The capitalist myth that your Human Design type has the power to dismantle

How does Human Design help us topple capitalism?

Learning about your Human Design type can be immensely liberating.

Human Design is a system that helps you understand how your energy naturally flows, and this knowledge alone can help you recognize the ways in which you’ve been socialized to force, misuse, overexert, or stifle your energy over the course of your life.

It can also lead you to recognize how you’ve been taught to guilt-trip or shame yourself for not having enough energy, or the “right kind” of energy (consistent, productive, useful, socially acceptable, materially beneficial).

We live under a capitalist overculture that tells us that our life force should be directed towards the accumulation of more and more capital.

It socializes us to strive to be the perfect, impossible worker: able to work relentlessly, consistently, without breaks for sickness, grief, mental health, or family obligations; happy to glorify grind culture, constant burnout, and denial of self-care; innovative only insofar as it provides a financial benefit and an edge on the competition, without any of the pesky progressive thinking that might interfere with the power of the white male status quo; eager and ready to subsume, appropriate, and commodify everything in its path, turning political movements into PR opportunities and protest slogans into new products.

We are essentially asked to be a Human Design type that simply doesn’t exist.

The ideal capitalist worker initiates, innovates, and prizes efficiency like a Manifestor, works consistent long hours and implements detail work like a Generator, and multi-tasks powerfully like a Manifesting Generator.

These demands are utterly unattainable, and damaging to chase after. When we’re inevitably unable to meet them, we end up burnt out, feeling trapped and meaningless, chastising ourselves for not being “good enough.”

Deeply understanding and unapologetically embodying your unique human design type can help free you of the undeserved guilt and shame that these impossible demands carry.

Each HD type is uniquely suited to dismantle one of the core damaging tenets of capitalist guilt. Everyone, of course, has the power to debunk every single one of these, but here I will point you towards the tenet that you have the unique power to topple by simply being authentically you.

Here is the myth you’ll bust, according to your Human Design type:

PROJECTORS, you can bust this myth: “Your worth as a human is tied to your productivity.”

As a Projector, you may carry a deep wound around productivity and self-worth.

Before learning about your human design type, you might’ve thought of yourself as someone who was incredibly productive and able to output impressive amounts of energy. You might’ve read about your HD type and thought, “Me? A ‘non-energy type’? Are you kidding?! I get more shit done than anyone.”

This is because, as a Projector, you have an undefined Sacral center. And this means that, by design, you naturally take in and amplify the incredibly powerful Sacral energy of Generators and Manifesting Generators. And when you are running on this amplified energy, you can get more done than anyone on the planet.

You are also equipped with the Projector ability to see deeply into other types and understand how they tick. Because of this, you can be good at imitating how other types operate—for awhile, until you burn out.

Projectors are excellent at seeing the potential of others, and because of this, they can often hold themselves to high standards when it comes to their own potential.

They see the energetic output of the majority of humanity—Generators and Manifesting Generators—and they are socialized to believe that they should match that pace.

On top of that, as a Projector, you deeply desire (and deserve) recognition. And in a capitalist society, we are taught to receive recognition through very specific channels, and these channels usually involve expending endless amounts of energy chasing somebody else’s standards.

You are here to cut through all of that bullshit.

Embracing your unique design as a Projector allows you to understand that you are not meant to expend huge amounts of energy like a Sacral type. Doing so means that you are running on someone else’s fuel, setting yourself up for burnout.

And, more than that, you are not meant to chase after someone else’s definition of success.

Your worth is not inherently tied to how much energy you expend, how much you get done, or how much you produce. You are inherently worthy, just as you are. And you are uniquely equipped to contribute to the world through pathways that don’t involve quantifiable, standard, 40-hour work weeks: you are meant to contribute through your potent insight and perspective.

A Projector knows that there is no true glory in bragging that you stayed up all night at the office, or that you haven’t taken a sick day in five years.

You are here to show us that quality can matter more than quantity, that ease does not equate to laziness, and that we are all worthy of love, regardless of what we produce.

GENERATORS, you can bust this myth: “It's whiny and entitled to say that you want a job you actually like.”

If you're a Generator who’s already begun to learn about your human design, you’ve likely read things that tell you that Generators are the “worker bees of society.” The white dude who originally channeled the human design system in the 80’s even referred to Generators at times as “the perfect slaves.” (AUGH.)

Needless to say, that is problematic at best, and horrifying at worst. Reading these these descriptions without going a bit deeper into your type can initially feel disempowering.

As a Generator, yes, you are great at working. You have your Sacral center defined, meaning that you have consistent access to an incredibly potent source of life-force energy. You are meant to spend your days expending your energy so that you can fall into bed at the end of the day, all spent and ready for sleep.

But what these HD texts are trying to convey is that even though you can be the perfect “worker bee,” you are not meant to work at something you don’t enjoy.

As a Sacral being, you are unique in a few different ways. For one thing, Generators and Manifesting Generators (the other Sacral type) are the only people who are primarily meant to understand themselves during this lifetime. (Meanwhile, Projectors are designed to understand the other, Reflectors are meant to understand the Collective, and Manifestors are meant to understand their impact.) Moreover, since you are equipped with a defined Sacral center, you have the ability to detect which endeavors truly light you up and which don’t. And as a Sacral type, you’re meant to expend your energy doing work you love.

