I believe that chronic symptoms or illness are deeply entangled with emotions. Emotions cause stress. Stress is the root cause of many physical symptoms:
exhausted mitochondria and adrenals
increased inflammation
decreased immunity
altered digestive enzymes & disruption to the microbiome
metabolic inflexibility and insulin sensitivity
dysregulated hormones
interferes with detoxification
Stress creates a cyclic domino effect that impacts every organ system. The most fascinating one, to me, is how stress affects adrenals, impacting minerals, digestive enzymes and leading to leaky gut and autoimmune issues. So how does stress do this? Toxins! As I keep telling people, if we use the Sherlock Holmes method long enough, we can eventually get to the root cause of our physical symptoms. It almost never fails to trace back to the cellular health and balance of the microbiome. But when it comes to the emotional, there is a deeper level that boils down to stress and fear. Turns out, our life experience is the only real test for that. That test is noted in the choices we make!
Stress is an endogenous toxin that can keep the nervous in a state of being hyper-alert to danger, aka a Sympathetic state or fight-flight syndrome. Traumas, micro or macro, create cellular chemical toxins that flood the body. Most people know what this feels like. When we are alerted to a potential that might something might cause the same discomfort as the original trauma, the body releases chemicals to move us toward taking action to survive or it paralyzes us from taking proper action. When we say we have been “triggered”, we are referring to this physiological and psychological process. This process is subconscious, but we can become conscious and learn to work with this very human process.
Sometimes, the most powerful thing we can do for our physical discomfort is to deal with the chemical toxins that are created from emotional discomfort. In Human Design language, most humans experience distortion and amplification of emotions when these chemicals flood the body. I used to describe them as a hot black ink running through my viens. Sometimes, those are our emotions, but other times we carry and express the emotions for others. It is not their fault, really. I mean, who would not be happy to allow someone else to disperse our emotional discomforts. But that is a very unhealthy process in which the person who is projecting their emotions onto others will never truly be free of those emotional triggers and the person expressing emotional pain that is not their pain will eventually burn out and that can show up anywhere on a spectrum of depression to rage!
Learning to detach from others and get clear on what is ours and what is not is critical to healing. These are deeply subconscious things for many of us but if we can get to the triggers, blocks and trauma's which have set a trajectory for our life patterns, a trajectory that has been antithetical to who we really are and the purpose we are here to serve, life is lived with more grace and ease. Grace and ease invites healing! Human Design has helped me understand so many lessons and I wanted to share a recent lesson that has taken me to another level of appreciation and gratitude for the power of this system!
Authenticity is not about whether others deem us as authentic. Most people can fake authenticity, at least with people they do not live with. Authenticity is about being authentic to ourselves first. Once we can be brutally honest with ourselves, holding our own personal integrity, we “become” authentic, rather than working on "being" authentic. It becomes effortless when we are listening to our authority. But often, people cannot see how much the energy of others or our fears can muddy the water and block the flow of our individual energy. Then we end up feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, frustrated, and angry. No matter how much of a helper or empath we are, we do not have the reserves to carry and express, or stuff, all those feelings.
However, there is something to understand about this as many of us are aware of this dynamic but it can take a while to figure out what does and does not work once we are ready to stop feeling responsible to fix things that are not ours to fix.
Just because we become aware of what being authentic means for us, it does not mean that others will agree with what we have determined is correct for us or the changes we decide to make. In fact, it can often upset some apple carts! We see this in many relationship dynamics around substance abuse. The family learns to cope with the member who is abusing the substance but, despite the fact that they don’t like the substance abuse, they have figured out how to do that dance. They often say, “Yes, I wanted them to stop, but I did not want this” Others can react to the changes we make, no matter how positive they are for us, because our dysfunction is serving some purpose in their life, or they in yours. I once had an alcoholic patient whose mother actually needed more help than he did as she was absolutely unsure of what her life was to about if it was not about cleaning up his messes, as she had been doing for 36yrs!
