Episode 441:

Hello, and welcome to Unshakeable with Human Design, everybody. I’m your host, Nicole Laino, and. And I wanted to take kind of, like, a broader view today on human design. I know we’re starting the year. We have some really cool episodes coming up for you, but I wanted to take kind of a broader view, kind of take a step back, chunk up a bit, if you will, to looking at the journey of human design. So my goal with this episode is that no matter what stage you are in during, you know, your human design journey, whether you’re just finding it or you’ve been doing this for a while, I think that this will give some insight into what you’re experiencing, what you can expect to experience, and, you know, what this really looks like. 

I’m one of those people that if I can see the whole process. I just joined a program, and I had an onboarding call with the, you know, program director, and I was saying to her, I’m like, what is the thing that’s gonna give me, like, the bird’s eye view of everything so that I know what the whole picture is and then I can understand the pieces more? Like, that’s just how I am. And that’s kind of what this episode is. It’s like, let me talk to you about and show you the whole human design journey. Cause I’ll say this, the biggest lesson that I have learned with human design is just the benefit of hindsight. Having been through all of this, that’s, like, the most valuable thing to me is sitting here now, going into my sixth year with it. 

And I’m sure in two years, when I’m going into my eighth year with it, I will have even more of this. But it is the lived experience of being a practitioner of this, being a coach of this, where I have had the benefit and privilege of observing thousands of people at this point. I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of readings. I have had hundreds of people in business by design. And then I also run sharks for, like, every person that I know. And I’m always looking at people through the lens of their design. And I want to talk to you about. Today, we’re going to talk about the four stages of evolution and expansion with human design. And each of these four stages, like the fact that we can. There’s different things, there’s different benefits to each one. 

And what I really want to focus on is the fact that, like, I know that a lot of people, particularly in the beginning, and there’s a lot of noise out there’s a lot of Instagram posts, there’s a lot of things out there, people selling you things that are like, this is the secret. And unfortunately, and I use that language too because, well, sadly, if we don’t say it that way, it doesn’t stop the scroll. We have to kind of have this sort of very exciting, hooky language to get people to pay attention. What I try to do though, to remain integrity, is give the full picture of the whole story. Once you are listening or once you are paying attention and reading what I wrote or listening to what I have to say, I don’t sugarcoat things and I don’t. 

And I really work hard to not make it feel like human design is a magic pill. I do think it’s pretty darn magical. I do think that it is the greatest tool for self exploration. And if you’re an entrepreneur or in the achievement business, where you are looking to grow as a human being, and if your business is connected to your personal growth like entrepreneurship is, then I really don’t think that there is a more indispensable tool in your toolbox for how you do that than human design. But I want to go through the four stages so you understand and maybe you can identify where you are at this point. Where are you, what stage are you in? 

And then I can really start to clue you into what you can expect at those stages and the different work and the different results there are at each stage, because human design is magical, it is indispensable. But the reality is, like with all things, where we want something from it, we want the goods, is it takes work and results deepen with time and consistency. Just like with anything else in life, there are very few things that have instant gratification that also have lasting results. Instant gratification can happen, but then it’s sometimes a fleeting experience. This is a lasting experience. This is a lasting effect, but it takes time to deepen and get. 

When somebody like me who’s going into their sixth year with this system is talking about my results and my experience with it, if you are just starting, it will probably be different for you. Now, I’ll say there’s caveats here. The caveat is that if you have done Lots of personal development work. If you are a somatic healer, if you are an energetic coach, if you’ve done a lot of really deep personal development work on yourself, then these stages can move a lot faster. Why? Well, you’re more self aware and you’ve done deeper work to go. But beyond just awareness, where you have worked through some of your trauma, where you don’t have deep wounds that are keeping you stuck in not self behavior and in not self patterns, you’ve worked through those patterns. 

