What if I don’t relate to a piece of my design? | My rigid PHS & I
NO MENTAL APPROACH | NO RESISTANCE
Note : a more recent text came out of me on PHS and describe better my current views on it while summarizing what’s in this one, click here to go there instead.
There are many things I love about my design, but learning that my Determination/PHS was Alternating Appetite was not good news for me.
You may not know what that means: apparently, when it comes to food (there's more to PHS than this, but that's for another time), I'm designed to eat one single, unseasoned ingredient at a time. Maybe you don't see an issue with this... Me? Well...
Quick food story: I'm French and have been raised to treat food as a gift from the Gods, a very generous and enjoyable one. I spent so much time learning how to combine ingredients in the most pleasurable way. I love spices. I love comfort food and baking. I LOVE so many mixed foods.
I learned in the past few years I don't digest properly gluten or dairy, which I love(d) dearly too. And were already quite annoyed by that before that PHS business. Then my analyst added another layer to this announcing that I don't digest red meat alone (19th gate without the 37-40).
In my family, red meat is eaten twice a day on the regular. One of my favourite meal is called "steak tartare", expertly seasoned raw beef...
Can you imagine now how heartbroken, bitter and pissed my Determination made my not-self Mind?
Yet, I'm not really bothered by it in my Experiment.
I realized I owe it mostly to one precious gift my journey and my design brought me :
I lost any trust I had in a mental approach of being myself.
It just doesn't work for me to mentally decide I will do something, and honestly, it doesn't seem to work for anyone I observe either.
When it comes to living our design, I see so much distress from people who want to force themselves into following their design, so much discouragement, and a strong display of our not-self signature coming up telling us "I don't need that (right now)"...
If that's you, I'd really love you to know that you can trust your body to tell you what she needs. Maybe it's even more important when it comes to our unconscious Body Variables. Please remember that the name "Experiment" means we are meant to verify its validity by ourselves. As long as we don't feel it in our body, our design is just a bunch of concepts and stories.
Frankly, I didn't even think seriously about suddenly switching to Alternating unseasoned single ingredients. I knew instinctively that's pointless, I'd try it for a couple of days, then get really pissed and bitter about it, feel trapped and give up, feeling like shit.
No, thank you.
This is hard enough to follow as it is, I refuse to bully myself, even for the sake of "being myself". That would actually be in complete opposition to me to what Human Design is all about: letting go of outer authorities and minds telling us what to do and finally let our bodies do the driving they’re supposed to do.
My approach to this relies on the questions : what feels physically expansive, natural and/or makes me curious about this? How does my body react to this? (careful here if you have an open Spleen or an Emotional Authority)
On my end, I quickly realized that in some weird ways, I was already alternating, so I did more of those.
Some of my favourite meals include seasoned but single ingredients, we are putting those in priority on our menus and I started to play with my Determination like this.
For mixed foods, I started by eating things that have one single texture (smoothies, soups, purees…) and by separating as much as I could, even if it was just groups of similar foods: I'm still eating my beloved curries, but make sure I eat some meat, then some vegetables, some of the rice noodles, some sauce. I'm a burger lover, I started with alternating the burger, the fries, the sauce, etc…
The idea was to start as simple, enjoyable, and hassle-free as possible.
Many pieces of my design make this lens very natural for me, but I've noticed most of us enjoy their own unique flavour of this approach.
I'm always delighted for them to see people who were stuck in their experiment in that way finally getting out of feeling trapped by their design.
(5/2s love to release that pressure in themselves and others 😻)
Please, remember: no one forces you to do anything according to your design.
Only your authority should have a say here if you truly want to embody your design, not just pretending.
You deserve to enjoy living as yourself.
I'm sure some will cringe at my "unholy" approach to this.
Yes, digesting well is a big part of nourishing our brain and body.
Yes, they need it so we can become more aware and better able to listen to our authority.
Yes, that's not ideal. So what? It’s still way more correct than the way I ate for the past 36 years.
I believe striving for excellence rather than perfection is essential here.
To become who we are fully, we will all need to learn to accept and even embrace where we start.
You’re learning my Dear, please try to do it in a loving way that doesn’t feel like self-imposed hell.
Do you know what happened for me in the past 8 months playing with my PHS in that unconventional way?
Tiny steps can make a whole lot of difference when they add up.
The Mind might be afraid it is not enough to not follow it perfectly. But it is. It really is.
For me, it showed up first through an awareness of how different it is for me to eat even "semi-alternatingly".
Since my Mind isn't busy fighting against it, I can actually observe how easier my digestion is when I alternate more.
I can also feel how disagreeable it is to not alternate at all.
Those "Oh damn, it's really not for me, isn't it?" are just as transformative and important as the "Oh wow, so THAT's why following my Determination is good for me!".
I’ve seen so many people try to implement things from their design forcefully, desperately stuck in their not-self not understanding how come they struggle so much.
In a few months, my eating habits have completely changed. It’s never been easier to digest. My taste buds got this massive efficiency update. It’s easier to focus and to feel my body in general. My body wants more of this goodness constantly, I have nothing to do, to push, to force.
Yet, I haven’t even tried giving up my Morning Vanilla Cappuccino for a second. I bought better ingredients and made it decaf though, as my taste buds and body were reclaiming. 🤣
Many things I would have been heartbroken to stop eating when I discovered my PHS are now anti-climactic and simpler things satisfy my Appetite more everyday. Of course, my Mind is still pissed sometimes, stuck in “why me? why can’t it be easier?” dance. I notice, I listen sometimes I give in, sometimes not. It’s a process, it’s not supposed to be linear. (despite how much our Mind wants it to be)
In case you’re reading and are Consecutive: my partner’s first baby steps after 3 months of angry mental approach for Consecutive eating was first to eat once a week consecutively and only with half of each food so he didn’t feel sad and angry about it. Then he found something he loves to eat consecutively for every lunch. Consecutiveness also doesn’t have to through the whole meal, and can be cut down (1/2 food A, 1/2 B, rinse & repeat).
After 4 months, he could attest to the same ease and how much his body loves it more and more when it was unimaginable 6 months ago. He doesn’t enjoy much homogenized food after 7 months.
