“What am I here for?” Sooner or later, everyone asks this question. Sometimes at twenty, when you have to choose what to study. Other times at forty, in a job that no longer means anything, or in the middle of a night when your mind won’t stop.
The search for purpose is the greatest dilemma of being alive. It is also where we get lost the most, because we look for the answer outside ourselves. We read books and listen to people who seem to have found their way, hoping to copy the formula.
That was me for years. I went through the military and through jobs that had nothing to do with me, and in every one of them I ended up exhausted, with the feeling that I was living someone else’s life. When I discovered my Human Design chart, I realised the answer had been inside me since the day I was born. I just needed the map to read it.
Human Design shows you how your energy works and how you make your best decisions. When you start deciding from within, the path you were looking for begins to appear in your everyday choices.
In short
Human Design is a self-discovery system created by Ra Uru Hu in 1987. It brings together ancient systems, such as Astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah and the chakras, with modern disciplines, such as Quantum Physics and Genetics, in a chart calculated from your date, time and place of birth. The chart shows your Energy Type, your Strategy and your Authority, in other words, how you were designed to make decisions and exchange energy with the world.
What Human Design is, in simple words
Human Design is a self-discovery tool. In Portuguese it is called Desenho Humano. Both names refer to the same system.
Many of us live as if we were a plane trying to work like a car. We drive along the road, burn a huge amount of fuel and always arrive late. If we flew like a plane, we would get there in no time. Your Human Design chart shows you what kind of vehicle you are and how you were made to move.
To use Human Design you don’t need to believe in any entity, follow a ritual or have faith. It offers a practical experiment. You read what your chart says about how you decide, you try it in your daily life and you watch what changes. Your body is the laboratory.
It’s important to understand that Human Design starts from a very freeing idea: there is nothing wrong with you. Every person is born with their own design, and much of our suffering comes from trying to live by someone else’s.
Where Human Design comes from
The story of how Human Design appeared is as surprising as the tool itself. In 1987, in Ibiza, Alan Krakower, who later took the name Ra Uru Hu, went through an eight-day experience in which, according to him, a “Voice” passed on the complete system.
From that encounter came a system that brings together two kinds of knowledge.
The ancient observational systems:
- Astrology: the positions of the planets at the moment of your birth.
- The Chinese I Ching: the 64 hexagrams, which become the 64 Gates in the chart.
- The chakras of the Hindu-Brahmin tradition: the 7 chakras, which in Human Design become 9 Centers.
- The Tree of Life from the Kabbalah (Zohar tradition): it inspires the way the Centers connect to each other.
The contemporary disciplines:
- Quantum Mechanics;
- Astronomy;
- Genetics;
- Biochemistry.
The Jovian Archive, which keeps Ra Uru Hu’s work, describes Human Design as a logical, empirical and practical system that does not ask you to believe anything. It offers you the opportunity to explore and experiment with the mechanics of your nature and your consciousness, so you can find out for yourself exactly what works for you.
According to Ra Uru Hu, the information that forms your design is carried by neutrinos, tiny particles that pass through our bodies every second. This is how the system explains why the exact moment of birth matters.
Of course, it’s natural to ask whether any of this is proven. There are no scientific studies that validate Human Design, and I prefer to say it clearly. What I have seen in more than 500 readings is something else: when a person experiments with their Strategy and Authority, life usually becomes lighter. I invite you to do the same and draw your own conclusions.
Your Human Design chart
The Human Design chart, also called the Bodygraph, is the drawing of a body with 9 geometric shapes connected by lines. It is calculated from three pieces of information:
- your date of birth;
- the exact time;
- the place.
The chart uses two moments. The first is the instant you were born, which gives your Conscious side (in black on the chart). The second is about 88 days before birth, when the Sun was 88 degrees earlier, and it gives your Unconscious side (in red). That’s why some of your traits you recognise right away, while others are seen by people around you before you see them yourself.
When you look at your chart for the first time, you’ll find:
- Centers, coloured (defined) or white (open);
- Channels, the lines that connect two Centers;
- Gates, the numbers from 1 to 64 at the ends of the Channels;
- two columns of planets, one red and one black.
If you want to go piece by piece, I wrote a complete guide on how to read your Human Design chart. And if you don’t have yours yet, you can get your free chart here.