When people have already settled into an unhealthy dynamic with you, and you change, their own triggers may come up for them. They may blame and guilt you in an attempt to take you back to the dynamic they have already learned to dance with. They may be exhausted with us so it does not make them bad or wrong in the way it may seem. This is typically subconscious and therefore, we have to be aware of and grounded in what is correct for us and what is not in order to know where our line with others needs to be. Any change, in which they do not recognize the steps, can cause the distortion and amplification of emotional energy.
Typically, the mind will either engage in self-blame or blaming the other and neither result in any kind of grace and ease! And just because someone understands the dance, aka energy, does not mean this does not happen to them! It is crazy insidious as we do not see the energy as much as feel it and if we feel, for instance, betrayal in a situation where both people have betrayal issues or specific fears then the emotional distortion and amplification can lead to very deleterious things such as irrationality and violence. Still, most will keep doing the same old familiar dance until they get tripped up. It's human nature to blame the person we think changed the steps and tripped us up. However, as I have watched this with purpose, through knowing my own Strategy and Authority, over the last 4yrs, I have noticed that many times what we "think" our emotions are telling us is often a lie of the mind.
Distortion and amplification of emotional energy is one of the unhealthy ways in which others can condition us to be what we refer to as Not-Self! It happens to all of us, but it is actually a mechanism of information we can choose to use, or not. The Not-Self is where we are here to go to school in this life time. It can be used as our greatest wisdom potential, if we can learn to identify the difference in our Authentic Self and our Not-Self. When we find ourselves in Not-Self, either we are learning those lessons we are here to go to school for or we have already learned our lessons and we are entangled with the energies that activate our Not-Self unnecessarily.
I think an awareness of this is meant to signify that the purpose of an unnecessary unhealthy bond has been met and we must break that bond in order to stay on our Life-theme- purpose. But if others do not understand this and refuse to consider it, breaking bonds can be very difficult for empathetic souls because many tend to put others first. However, that is not an excuse, it’s an opportunity to take a deep dive into why we feel we have to sacrifice our authenticity so that others remain comfortable! In fact, often, the more vulnerable and authentic you become to yourself, the more people will react and either break the bond with you or cause you to need to break that bond with them. This is not a bad thing unless feelings get hurt and more trauma chemicals are made. Therefore, we must become very clear on correct action for us despite how others may try to manipulate us back to a familiar dance.
The good news is, however, when we let go of things that no longer serve us, we make room for the people, places, and things that are correct for us. It is critical to believe that even if the other person cannot hear that it's not personal, given that you are choosing to break a bond with kindness, it does not mean that person is correct for you or vice versa. Holding on to what is not good for us is a huge beast to tackle. If you consider Stockholm Syndrome, it becomes clear that trying to be in resonance with someone who is holding you hostage, in any way, demonstrates just how strong the imperative to survive is. Of course, a true hostage situation is very different but the energy of being held hostage by friends, family, employers, etc is also alive and well. And I think that some people who are holding us emotionally hostage actually fear we will walk away and, therefore, they will try to hold on until they decide to walk away because that can give one the sense of having control over the situation.
None of us like the discomfort of not having control but once we learn to have authority of Self, the appearance of control is not as important as peace. Of course, peace with others is ideal but we have absolutely no obligation to people who disrespect our autonomy. Whatever they feel about it, or us, is their issue to work out but that is also true for us. So please do not read this and look at it as an us against them kind of thing. We all have all the potential activations possibilities toward positive and negative expression in our design, but some are more prevalent. So, it helps to keep in mind that whatever we can see in others that they do not see in themselves, we have to also consider that they can see things in us that we do not see in ourselves. This is because of the activations of our unconscious design at 3mo before our birth! The interesting dynamic of interpersonal relationships is that both people often blame the other rather than just accepting that it's all just energy and, when there is dissonance, it's not positive for either person.
