What is the Self and the Not-Self

This is actually such an easy concept that a lot of people get hung up on so let me share with you how I teach it.

The true self is when you are acting in accordance with your chart and the not-self is when you are going against it.

For example, if you have an open ajna, you will feel the pressure to pick a side and be certain about something with unwavering and consistent energy. You see, people with an open ajna are really built to be flexible in their perspectives and see things from different points of view. 

And here's the tricky part, if you are around someone with a closed ajna, you are going to absorb that energy temporarily so you might actually feel very certain about something. And the moment you accept that energy as your own and claim certainty that you see things from that specific point of view is the moment that you are operating from your not-self. You are operating from acting as if you have a closed ajna. And again, this can be tricky because it can actually feel like yourself. This is why it's so important to understand your chart so that you can begin to recognize when you are acting from your true self or your not-self.

Someone that knows they have an open ajna can recognize when they are feeling the energy of certainty and recognize that it's not theirs. Then they can say 'This definitely feels certain right now in the moment but I am going to give myself some time to understand this from different perspectives' That way they can acknowledge their current thoughts, while also giving space for their true self to come through.

So the bottom line is that your open centers will be pulled to act like defined centers. And you will also absorb energy from defined centers. The key is understanding how your open centers actually operate and understand when you are operating from your not-self. 

Then of course it takes time to build awareness and practice taking a step back and recognizing where you not acting as your true self.

I have done this many times when I began my experiment. There would be a hot button issue, and I would pick a side and start arguing for that position. Then later I would realize that I actually could see it from the other perspectives as well and it made me really uncomfortable to think that I had just been arguing for something that I no longer could stand by. The perspective shift sometimes happened within minutes or hours or days. Now that I understand this about myself, I refuse to pick a side until I have had plenty of time to experience it from multiple perspectives. And even then, I still rarely pick a side. I mean think about the case of murdering people. It would be really easy to say that I choose the side that murdering people is bad. But then my open ajna begins to question things… But what if it's in self-defense? What if the person has a mental problem? And then I quickly realized that I tried to act as if I had a closed ajna and I was making a statement from might not-self.

I know that was a lot of information, but I hope you can use it for transformation. Transforming yourself to operate from your true self instead of your not-self.

_________

New to Human Design? Click here for a Quick Guide to Human Design for Beginners