Nicole Laino (00:30)
Hello and welcome to Unshakable with Human Design. I’m your host, Nicole Laino and it’s just you and me today. And today we are going to walk through how do you actually read a human design chart. Now the reason that I’m doing this and I’m recording this episode is because so many people come to me no matter what stage they’re at in their human design journey and they don’t totally get it. Or

They don’t get it the way that I explain it. And when I start going through the chart with them, some people having done this for years, where they’re like, I’ve never heard that before. I do readings for people all the time, where when they sit down with me, they tell me that they have been experimenting with their human design for years, that they’ve been studying it and they have been using it. And yet still when I take them through this, because I take everybody at the start of my readings, I give them like this

Quick run through of the chart. And I’m gonna extend that a bit here to make it even more thorough. But they’re always saying to me, I’ve never heard it explained that way before. my god, that makes so much sense. Wow, that makes so many other things make sense the way that you just explain that. Okay, so that’s what I’m gonna take you through here. Not just the chart, but what is important for you to pay attention to, whether you’re at the beginning of your journey or you are further along in your journey, where should you put your attention?

And I’ll be sharing my own experience because we’re gonna take you through my chart. as an example. So if you’re listening to this on the podcast, if you are on Apple Podcasts or Spotify then you may wanna head on over to YouTube because I’m actually doing a visual for this episode where I will have a chart up as I’m talking and I’m gonna walk you through it. You will still get plenty of value out of this episode if you are just listening to the audio.

However, if you want to see what I’m talking about and you want to see me break it down and pointing to the actual elements on the chart, then feel free to hop on over to our YouTube station and watch with us over there. Okay? Now, before we get started, just to let you know, we have a human design authority lab. If you want to know how to embody your human design, and this makes you interested and you’re curious about it.

Then this is a place where you can start walking your journey with us, with me by your side, and all of the other people who are on that same embodiment journey with their human design. If you’re interested in that, just DM me lab on Instagram. I’m at Nicole Lano Official, or go down to the show notes and you can click the link there and it’ll take you to the page that has all the information on it. It’s Nicole Lano.com forward slash lab. Okay, so let’s get started with this, okay? So here we are, we have the human design chart.

What’s important to look at when you look at this? Because I think a lot of people they run their chart for the first time and they’re often very confused. If you’re anything like me, you’re very confused because I was. I looked at it and I was like, what is this? And immediately what I thought was like, I don’t have time to learn all of this. This seems really involved. And it is like learning another language. And it isn’t just about these parts. It’s not just about these pieces. We’re gonna take you through the pieces, but ultimately what we are trying to do is to see.

What is happening underneath all of these elements of the chart so that we get a real story of somebody’s life, of how they operate correctly and incorrectly in their life? How do we know? That’s the value of human design. What human design is teaching you to do is understand what your path is and to feel that in your body, and to understand what your path is not, and to be able to feel that in your body. And it tells you what is the area of your wisdom.

Not the area of mine. That’s where a lot of personal development stuff falls short, is that people are giving you their process, not necessarily your process. And this is my little line that I say all the time: there is no the way, there’s only your way. And a lot of people are selling you books and courses and other events and tools that are focusing on their way, not on your way.

And human design gives you back your way. But you do have to understand a little bit about what are we looking at when we look at this chart? What do we see here? And what are we seeing underneath it all? Okay? So first I want to orient you with a chart. There’s always two sides to the chart. You’ll see a column on the example that I’m using here on the screen. There’s a column on the right that is black, and there is a column over here on the left that is red.

Both columns contain glyphs, which are showing the astrological element that they are sitting in, or the astrological planet or placement of it. So up here at the very top right of the corner in black, we have the sun glyph. So that is the sun, and it’s on the right side of the chart. And the right side is associated with your birthday. It is the day and time that you were born.

We take a snapshot in the sky and we say where were all the planets, where were all of these celestial bodies at the moment you were born when you took your first breath. That is the imprint that was left on you at the time you were born. What was in the sky is leaving an imprint on you forever and ever. That is what we are working with here. It’s the same concept that we get with an astrological natal chart. So what we do here is we have the sun, the earth.

