In Human Design, I’m a Manifesting Generator. So is my husband.

We did not know this. So we brought our children up the best way we knew how.

But then COVID happened and mine were among the hundreds of thousands of children that found it hard to re-enter the world again. There ensued a stream of CAMHS appointments, hospital visits, school meetings and a lot of not leaving the house and not going to school.

I have a past that includes panic attacks, agoraphobia and claustrophobia from the age of 20 – 42 so I know it’s never as easy as ‘I know it’s hard but just do the thing, why don’t you?’ All my years of training in the very issues they were facing, the support of countless professionals and very little seemed to shift.

But then, as part of my own exploration and experimentation with Human Design, I thought to run the charts of my children. And jaw-drop. All three of them are Projectors.

What this means is that their souls chose this time, this place and this moment to come into human form NOT to work and build and create things like my husband and I. They don’t have a sustainable flow of energy (a defined sacral) as my husband and I do. As over 70% of the world’s population do. As the creators of societal norms, schools and institutions do.

They are not here to build things – they are here to be our guides. And they need long periods of rest to discharge all that sacral energy they pick up from the rest of us. And to respect the natural ebb and flow of their energies. Without these things, they cannot guide us to build the things that need to be built.

That is their role in the human puzzle.

Imagine my husband and I are like Sunflowers in the garden. Naturally, the stems grow taller, leaves are pushed out, flowers grow, every day, steadily, more form in existence here than the day before.

We had been bringing our children up like they were mini-Sunflowers.

When in fact they are more like the sun.

Sunflowers can grow in the shade, but they won’t thrive. When they are able to turn to face the sun, and let it guide the direction they move in during the day, they flourish.

An entirely different thing to raising a mini-Sunflower.

The sun is magnificent - just because it is.

It is hugely powerful. We can criticise it for not having enough petals, or not having deep enough roots and being really quite crap in a vase - but we’re missing the point.

Its beauty lies in another direction entirely.

And oh, my goodness, have these children of mine been guiding me for the past few years.

All those exhortations from my husband and I to ‘work hard, go to school every day, play hard, get a job, do your homework, join the after school clubs, stop lying around in bed, go out with your friends more, do a sport, open your curtains’ were falling on ears that were simply unable to keep doing these things against their design. And as with any system that’s running counter to the way it is designed, at first there is protest and then there is total burnout. All of this totally innocent on our part – we did not know any better.

My eldest daughter also has an open G-centre in her Human Design chart. Amongst other things, this means being in a place that feels like home is a foundational piece of the puzzle for her wellbeing. She told us she wanted to move schools after her GCSEs – she was unhappy there. (The 8am-6pm school hours + homework and emphasis on A Grades not being high enough when A*s were possible – given her design, no wonder this did not feel like home).

She had found a new college she loved. But then, as COVID hit, and her current school continued teaching during the lockdown and the college she had chosen took weeks to do the same, we made the difficult decision to keep her at the school she was at. Three years of the worst misery you can imagine unfolded.

Wisdom is a phenomenal thing. It took her out of the school system and under her duvet – no matter our best efforts to keep her engaged. Somehow she completed A Levels and when visiting universities, she did not pick the ones we would have chosen for her. Instead she knew. The moment she arrived on the campus, she knew ‘oh yes, this is the one’. And being away from home and a university timetable that has lectures interspersed through the week – she can take rest when she needs to – no one is there to tell her to get out from under the duvet. She’s able to attune to her own wisdom, her own design and find her feet again.

My son is studying for A Levels currently. With his open sacral, I can so see how he picks up my ‘unstoppable’ energy and is studying so hard. But this is not his energy and it’s not sustainable. My role has changed from patting him on the back for all the hard work to encouraging him to take breaks and leaving him to spend the hours he needs alone in his room away from our energy.

Discovering his Human Design, I now find myself more fascinated about the way he sees the world. A new respect for his views – a Projector can only guide if they are recognised for the wisdom they have, and are invited to share their views. This I now do, and I am learning a whole heap.

My youngest daughter, also a Projector, also has a Line 6 in her profile. Once you get to know Human Design even a little, you’ll realise this explains A LOT. She’s a tricky one, let’s leave it at that.

Projectors are often misunderstood and undervalued, because they don’t fit with the expectations of the majority. As a result they can often find themselves with issues around self-worth and lack of confidence. This can lead to further withdrawal, disengagement and friendship problems.

And when you’re parented by parents who haven’t come across Human Design, they think you should work like they do. But you don’t. So you feel like a failure.

And if you have a Line 6, you’re likely to be into experimentation in a BIG way during the first third of your life – mix this tendency in with being desperate to find friends, teenage hormones and an inability to be in the school environment and you can imagine.

In fact, you can’t even begin to imagine.

Discovering her Human Design for me was like someone turning on the light. My attitude turned from exasperation, frustration and trying to fix to a sudden awe and appreciation of her expression. A respect for her need for alone-time, to go under the duvet (you’ll usually find Matt and I out building things in the garden and all three kids under the duvet most weekends), a helping her build breaks into her social life. A finding an alternative to mainstream full-time schooling. A seeing that the drama she brings with her meaning that she is my greatest teacher. Such a brilliant mirror of all my unseen conditioning, expectations and unwritten rules about how life ‘should’ work. Such gratitude to her.

And that light going on shifted judgement and fixing to respect and understanding.

A more unconditional love for all of them. 

And then….I discovered that we tend to inherit our Human Design from our grandparents. I ran my mother’s chart – it turns out she is a Projector too. I have the Projector energies all around me – from the woman who came before me to the children that come after.

Their souls chose this time, this place and this moment to incarnate – to travel the rocky paths and learning the life lessons of being Projectors. Mine chose to be amongst them to complete my own soul curriculum.

None of us broken or doing life wrong.

All is perfection.