What follows is my current best attempt at describing — to the best of my knowledge, understanding, and research capabilities, within the time I have using the energy available to me — what Human Design (and the various components it comprises) Actually Is.

In case you forgot, or are new here, my name is Esther. I’ve been studying, thinking about, experimenting and living with Human Design since 2018. I’ve been a single mom, trying to make a living while staying emotionally available for my son, succeeding and failing at both to varying degrees, since 2016. In my previous lives, I was an apprentice chef, an art student, an overambitious young musician (viola & clarinet), and a deeply creative and often non-verbal kid who everyone said would Be Something one day.

To those who have been here since pretty much forever, I am so grateful to you! I really hope you get something out of this. Know that I don’t plan on covering purely basics from here on forth. Personal/creative writing is also in the queue, as well as analyses on polarities, which is The Human Design Thing I am without a doubt most fascinated by. In any case, I invite your feedback and questions wherever you feel most comfortable expressing yourself.

To those receiving a letter from me for the first time since they signed up, welcome! I also welcome your feedback and questions wherever you feel most comfortable expressing yourself.

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Human Design offers an explanation for why you function the way you do. You can accept it, or not. It is also, if you so wish (or, if it’s just what happens), a map you can use to let go of the ideas and expectations of who you “should” be, the ones that society and those close to you have sometimes knowingly, mostly unknowingly implanted in you over the years, like those creepy parasites you remember exist once every whenever and then make yourself forget again so you will not be plagued by the fear of the worst thing ever happening to you one day. Um sorry where were we

ah right human design

It’s a way out of the maze of feeling like something is wrong with you. It’s one of some great options^{1others can be, and this is not an exhaustive list — meditation, the Enneagram, working with one’s hands, having kids, not having kids, hiking, deep talks with real friends} we have to find some true love and compassion for ourselves and others.

If you want to believe me on that last count, we should then easily be able to conclude that, based on pure logic, this is what Human Design is not:

• commandments: you who you “may” and “may not” be
• dogma: when, what, why, or how you are to do and think things, or not
• rules: who is allowed to be which way

Needless to say, this isn’t self-evident for many people when they first hear about the system, and even many who’ve already spent some time with it. Thus, I would suggest that whenever you perceive someone saying something to the effect of the list above, you have these options:

1. You draw an inner boundary around letting others dictate to you what you are to think and/or be. 2. You re-assess your current perception of what this person is Actually Saying.

Both of these often aren’t easy to do! To succeed at either, it helps to... well, understand yourself, and, ideally, where the other may be coming from, too.

As we move on over the next few weeks and months, you may come to see that by its very nature, Human Design essentially necessitates that some people (or even most) misunderstand its premise. As the person who first talked about this system in human language often and famously repeated, this knowledge is not for everyone. I would like to add that, even for those it is for, it isn’t at all times.

Ironically, those who do get it will probably nevertheless continue to try making it accessible to as many people as possible, which is, also ironically, the reason it finds its way into the heads and hands of those who will completely misunderstand it, and proceed to quite literally butcher it, selling only the fun parts for profit, discarding the bones, fat, and organs.^{2Yeah, this right here is a respect-and-use-the-whole-animal kind of operation :)}

So, I think we’ve established that we’re here because we wish to understand ourselves via this system. That is — some of us are here to understand ourselves first and foremost, while others are here to understand just enough about the system to understand others better, while yet others are here to understand just enough about themselves so they can go forth and... live their lives. All of us, though, can do with a primer (or a refresher) on the basic-most functions of this system, because, though it goes so much deeper than what we can see on the surface-most level of a bodygraph, the surface is ironically (in contrast to the omnipresent iceberg) where most of the insight lives. And, as human beings, we forget. And misremember. And have biases. And walk confidently into all kinds of other mental traps I am too lazy to list right now.

I would like to try something here that is relatively unorthodox for “modern” Human Design discussions. I would like to forego talking about Type almost entirely. I may mention the four aura types^{3yes, we talk about auras in Human Design, albeit in a mechanical, pragmatic sense, not in the spiritualistic ways most people you hear talking about auras tend to proselytize}/categories briefly, but I find the risk in this day and age is too great that one will want to identify with one’s Type, or worse, feel stamped and filed away by it. I also realize that that ship has sailed for some or even most people reading and/or finding this, but I want to try nevertheless.

To me, a person’s design has always been first about their Definition vs. Openness, and their Profile and Cross. Aura Type is important too, I realize that, especially for non-sacral types. I will write about those briefly at some point.

First and foremost, though, I want to talk about what you are not — where you are conditioned by the entire world, constantly, and pulled into making decisions that don’t serve you, the real you.

Openness is where we take others in, potentially to such a degree that we don’t wouldn’t recognize our real selves if they were metaphorically standing right in front of us.

So, if you’re new here and know nothing yet, I invite you to pull up your chart on mybodygraph.com. If you’re an astrology skeptic, a condition I fully empathize with, I invite you to also try on some, ahem, Openness (pun kind of intended).

Look at your chart with your eyes and pay attention to where it is white, or, dare I say... empty. These are the places where you have been experiencing distortion, and acting as someone you are not for most of your life. These are the areas where others influence you in a way that can potentially consume your true being entirely. This is where your pain is.

I know the temptation to google all this or to ask an AI or whatever can be breathtaking. Or, on the other hand, to think, nah man, this is exactly who I am, you’re telling me these things specifically are... not me?

I politely ask that you try to suspend judgment, though I completely understand if that’s just not possible at the moment. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay, and it will pass. We can wait together.

Last revised May 6, 2026.