The 5 Energy Types
The first thing to look for in your chart is your Energy Type. There are only five, and each one has its own way of using energy, a Strategy, a Signature (the feeling you have when you’re aligned) and a Not-Self Theme (the sign that you’ve drifted away from yourself).
| Energy Type | Population | Strategy | Signature | Not-Self Theme |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Generator | about 37% | Wait to Respond | Satisfaction | Frustration |
| Manifesting Generator | about 33% | Wait to Respond, then Inform | Satisfaction | Frustration and Anger |
| Projector | about 20% | Wait for the Invitation | Success | Bitterness |
| Manifestor | about 9% | Inform | Peace | Anger |
| Reflector | about 1% | Wait a Lunar Cycle | Surprise | Disappointment |
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
A quote often attributed to Albert Einstein.
A car is not a boat and a boat is not a plane. How many times do we follow everything a self-help book says and still don’t succeed? Very often, the advice was right for a different Energy Type.
Let’s look at an example. A Generator who spends their days forcing new beginnings feels frustrated. They think they need more discipline. In truth, their Sacral Center was designed to respond to what life brings. When they stop chasing and start noticing what excites them, frustration gives way to satisfaction.
A Projector who hands out advice to people who didn’t ask for it ends up bitter, because nobody listens. When they wait for recognition and the invitation, the same ideas are received with gratitude.
Strategy and Authority: how you decide
If I had to choose only two things for someone to take from their chart, I would choose these. Your Strategy tells you how to enter situations. Your Authority tells you how to decide.
The 5 Strategies are in the table above. Trying to live without following your Strategy is like building a house without foundations. It may stand for a while, but every storm costs you twice as much.
Your Authority is the place in your body where your truth lives. There are seven:
- Emotional: you need time to ride your emotional wave before deciding. About half of all people have this Authority.
- Sacral: the body’s immediate response, an “uh-huh” sound for yes and an “un-un” for no.
- Splenic: an intuition that speaks quietly and only once.
- Ego (Heart): what you truly want and what you are willing to commit to.
- Self-Projected: hearing yourself talk to someone you trust.
- Mental or Environmental: for some Projectors, the right environment and the right people bring clarity.
- Lunar: for Reflectors, letting a full lunar cycle pass.
What they all have in common is that the mind stays out of the decision. The mind is great at analysing and at inspiring others, but it doesn’t know what is right for you. If you want to train yours, here are 3 tips to tune into your Inner Authority.
The 9 Centers
Your chart has 9 Centers, which roughly correspond to the chakras you may already know:
- Head Center: inspiration and questions.
- Ajna Center: the way you think and process ideas.
- Throat Center: expression and action.
- G Center: identity, direction and love.
- Heart Center: willpower, self-worth and commitment.
- Solar Plexus Center: emotions.
- Sacral Center: life force and response.
- Splenic Center: intuition, health and instinct.
- Root Center: pressure and rhythm.
A defined Center (coloured) is a consistent energy that you always have available and that others feel in you. An open Center (white) is a place where you take in and amplify the energy of the people around you.
Some people think an open Center is a flaw. Nothing could be further from the truth. Someone with an open Solar Plexus, for example, feels and amplifies the emotions of everyone around them. Once they realise many of those emotions are not theirs, they gain enormous empathy and stop getting lost in them. Who wouldn’t like to be able to read other people’s emotions?
Profile, Definition and Incarnation Cross
After Type, Strategy and Authority, there are three layers that make your chart unique.
Your Profile is the role you came here to play. It comes from two Lines, from 1 to 6, which make 12 combinations. Each Line has an archetype: the Investigator, the Hermit, the Martyr, the Opportunist, the Heretic and the Role Model. I’ve already written about the 1/3 Profile, the 1/4 Profile, the 2/4 Profile, the 2/5 Profile and Line 6.
Your Definition describes how your defined Centers connect to each other. Some people have everything connected in a single circuit (Single Definition, about 41% of people), others have two separate groups (Split, about 46%), three (Triple Split, about 11%) or four (Quadruple Split, rare). Definition explains why some people get things right away and others only the next day. No Definition is better or easier than another, because each one has its own qualities.
