Breaking Free from Societal Conditioning with the Five Human Design Types

The story you've been told about who you are, how you are, and what you need to do to be successful is like wearing that mask. Maybe it didn't feel too hard in the beginning.

The eventual turn in the plot marking the turning point that causes our character to go from victim to victor. If you're like most of the people I work with, you know that, just like the character at the beginning of a good story, you're destined for more. You can feel the stirrings of this secret part of yourself whispering with a sense of urgency telling you that you deserve more. That you're here for a reason and you've got something bigger to do.

That something bigger isn't necessarily about doing something big as much as it is about having the freedom to do what you want to do when you want to do it, how you want to do it. Somewhere along the way, early in your life. You learned to quiet this part of yourself. For many of you, it started when you were young. You learned to quickly sit down and control your physical energy and the messages your body was giving you.

You learned to be quiet, to do your work and focus on what others told you is important to focus on. You discovered that there is judgment or even punishment if you don't learn to regulate this wild and natural part of yourself. Some of you learned to be good, even very good. You followed all the rules and formulas for success. You were responsible. You took care of everyone around you. You got a good job, made good money, and did good things in the world.

You never complained or asked for more until you couldn't do it anymore. Some of you learned to be rebellious, defying the rules, taking pride in your noncompliance as a way of defending yourself against assimilation. Your rule breaking often resulted in patterns of self-sabotage, exhausting yourself by not taking good care of yourself, and spending your energy working hard to prove a point. Until you couldn't do it anymore.

Some of you just settled into a life of quiet mediocrity, telling yourself that it is what it is, as a way of convincing yourself that it was okay to abdicate your dreams. You numbed your discomfort with food, media, and any distraction that helped you ignore the longings you feel in your life. Until you couldn't do it anymore. Eventually, the voice inside of you did something to get your attention. Maybe your body gave out, and you struggled with your physical health.

Maybe your important relationships imploded. Maybe you lost your job. Something inside of you stopped being quiet and screamed so loudly that you couldn't put off listening anymore. If you relate to these scenarios, and you think somehow you've screwed up, let me assure you, that's not true. If you've been trying to follow the formulas for creating a successful life, and it's not working for you, even if it looks good on the outside, It's not your fault. You're not broken, stuck, or blocked.

You've simply been conditioned. From the moment you got here, the world, often with the best of intentions, has been teaching you a formula for success. But whose definition and formula of success have you been trying to follow? We start learning this formula as children when we're taught to shut down our feelings in order to be presentable and manageable to our parents. Or to fit into an educational system that has outgrown its capacity.

We follow the formula in order to be successfully employed, to make the money we think we need, to be free, and to measure up to what society expects of us. You don't realize the true cost of settling, hiding your authentic self, and following formulas for success that don't really fit you.

The truth is anytime you say yes when you want to say no, anytime you stifle your gut feelings and the signals of misalignment that your body is giving you, anytime you give up on what you want for the sake of others or in the name of being "good", you use your precious energy to hide the truth, putting yourself at risk for burnout and crisis.

Not only that, if you've experienced a lifetime of being told that it's not okay, or successful, or safe for you to be who you are and how you are, you may have internalized this message as microtrauma, causing your mind, body, and spirit to live in a state of low grade fight or flight, making you anxious and worried all the time, again, putting you at risk for burnout and crisis. Think of it like this. Imagine that you've been invited to an opulent masquerade party.

As you arrive, you are handed a beautiful mask on a stick that you're instructed to hold up over your face. Over the course of the evening, even though the mask is fairly lightweight, your arm gets tired of holding up the mask. You and your fellow revelers eventually take down your masks because it's too hard to maintain the illusion as time passes. The story you've been told about who you are, how you are, and what you need to do to be successful is like wearing that mask.

Maybe it didn't feel too hard in the beginning. Perhaps the payoff was nice at the start, but eventually the cost of holding up the facade and trying to be untrue to your wild and natural self forced you to take down the mask and contend with the person staring back at you in the mirror. I teach a process called the Story Lab. In the Story Lab, we start with story specimens, fragments of a story that illuminate the beginning of a story, your story, told through the lens of Quantum Human Design™.

