8. How Human Design Made Me A Better Parent
May 15, 2024
ON THIS EPISODE
Welcome to another episode of the High Vibe Heather podcast. I am your host, High Vibe Heather, coming to you from Portland, Oregon. And in today's episode, I am going to talk about how human design made me a better parent.
So to give you a little history, little backstory on my parenting journey, I first became a mom at age 19, and later got married at 23, and then had my second child when I was 25, and my third at 27. So there was a little bit of a gap there between my first and second, about six and a half years, and then just under two years between my second and third. So I did not even learn about human design until my youngest was 11 years old.
So my oldest by that time was already out of the house. She was already in college, and my younger two were in middle school. And so I felt a little bit behind with this information, and it took me some time to learn how to integrate it into my parenting.
But once I did, I noticed so many positive shifts in our relationships, in my understanding of how they experience the world. And it gave me a lot more freedom and trust in my parenting overall. So before, you know, pre-human design, my parenting style was kind of anxious.
I was a little bit of a helicopter mom. You know, especially with my oldest as a teenager. Obviously, like, I was not prepared for parenting.
I had no idea what I was doing. I had her my freshman year in college, and she actually lived with me in an apartment with a roommate my last two years of college and would literally go with me everywhere. So she spent a lot of time, you know, in those toddler years around college kids.
So kind of hilarious. She was always been a super mature, articulate, intelligent person. So it kind of fit.
And then, you know, after I graduated college, I got married. And soon after that, had my other two kids. And so with the other two kids, you know, I had some experience under my belt.
I was a bit older, into my 20s, and working full time up until, you know, the point where they were both home as babies. And then, you know, I quit working to stay home full time with them, because that was really important to me personally. So, before Human Design, I didn't know that there were so many differences in how we are as individuals.
And I used this one size fits all kind of approach with my kids. Yes, I recognized that they were all very different personality wise, and that they had different ways of expressing themselves, and different ways of communicating, and things like that. But to the degree that Human Design showed me, I had no clue.
And so we would run into a lot of situations where there was a battle of wills. You know, especially, I think this is the case, you know, with most toddlers. But, you know, knowing anything about Human Design, it just made it so much more difficult, I feel like, than it needed to be.
I would make the mistake of giving them too many options. It just felt like a lot of resistance was being constantly moved through. So my two of my kids are manifesting generators, and one of them is a projector.
I myself am a manifesting generator, and their dad is a generator. So we had this house with five people, four of them have sacral energy, and the youngest, the baby, did not. And so when she came along, it was this like night and day difference between how she operated versus the rest of us.
And it took me a long time to start to like, learn how to meet her needs specifically. I knew that she, something about her and the way that she was was very different from the rest of us. But I didn't have the understanding or the language of what that was.
So when I learned about human design, of course, you know, the first thing I did after pulling up my own design was to pull a chart for the rest of my family in hopes of like gaining a better understanding of who they are as individuals and how I could start to recognize their differences and cater to them in their specific ways. So the biggest thing of course is learning what their strategy and authority was. So how do they make decisions?
How are they designed to engage with the world? And with two of them being the same energy type as myself, manifesting generators, I understood them really well as far as all of that went. We were all sacral authority, meaning we all have that gut response.
We all had that manifesting generator energy that wants to be engaged in multiple things, gets bored easily, and wants to be following what lights us up instead of feeling like we have to be tied down to things and that whole like, I'm bored now, don't make me keep doing it.
So that part I really understood with, you know, my two older kids, the manifesting generators. And just knowing that like my biggest, one of my biggest pet peeves when I was a kid was, both of my parents happened to be projectors, and I was a manifesting generator.
And I remember my older sister wanted to take piano lessons, and I thought that sounded really fun. And my parents bought a piano, and I was like, yeah, I want to do it, too. And so my mom enrolled us both in piano lessons, and my sister just really took to it.
She loved it. She's also a projector. And she, that was her thing.
She just wanted to keep progressing with that. Well, after the first year, so I was seven years old when I started, after the first year, I was like, yeah, I'm not really that into it, and I want to quit. I want to spend my time doing something that's fun for me because this is not fun.
But my mom, of course, not understanding how I'm designed, was like, Heather, you have zero attention span. You want to quit everything. And this is something I'm going to put my foot down on, and you need to stay in piano lessons and keep doing it, whether you want to or not.
And I can see, like, she thought she was doing the right thing by helping me be committed to things and progress through something. But that is just not how I'm designed. I was bored with it.
I hated it. I didn't want to do it. And so I never practiced.
I begrudgingly went to my lesson every week, and it took me forever to progress because I didn't spend any time practicing. And that went on for seven years until finally when I entered high school, I was allowed to quit. So I decided, like, there's no way I'm going to make my kids do that.
