Holistic Personality: are you pre-determined?

Since I have been working on the question of Human Design, I often encountered a certain scepticism among my clients, and also a certain anxiety at the idea that "everything is already written".

As Human Design is based on the positions of the planets at our birth and at our incarnation, one could indeed say that everything is already pre-determined. The very vocabulary of HD tends to push us in this direction: we need to "step out of non-self", "realign ourselves with our design", "embrace our uniqueness".

Ra Uru Hu -the founder- says that there is no point in digging deeper than your Type and Authority if you want to get rid of what is not yours, to express your full potential.

All these expressions convey interesting ideas, and I use them in my daily life too, because I do think that we can get closer to who we are in our heart through Human Design. However, I think it's important to nuance these ideas with a more holistic view of our lives and personalities. So that's what I'd like to address in this article: I think we need a bit of a refresher, now that Human Design is becoming more and more widespread, and is becoming the new magic tool of personal development.

What is the holistic personality?

In architecture, I always tried to have a holistic vision of the needs of the inhabitants, a holistic vision of the context of our buildings, etc. So this notion has been in my vocabulary for many years, without me really paying attention to it.

And then, it may not have escaped you if you follow me on Instagram, I started a Holistic Life Coaching course in May 2020. It was from this moment that I really took the measure of this word and what it represents in my life. I truly believe that we should look at everything with a holistic vision, taking into account the totality of a subject, because there is never only one way of looking at things.

So what is a holistic personality? It is a complete personality, which takes into account all aspects of the individual. We are all unique and 'complete' beings, with our own personality, which comes from our experiences, predispositions, upbringing, culture, etc.

With this definition in mind, we can see that we are all different. With this definition in mind, we can therefore apprehend the information of Human Design -or any other personal development tool that defines our characteristics- from a new angle.

The place of Human Design in our holistic personality

When I trained for the Genius Report -the "business" training of Human Design in a way- I came back to this notion of holistic personality and it allowed me to synthesise and put into words the intuitions I had.

We have a personality made up of different fields of information, so to speak. We are not only defined by one aspect or another, but on the contrary, we are the sum of all these parts. And as we often say: the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

What does this mean in practice? We identify four aspects that shape our personality: some are determined and fixed (genetic and energetic dispositions), others are variable and dynamic (social and energetic conditioning).

If you look closer, you’ll realise that your Bodygraph is actually only a quarter of what creates your overall personality. This means that even if two twins are born at the same time, in the same place, to the same parents, they will have two unique personalities, the result of their own experiences, relationships and conditioning.

How to appropriate Human Design?

Bearing in mind that our Bodygraph -that is to say our energetic pre-dispositions- are only a part of our personality, I think we can say without too much anxiety that we are not pre-determined by our design. As I often say, Human Design is a tool, an extremely precise set of information, but the information is always neutral. It is the way we use it that is important.

Take an example. Adolf Hitler and Frida Kahlo are both Manifestors 5/1. Their design indicates a great creative potential, a great capacity for innovation and a pioneering spirit. They both have great seductive power and an impactful charisma.

Here, it's just information.

What changes is the context of these two people: on the one hand an abusive father who refuses to admit that his son might want to be an artist, on the other a mother who supports her daughter and even offers her brushes and paint. It can be said - even if this does not excuse the acts he perpetrated during his life - that his conditioning was part of the personality of Hitler and directed somehow his actions. He experienced his ordeals as failures that diminished his self-esteem and greatly contributed to his remaining in a state of constant anger (the Manifestor's Not-Self).

On the other hand, Frida Kahlo transcended her trials through her painting and art. Despite her poor health, the comments of her peers, the hardships she went through helped her to nourish her art. She says that she is not a surrealist, as she has only painted her reality.

I realise that this is a drastic example, but I think it illustrates the notion of a holistic personality. We come into the world with gifts: our genetic (our DNA, our physical body) and energetic (our Bodygraph, our astral chart, etc.) dispositions. It is then up to us to embody and live them in the best possible way, being aware of our cognitive (society, education, culture) and energetic (auras, egregores, relationships) conditioning.

”Wisdom hides in your openness. It hides behind the distortion of the conditioning, but it's there. Wisdom arises out of the awareness of what you are, as opposed to what you are not.” Ra Uru Hu

Often it is our conditioning that makes us see our design as something "good" or "bad". As I like to tell my clients, good or bad doesn't make sense in Human Design, nor does binary exist in this system.

My advice? Take the information from Human Design with your filters. What is "success", "peace", "satisfaction" for you? Each person will have a different answer, and that's fine!

Human Design is a science of differentiation: it's normal that each interpretation is different. In the same way, it is normal that each reading is different, it is nourished and enriched by the personality of each analyst. So it is very important to remain curious and open to this information, in order to form your own opinion... through experimentation!

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