You know that it is not, in fact, whiny and entitled to desire an outlet for your energy that you are truly passionate about. This doesn’t even need to take the form of a full-time job—it could be a hobby, a creative outlet, a side hustle, or the joy of raising a family.

In the past decade or so, as Millennials clashed with Baby Boomers in the workplace, one of the main gripes that was cast upon Millennials was a disdain for their “entitled attitudes.” Many times, this was the reaction to a Millennial desire to work at a job that was actually fulfilling.

As a Generator, you have the ability to cast off outdated, passed-down perspectives like “I hated my job and I still worked there for 40 years, so suck it up,” replacing these perspectives with more empowering ones like, “I deserve to pour my energy into something that genuinely lights me up.”

A Generator doing what they love is a magnetic and inspiring force to behold!

MANIFESTORS, you can bust this myth: “You should be able to replicate your brilliance, over and over again, indefinitely.”

As a Manifestor, you are designed to work in bursts of energy. You are the only human design type that is able to initiate and take action on your ideas without relying on any outside impetus. You are brilliant when it comes to getting the ball rolling, questioning and shaking up the way things have always been done, and blazing a new trail.

You value efficiency, and you are able to get the same amount of work done in just a few hours that other people might spend a whole day on.

You do best when you are able to brainstorm and initiate new ideas and leave the implementation up to others (likely Generators), giving yourself time to rest and recharge before your next burst of energy. Others may try to shame you for being “lazy” when you don’t have the desire or energy to stick around for the implementation, but you lack a defined Sacral center and aren’t built to sustain long hours of work.

You may end up working for a company that sees how efficient you are when you’re in the midst of a Manifestor whirlwind of productivity, and they might try to get you to replicate that highly productive state over and over again. They may express disappointment or guilt-trip you if you’re not able to do so.

But keep in mind that you’re best designed for ebbs and flows of energy, as well as fresh horizons. If you feel locked into a situation that demands consistent, standardized output, one that doesn’t allow you downtime, and one that requires you to do the same thing day in and day out, you might find yourself feeling angry at your circumstances. That means it’s time to change things up.

When you’re being your unapologetic Manifestor self, you are someone who is bold, self-sufficient, and unafraid to follow your own path. You may even invent a new path, if your ideal one doesn’t exist yet. You’re a living example of someone who can be incredibly powerful while still honoring your need for rest. And you show the world that you are not destined to live a life adhering to the cookie-cutter standards of others. You can send of burst of brilliance into a room (an energetic mic-drop, if you will) and move on to whatever interests you next.

REFLECTORS, you can bust this myth: “If you don't have a clear path in life, there's something wrong with you.”

From the moment we enter the school system, we’re asked to envision what we want to “be” when we grow up.

In a capitalist society, we’re taught that our identities are inextricably bound up with how we earn money.

But what about little Reflector kids, with their undefined Identity Centers, and their fluid approach to identity and life direction?

As a Reflector, you have no centers defined in your chart. You are incredibly unique in this way—you are among only 1% of the population who has no centers defined. Because of this, you are not designed to have a consistent, fixed approach to the flow of your energy.

And while all of your centers are left open, the one that really gets to the core of your experience as a Reflector is your open Identity Center.

Those with an open Identity Center do not have a fixed path in life. This does not mean that you are aimless or lost. It means that you are meant to experience many different directions and identities over the course of your existence.

With your undefined Identity Center, you also have the unique ability to reflect back the core of someone else’s being. This can make you highly empathetic since it can allow you to step into the shoes of another person.

You are here to become wise about the themes of this center—namely the themes of identity, direction, and love. You can serve as an example to others that you can wander without being lost, that experiencing lots of different directions and identities can make for an incredibly rich human experience, and that the expectations we’re socialized with (decide on a career path, choose a relevant major, go to college, get a job in the same field you got a degree in, work in that same field all your life until retirement) can be restrictive and stifling, and that another way is always possible.

MANIFESTING GENERATORS, you can bust this myth: “It doesn't matter if you hate what you're doing; if you don't stick things out, you're a quitter.”

We are socialized to believe that most jobs in life are inherently unsatisfying and frustrating. We are expected to keep ourselves going during the workweek with coffee in the mornings, office snacks during the day, maybe a drink after work, before checking out on the weekends. Work is for getting a paycheck, and the weekends are for living your life.

The sad fact is that a lot of jobs are indeed unsatisfying, but we’re sold the idea that that’s just the way it always has been, and therefore that’s the way it always will be.

We do what we can to exist under capitalism, and for many of us, that means working at jobs we hate.

As a Manifesting Generator, you are uniquely designed to pivot and change things up when something isn’t working. You’re the HD type that is best equipped to do so.

Like your fellow Sacral beings, the Generators, you are designed to pour your immense energy into things that truly light you up. And when you feel that excitement and passion wane, that is a strong signal to you to reevaluate and see if you can change course.

When you’re embodying your uniqueness, you are able to show others that we don’t always have to stay stagnant in a stifling environment—whether that’s a work situation, or a relationship or living situation. Of course, not all of us are afforded the same privileges and safeties when it comes to our ability to shake things up and change our circumstances, but as an MG, you can at least serve as an example to the world that you don’t have to gaslight yourself into being happy with an unsatisfying status quo. You can show others what it looks like to own your right to a fulfilling life, and to do all that you can to find your way towards it.‍