What the Hell is ‘Human Design’? I Tried the Next Big Thing in Wellness

Obviously, I’m not the only one struggling with questions of meaning – freaking out about the reason for human existence has plagued everyone from Aristotle to Cheryl Strayed. A study on the relatively new psychological concept of “purpose anxiety” found that 91 percent of participants felt it at some point in their lives. Even Barbie, a toy doll synonymous mostly with being blonde, skinny, and wearing a lot of pink, suffers an existential crisis in the Greta Gerwig directed blockbuster. 

I ended up spending four months in Puerto Escondido, and I kept coming across a strange set of words: “Human Design”. In my first week, I was handed a flyer – by a perennially topless digital nomad from Baltimore – for the opening of a wellness-oriented juice bar which offered Human Design sessions at 10AM (sandwiched between African Dance and “Vision Board”). In January, posters encouraged starting the new year with the “true me”, by linking up with certified Human Design guides promising to help me “align with my life theme and purpose” and “discover my unique gifts and the best environment for me to thrive in”.

I rolled my eyes at the posters. Although I think of myself as a spiritual person, I’m sceptical of dogmatic practices that seem geared towards making people more efficient and productive capitalist cogs – particularly given Silicon Valley’s co-option of wellness. But as I sat on my balcony that evening, suffering from an overwhelming sense of rudderlessness and utterly sick of watching Instagram stories, I decided to Google the term. Maybe this could help me redirect my sinking ship of motivation?

Human Design was invented (or revealed, depending on your view) in 1987 by Ra Uru Hu, born Robert Allan Krakower, a Canadian former advertising exec and magazine publisher. One evening, in his adopted home of Ibiza, he encountered “The Voice”. It asked him, “Are you ready to work?”, to which he must’ve replied affirmatively, because he spent the next eight days and nights transcribing what it told him into a 400 page textbook. To some, this may sound like the actions of a man in the throes of a schizophrenic breakdown or a particularly powerful acid trip. To others, it was a moment of divine revelation. 

What emerged was Human Design: A “holistic self-knowledge system” that combines astrology, Kabbalah, Myers-Briggs, I Ching, quantum physics, the chakra system and a load of other stuff in order to generate an “energetic blueprint" called a BodyGraph. This is a map of “genetic code” that shows how your energy is here to engage in the world. 

People are split into four distinct Energy and Strategy types (generators, projectors, manifestors, and reflectors) and seven Authority types (emotional, sacral, splenic, environmental, self-projected, lunar cycle, and ego). Strategy is about how you use your Energy and interact with outside stimuli, while Authority is about how your body tells you if a decision is the right one for you. Broadly speaking, the key to living an existence in line with one’s Human Design – i.e. one where you’re your happiest, most successful self – is to use your Strategy and Authority as a roadmap.

“When we intentionally practise with our true Strategy and Authority, we align with our unique path and genetic makeup”, alleges the Goop guide to the system. As far as wellness practices go, it’s not exactly the most straightforward. After entering my birth time and place into a free online generator, I immediately found myself lost in a bunch of indecipherable arrows, numbers, and words like “Incarnation Cross” which you had to pay to translate. At around $40 a pop for each of the ten sections, it was a hard no from me. It was clear I needed professional help, so I reached out to Puerto’s resident Human Design guide, Jelena, whose readings start at £89.

Unfortunately, when I told Jelena I’d be writing my honest thoughts on the practice as a journalist, not an influencer, she decided our “intentions were not aligned” and declined to meet with me. Sadly, this meant that I didn’t get to ask her why so many of Puerto Escondido’s wellness community seem to have a Human Design encouraging them to work remotely for giant tech corporations, while cosplaying as hippies doing sunset acro-yoga. 

Four months later, I’m in LA and about to return to England after spending eight months living out of a suitcase. But having gained no further clarity on what I’m supposed to be doing with my one precious life on this earth, I decided to squeeze in a reading before my flight home. I organised to meet Jeni Gage, a Human Design Reader whose process centres on “remembering who you already are” and not treating it like a binding, exact science. She kindly waived her $250 fee (LA, you know) for journalistic purposes. 

Once I shared a bit of my backstory, Gage pulled up my BodyGraph and began deciphering the shapes and numbers. “Everyone is a mix of defined, consistent energy, represented by the coloured-in shapes,” she says, “and white spaces, which means being open to receiving energy from other people.” The rarest type is the Reflector which is completely open – Sandra Bullock’s, apparently – and I’m what they call a Pure Generator. 

“Generators are either sacral authority or emotional authority, and you are sacral authority, which means you're really here to clue into what your gut is saying and respond to that,” Gage continues. “You're not here to get stuck in the why or the how. If you're following your gut, that’s getting into the energetic flow correctly.” 

It was a little hard to digest all of these new words and concepts at 10AM, but I found Gage’s pleasantly non-dogmatic approach to the practice reassuring. After an hour or so of delving into my chart, I ask her the question everyone (i.e. every clown who’s been fooled into thinking work is a stand-in for purpose) wants the answer to: “What career is my Human Design suited to?”

“It's never so predetermined, like in the Minority Report where the ping-pong ball says this is the only path. I believe we have so much choice to go along with what our body says, or not,” she laughs. “When we look at your definition, we know that you need to be in a place where you can run. You need to be able to have a long leash, so to speak, and not be stifled, that's what's really powering your chart. You're not really here to follow directions.”

I leave Gage feeling that despite all my doubts and fears, I do appear to be living a life in accordance with my Human Design – i.e. one that’s guided mostly by gut instinct and vibes-based decisions. It feels good to be validated in the unconventional, semi-nomadic path I've taken, to be a “great life experimenter that inspires others to do things differently”. 

Ultimately, Human Design is not much better or worse a system for making personal decisions than astrology, tarot readings, or any of the other spiritual practices increasing numbers of people are turning to in an attempt to find guidance and direction in a world that feels increasingly uncertain and devoid of meaning. Also, it’s quite fun. 

But while research shows that people with a stronger sense of purpose tend to have better overall well-being than those without, newer studies demonstrate that spending too much time worrying about what your purpose is can actually (surprise!) have a negative impact on your health. 

As the planet burns and we continue to lose faith in traditional systems, ideologies that claim to solve the mystery of human existence – by encouraging us to see ourselves as pre-programmed machines we can biohack to be better, happier and more productive – are gaining popularity everywhere from Silicon Valley to the world of wellness.

But while it can be tempting to look for shortcuts in our journey to self-knowledge, finding meaning is rarely a sudden epiphany – it’s often a years-long process of introspection and action. Perhaps instead of seeking to solve the mysteries of life by aspiring to exist as software, we should learn to live with the discomfort of not knowing. That’s what my gut tells me, anyway.