No matter who instigates the inciting issue, both people will walk away with lessons they can choose to acknowledge and apply, or not. But not to worry, the Universe will give us opportunity after opportunity in the form of patterns. Human Design will help you see the patterns and how they occur when you had no intention of repeating a pattern and, often had been trying to avoid the pattern. That is the crazy part! I find that gratitude often precedes forgiveness for me and takes the sting out of the emotional response of the other person but also prevents my own stinger from coming out!
Moral of the story: Don't hang on to what is not correct for you because you might be blocking what is correct for you! Just be authentic and follow your own Strategy and Authority and then wait and watch the Universe work its magic to bring in the opportunities and people who are correct for you! I wish I could give people a glimpse into how much my life has changed since I began experimenting with this in 2019! Walking away from anything we have invested in can be hard but waiting for validation that we have done the right thing can feel harder.
It gets easier but, at first, there are always doubts about whether we acted too hastily and burned a bridge. But, if we can wait out the monkey mind and try not to go backwards to fix things just to resolve the tension, you will almost always hit a point in which you realize why it all had to happen. For me, the waiting is brutal because I am designed to want efficiency and closure so I can move on but that is one of my lessons in life! Sometimes, the nature of how the Universe works on our behalf while also allowing us to be part of the earth lesson of others means that it can get messy and it really may not feel good at all. But none of us have a contract to guarantee grace and ease, it is up to us to create that! Of course, it is always best to avoid burning bridges when breaking bonds with others but sometimes someone is gonna light that match, lol!
My opinion is that those are the connections we have held onto for far too long and the extended amplification of emotions that we fail to listen to can cause us to burn it all down when it's not really necessary! Better to walk away when the body tells us that the resonance is not correct. But dang, on a more personal note, it fascinates the heck outta me at just how many people cannot accept it when I simply say there is no resonance and whatever the purpose of our connection, it has been served for me so let's just end this with no hard feelings.
It's almost as if people have a really hard time accepting that, perhaps because we have not given ourselves or others permission to walk away until it hits critical mass and hard feelings are unavoidable or because we think we have been misjudged as being too flawed to associate with so that it picks at our feelings of value and worth. Or there could be plenty of other reasons that we hold on to what has served its purpose. But what if we really accepted that bonds, even familial bonds, are not promised to us forever and we could just become grateful for the time that things were in resonance? What if we could genuinely release each other from a bond, wishing each other every success and happiness in life, wishing a win-win for each other? Conversely, what if we could be honest with ourselves and admit when we don't want a win-win and use that honesty to work on our Self, rather than blaming or staying in victim mode? You might ask when someone would NOT want a win-win?
Well, I think that can happen when we are wounded and feel like the other person does not understand the wound we think they have opened up and so we might want them to experience what that feels like so we wound them back, hoping they will see the error of the ways. That is human nature, too. Usually, we just hope they will feel the loss and then come around and say, “I am sorry, I had no idea had what I did made you feel!”. I can tell you from years of personal experience that rarely happens. There is no grace and ease in wishing others to suffer and it is our Self that we must focus on in those instances.
Watching our and other people's triggers come up is fascinating but can also be validating. I will share that a next level lesson I have learned in this past 3 months is to stop trying to explain when someone misunderstands my intentions, unless they ask for an explanation, especially as a Projector. Just because people misjudge my intentions and labels them does not mean they will accept an explanation, especially if my explanation is just situationally factual but they think that it insinuates they are wrong. In all fairness, nobody likes that, lol. The human design auric type determines when and how we should speak up and learning that there are times we need to remain silent and wait can shift many patterns we fall into.
