Living by Design: Health & Human Design

What is Human Design?

Human Design is a system that blends different ancient and modern sciences to give you a better understanding of who you are. It combines elements from astrology, the I Ching, Kabbalah, and the Chakra system to create a detailed map of your personality and life path. This system helps you discover your natural strengths, how you interact with others, and guides you to make decisions that align with who you truly are. It's a tool for self-discovery that can lead to a more authentic and satisfying life.

A Little Bit About Me

At the age of 21, after giving birth to my son, I faced a significant health crisis that altered the course of my life. Over the next decade, I endured numerous hospitalisations and over 30 surgeries and medical procedures, including being prescribed opioids (oxycodone) for 16 years for pain management. For most of my 20s and early 30s, I spent 60% of my time outside of hospital in a wheelchair.

Despite these challenges, I always found a way to express myself creatively, especially when I couldn’t work. I found solace in creative projects, even setting up a wedding craft business from Ward 14 of the QE Hospital. I also started and ran several entrepreneurial ventures, from cake making to successful business startups in the training and recruitment sectors.

In 2019, a near-fatal incident involving over-medicating on prescribed medication served as a huge wake up call. Determined to heal and transform my life, I started on a six year journey of recovery. I dived deep into holistic practices such as meditation, cold water therapy, sound baths, Reiki, breathwork, and IEM Tapping. By 2021, just two years in, I was feeling the benefits of restoring my cognitive function and raising my conscious awareness. I was thriving; both businesses were soaring, and I had never been in a place where my mind was so clear. Although I was still suffering with digestive issues, I had managed to combat the pain using only holistic practices to regulate and relax. I had not spent a day in the hospital in the last two years.

The Big Bang

Then, another significant catalyst propelled me into the next phase of my healing. In 2022, my partner, who I believed to be my soulmate, revealed a gambling addiction he had hidden throughout our nearly eight year relationship. We had built a home, raised each other’s children, and run two up-and-coming businesses together. On 12 March 2022, he sat me down to tell me it had all gone. The wedding, the house, the businesses - everything. The ripple effect of this event led to a new health diagnosis: BAM Syndrome. Facing the possibility of needing an ileostomy bag again, I immersed myself in holistic practices and began researching ancient healing rituals and diets.

I took myself off to intensive healing retreats, adopted a plant-based diet, and explored more holistic practices like kundalini, shakti dance of yoga, and somatic movements. I even attended sacred ceremonies using plant-based medicines to help remove blockages and suppressed emotions from my body. It was at a local retreat, Rose Bowers Farm, where I met Paula Donaldson from Eb and Flow. Paula was running the kitchen at the retreat, and we talked for hours about plant-based diets and healing foods. She took me on a deep dive into juice cleansing and shared how she had helped many others who suffered from bowel and gut conditions.

For the first time, I felt truly seen. Paula asked me more questions about my diet than any consultant or doctor ever had. I believed every word she said - it was like gold. She introduced me to the concept of water ionisation using her Kangen water ioniser, a machine that has seven different water settings and can also be used to detoxify your home and replace cleaning products. I never knew the impact water could have on our health, and I felt ignorant for not realising it sooner. Most of my life, I had only ever drunk juice or flavoured water.

A Transformative Journey

Paula and I stayed in touch. She started bringing me water each week and introduced me to all kinds of wild things to add to my juices and meals, like tinctures, sea moss, kombucha, and kimchi. After a six month transition to a plant-based diet, eating mainly whole foods, I was ready to start Professor Arnold Ehret’s Mucusless Diet Healing System & Rational Fasting. I also followed Professor Spira’s work. I chose to put myself on nature’s operating table. Having read the books back to back about four times, I was mentally prepared. I had ordered all the equipment and supplies: enema kits, a high-end juicer, a water ioniser, and locally sourced fruit and veg, with Paula on standby.

In March 2022, I began a three month juice and water fast. Over three months, I expelled mucus and latent disease from my body. Through enemas, I broke down mucus internally, speeding up the process. I cut myself off from external noise, spending time at work or in the sea with a women's sea group I had started, Wave Women. At home, I focused on healing. Through this detoxification, everything came out: old drugs, alcohol, meats, dairy - everything I had consumed over the last 20+ years shed away, along with the weight of my emotions. By September 2023, I had lost four stone, making it eight stone in total. I was clear of all gut problems and bacteria, and my digestion and bowels were functioning correctly. I had cleared myself of a disease I had carried around for 20 years.

