self before conditioning took over and changed our self-perception. When I discovered my Human Design, it acknowledged what I had always known about myself, but resisted because I believed was unacceptable. I began to embrace the amazingly unique being that I am and to unravel the conditional love I adopted. As a certified Human Design Practitioner, I now help others in their journeys to unconditionally love themselves, just as they uniquely are.