Stop doing what you think you should AND start caring about how you feel.
We live in a world of unlimited choices. It seems like a good thing, but it’s really hard sometimes. We mostly make decisions with our mind and find ourselves off path. It’s important to communicate with your body to make decisions that are right for you.
We are taught so many things in our lives about what we “should” do, even if it’s the opposite of what we feel we want to do. When we are little, we are told to “sit still” even when we want to move. When we are teens, we are told by our peers what is “cool” or what we should like – even if we know our own style. When we are adults we rely on the voices of our culture, society, friends or family who tell us what’s right or wrong. Soon we are caught up in doing things the way our ego thinks we should and we can’t separate our inner truth from the opinions that surround us.
We do most things on autopilot and we make decisions in our mind.
What happens when you make conditioned decisions with your mind?
You might:
- Follow someone else’s path.
- Say yes to things you don’t love or have room for and then become overwhelmed or burned out.
- Have regrets or hold guilt because you made a decision that wasn’t right for you.
The key is to tune into your body to make decisions. That is where you will find the real clarity. The head can easily get confused, cluttered or masked by outside influences.
Clarity comes from you deciding to make a decision. It isn’t something that arrives from outside of you and it’s not a matter of luck or timing. It is what you create for yourself.
When you commit yourself to one specific direction, clarity is the natural result.
I have found too that any decision you make, even if it was the “wrong” one, can be changed again in the future. If you’ve made a decision you’re unhappy with, you can just make a new one! But if you never decide you will be stuck forever.
What is an aligned decision?
In simple terms, it’s a decision that is right or best for you. It comes from within you— you can feel the truth of its correctness.
It’s embodied, meaning your body told you the answer and you listened. A way to access your inner guidance is to listen to how your body reacts to the potential choices.
What does it mean for your life to make aligned decisions? You will:
- Feel better
- Have more energy for what you love
- Make decisions easier and faster with practice
- Be around people that enhance your life
- Be an authentic role model for your kids
- Set healthy boundaries and stick to them – because you know what’s right for you
The more things that are aligned in your life, the easier it is to make decisions and get clarity. It’s a snowball effect!
In real life:
There’s a rooftop patio where I work, filled with plants and overlooking the city. It was a good ‘thinking’ space. I remember sitting there one day in indecision. I was choosing where my first kid would go to primary school. There were two public-school options.
I had just received a phone call that a spot opened up and my kid was offered a lottery spot for a charter school.
Now, this charter school was seen as ‘elite’ even though there are no merits to get in, it is purely lottery-based and anyone in the school district can go.
They told me I had two days to tell them if we wanted the spot.
I knew I had a decision to make, would I take the spot that they now offered me to go to this ‘special’ charter school?
My head gave me many reasons why I should go there. And it was mostly based on the fear of missing out which I will talk about later. Will she get less of an education at the school closer to us? Will she miss out on something? What if she doesn’t like the neighborhood school and I won’t have the option to pick the other school again? And so on!
I just couldn’t bring myself to decide. The pressure was too much; I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
How would I know if I made the right choice?
I eventually made my decision and turned down the spot at the charter school.
Here’s how I knew it was the right thing to do.
It is what felt right. Or, rather, what didn’t feel right. I was talking it out with a friend and she asked me lots of questions, but the one that hit me the most was when she asked how I felt about each. Did I feel good about school A? Did I feel good about school B?
I remembered back to the open house for the charter school. The parents there were intense. They were drilling the teachers on their testing scores and many other things – for kindergarten! I of course want my kid to do well, but I didn’t want her to be in a pressure cooker. But that’s not all it is. I just felt yucky and wrong, and my gut knew it. I actually had to leave the info session and go into the hall to let go of some of the feelings. I still haven’t shaken that feeling that it was not the right fit for us, despite all the reasons my mind was telling me it was.
When I thought about the neighborhood school, I felt content. I knew it was right. I had actually already known my answer months before when I was relieved in the first round of the charter school lottery picks when I was told we didn’t get in. That feeling told me I didn’t want to go there and I was happy the decision was made for me. But I still managed to twist myself in knots when I was offered a spot – because this time “I” had to decide.