After this, I was not the same person. I had spent so much time on my own with the very basics of life that I realised I no longer wanted to run big corporate organisations or lead change in that way. Although I have always dedicated my life to helping others sustain a career and grow, I now realised that the work, people, environment, and behaviours around me in this setting had contributed to my stress levels and sickness. So, I started to explore other avenues where I could develop my skills and use my experience to help others achieve a flow state and understand what it feels like to live in alignment.

I was presented with a business opportunity that could work around my current commitments through the water ioniser I had purchased. Because I was so obsessed with this product and how it had contributed to my health, I wanted to know more about the business model and the community. This led me to Gran Canaria for a Waves of Impact event, a weekend with 26 guest speakers all talking to entrepreneurs about how they can improve their life and business. Consciously, I went to this event to see how I could improve and grow my business; subconsciously, I was there to meet my alchemist and start the journey of finding out why and how I got sick.

This led me to Portugal a week later. Travelling with a Human Design book in hand, I met Talis. He joined my company and started to explain the HD system and more about my body graph. I booked an advanced reading, signed up to his substack, and over the next few days consumed all of his published materials. When I heard my reading, I was blown away! This explained so many questions I had been asking about my health and also shed light on all of my not-self behaviours.

Deep Dive

For six months, I went into a rabbit hole, researching as much of Ra Uru Hu’s source materials as I could find. I ordered and read what was recommended by Talis, including Peter Schoeber's "The Centres." Through my exploration, I found Sam Zager, an incredible HD teacher who educates at a different level to most other guides I have found on social media. She had a particular focus on Determination, environment, and health. I was invited onto her podcast, where I delved even deeper into my health history through the lens of HD.

Embracing Human Design

Since the start of 2024, I have experimented deeply with Human Design. This profound system has enabled me to understand my energetic makeup. It shows you who you are here to be, what gifts you were born with, how to interact with the world, and how to attract what is good for you by understanding your strategy and authority.

This system not only provided profound insights into my health challenges and life path but also revolutionised how I approach business and personal development. With over 20 years of studying human behaviour and utilising personality testing systems like Myers-Briggs, Insights, i3 profiling, astrology, and reading everything I could find on leadership and personal growth, I've found Human Design to be the most insightful and transformative tool yet. And I am forever trying to see if I can prove it wrong.

Living by Design is a lifelong journey, and I am only at the start of mine. My design tells me that I am to be an expert at something. My left quad variables and 1.3 profile indicate that I am forever the investigator and the student. Using my strategic, logical, analytical, and focused mind, I can digest complex systems quickly and explain them in simpler contexts for others. My line 3 teaches me through trial and error and learning from my own experiences - I must be convinced myself before I can share something with others.

Human Design has become my lifelong study. Using this system in every aspect of life has given me a completely different view of the world and my place in it. It has helped me shape my business, get the best from my relationships, and collaborate effectively. Teaching this system to my friends, family, and clients, I have not only experienced its significant impact on my life but have also seen how it affects others. Today, I have made it my purpose to learn, share, and teach this system to others. By incorporating my other skills and life experiences, I am dedicated to providing a person-centred approach in all the work I do.

Finding Human Design has had an immense impact on my life. Through it, I have discovered ways I was fighting my true nature. By experimenting and embracing my design, I stopped comparing myself with others and let go of the need to “be better” in order to fit in. It has brought a new sense of honouring and accepting the differences of other people as well. Sharing this information is truly rewarding. When faces light up and smiles start to emerge, it lets you know the recognition of the true authentic self has been seen, perhaps for the first time.

Human Design has helped me to become more aware of my energetic makeup. The body graph gives you a detailed roadmap where you can identify what is nature versus nurture. The awareness alone has helped me in understanding how I should approach daily experiences from my internal system, instead of making decisions through the mind and external influences. HD has been a profound tool for parenting, using this system as a guide to shine the light on your child’s true self and let them know how uniquely brilliant they are instead of raising them in a homogenised world where we feel they need to fit in. Using HD for business to understand how you best interact with others can enable you to create pentas (teams) of people who will execute a project from end to end and be energetically aligned. There are no limits to what understanding this system and how to use it can do for your life. I look forward to sharing my journey with you all.

Upcoming Workshops

20th October 2024 - HUMAN DESIGN WORKSHOP

Join us for a Full Day Workshop diving deep into the fascinating world of Human Design. Explore your Human Design and learn how to transform your life.

This event has been designed to fully incorporate Human Design into the day, including the environment and diet. I will be giving a two hour workshop on the Human Design system with an interactive Q&A, using participants' charts within the group as examples.

Throughout the workshop, you will learn more about your energy type and strategy. Then, you will receive a 25 minute insight session where I will talk you through your chart and give you practical steps to continue exploring.