The nodes of the moon, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and then Pluto. So we go in order all the way out from the closest to the Sun, to the Sun, all the way out to Pluto. That is what we are doing, with the except you know, a few exceptions in here. We have the nodes of the moon kind of towards the top up here. Now, the right side of the chart, or on the one that I have the example of, it’s in black.

The black side of the chart is what is associated with your personality, what your mind identifies with. These are the pieces that are gonna feel probably more like you to your conscious mind. It’s the stuff we are conscious of. So when we’re looking at this side, we’re saying like a lot of times that stuff will feel a lot like us. So when I’m doing a reading for someone and I’m explaining the conscious side of their chart and I’m rattling off, well, you have this gate over here and it means this. A lot of times they’re nodding along with me.

As I’m explaining these aspects. Okay? And then on the left side, the left column in this example, the red aspects here, we do the exact same thing. We’re taking another snapshot of the sky and saying where were all of these celestial bodies, 88 degrees retrograde of the sun from the time of birth, which roughly translates to 88 days. So that’s where we get the design date.

For a particular person. So if you look at your chart and there’s birth date, and then you’ll see there’s another date underneath it that says design date. The design date is this date that we’re talking about. And what we’re getting here, the design date is what we call the body. That is what the placements on the left represent. So we have the placements on the right that are the personality, the ones that we identify with. Now we have this other side that’s the unconscious side, or

what we refer to as the body or the vehicle. So think about this. The way that I the way that I think about this is the mind feels like it can control the personality side. But the unconscious side, the mind doesn’t know it exists. No idea. And it it’s it’s almost like if you were, if you thought about when you got in your car every day and

Imagine you felt like you needed to explain to the car and and engineer the car to turn on. No, it just happens. The car knows what to do. You hit the button, it turns on, right? That’s kind of how the left side of the chart works to me. We call it the vehicle or the body side, the unconscious side. And some people think about this as like the stuff that we inherited from people, so it’s almost like it’s packed into your body. It’s not something that is conscious to you.

But I look at it like, you know, we are souls walking around on this earth having a human experience. We are in this skin suit having this human experience. The left side of the chart says something about what happens automatically if the right side of the chart are and our mind could get out of the damn way. So we have two sides of this chart that don’t know the other one exists.

So, what do we get? A lot of people have this experience of feeling like they are pulled in two directions. I want to do these things, your mind. And then there’s part of me, though, that won’t let me, that won’t get on board with this. That a lot of times can be the unconscious side. It can be this aspect of us that doesn’t get a voice because the mind does not identify with it. It doesn’t feel like us. So a lot of people with this side of the chart, the left side,

These will be things that they’ll be like, I don’t know if that’s really me. So if you see here on the chart, I have the 4816 channel, the channel of the wavelength. I have this channel, it is a channel of talent, it is a channel of mastery. When I, this is completely unconscious to me. And when I was

Growing up and honestly, until I was probably in my twenties or thirties, if you had told me that when I discovered this, we can even put it that way. When I discovered human design and I was like, I have the channel of talent, I didn’t get that at all. That didn’t feel like something that felt like me. My channel of surrender, the 4426 that spread that stretches here from the spleen to the ego. That’s unconscious to me as well.

Not something that I felt like was me. However, I could tell you that both of those things felt very real to me. I just didn’t identify with them. I had to build a relationship with them. That’s how I look at this left side of the chart, the red side of the chart. Anything that’s over there is something that you may have to consciously try to build a relationship with. Notice it. Notice what people call out in you. Because a lot of times it’s still you. It’s still there.

You’re just not consciously operating it like you are the right side of the chart. So why is this relevant? You will hear from human design people like me bang on and on about strategy and authority. So obviously, when you look at your chart, one of the things that I want you to pay attention to first is what is your type? And it’ll tell you right here. It’s always spelled out somewhere, no matter what chart tool you’re using.