So human design can come in, tune you into some very specific things about yourself, and you can actually make those changes in the way that human design is usually explained, which is from an awareness perspective. You know what I mean by that is someone will say something like, you have an open ego. Don’t prove yourself. You don’t have to prove your worth to anyone. Well, that’s wonderful. If you’ve done the deeper trauma work on what made you feel unworthy in the first place and excavated all of that stuff, then hearing that, you can stop doing it maybe a little bit easier, you can be aware of what the conditioning is and go, oh, I get that now. That took like that last layer of responsibility off of me and now I can let it go. 

But most people haven’t done that, at least not in my experience. They come into this work and there’s always some level deeper that’s keeping them sort of stuck in the conditioned pattern. So the headline for all of this is give yourself grace and give yourself some time. And I’m going to take you through these four stages now. And each of the four stages I’m going to let you know, like kind of what are the hallmarks of this stage? What does it look like? What will you be experiencing? What’s kind of the thought process? What I see is what keeps people stuck in these stages and then how that relates to the results that we’re getting in our life and our business. 

Okay, so the first thing that I want to say before I start with the stages is that inherently when we’re talking about energetics in business, and we’re talking about energetics in life and attracting what we want and being able to receive and all of these things that human design promises us. Because human design tells us how to be in an expanded state of our energetic force, right? So our aura is doing work for us. Our aura is attracting, our aura is creating for us. It’s allowing things in. Well, then we have to be in a state of allowing. And human design gives us a framework and a process for getting into a state, our version of that state of allowing of expanded energy. But when we are having difficulty and we are forcing, then we are in a state of contraction. 

That’s when we feel like we’re doing all the things, but nothing is working. We’ve tried all the strategies, we’ve masculine energy ed our way through our lives. We’ve done all of the work, but it’s just not working. And that’s where human design can come in. And when we’re in a contracted state like that, we need to get into a state of expansion. And human design can really help with that because it actually gives us a framework to tell us what is our state of expansion. Because what worked for somebody else is clearly not working for me. So what do I do? How do I get it to work? It’s a personalized approach. So I want you to understand this concept of contracted energy. That’s when things feel hard. That’s when it feels like we have to grind for every win that we get. 

It’s all hard. And the minute we stop grinding, the winning stops. And then expanded is really being able to fully step into next levels. Like, it just feels easy or it might feel scary still, because we’re still humans. And it’s scary doing new things, but it doesn’t feel hard, it doesn’t feel restrictive. That resistance isn’t there as much because you’re in an expanded state. You’re in a state of allowing. This is where the good things start happening without you having to work so hard. This is when everybody talks about magnetism. This is the state that we’re in. Right? So human design tells us how to your not self theme tells you when you are contracted. Your signature tells you when you are expanded. Right? 

The simple, like, very quick and dirty way of explaining how human design gets us into a state of expansion and lets us know when we are in a state of contraction and helps us get out of it. Okay, now the first stage of this process, the first stage where most people enter into it at, is a state of obsession. And the state of obsession, or the. The stage of obsession is really hallmarked by. And I see this all the time, people come in and they’re looking for the answers. This is where you have a collection of human design carousels from Instagram saved in your profile. And you go in there and you’re looking for the secret, the formula, the thing. And there are formulas and there are things, but you are really looking hard for answer. 

You’re looking in the chart, you Have a problem. You look for the chart, you’re like, oh, I get this a lot with people in my programs too. Like when they first join, they’ll be asking a lot of questions. What? In my charts I’m having this problem. What does my chart say about that? And I’m always cautious with that because the chart can give us clues, but it doesn’t. It just the nature of that perspective. I really try to work people out of in a gentle way and just kind of back them off of like looking at it like, I’ve got a problem. Let me go to my little answer book. It’s while you can find insight in the chart, answers are usually just because of the by virtue of the way that we’re approaching that. 

