What is the not-self?
When young adulthood started I began to wonder if I had come to the wrong planet. How could life feel this off? When I wasn’t mentally beating myself up I was relaxing into the dark fantasy of leaving this world for good. Thoughts of how I would end it were the only stimulation capable of turning off the negative self talk. I was stressed to the point of autoimmunity, depression, and deep, deep bitterness. This was my normal, I hated myself, or so I thought.
Human Design came into my life and gave me a name for who I actually hated, it’s called the Not-Self. Yes this system beautifully illustrates who we are but for me and so many others, the real transformation begins in the discovery of who we are not, the discovery of the Not-Self. Who we are not can be found in the openness of our design. In this openness we feel an inconsistency. Through conditioning and many other factors we develop mental strategies aimed at trying to “fix” the inconsistency, ignoring who we are, what comes natural, leading to a hard life filled with resistance.
Growing up I was conditioned to believe that there was one way to become a successful man. My father, backed by American culture, called this manly way “work ethic.” His lectures varied but the takeaway was always the same, get a job, put your head down and work. Life is hard, work harder. Initiate, go after it, and be consistent. A.K.A. the Projector death sentence.
Like my father, I’m a Projector, I have an open Sacral center, I am not here for consistent work and neither is he. But the Not-Self has its strategy and for the open Sacral it’s “not knowing when enough is enough” so I worked, I overworked and then worked some more. Still success eluded me and I eventually couldn’t keep up with the pace of society. I felt the natural inconsistency of my Sacral energy and the Not-Self concluded I was lazy. The solution, keep working, it was a vicious cycle.
Each center when undefined carries with it a different Not-Self strategy. In my design I have 6 undefined centers and before the awareness of Human Design these 6 centers ruled my life leading me to believe that I hated myself. In reality I didn’t even know who I was.
The thing to really understand is that we live in a Not-Self world. This is what’s normal. You can hear it in the conditioning messages regurgitated by the vast majority of unhappy Boomers who were never given a chance to even think about living a unique life as their true self.
Depending on the openness in your unique design, the Not-Self can show up in countless ways and intensities ranging from deep-seated self hatred and severe health issues to a mild nagging dislike of some inconsistency you feel about yourself. We don’t get rid of the Not-Self and sometimes drowning in it can be the catalyst to transform your life, it certainly was for me. With awareness we strip it of its power to make decisions in our lives.
Human Design and discovering the Not-Self gave me permission to let go of trying to “fix” the openness in my design. It allowed me to get rid of any notion that there was something wrong with me. It pointed me back to who I am. It illuminated the beauty inherent in my definition. Thank you Not-Self, I love you and I love me.
Are you focused on fixing yourself, proving yourself, hating yourself or are you ready to entertain the possibility that this person isn’t who you’re meant to be. Have you subscribed to the conditioning that life is hard or are you willing to enter into an experiment to find out just how easy it can be?