They’re going to tell you what your type is. You’re not going to have to figure that out from all of these shapes and colors, okay? But your type is going to give you your strategy and your authority. So I’m an emotional manifesting generator. What that means is my inner authority is my solar plexus. That’s the emotional part. And my strategy is to respond and inform with emotional clarity, is how it’s written here. Basically, I have to respond and inform, and I need to wait.

In order to have clarity. That’s my emotional authority. Why is that important? Because remember, I said the right side and the left side do not know that the other one exists. So they are not on the same page. So we have this push-pull in our life. And when we are only aligned with the mind, this is what human design’s job is, is to pull us away from the mind so that these two sides of us can come through in harmony. They can come through and do what is correct, not what we think is correct.

So now we want to take the power away from the mind. And where do we put it? Well, we put it into our authority, our inner authority. For me, it’s the emotional center. So when I do this, when I follow my strategy and authority, and I’m not thinking about things and I am actually feeling into them, I’m waiting for the response. So as a sacral, as a manifesting generator, I have that sacral response of a yes or a no. And then I wait for clarity. When I follow that process.

I bring the right and the left side of my chart together. I bring all of me. I bring the best of me. I’m not in a conditioned state. I am making decisions from all of my wisdom and all of my energy that I have. Okay? So that is the benefit of understanding these two things. And this is what I mean about understanding how this works helps us understand.

why we’re we’re guided to do things like follow strategy strategy and authority, where that all comes from, right? Okay. So we know that these two sides exist now. We know that they don’t know that the that each other exists. We have these two calculations that we’re working with, these two sets of placements, and everybody starts with the same blank bingo card. And we plot those numbers onto the chart.

And that’s how we start to get color on the chart. Now, everything that you see on the chart that is colored in is what we call defined. It means it’s yours. What does defined mean? It means that it is yours. It means that you transmit this energy. This is energy that comes from you. It is yours. You can rely on it. It’s always there. It is consistent for you. Fixed is another key word that we use for this.

Now by fixed, it means that it happens in a certain way, because it’s consistent for you, but it is going to be consistent based on the activations that you have in it. So I have a defined throat here, but the consistencies that I have, I have gate 16, which I have that whole channel, gate 62, gate 56, and gate 45. Those are going to be the main ways that I communicate. That’s what these centers and gates signify, right?

now everything that’s defined in the chart, so you have that. These are the things that when I when I say transmit, when I say that it’s yours, it’s something that you bring. So this is the energy that that other people feel from you that you have confidence in a lot of times. Now, does not mean that because we have it defined that it will always be healthy. You want to understand that.

something that is defined y has a definition to what it looks like when it’s healthy, if that doesn’t feel like it resonates for you. So if you have a defined throat and the the definition for that is to have a very strong sense of communicating, to feel like you can always count on your words being there.

That you have a specific way that you communicate, you feel really confident in, and you are okay taking up space. If that doesn’t feel correct for you, if that feels untrue and you have a defined throat, then that might mean that you were taught to play small in an area where you are meant to play big, where we are defined as where we are meant to play big. If we are shying away from it, it can be repressed.

And that is the work that you have to do. This is how we use human design. I like to look at it as a map. It is a mirror and it is a map. It’s a way for us to look at to have a point of reference for what is correct for something that we have, and for us to look at ourselves honestly and say, does that feel true for me or not? Or is there work for me to do here? Okay? So that’s defined. Undefined is anything that you see that is white in the chart. If it’s white in the chart, whether it is a center.

That’s white, a gate that is white, or a whole channel that is white. Anything that’s white in the chart we call undefined. And if it is a center, like my Ajna center here, where there aren’t any gates activated within that center, we would refer to that as open. But you’ll hear a lot of us use open or undefined interchangeably. It’s not technically correct. Open would mean completely open, undefined would mean.

would mean not defined but has activations within it, dormant gates. Okay. So that is what undefined and open, the difference between those two things are. But now what does undefined mean? How is it different than being defined? Undefined means that you do not transmit this. This these are areas where you are going to be more receptive, where you are going to be more sensitive to other people’s stuff.

You receive in these places. So if someone walks in the room with a defined head and I have an undefined head, I am going to be more receptive to their ideas and inspiration than I am going to be transmitting those ideas and inspiration. What you’ll find is that people who have a defined head, for example, like my son does, my son has a defined head. He is very sure of his thoughts.