The answers don’t come because it’s this like obsession about it. Like, I gotta go to my chart and find out what it is. Oh my God. And the other hallmark of this is that people are usually treating the chart like good fortune or bad fortune. You know, like examples of this are like, I have gate one, but I don’t have gate eight. I’m missing it. So I’ll never be able to express myself consistently. I have an undefined ego, so I’ll never be successful. I am a pure generator, so. And I work alone, so I’ll never be a successful entrepreneur. This is that feeling of like, these are definitive things. And I understand that because I know if you listen to Ra and the way that he talked, you know, he’s just like, it’s not your way. 

Like that’s just not going to be how it is for you. And I think that there’s more nuance to that because it isn’t about you can’t have those things. It’s just you need to release and relax into how self expression will come to you. It probably going to come to you in a different way than through that portal if you have the one and not the eight. But really what I want to point out here is that way of thinking. It’s not that those things are wrong or that they’re right. It’s the way that people think about them. Like I looked to the chart for answer and I didn’t like the one that I got. Oh no, that means X about me. And that’s not what this is about. This is about acceptance and self love. 

Human design should help you love the shit out of yourself. I always say that like that is my goal with every single person. Because the more you love yourself truly for who you are, not who you were supposed to be according to somebody else’s design plan or their list of good and bad, but you for who you are. So this stage, this first stage of obsession, this is the biggest state of contraction that I see for people. This is being in the energy of force and contraction. And this stage, the quicker for me as a. As a human design coach, the quicker I can get people out of this stage, the better to me. Like, that is my goal. It’s like, I gotta get them out of this way. They have to go through it for the most part. 

People have to go through, like, that obsessively, kind of like taking information and reading everything about their design and, like, devouring it. You know, you kind of have to gorge yourself a little bit and get a tummy ache, and then you’re forced to lay on the couch and chill out. Like, the quicker I can get you to lay on the couch and chill out, the better, because then it can get you to the truly productive stages that are available to you here if you keep going. Right? So that’s the first stage, that obsessive phase that leads to this state of force and contraction in your energy. Because you are in such a state of lack of in this stage now you can be really looking into this stuff and be curious, and we’ll get to that. 

That’s not usually what I see from these people. They’re looking for answers, not insight. They’re like, what does it say? So I can fix it. They’re gonna fix it. Oh, no, this says I can’t fix it. That means X about me. The quicker I can shift you from there, the faster we’ll move in a direction that’s actually really productive. Okay, that’s the first stage. The second stage, curious obsession. So now you’re still a little bit obsessed. You were still, like, maybe really taking information. Especially my fellow one lines. We just love to research and dive in, and that is our way. So that’s not wrong. I’ll never tell somebody. Stop reading. It’s how you’re reading. 

So now they’ve kind of let go a little bit of finding all the answers in the chart, and maybe they’re feeling a little bummed that they didn’t get all of the answers that they thought that they would get. But now they’re starting to, like, they’re just getting curious. They’re starting to just have some fun with it instead of it being so like, ugh, I gotta get. Tell me who I am. Tell me how I fix this. Tell me how I attract all the people with money. Like, when we get over that, then you could start to actually have fun with this and start to go like. And where it becomes this beautiful exploration of yourself and there’s just a lighter touch. And don’t ever underestimate the power of a lighter touch and things like this. 

So it might feel a little bit like you’re losing interest in human design at this stage, because you’re not as, like, you know, rabidly devouring information, but usually it’s just this becoming a little bit more of a healthy obsession. Right. I hope you’re still obsessed at this stage, but I hope it’s like becoming a healthy sort of obsession. Now. This is the point where deconditioning really is the make or break it point here. Whether you make it from stage two to stage three, you know, do you stop at stage two and kind of just get stuck there, or do you do the deconditioning work and that propels you into stage three? Okay. Because this is where you start to really see your patterns. This is where you start to get little glimpses of how your design is working at work. 