I am happy to say that we have never regretted the school we picked.
How do you make aligned decisions?
This is where your Human Design Authority comes in. I think Authority is the most powerful tool in Human Design and your life.
Your Human Design Strategy is like a personal shopper – offering you choices. Your Authority is like an inner stylist, designed to help you just decide which to pick or what to keep. It knows what looks amazing on you and if you let it will pick things in your life that you love, cherish and that are right for you. Utilizing your Authority has the potential to make you happier, lighter and more content.
For the story above, I used my Human Design Authority to make an aligned decision. I am a pure Generator and making decisions with my gut is correct. Having people ask me questions is correct.
What is Human Design Authority?
Authority is a tool that tells you what’s right for you. It’s how your body decides “yes”, “no” or “I need more time”.
The real gift of your design is your decision-making authority. Maybe following your own intuition, your own heart and mind, is something that has taken many years to master. Or maybe you are still struggling with knowing what’s right for you. It’s very rare that someone is able to make decisions on their own without influence from others.
Learning how to make decisions that are your own, by design, is key.
There are seven different types of Human Design Authority. We’ve all been conditioned in various ways, but most of us learned early on to do things a certain way based on our cultural values, social norms, or family trauma. When we tune into our Authority, we can learn to make the right choices for ourselves regardless of outside approval or disapproval. Let’s explore each type of Authority together.
How do you find out what your Authority is?
You can find your Authority in the summary section of your Human Design Chart. Write down what yours says. I put an example here, but all the chart summaries look a little different depending on where you pulled your chart. But, they will all say “authority” somewhere in the summary.
Go to this blog to learn about the seven types of Authority.
Learning your Authority (and the Authority of your close family members and friends!) can help you understand yourself and others better. Be gentle with yourself; it takes time to get in tune with the way you receive information about the best decisions for you. The more you learn to listen to your authority, the closer you’ll get to living the life you came here to live.
Power activation with your Authority comes from being present and making decisions from the signals your body gives you.
You won’t be able to “feel” the decision if you are not present – because likely you will be in your head thinking about the past or the future.
When you become present, you can surrender to the way your energy works and tune into your body’s intelligence.
When you are about to make a decision, take a few deep breaths and anchor yourself in presence— and then listen to your body. You can also do things like smell essential oils – really take the moment to smell them – you are becoming present.
How do we embody our Authority?
It’s all about how you feel within your particular Authority – like your gut response or splenic whisper, etcetera. Are you in touch with what your body is saying?
Sometimes it’s just about pausing when making decisions so you can get in the state of presence so you can tune into how you feel. If you have emotional or lunar authority – it’s about waiting for clarity over time — not deciding right then and there because of pressure.
Take time to listen to signals your physical body is sending. Maybe even give them a name. Learn what they feel like and then play around with them so that you can trust them.
If you doubt your instinct, take time to process what you’re feeling. Slow down, take a breath, and move toward the awareness of your emotions or sensations.
Cultivate self-trust.
You won’t feel confident making decisions with your body if you don’t trust yourself. So, this piece is key. The more you make decisions that help take care of your needs and make you feel safe – the more you will trust these decisions.
Some things that can help:
- Dodge those who undermine your self-trust or naysayers. You are the only one who knows what is right for you.
- Maintain positive self-talk. You can actually be a naysayer to yourself if you aren’t careful. It’s way more helpful if your mind is supportive and a cheerleader for your well-being.
- Keep promises to yourself. Things like sticking to boundaries or commitments will increase the trust you have in yourself.
- Bring awareness to what you are thinking and feeling, not just what you are doing.
- Look back and see when you knew you should say no, but said yes anyway. Did you recognize the feeling that told you that? Or when you said yes sincerely and it turned out great?
- Going forward look at this same thing. For a while it doesn’t actually matter what decision you make. What was your initial response/decision based on your Authority? Did you make the decision that matched that? If so, how did it feel to make the decision? If not, how did it feel to make that decision?
- In order to respect your opinion as much as you do others, practice. Make a decision that is in alignment with your desires, but against an outsider’s opinion. What happened right after you made the decision? Did you feel good? Or, maybe a little bit later, did it work out for you…did you have this feeling of “see, it was correct….told you so” kind of feeling?