And there’s very little room to penetrate the way that he thinks about something. We work on that a lot. But me, very open-minded, like literally completely open-minded in my ajna. So these are areas where we can be more likely to be conditioned. That’s why, because the way that I look at it, it’s like it’s if it’s open.

Think if you had a garage that was open and you had the door open, you had the windows open and there was nothing in there, people might come and put their crap in there, right? If somebody walked by with something stinky, it would probably stink in the garage, at least while that person was there, right? Now, if you went outside and picked up some of the stinky stuff and you put it in the garage and kept it there, it would continue to stink. That is kind of how I look at openness. If you

You have a great ability to feel into other people’s stuff. Again, sensitive, open. You’re not going to have a consistent way of experiencing these energies. It’s going to be variable. You’re going to be open to lots of different things in these themes. But sometimes what happens is someone comes in and tells you it should be this way. And they’re defined there. So you’re saying,

They seem really sure of themselves. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I should be like that too. Maybe it felt really good when you were taking in their energy. And unconsciously to you, when they left, you wondered why that theme disappeared. Right? And then maybe you thought something was wrong with you. Now maybe you thought that you needed to run around and go figure out how you could be that thing. This is what conditioning is.

We are more susceptible to the conditioning in our openness because we are open and we receive so much there. So the first step with deconditioning is recognizing what is yours and what belongs to somebody else, what’s right for you and what’s not. And your strategy and authority, again, understanding your type will help you naturally work through that. We have our deconditioning guide as well, which is available in the show notes, but you can also decondition.

DM me the word decondition on Instagram if you want, we’ll send it to you there. But you can get it at nicoleino.com forward slash decondition. We have a whole guide for how you can do that, what all these centers mean, and how to decondition them. So that’s defined versus undefined. That is such a core aspect to understanding how your chart operates. If you have a chart like mine where I have, you know, I have six centers defined. I have the throat defined, the spleen, the G center.

The sacral, the ego, and the emotional center, the social, the solar plexus. I’m open in the root or undefined in the root, undefined in the head, open in the ajna, completely open. So the areas where I have more variability, where the outside world can come and have an effect on me, are more in my head. The pressure of mental pressure and taking in so much I can really overconsume if I’m not careful.

My ajna, my mind, I can really be worried about being uncertain and feel like maybe my I ideas aren’t strong enough because I haven’t proven them out or somebody hasn’t blessed them, or I don’t have this concrete process for it. I just kind of know things and I’ve taken it in and I have this idea. We can be less confident in the areas where we are open.

But we can also, I can be really susceptible to other people’s ideas if I’m not discerning. And that is one of the things that I think people don’t talk about enough. In your openness is where you have the ability to be really wise because you could be a great evaluator as long as you aren’t allowing everybody to put their stuff in your open space and you are not at all being being conscious of what stuff is there, who put it there, do I really like this?

We have to be great evaluators. Our openness is where we have the ability to be discerning, or we have the responsibility to be discerning and the ability to be very wise. Because we don’t have a fixed way of experiencing these things. I don’t have a fixed way in my undefined route with dealing with with existential pressure, the pressure to evolve, the pressure to grow.

And like grow from like an existential place of like survival. Like we we’ve we’ve gotta get this going. I’ve gotta get this business moving. It doesn’t have to be business, but it’s like it’s tied to our survival. I have an open route. I am not naturally grounded. It’s something I need to work at. But when I work in my openness, I get real wisdom. I know a whole lot about how to get grounded, and I can really feel into people who are not.

I can really spot it. Why? Because I’ve been there. Cause it takes one to know one. So this is how we start to piece together a story that’s going on of what we might be experiencing, or if you’re doing readings, what a person might be experiencing, and how we can help them navigate back to their truth. And again, it all comes back to strategy and authority. So we don’t make this a mental game.

