Rightness and leftness need each other. Rightness needs help zooming in to see the trees through the forest. Leftness needs help zooming out to see the forest through the trees. The trick is to allow each to play to their strengths.
James’ very structured, logically organized, curriculum and communication style is popular with right minds that benefit from his precision and clarity.
Right minds need to be empowered to give readings their way
What right minds can’t do is adhere to what we might call keynoting “grammar” or “syntax.” In other words, they can’t be expected to adhere to a structure for their readings. In fact, right minds aren’t meant to deliver readings in the old way at all — a linear reading delivered as a monologue. Instead, right minds need to approach the reading as a dialogue where their intelligence can emerge naturally in the client exchange. However, doing this requires a deep familiarity with the bodygraph and how all of the components work together.
The emphasis in the analyst training is on understanding each concept, as opposed to imposing an artificial structure/sequence. When the elements of a particular reading are understood, as well as the relationship between the elements, the right minded person can naturally speak to those elements as needed in the course of their client sessions. Imposing structure just deters rightness and inhibits their natural abilities.
Left minds are more capable of a monologue, and adhering to some semblance of a linear structure for their readings. That structure is available for them in the courses if they benefit from it.
“I’m Right minded so I thought I’m never going to be able to keynote. It just seems so structured, and I have to remember these words precisely. And so I figured it’s just not gonna be in the cards for me, but James set different expectations for those of us with Right minds and taught us a technique that put everything into perspective for me and it really elevated my reading skills.”
In order to become a competent Human Design Analyst, Right-minded people need the following:
- Direction on what’s important and where to look in the chart to answer client questions. The paradox is that they need help finding the focus without being expected to focus excessively or on command.
- Direction on how to honor their cognition and PHS as a student to optimize the learning process (e.g., people with inner vision cognition learn best without looking at the teacher/slides)
- A clear transmission of the many elements that comprise the bodygraph to fill their toolbox with the knowledge needed to address various client questions that emerge
- Practice with friends or colleagues to build confidence in stepping into the unknown and discovering what they’ve learned from the classes
- Permission to provide readings and client sessions in a way that works for them, without believing they’re falling short when it inevitably won’t resemble a Left minded reading
- A teacher who doesn’t expect you to parrot back keynotes perfectly on demand
We not only provide differentiated education, but we encourage differentiated application of the knowledge, too
If you become certified with NSHD, have no fear about us revoking your credentials because you dared to offer Human Design services alongside other modalities. We actually encourage students to follow their natural inclinations to combine Human Design with other nine centered modalities (this means, no modalities that overtly or insidiously cater to the illusion of the mind being in control). Human Design is the ultimate map, whereas some other modalities are better at helping you explore the territory the map points to. We’re excited to see Human Design combined with fields like homeopathy, acupuncture, somatics, aromatherapy, parts work, and more. Let’s evolve the field together and do whatever it takes to support each other’s deconditioning!
In our experience, the nervous system is more foundational than inner authority. The observable implications of this are that if your nervous system is chronically dysregulated, your ability to track your inner authority is severely compromised.
Given this reality, as an analyst, it’s necessary to both provide clear accurate information about someone’s design, and either provide that somatic guidance or refer clients to qualified practitioners who can help. The whole field of psychology has been upended by advances in our understanding of the nervous system and the development of various somatic modalities. Human Design is not only compatible with the field of somatics but the experiment of living your design is greatly assisted with somatic guidance.
Knowledge isn’t enough
Many people would like to think they’re living their design merely on the basis of intellectually understanding the mechanics. This is not true in our experience and it’s not an approach that we endorse or accept with our certified analysts.
“James is adding an important layer to his transmission of the knowledge, and that layer is embodiment. What I’m realizing is that knowledge is super important, but if you have a teacher like James who can bring knowledge that has been lived and embodied, it’s like night and day. It’s very rare.”
What both James and Teresa wanted in their own deconditioning process was more than knowledge, we wanted support along the way from someone who had not just learned the material, but was consistently living it, and could speak from their direct life experiences. Unfortunately, we found precious few sources capable of such an embodied transmission.
We aren’t teaching watered-down, pop, HD. And yet, we also aren’t teaching pedantic, Left mind centric, HD. This puts us in an interesting position. Anyone without the capacity for “both/and” thinking, i.e., nuanced thinking, will almost certainly miss the point about what we’re actually offering.
We are aligned with Ra’s message and are teaching surrender as a nine-centered being. And yet, the details of how this or that works in the system evolved over the course of Ra’s approximately 20 years of teaching.
If you want to get at the truth of various aspects of this system, you have to be patient, willing to experiment, and capable of observing how the mechanics play out in real life. Patient observation is the antidote to all misunderstandings about the system.
The transmission evolved
The Human Design transmission went into Ra’s brain and emerged in his consciousness over the course of his life after his encounter. Therefore, it’s important to ask what the vintage is of the Ra recordings you’re listening to. For example, is it the first time he taught PHS or the last? Because there are some different points and emphases made between these transmissions. In general, it’s our experience that Ra’s final word on the subject is the most accurate.
Furthermore, unfortunately for those who identify as gatekeepers of the knowledge in the legacy schools, their student body increasingly feels underwhelmed and under-educated. We speculate the reason for this is that the teachers have a fear of “getting it wrong” rather than a healthy curiosity about further implications of the mechanics. An atmosphere of fear is antithetical to learning. At NSHD, we’re deeply curious and committed to truth, and therefore unconstrained by these fears, thereby empowering us to discover new implications about the mechanics, or new dimensions of the system. The result is a clearer, more complete, understanding of how to work with and embody this knowledge.
