Human design is the best parenting hack there is

Becoming a parent is an initiation for everyone, but none more so than for mothers.

In the blink of an eye, we are no longer the person we were pre-birth. I remember this transition vividly. The landscape shifts and you’re on unfamiliar ground.

My main question emerging from months of newborn blur was “Who am I now that I am a mother?” I hear the same sentiment from many of the mums I work with: “I don’t even know who I am anymore!”  We get the mothering bit. It’s there 24/7 for everyone to see.

But who are we as individuals outside of this new role? And does it even matter?

Yes. Yes it does matter. A lot. Research shows that maternal happiness is a key indicator of our children’s wellbeing. I’m going to tell you what I did to get happy, and what I wish I had done instead:

Reclaiming my own sense of identity and self-worth as a mama was a long haul. The hard labour of excavating all the layers of who I was NOT felt like I was digging deep with a teaspoon. It took determination, grit and the better part of five years.

Here’s the good news: It doesn’t need to take five years. There was a shortcut to my own journey, I just didn’t know it. When I discovered human design, everything I had been digging for was suddenly revealed to me. It felt like I could finally stop, breathe out and relax into who I’d been all along underneath the mountains of social expectations.

Here’s the flex: You “shouldn’t” be anyone other than yourself. You are simply here to be you. All of you. How ironic is it that we twist ourselves into the shapes of other people’s spoken and unspoken expectations when all we really want for our own children is to be themselves?

Guess what? We need to want the same for ourselves too.

You can’t be a better person for your children without being a better person for yourself.

But all this digging and unpicking takes time. And time is a hot commodity when you’re a parent. You no longer have all the time in the world. You have to find your feet on new ground at the same time you help your child find theirs.

Enter human design: It’s like finding a magic shortcut. It’s a tool that takes out the guesswork.

Here’s how one new mum in my world described the impact of rediscovering herself through human design:

“Human design has given me the grounding I needed as a new mum where life feels so wobbly and you lose yourself in motherhood. It OPENS YOUR EYES TO WHO YOU REALLY ARE because it explains how your energy works, where you are living in alignment, what sucks up your well-being and what’s in your way to fully be yourself in the world that is yapping about who you should be as a human and a mum.”

Leveraging human design in parenting is a two-step process:

Ideally you want to get your head down with your own design first. You are the energetic leader in your family. You can’t expect to help your kids be all of who they naturally are while still carrying the expectations of the world on your shoulders like a modern-day Atlas.

I recently met a mum who attended one of my parenting retreats. She was telling me how she’d been deep diving into better understanding her projector son. “So how are you relating to being a manifesting generator yourself?”, I asked. She blinked, perplexed, before answering: “Oh, I completely forgot about that.”

Don’t forget yourself! Supporting your kid to live according to their unique energetic design whilst ignoring your own is like teaching your teenager to drive without having your own licence.

Freeing yourself from beneath the rubble of what you have been told to be is of course a journey you’ll be taking alongside your kids. Once you witness the power of human design to speed up your own process, it only makes sense to lessen the expectations that get heaped, consciously or unconsciously, onto your children.

Imagine being your child-self again – free to be yourself instead of pretzeling yourself into your parents’ and teachers’ expectations. What difference would that have made to your adolescent and adult self? You can now use your understanding of yourself through the lens of human design to reparent yourself as an adult.

Human design is complex but parenting your child according to their design doesn’t have to be. Regardless of their age, it’s never too late to weave human design into your parenting. You have not missed the boat whether your child is 1, or 5, or 10 or 15 or anything above, below or in between.

What’s the best place to start?

Begin with understanding both your energy type and your child’s.

• What’s the same and what’s different?
• What’s right for you vs. what’s right for them?
• How can you support your child in living according to their own energy?
• How can you teach them to make decisions in the way that is right for them?

Think of life as a game and you are teaching your kids to play according to their own rules.

To me, this is the real magic of human design in a family or any other relationship context: It’s understanding what makes each of us unique and how our different energies interplay and influence each other. It’s uncovering the riddle of how we can be uniquely ourselves while also being part of a wider social unit and community.

If ever it all feels too much (and it will!), remember you are on a journey and you get to celebrate each baby step as a success.

Sadly not.

Absolutely!

So dive in today and start hacking parenting with the power of human design!