These story fragments illuminate where we often begin our Quantum Human Design™ journey. These story prompts, if you will, give you a beginning to the epic journey you begin on when you first see your Quantum Human Design™ chart. The story specimens are not the end of the story. They are the beginning, where our hero or heroine starts the journey of reclaiming sovereignty over their authentic self.

In the Story Lab, we use creative writing, drawing, painting, poetry, and storytelling to rewrite your life story. Story, the way you choose it. The story specimens are simply creativity prompts that lead you to explore the question, what happens next in the story? How can we complete the arc of the story so that we end up being the true hero or heroine in our own personal narrative? I'm going to read you the story specimens for the five Quantum Human Design™ types.

Listen closely to the story of your type. Think about the parts of this specimen that you relate to. Then, I want you to think about what comes next in the story. How does your hero, that's you, master the challenges ahead? What does your hero learn? How does your heroine need to come to terms with and what actions do they need to take in order to become sovereign over the story?

How do you want to write the ending of the story in such a way that it inspires you, lifts you up, and encourages you to continue to reclaim your authentic story in your everyday life? Let's get started. The Manifestor. She had a reputation for doing her own thing, and for being emotional when she didn't get her own way. This didn't always translate well in her relationships. Her parents were constantly frustrated with her, judging her and scolding her for her temper and for being impulsive

. She was often punished harshly, and learned quickly how to hide her emotions and her desires in order to stay safe and avoid feeling overpowered. She always felt like others were watching to see what she was up to. So she learned to get better at hiding as she got older. Eventually, she hid so well that she forgot her power. She learned to suppress her anger and her creative urges. She learned to play the game, to fit in, and to use her energy to be good.

But deep inside she knew it wasn't right. She could feel her inner self calling her out, begging her to follow her creative instincts. Inside of her was a rich , inspired world. A world that spoke to her in flashes of inspiration and insight that begged her to follow these vital prompts. She wouldn't and couldn't explain it to others. It was almost a primal, powerful voice that pulled at her as she followed her daily routines. The louder her voice got, the more uncomfortable her life became.

She began to realize that she'd abdicated her power in every area of her life, her work, her relationships, even in the way she nurtured herself. She was exhausted and depleted from trying to hold it together and deny this powerful voice inside of her. She realized she needed to break free. What comes next in the story? The Generator. From the start, she had an inner sense of what felt right and joyful to her. She grunted with delight at the food she loved and the games she liked to play.

She also grunted and even made faces at the things she didn't like to play. but was quickly told she was rude and that not using words was unacceptable. She was told over and over again that you don't always get to do what you want to do. Sometimes you have to follow the rules and what's expected of you, and do the things you have to do to get good grades, or to get into the right clubs and social groups and the right school and to have a successful career.

She learns to disconnect from her body's wisdom and to ignore those inner signals of what felt right, or wrong. She learned to make decisions with her mind, doing what seemed logical and reasonable. She learned to follow the rules and do those things the world told her she needed to do to be successful. She settled for a quiet life of mediocrity. She learned to numb her frustration with food and media, telling herself that someday she'd be free.

Sometimes she'd try new things, but she'd always hit a plateau and feel frustrated and eventually quit. The frustration always made her wonder if life and work was just supposed to be hard and there was no way out until she retired when she could finally follow her passion and do what she wanted to do. Until one day she realized she just couldn't do it anymore. What comes next in the story? The Manifesting Generator. She was born in a hurry.

Even as a baby, she seemed in a hurry to master milestones. As she grew, she began to explore, "how much could she do at the same time?" Sometimes she got a lot accomplished. Sometimes she made a mess of things and had to go back to clean up her mess. Sometimes, it seemed that she was skipping from thing to thing to thing. Her parents and teachers often judged her mistakes and her speed.

They told her to slow down, and that if she just focused on one thing at a time instead of being all over the place, she wouldn't skip important steps or get herself in trouble by biting off more than she could chew. She learned to stop trusting her gut and did her best to channel her energy into accomplishing what other people told her she "should do." Eventually drowning out her passion and her curiosity.