If this was even before I knew about human design, I decided, you know, if they're bored with something and they don't want to keep doing it, I'm not going to make them just because of my experience. So then when I learned about how a manifesting generator operates, it made so much sense to me, and I was like, ugh, I got that right at least. So that felt really good.
And then, you know, comes along this projector, and she did not have the same energy levels as my other kids. She was an amazing napper. They were not.
And when it would come to time to do family activities, she would melt down consistently, and she wouldn't want to do it. But because she was the youngest, and she couldn't stay home by herself, we would drag her along, and she would just have the worst time. And it was so hard for the rest of us, you know, sacral beings who want to be going out and doing things and having fun.
And, you know, that was fun for us, to go out and do activities, to be active. And we had all that energy to burn, but she did not. And that was really hard, and it created such a challenge for us.
So by the time then I finally learned about Human Design, she was old enough where we could, like, leave her at home for an hour or something like that. If we were all going to go do something and she didn't want to join in on it. So just that was a huge, huge thing for me to learn, was that I needed to invite her, give her the option to participate.
And then if she decided that she wasn't willing to, like she just didn't have the energy that day, she didn't want to do it, she wasn't interested, she had that option to stay home and rest, spend time by herself. That was another thing because, you know, there was a family of five when there's that many people around all of the time. For her, just being in our energy, in our presence, was also draining for her.
So for her to have, you know, time home alone in her own energy without the rest of us around, that was actually really nice for her. And then the rest of us would go do whatever activity and come back an hour or two later, and we would be satisfied. And she would feel, you know, rested and not be upset at us.
So that was a huge learning curve right there. Another thing is profiles. I myself have a line six in my profile.
Two of my kids have a line six, and one of them has a line three. So again, this was another area that I could understand, because line sixes, their first 30 years, they have that line three energy of going through life with a trial and error kind of attitude, where you just have to figure things out by yourself, for yourself. And doesn't matter if somebody told you, don't do that, because you literally have to find out for yourself.
So somebody telling you, don't stick your finger in the light socket, you're going to get shot. Really? Am I?
You just have to figure it out. You have to learn for yourself. And so I was that way growing up, and so it was easy for me to integrate that into my parenting.
But the one takeaway that I had that I, before Human Design, didn't understand was, it's not about saying after they've gone ahead and done that thing you've just told them not to do. It's not about saying, I told you so, and now you're in trouble because you disobeyed me. No, it was about learning how to ask the right questions so that they could learn from whatever it was that they just did.
So we'll keep using that example of sticking your finger in the light socket, even though I don't think any of my kids actually ever did that. But saying, don't do that, and then of course they have to go ahead and do it just to see what happens. And instead of being like, I told you so, why did you do that?
No, go take a timeout because you're naughty and you didn't listen. No, instead, what did you learn about that? Oh my God, that looked like it really hurt.
Are you okay? And do you understand now why I warned you against doing that? And is that something that you think you're going to need to try again in the future or doesn't make sense now?
That that's something that's not safe and it doesn't feel good. So learning how to ask the right questions in order to help them integrate the lesson is so much more supportive than going down the route of saying, I told you so, and disciplining.
So after I learned about human design and what my kids' particular designs were, especially for my sacral kids, the manifesting generators, I learned how to ask questions in the right way.
Instead of giving them a multitude of options, learning that they needed something to respond to, to frame things in a yes or no kind of way, one thing at a time, because knowing that they have to have something to respond to and giving a multitude of options is just too much. It's too overwhelming, and that's not how they work. So the yes or no questions was game changing.
And then for my projector, again, going back to learning to invite her, acknowledging the things that she was really good at and helping her to feel seen and then giving her opportunities to join in.
Overall, I became so much more confident as a parent because I was able to allow them to go through their own process instead of stifling them and constantly trying to corral them or make them do what I thought was right versus allowing them the opportunity to figure that out for themselves. It changed my entire idea around what a parent is there to do.
So I used to see my kids as these little versions of me running around in the world. And so I saw their behavior as a reflection on me. And so I would take the things that they would do really personally.
And because of that, felt like I had to manage them. Because if my kids were misbehaving, what did that say about me? So my entire view of the role of the parent completely shifted.
And this was incredibly helpful in the teenage years. Because, you know, especially with that line three, line six energy, where they're going to go out and make mistakes. They're going to live hard and fast and experiment with life.
And that's actually correct for them. I began to see my role as more of a guide, and I could recognize that they were their own individual people that were here to live out their own unique purpose that had nothing to do with me. It was completely separate from who I was.
And my role was to support them in learning how to trust themselves. So again, it went back to helping them as they would go out into the world and have experiences, providing a safe space for them to come back to and process what happened and then integrate the lessons.
So discipline became this thing that was reserved for like really large grievances, you know, really big things where their safety was compromised because of some decision that was made.
Otherwise, you know, I wanted to foster an environment where they felt safe sharing what they were actually up to, knowing that they're going to go out and do things.
