Human design’s signature Love yourself is comforting and also puzzling: Who is the one doing the loving?…
Which self is supposed to love which self?…
From my experience, the only way to meet self-love is by first observing the lack of it. Most of us are familiar with the undertone of self-failure, exposed when we discover human design and shown the not-self themes that have been running us.
Ah… So that’s what it is, we think to ourselves. All those years when nothing was ever enough or good enough, both for ourselves and for others. The endless lists of self-improvements that required action with resolve. That nagging sense of yearning for something different under time pressure, but always feeling ‘off’…
This is the hallmark of not-self conditioning – a life that’s built on the foundations of what we are not. It’s no wonder we are capable of self-hating, and struggling with similar emotions towards others who embitter or frustrate us
So we learn about what’s reliable in our nature and how we are designed to operate, which helps. We are initiated into our type's strategy and authority, which points us in the direction of self-alignment. Before long, a new self emerges – one that we begin to recognise, which is a relief.
But that’s when the experience of self-love separates from the mind and its imaginings.
Love for 'normal' people is one that's expressed through giving and self-sacrifice, if necessary. It's about thinking of the other first, and setting aside our own needs. It's about 'showing up' and being there for others no matter what.
The human design path is based on body intelligence, which is a selfishly healthy mechanism. The body will always save its life-force for its own purpose and survival, and if supported – it will differentiate and thrive.
It means practically that ‘loving’ others is not a reliable and fixed attitude as expected. There can be friendly care and support when it feels right, and sometimes the body’s authority will not be moved to interact.
We might be confronted with moral questions such as: Could I live with myself if I say no and appear to be selfish, even if it is my truth?
Indeed – can you live as your Self?...
Fifteen years into my journey of actively waiting for the right invitations and the right people to connect with [and lots of tension and guilt], I’m not sure ‘I’ like what I am becoming. I can't say that I am in love with my emerging self, although I love my life. And I love observing the life playing itself without ‘me’.
Nowadays, ‘I’ can appear to be selfish and aloof to people who’ve known me a long time, when I surrender to my emotional process – or when I claim my time. With my open G centre, the centre of identity, direction and love, I don’t have a reliable self.
My experience and what comes out of me depends on where I am and with whom. That's the beauty of mechanics. Stuff just happens and we are helpless.
So where is the love then?… And if ‘I’ cannot love myself, who's in charge of my self-loving?
Perhaps it’s not for the personality to do the loving, or for our minds to calculate who is more amiable - past or present self, not to mention the increasingly accentric differentiated self as it moves through the transformation steps.
Self-love happens mechanically and existentially when we are aware enough and not compromising our nature and its authority. When we are in touch with our truth inside and honoring it, even if we can't understand it. When we see that we are unique forms.
And the magic is that we can communicate with others beyond words and deeds - This is me. Go ahead, Love yourself too.