The Universe brought me a huge lesson about this by mixing the personal with business and it honestly helped me in so many ways to get clear on where I was being my authentic self and where I was not. Just because I know this system does not mean I have perfected it but it does allow me to catch myself when old pattern potentials are front and center. In this instance, I really wanted to be part of a certain circle of people I admired. I had already started saving the funds to study with this group. But the Universe said "nope, not your tribe"! I "felt" that as a tiny little voice while I was also testing the water to see if I wanted to get more involved with this group, who I genuinely admire and thought they were so much more advanced than I, such that I hoped to study with them so I could feel as knowledgeable as I thought they were.
This might be a clue it's not your tribe when you have to hope a group will invite you in vs knowing you belong. But for 3 mo, I kept doubting the tiny splenic voice and listening to the voice that strives to be recognized and invited into things I think I want. Self-doubt has been my nemesis since childhood! But the wisdom of the Universe used another person to give me the loud and clear message I did not want to listen to. That message was, “these people ARE great and doing good work but that is not part of your trajectory”. But, I had to feel wounded and watch another person morph into a behavior that really shocked me, to the point she conflated her interpretations of the personal with a business agreement and then refused to deliver the service until I had a verbal conversation in which she planned to school me on how it really was.
I know myself and being forced in engage in a verbal conversation before I have consulted with and heard my own inner voice is never going to go well. She attempted to hold me emotionally hostage over the money and insist I must address the personal issue in the way she dictated. I would have capitulated in my former life before Human Design. Or I would have let it go and felt really bitter about the money not being returned and conflated her behavior with her skill. I can honestly say that I have absolutely no feeling about her not returning the money that one might think.
I see it as the way the Universe had to get my attention to let me know that money was not for the service that I thought it was for. It was to set up the reason I would know these are not the right people for me. That small amount of money ended up saving me from losing a much larger sum. I actually believe this was likely out of character for this woman and her need was to fix her own discomfort about getting several things incorrect by gaining control of the situation. The Universe had to trigger me to say something that triggered her and caused her to resort to victim mode. This was my lesson but the way I chose to handle it is also her lesson.
The reason for sharing this personal story is to demonstrate that when we take the time to step back and evaluate our Self first, we can be very grounded in our authentic self and make choices that are correct for us and the other persons response or attempt to punish us just does not work. Nothing is worth silencing our internal voice and/or acting contrary to our authentic self.
Point is, these situations are not always a negative even though they feel bad. Sometimes, it's that we are not listening to our own voice, or it is getting drowned out by other voices, even the voice in which we lie to ourselves! It's a real skill to learn to hear the voice of correctness and, even more importantly, trust that voice because the only voice we can really trust is our own voice of authority! Authority figures and societal mores begin to silence that voice as soon as we are born. And nope, that is not the voice of our thoughts. The mind and emotions will always lie to us. Emotions are simply junk food for the mind!
So, when detoxing and healing, don't forget about detoxing negative patterns and emotions. Having spent years in cognitive behavioral therapies, I learned that while they are excellent at helping people become aligned with the norms that are set for society, they are not always adept and taking the individual design into consideration. Human Design is a great way to do that. Once you know who/how you are designed to be vs who/how you have been told you must be in order to be accepted, therapy will have a greater impact for you! I never realized just how much of an impact emotions were having on my health when I was prone to feel one way inside but also to know I had to behave another way to be accepted. That type of messaging goes after our self-worth and value.
Through June 30th, I am offering a Strategy and Authority reading! This reading will teach you your auric type and help you understand your strategy for manifesting and making life decisions. It will also introduce you to your center of Authority, which I call the Choice Voice, and help you get more clear on how to hear that voice when it speaks to you. The fee is $62. You can also learn about your fear center activations for an additional $30. This will be written up in the form of a report and emailed to you. This fee does not include a coaching session but that is often not needed for this level of reading.
If interested, email me your date, time, and place of birth and which readings you want and I can direct you from there. If you are in the detox and gut combo program, a full basic chart is already part of your package so you do not need to pay for this as it is a part of that reading. If you want to learn more about the gut and detox program, send me an email! I look forward to working with you!