And I would rather know what they're up to and provide an environment where they feel safe sharing. They feel safe asking for help if they're in trouble instead of an environment where they're afraid, afraid of getting caught, afraid of getting in trouble.
I wanted them to want to come to me in those scenarios. So I would give them a lot of freedom and opportunities to go out and live their lives, and then foster that safe environment where they would share what was happening between them and friends or them in school or new things that they were trying or things they were wanting to do.
And actually, the difference between my oldest during her teenage years and my younger two during their teenage years so my oldest, I didn't know about human design until she was already in college.
And then my younger two, when they were in middle school, I learned. So the difference between their teenage years is so huge. The way that we related, the tension in the household in general, I just learned how to relax into my role as a parent and trust my kids, trust that they knew how to lead their own lives and that they had this support system to fall back on when they needed it and that they would.
And it gave me a lot more peace of mind, and our household was so much more peaceful. It wasn't like this constant battle where we were these disciplinarians all the time. Instead, it was more of this conversation, this ongoing conversation where there was trust and respect mutually back and forth.
It just felt so much better. And then finally, the last piece I want to talk about is the places where me and each of my kids in our charts, when we would put them together, the places that we would have electromagnetics.
So what that refers to is when there's a hanging gate from a center that matches a hanging gate from an opposing center to form a channel. But the channel is coming from two different people. So together, you're forming this channel. So basically, the two of you are completing a circuit, giving one another definition in an area where you wouldn't have it otherwise.
So when you're together, these new energies come into play that aren't there when you're not. So noticing where those electromagnetic were and how they showed up in our individual relationships. So one thing that's pretty funny is I happen to have gate 39 coming out of my root center.
I have an undefined root center. Gate 39 is the gate of provocation. It's all about provoking the emotions of others.
Each of my kids has an undefined emotion center with gate 55 coming out of it. Gate 55 is the gate of spirit or abundance, which is all about living into your emotions. So together, they form the channel of emoting, which is experiencing the full spectrum of emotions.
So I happen to complete this channel between each of my kids. So knowing that when I'm with them, all three of them have this, we provide this opportunity for one another to process through emotional energy. I provoke them into feeling into their emotions.
So I recognize that that is something that happens quite a bit. When I am with each of my kids, we tend to talk about things where we are processing emotions together. Or, you know, for whatever reason, the what I say or the tone that I say it, I am somebody that provokes them.
And so knowing that this is just how our energies work together, and that's going to be the tendency, has been really illuminating in helping me to understand the nature of our relationships.
So there's just so many different facets of your kids' human design to look at when you are wanting to integrate human design into your parenting.
So the first thing that I would recommend that you look at is what is your child's or children's energy type?
Is it the same as yours? Is it different? And if it's different, what are the ways that you are going to need to adjust your language, your approach in order to meet them where they are?
The second thing that I would look at is what is your child's unique decision-making process? What is their authority? And to start to guide them into tuning into that so that they learn how to trust their own internal process and they build that confidence around I know what's best for me and I don't have to look outside of me in order to make decisions.
The next thing I would look at is what are your kid's profiles? The profile will say a lot about how they move through life, the way they see things, the way they want to experience things. So I would look into their profile and understand what their particular numbers in their profile are, what that means for them, how it's different from you.
And so you can begin to tailor how you parent to each child as an individual. And that's just going to help to support the relationship as a whole. And so that there's not so much resistance, so that they feel seen and understood, they feel heard, and like their point of view is important and respected.
So parenting, I personally believe, is the most challenging and rewarding opportunity that anyone who engages in it will ever experience. So there's no way you're going to get it 100% right all the time, and to think that you will is unrealistic.
But to have these tools to guide and support your kids and to connect with them on an individual level is so healthy and supportive and encouraging and will give you the best opportunity, in my opinion, at really connecting with them and forming these relationships that are secure and loving, you know, what we all want to experience, but without these tools can very easily miss the mark.
Human Design is just such an amazing tool to apply to parenting, and it all starts with first understanding your own design, knowing who you are and how you operate, and the different components of your own way of being. And once you have that down, then looking at each of your kids as an individual and learning how to connect with them in their own ways.
So I hope this information is helpful to you and that you can begin to integrate some of these pieces into your parenting if you have kids of your own.
It's never too early and it's never too late to start to work with these individual ways of communicating with your kids. So that's all I have for today. I hope that was helpful.
And if you enjoy this podcast, I ask you please subscribe, leave me a rating and a review. I would love to connect with you, hear about any experiments you have with your human design, and how it's going with you applying this information with your kids. So I wish you the best of luck.
And until next time, thanks for listening.
From High Vibe Heather: 8. How Human Design Made Me A Better Parent, May 15, 2024
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can DM me on Instagram @high.vibe.heather.