You’re starting to find your way. You’re playing with strategy and authority. You’re really starting to get it. You’re not questioning yourself all the time. You’re not saying like, oh, well, I. I was in response, but now I don’t want to do it. So what does that mean? And you’re curious about that now. Now you’re like, so I really felt like I was doing it, but I noticed like, it’s been like five or six times and like, just the questions have more of a contemplative vibe than a. And a curious vibe. Then like, tell me what I did wrong so I can fix it now. Just that lack energy is less, that contraction is less. So you start to really get those glimpses. But it’s the deconditioning that allows you to do that. The more conditioned you are, the more in lack energy you are. 

And that usually comes from some sort of trauma that is still in your energy and in your body that you need to release, because that’s what’s creating this, that your nervous system is in fight or flight. And you thought that human design would fix it at the first stage. So you’re still in fight flight. And you’re just like, how am I going to get out of this? And now if you’re doing some deconditioning work, at least the way that I teach with tapping and breath work and other nervous system regulation tools and visualizations and the things that we do inside business by design. When you are doing that work, then your energy naturally starts to expand, which makes you less obsessive about this. 

Your mind has already chewed on a lot of this food and it’s actually starting to digest some of what it ate in the first stage. And now it’s like, oh, now I can get curious. And you have some experience behind you with it. It’s not just the information you’re in response to now. Now you’re looking at your own experience and starting to connect those dots a little bit, right? This is where people start to notice you and respond to you differently. And you start to get little glimpses of what’s possible now, the third stage. So you, if you’ve done some deconditioning and you continue with it, you get to advance onto the third stage, which is the curious stage. The curious stage is where you’re gaining insight from the chart and your life. 

You are really starting to see how your chart is working out in the world all the time. You are starting to connect those dots and you are opening to breakthroughs on a regular basis. Business connections of between your chart and your offers and the way that you structure things and the way that your messaging works with your, what I call the authority matrix, but with the rest of your design as well. You start to see like, oh, I see how my Mercury gate is showing up. Oh, I see how this is. I’m using it now in a different way. But you don’t have to try to. You don’t have to try to. That’s why people in business, by design, they get these business readings with me and they go back and they listen to them over and over again. 

And at every stage, you know, months later, they’re listening to it. It’s like they’re getting all of these new breakthroughs from it because they are different now. They’re different six months from the time I did the reading. They don’t need me to do the reading again. They can listen to the same reading. They’re just going to react to it, respond to it, and hear different things in it now because they have changed. They have an experience to hold it up with, hold it up against. So this is a stage of where you really start to feel some expansion. And this is where you’re creating from instinct, not from force. You start attracting the right people. 

People were responding to you differently in the last stage, but now you’re really up leveling the People that are coming to you, that are responding to you because they’re responding to your energy, and you are increasing your vibration. You are expanding your frequency in this whole process. But we take it for granted. We keep looking for the tangible thing, how this gate is showing up here and trying to make a logical, strategic connection between them. But the truth is this is energetic. And while there might be some strategy behind it, there often is. But I teach business strategy for the strategies a lot of the time because that’s what’s really required. But now you’re different, so those strategies start working differently for you. And that’s what’s happening in this stage. Real growth starts coming. 

This is when people are coming and be like, I feel like a different person. Oh, my God, I can’t believe that this is all happening now. The fourth stage. The fourth stage, you know, never ends. We stay here. We’re, you know, hopefully like, you get to this stage. But the fourth stage, the biggest question mark is whether people make it from stage two to stage three. They do the deconditioning work. If they don’t do the deconditioning work, you will stall at stage two. Stage three, if you just keep going, stage four is yours. You keep deconditioning. You’re kind of in a routine with it now. It’s like you’re on the maintenance plan. And stage four is where you become truly contemplative. This is where you are in an expanded state of your energy. You know the difference moment to moment. 