Of figuring it out. We’re not here to figure out our chart. We’re here to experiment with it and allow it to open us up to new possibilities, shed light on our shadows and our gifts so that we understand that something that’s not working for us currently is not a death sentence. It doesn’t mean that it’s something that is this ugly part of us. It’s the raw material for a gift that we have. That’s what we find with I’m also a gene keys guide.

That’s where the gates really come in and the channels. Okay? We can understand what a high expression of these aspects of the chart are and a low expression of the same aspect of the chart. So if I know that a high expression of an open head center is to be open minded and to be excited about being inspired by lots of things, but being very

Discerning about how much and what I take in, and the low expression is to feel like I need to answer all of the questions of the world. To know that, to know that with an open head center, I may feel like I need to that all of the answers are outside of me and that I need to take them in and I need to consume things in order to know. I can give my power away to the outside world. That helps me be self aware.

In a very specific way. And that is how you can change your life very, very quickly with human design. Now, another aspect that I think is really powerful for people to understand is the profile. So I’m a 5 1. That’s how we get this here. So you can see it over here. It’s typed out 5 1 and then heretical investigator. But then you can also tell it here. It’s associated with the sun and the earth.

On the conscious side and the sun and the earth on the unconscious side. So the right side and the left side of the chart, the top two gates. Now the gates here, I have gate 64 is my conscious sun, then it says point five. That point five is the line. That’s really what we are looking at here. That’s where we get the profile from. So lots of people want to know things about like the incarnation cross. I’m the left angle cross of dominion. Your incarnation cross is your

Purpose in life and people can get really stuck here. This is one of those things that a lot of people are caught up in trying to figure out and trying to decode, but they’re what they’re missing is it’s the strategy and authority and the profile that really is what makes your incarnation cross show up or not show up for you. Your incarnation cross is not something that you try to make happen, it is something

That you allow to bloom inside of you as you walk a path of alignment, as you walk as your true self. But you see, the reason I’m showing you this is that the gates here, 64 and 63, the gates of my cross that make up my incarnation cross are gates 64, 63, 45, and 26. Those four gates are tied to the five and the one in my profile.

If I’m not being a good 5-1, I cannot live out my purpose. So it really comes down to strategy and authority and your profile as the basis and foundation for everything with human design. Everything else is just gravy. And it’s fun gravy. I’m not I’m not taking away any of the magic of

Understanding yourself at such a fundamental level, I believe that human design can help you master yourself. That is how I view this system. That through using it as a map and a mirror, like I’ve been talking about, you can truly master who you are and who you are meant to be. Without being in fix-me energy, without feeling like you need to change yourself, but by becoming so aware of who you are and how you move.

What’s right for you, what’s not right for you, how you feel when you are in alignment versus not being in alignment, that changes your life. You start operating in the world in a very, very different way. Okay? Now the gates and channels that we talked about, what I just want to say here, I know that there’s all of these numbers on the chart. When somebody first looks at their chart, they get really curious about them and they’re super cool.

But let me just explain what gates are so you understand just where they come from. And I think sometimes when we get greater context, the detail that we do pick up as you start to study or dig into this stuff or contemplate some of these, it the context really helps you get somewhere with that process. Okay. So so we have centers here. So the centers in the chart, there are nine of them.

The nine centers all resonate with a particular energetic theme. So the head center is the center of inspiration and mental pressure. The ajna center, right below it here, is the center of the mind. It is thinking. It is where ideas, realizations, rationalizations, thoughts. It’s where our thoughts get formed. It’s where systems get made. It’s how we think. So having a defined one versus an undefined one is going to

is going to determine do you have a very systematic way of thinking or do you have a more open artistic way of thinking, right? And then we have the throat center, the center of manifestation, the G center, which is the center of love, purpose, identity, and direction. We have the ego center over here, this little one over here, also known as the heart center. This is the center of willpower, commitment, and determination and support.