She stopped experimenting and exploring, and tried to force herself to stick with one thing, even though her spirit was longing for more. She was often frustrated and angry with the world. It seemed like nothing and no one moved fast enough or was as capable as she was. So, she often found herself doing more than her fair share because it was easier to do it herself than to wait for others.

She was impatient, had big ideas, and pushed to implement them, even though it often felt like she was pushing against right timing and the resistance of others. At work and at home, she carried more than her fair share of the work, and even though this was a way of avoiding the frustration of having to try to get others to go at the same speed as her, she was angry and resentful. Eventually, she found herself burned out.

overwhelmed, cut off from her passion and power, and overcome with the frustration of wanting more. What comes next in the story? The Projector. She knew things. Even as a small child, she knew things about people that either astonished them or made them feel very uncomfortable. Truth would spill out of her mouth as if her insights were simply common knowledge.

Her parents and teachers were often shocked by her boldness and she quickly learned to keep her insights to herself, shutting down her connection to her value and the power of what she was here to share. When playing with other kids, she was often accused of being bossy or controlling. She was often left out of the games on the playground because the other kids thought she was weird and different.

Sometimes the energy of everything around her felt like it was too much, and she would collapse with exhaustion. Sometimes that exhaustion looked like anxiety or overthinking. And sometimes her body would get sick if she felt overwhelmed. Her parents would push her to do more. Take initiative. Put herself out there. But pushing felt wrong and like pressure.

It felt wrong, but she tried and only exhausted herself more and felt confused about why things didn't seem to work for her like they did for other people. As she got older, she realized that she had insights that others didn't have. She knew how to make things better and more efficient. She worked to try to get others to see what she did, but they often didn't hear her or resisted her information.

For short bursts of time, she could do more than anyone else, but at the end of the week, this left her feeling depleted and struggling. She was overlooked for promotions and opportunities, even though she knew she deserved them. She felt invisible. Overworked and bitter. Until her body gave out and she crashed. What comes next in the story? The Reflector. She had big feelings. The energy of the world ricocheted around in her body, making her feel all kinds of emotions.

When bad things happened in the world around her, she felt it more than others and that confused her. Sometimes the bigness of her emotional expression made her parents struggle. They couldn't understand why everything had to be so emotional. She was often shut down and learned to stifle some of the bigness of what she felt. She had a big personality that could light up a room. She often had more energy than others and that also led to learning to tone down her personality.

She was too much for others, and she was often told that she talked too much, felt too much, that she was too intense. She needed time to make change. Sometimes she was pushed and pressured to make changes and transitions before she was ready. This caused her great anxiety. The pressure to adapt quickly often left her scrambling for security, and she clung to her friendships and significant others in a way that felt clingy and overwhelming.

She was sometimes accused of taking all of the energy in the room and wanting to be the center of attention, causing her to shut down her light. She fell in love with people's potentials. She could see the potential in individuals, communities, and even the world. This made her perspective idealistic and often disappointing. It took her a long time to clearly see whether someone was actually fulfilling the promise of this potential.

She would coach and support her loved ones and friends until the disappointment in their failure was overwhelming. It took her a long time to break these bonds, leaving her depleted and heartbroken. She had a lifetime of diving all in and then trying to figure out how to get out of commitments and promises. She put all of her heart and soul into everything and had a hard time setting boundaries and walking away. Until she couldn't do it anymore. What comes next in the story?

Remember that these story specimens are not the whole story, just the beginning. I invite you to take some time and write the ending you choose for yourself. Tell your story to the world the way you want it to be and make it a good story. A story that is truly worthy of the person you were born to be. If you'd like some help to kickstart your capacity to reclaim sovereignty over your personal story, get your free Quantum Human Design™ chart at freehumandesignchart.com I'm Dr. Karen Curry Parker.

Thank you for joining me for Quantum Revolution. Here's to better stories of possibility, fulfillment, and abundance.