You know when you slip into misalignment and you know how to get back, you know what all of that feels like. If you get taken on a ride down the wrong path, you realize very quickly that you are on it and you know exactly how to force correct get yourself back to where you belong. There is a level of self mastery here that happens at the contemplative space. It’s a beautiful thing to see. This is where you get clarity in every moment. You are allowing versus forcing. You are rolling with your design, moment to moment. And you’re in what I call. I’ve got this energy. This is where, you know, I’ll use myself as an example for right now. We are changing a lot of things in our business in 2026. We have a lot of new things that are happening. 

We are changing up the way that we do things just because the market is changing and the industry is changing. So. So we are changing a lot of things. Even when I get worked up or a little overwhelmed thinking about all of the changes and the work that needs to be done. I can come back to a truly grounded energy where I’m just like, I’ve got this. And I’m not just saying that to myself. That is a state that I’m in. I’m in an. I’ve got this state. And I’m not pushing and I’m not hustling. There are just times where it’s like I ride the wave of when I’m on with my energy and I know how to truly surrender to the moments where I’m not on and I know what to do in all of them. 

So that I get the most out of myself at every stage. Doesn’t mean I’m perfect, doesn’t mean that I don’t have bad days. I do, but that bad day doesn’t really last more than a bad day. I am able to rebound so quickly in a truly natural and genuine way. Not a, okay, well, yesterday was bad, so I gotta make today good. I don’t force. And that’s an indispensable comfort to have because every day counts. And it isn’t about making every day, hustling every day, but it’s about making every day as good as it can be. And we can’t do that if we are not as good as we can be. If you’re fighting yourself, you’ll drain your energy. And if you’re draining your energy, you’re going to find that it’s so much harder to have true consistency in this business. 

This big misconception about what consistency is. Consistency in entrepreneurship is not showing up every day and working your hardest. Consistency is about creating consistency in your energy. You have goals that you meet, but every day is not the same set of goals. You don’t have the same standard for every single day. The standard is, I do my best, I don’t force myself to push, I don’t force myself to perform. And that’s where the magic happens, because that’s where your business feels actually sustainable. When you’re forcing yourself and you’re pushing, you’re wondering all the time, can I do this? And if you’re wondering if you can do this, part of you doesn’t believe you can. And that is seeping into everything that you do. That doubt, that is lack, that’s contraction. It’ll make everything harder. So I hope you loved this episode if you did. 

We are actually teaching. I am teaching a masterclass, a workshop. This is a actual paid workshop. This is a really in depth thing that we are doing on Recalibrating your G Center. This is all about shifting your identity for 2026 or for whenever you do this course. If you want to do this later, you can. It’s not exclusively to January, but it feels like a really good time to do this, that to shift your identity. Because if your identity doesn’t match the goals that you have for yourself, you will find that you always are having trouble reaching them. And the G Center is this sort of, I guess, unspoken piece of this puzzle that most people don’t know about or most people aren’t teaching. So I’m doing this, I’m doing. 

It’s a two day session if you do the VIP with us, where we’re going to go deeper into role gates and some more advanced things on the human design side and the integration side of this. But it is a paid workshop because this is like this is me teaching. This is a class with me. So if you want to be involved in that, all you have to do is go to nicolelaino.com/identity or DM me the word identity on Instagram, I’m @nicolelainoofficial. Or if you want to know about growing your business with human design, you want to know more about that, we have a secret podcast. We’ll link that up in the show notes for you as well. DM me secret podcast on Instagram at the same obviously same profile. DM me a secret podcast there. We’ll send you the link for that as well. 

To sign up for the G Center: Identity Upgrade Workshop DM Nicole “GCenter” on Instagram athttps://www.instagram.com/nicolelainoofficial or go to Nicolelaino.com/gcenter

To download the Secret Podcast on how to Build & Scale Your Business with Human Design click here: nicolelaino.com/secretpodcast 

All right, have a wonderful rest of your day, everybody. Kick it in the pants. I hope I see you next time here. Remember, in order to have an unshakable business, you must first become an unshakable human. So thanks for letting us help you become unshakable with human design. We’ll see you next time.