“I guess the most important thing is James’ sincerity and purity to share the truth. Some truth can be perceived as heretical just because no one ever said it before, but he shares the totality of everything he has learned in life from all those teachers before him.”
Here are just a few examples of how we’ve clarified source material and/or contributed to the field’s knowledge base:
James created the Not Self reading after years of observing the subtleties of his own mind under the guidance of his mentor, a 6/3 projector and student of Ra’s. What he discovered was that the Not Self goes far beyond bridging gates and undefined centers — in the words of Peter Schoeber, ‘the Not Self exists in design elements you legitimately have.”
A more nuanced understanding of the Not Self includes elements of the substructure, as well as the understanding that the definition itself distorts from years of conditioning. To disentangle from the Not Self it’s helpful to have clear signposts for the mental stories as well as an understanding of the difference between inner authority and a trauma response, and whether you’re correctly waiting or just ‘checking out’ from transference.
If you think talking about the Not Self with your clients is unnecessary and disempowering, it says you have a problem arising from your perception of, and relationship with, your own Not Self. It indicates you have unresolved shame around it. It says you haven’t discovered the necessity of it. It’s more common for people with an undefined Solar Plexus to feel squeamish about the Not Self, for obvious reasons.
Let’s be clear — you have two choices, you can either excavate your Not Self tendencies and observe your mind in sharper resolution, or you can let those patterns play out insidiously. Seeing these tendencies more clearly helps differentiate between mental initiation and the inner authority, because that difference is rarely clear for people in the first few years of their experiment. Seeing the mind as a set of formulas also helps preoccupy the mind and liberate Passenger consciousness.
A careful reading of the Line Companion reveals many secrets about how line mechanics work. For example, the 3rd line often breaks bonds from a place of shame or pride, fueled by power dynamics. They burn the bridge when the healthy expression would have been to take a pause. It’s the pause that provides the 3rd line with awareness — this is a genetic continuity theme that has its basis in the Action Sense. On the other hand, they become martyrs to the extent that they’re sustaining something that isn’t correct to sustain.
When analysts don’t understand the psychological traps inherent in each line, they may be inadvertently justifying Not Self behavior and unwittingly disempowering their clients. “Sure, go ahead, break the bond, that’s what you’re meant to do” etc.
This misunderstanding may be nearly universally corrected by now. However, historically some analysts have not acknowledged that transferences occurs with all colors, including PHS and environment, and is actually one of the most demonstrable aspects of the system.
Motivation and View predictably transfer to a hyper or hypo-aroused state depending. For example, innocence transfers to the more active state of desire which is a hyper-aroused state. When desire transfers to innocence it goes the other way, towards hypoarousal.
Cognition and PHS provide important clues about nervous system regulation. For example, people with smell cognition can particularly benefit from aromatherapy. Or people with touch cognition can regulate by touching something pleasant like a soft pillow.
Someone with the first color, Appetite, PHS, will overwhelm their system by trying to do multiple things at once. These are just a few examples.
One of the biggest misconceptions in the field is thinking that your motivation is a place to be motivated from. The truth is that the correct expression of motivation naturally emerges from Strategy and Authority. Consider Guilt Motivation: when acting on guilty thoughts it can only lead to resistance and trouble. Whereas when acting from Strategy and Authority the mind expresses the Guilt Motivation via providing solutions. Remember, the mind is the passenger, along with consciousness itself.
Color Resonance and its implications are at the edge of what’s known about the bodygraph. What we do know greatly enhances an understanding of psychology on the Personality side of the chart, and our biological health on the Design side of the chart. When colors in the planetary activations resonate (whether through resonance or a harmonic relationship) with one of the four transformations (PHS, Environment, Motivation, and View) there are significant implications. Ultimately, resonance is a form of consistency, or definition, at the substructure level. There are many important implications to having no, or little, color resonance, just as there are significant implications to having a high degree of Color Resonance.
“I got a PHS analysis with James, which was excellent as he was able to identify some somatic issues I had been experiencing for years that were attributable to my Design Color Resonance, and I’m thankful for his recommended solutions to alleviate the issues.” – Linylle Ashterra
Ever met a 4th line profile with no friends and wondered why? The answer has to do with Design Color Resonance. Ever met someone designed to communicate who stumbles over their words? Again, the answer can (often) have to do with Design Color Resonance. Ever met someone who seems to have a huge Not Self trip with one of their planetary activations on the Personality side – even if it’s part of a channel? The answer has to do with Personality Color Resonance. Ever met a leader without much motivation to lead? The answer has to do with their motivation and/or transference.
Substructure knowledge is simply essential to providing an accurate reading. It’s not that you can’t provide accurate information just based on the surface, but you’re much more limited than you might think.
There’s a misconception that the Nodes just represent the stage we’re on, on the design side, and what we’re meant to see and who we’re meant to meet on the Personality Side. While this is true, it’s also an observable part of your genetic makeup. Proving that is as simple as learning what those activations are about and observing those dynamics in your life.
James has successfully treated a number of people homeopathically with defined spleens. They typically require different potencies than undefined spleens.
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