We have the sacral center right here at the center, just below the G center. That is the center of sustainable energy, the love of work. It’s turned on by the love of work. It’s also the center of sexuality. Our sexual energy is in the sacral center. The spleen is the center of body intuition and instinct. The solar plexus over here on the right is the center of our emotions. It is a motor that is the motorized.

energy of emotions and then down here we have the root center which the root center is the pressure to evolve it is existential pressure so all of these themes why i’m bringing them up and taking you through them is all of the gates sit within a center there’s 64 gates in the chart so gate 64 here is my conscious son it sits here in the head center and every gate in the head center

has something to do with the theme of inspiration. So every gate, it is a gates are sub-themes, specific sub-themes of the greater theme of the center. That is how you can start to read the chart. So you know that if if you’re looking at 64 and you’re reading about it and it says confusion and imagination and all of that, you know that this is kind of like a an inspirational head center pressure theme.

The pressure to figure something out with confusion or through confusion, I should say. So every gate, there’s three gates here in the head center: 64, 61, and 63, these are all different flavors of the overall theme of that center. Every gate within the ajna, 47, 24, 4, 11, 43, and 17, all themes of thinking, of the mind, of processing inspiration.

You get it? So when you start to break this down, I would not start with gates and channels and all of that. And the channels are what give the t the the definition in the centers. So when we have a t a channel connected, like I have here, the 16 and the 48, that’s what gives me definition in my throat and in my spleen. But where we have hanging gates, like in my root center, with the 53 is hanging and 39.

And then I also have 32 pointing at it. but there’s no channel here. So that’s why there is no consistent energy passing between the two centers. So it that’s why my root center is white and undefined. Okay. So I would not spend time if you are starting with this with channels and gates. I it’s it’s wonderful, but where if you really want to get, if you really want to get results with this, if you really want to move with this system and see what it can do.

What you focus on first is your type, your strategy and authority, because that’s gonna get you operating correctly. It’s gonna take you out of the matrix, okay? It’s gonna take you off autopilot. And that is one of the most valuable pieces of human design completely, is the fact that it can remove you from this automatic program that we are all running until we consciously make a choice to come out of it through taking the power away from the mind. The mind is what’s plugged into the matrix.

The mind is what’s plugged into the program. So we have to take the power away from the mind and put it someplace else. That’s strategy and authority. Okay? So that, those are the first two. The the last piece is the profile. I would focus on that. Really understanding what your profile is and starting to have a relationship, accepting that these things are yours. If you’re a two, things are probably gonna have to feel a little bit easy and fun for you.

You might have to get really comfortable with just doing things that feel good, doing your thing and allowing people to see it. Right? As a five, you might have to understand the projection field and what that has, how that has affected your life and what it has done to you and for you. the the profiles can really give you a sense of like who you are here to be in this life. What is the role that you are here to play, and only you can play.

That’s what the profile tells us. And then looking at your defined versus undefined centers. Do you have more definition in your chart or more white space in your chart? Neither is better or worse. It just is. Notice what it is that you have as a first reaction. Do you like your chart? Do you not like your chart? Do you think you wish you had something else? That’s all really interesting data. But

Understanding where you transmit, where you bring the energy, and where you receive the energy is an eye-opening exercise. That’s what the deconditioning guide really helps you with. So I hope I really recommend downloading that guide. Just w drop down to the show notes and click the link there, or DM me decondition on Instagram. I’m at Nicole LanoOfficial. And just DM me the word decondition.

decondition and we’ll send it to you or go to Nicole Eno.com forward slash decondition. That’s the link that’s in the show note you show notes. You can download it there. Or if you want to go on a real journey with us where all of this is available, you can join the Human Design Authority Lab, which is really about the embodiment journey of getting you in alignment with your human design. And you know, combining that with your business if you are an entrepreneur, that’s really the the community that we created in there was for you.

So if you’d like that, go to Nicolino.com forward slash lab or DM me lab on Instagram and we’ll send you the details there. Okay. I’m gonna wrap this up. I appreciate you. I hope you enjoyed this episode and you got a greater understanding of how your chart works, what you bring to the table, what you bring to any situation, what you transmit, what’s your energy, and what you receive, and where you have the ability to take in wisdom from the outside world.

All right. I hope that you continue on your human design journey. And if you’d like to do it with us, then please go watch another video or listen to another episode. We have so many for you here. I appreciate you. And 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.