Why does it matter?
It matters because it is what brings us into alignment with our decisions and ultimately decides our path, one decision at a time.
It takes more energy to live out decisions that are not yours. If you say yes to someone else’s path for example – you may waste a whole lot of time and energy on something that you didn’t even want to do.
It also takes a lot of energy to be indecisive. But indecision is a decision. Basically, when you are indecisive, your body is telling you it’s a “not now”. It means you haven’t decided it’s a “yes” yet.
When you allow outer-influenced decisions to rule (as in they are not coming from your inner body signals – rather outer conditioning):
- You don’t have the energy to do what you love
- You will do things you don’t love to do
- You will be confused by the overwhelm of choices
- Eventually you may become resentful
- You may blame others and fall into a victim mentality
Aligned decisions will feel “right/correct.”
Here’s what aligned decisions can look like in your life:
- Saying ‘yes’ to things you love
- Saying ‘no’ to things that drain you
- Ending up with the right people, in the right places and with the right things for you
Okay, so now what?
It’s time to take this new awareness about embodied decision-making into your real-life and experiment with your personal Authority.
What if I can’t hear my inner voice? Practice helps you trust your inner authority. Self-trust is a huge component of making decisions more quickly and easily in the future.
I want you to really get into feelings in your body. This is the secret sauce – it’s making embodied decisions that are right for you.
You can have fun with decision-making experiments. Do it for things that don’t really matter at first and enjoy the process. And then move on to bigger decisions once you have figured out your body’s signals. Remind yourself that one poor choice doesn’t mean you don’t know what’s best for you. Use it as a learning tool.
Home Play:
- Write down your question. Now imagine you are a friend to the person who wrote it down. What would you advise them to do? Close your eyes, take a breath, and say the answer out loud. If you have a recorder on your phone, maybe even record the answer.
- Practice: Open your refrigerator, pantry, or cupboard & ask yourself what looks yummy to you. Pick up one item at a time and ask yourself, is this delicious? You may feel an answer pop in your head, but really, it’s about feeling the sensation of the answer. Try it on a few things you know you love and a few things you know you don’t and see if you can feel it. You must do it one at a time or you will confuse your body.
- Have someone ask you questions to tune into what you’ve energy for. Have them ask you the question in a yes/no format. Feel your body’s response. If you don’t say ‘heck yes’ right away, then it’s a ‘no’ or ‘not now’. Aligning your decisions to what you really want will keep you lit up to what you really want to do each week so your energy abounds, versus sucking you dry.
- If you like to sit with decisions, next time you have a decision to make: Close your eyes and imagine all the possible outcomes of your decision, one at a time. As you visualize these, notice the sensations in your body. Notice if you feel a sense of expansion (a flush of energy, openness, lightness), or a sense of contraction (tightness, tension, heaviness). A sense of expansion indicates an intuitive ‘yes’, and a sense of contraction indicates an intuitive ‘no’.
The sensations might be super subtle, but they’ll be there. Our bodies always give us the answer – the more you’re used to ignoring the body’s signals, the harder it might be to recognize at first. The more aware you become of the expansive sensations, the more confident you’ll feel that you’re about to make an aligned decision.
Takeaways:
Aligned decisions are what is best for you. Your Human Design Authority can help you learn how to talk to your body. Being present helps you tune into your body signals so you can do more of what you love in your life. It’s time to experiment, try it on, and see how it feels to make decisions in a more aligned way.
What if you didn’t have to struggle?
It’s really as simple as this question: Is this pulling my energy up or down?
- If it pulls it up – let me respond by doing more of it.
- If it pulls it down – let me respond by ditching it.
If we make decisions in our head and not through our personal Authority, no wonder we don’t know who we are or how we got there.
It’s totally normal to be overwhelmed by choices. It’s also totally doable to be aligned to your inner truth.
Don’t wait for clarity to come to you or from outside of you. You’re responsible for your clarity from within.
Do you have any creative ways to tune into your body intelligence?
Ways that help you make intuitive decisions? Please comment below if you do!