Your Incarnation Cross is the theme of your life. It is formed by the Gates of your conscious and unconscious Sun and Earth. It can be a Right Angle Cross (a personal theme), a Juxtaposition Cross (a fixed theme) or a Left Angle Cross (a transpersonal theme).
What Human Design is for
Today we spend a lot of time and money searching for the feeling that our life is worth it. The feeling of emptiness often comes from living against our design.
A person who wasn’t designed to initiate projects, and spends their life trying to start businesses on their own, feels bitter every time the dream fails. Someone who needs a lot of time alone, and lives in a house full of people with a very social job, burns out quickly. Human Design points to the exact places where that resistance happens.
In practice, the people I work with use Human Design to:
- decide with less anxiety, from the body;
- understand their own rhythm of work and rest;
- understand their relationships, with the compatibility elements between two charts;
- raise their children respecting each child’s design, as I explain in The Education of Children with Human Design;
- choose their career, with BG5, the professional branch of Human Design.
If you want more reasons, I gathered 8 reasons why Human Design can change your life.
To make this concrete, I’ll use my own example.
I’m a Projector with Splenic Authority and a 5/1 Profile. For years I lived as if I were a Generator. I said yes to everything and helped people who hadn’t asked for my help. I ended my days exhausted, with a bitterness I couldn’t explain, and only later did I understand that bitterness is the Projector’s Not-Self Theme.
When I discovered my chart, I understood two things. The first was that my energy wasn’t made to work eight hours straight at a Generator’s pace. The second was that the quiet voice I always followed as a child, to choose the way home or what to eat, was my Splenic Authority. Today I wait for the invitation before guiding someone, and people come to me because they recognise what I do. I tell the full story in My Journey to Human Design.
How to start
Starting is simple, and you don’t need to understand everything at once.
- Get your chart. With the free chart generator you only need your date, time and place of birth.
- Look for three things: your Energy Type, your Strategy and your Authority.
- Experiment for a few weeks. Use your Strategy and Authority in small decisions before taking them to the big ones.
- Watch your Signature and your Not-Self Theme. They are your compass: they show you when you are on track and when you have drifted away.
Simply knowing your Human Design chart is deeply transformative. It is a moment of recognition in which all the things you have struggled with your whole life start to make sense.
Frequently asked questions
Are Human Design and Desenho Humano the same thing?
Yes. Human Design is the original name, in English, and Desenho Humano is the translation used in Portugal and Brazil. It is the same system.
Is Human Design a science?
There is no scientific validation of Human Design. Ra Uru Hu presented it as a synthesis of ancient traditions with concepts from physics and genetics, and I use it as a self-discovery tool that each person can test in their own life.
What is the difference between Human Design and Astrology?
Human Design uses the same planets but reads them differently. Instead of signs and houses, the positions fall into the 64 Gates of the I Ching and form Centers and Channels in the body. The result is a more practical chart, focused on how you make decisions and use your energy.
Do I need my exact time of birth?
Yes, the more exact the better. Your Energy Type rarely changes with a difference of a few minutes. The Moon changes Gate roughly every 10 hours, and your Profile can change if you were born close to a change of Line. If you don’t know your time of birth, check your birth certificate or ask a family member.
Can my Energy Type change over my life?
Your chart is fixed from birth. What changes is conditioning, the influence of people and the environment on your open Centers. Over time, as you follow your Strategy and Authority, you learn to tell what is yours from what comes from outside.
What is the most common Energy Type?
The Generator, with about 37% of the population, followed by the Manifesting Generator, with about 33%. The rarest is the Reflector, with about 1%.
How can I get my free Human Design chart?
You can use the free chart generator here on the site. Enter your date, time and place of birth and you’ll get your chart with your Energy Type, Strategy, Authority and Profile.
Do I need a reading to understand my chart?
It isn’t mandatory. You can start on your own with your Type, Strategy and Authority. A reading helps when you want to see the full chart, with the connections between Centers, Channels and Profile, applied to your specific situation.
What I have learned so far is that when you stop fighting your design, life starts coming to meet you.
To get your free chart, you can use the chart generator here on the site, at Your Map. You’ll need your date, time and place of birth.
If you’d like to understand what Human Design means specifically for you, in the full context of your Type, Authority, Profile and Definition, you can book a reading with me here.
