Read Transcript
Child: Welcome to my Mommy’s podcast.
This episode is brought to you by LMNT. And you’ve probably heard me talk about my love of getting enough salt before and how this made a drastic difference in my energy levels. And LMNT is the easiest way that I have found to do this as well as the tastiest. We know that proper hydration leads to better sleep, sharper focus, better energy, and so much more. But hydration isn’t just about drinking water. In fact, only drinking water alone all the time can actually be counterproductive. Because being optimally hydrated, which is a state called urohydration, is about optimizing your body’s fluid ratios. And this depends on many factors, including the intake and excretion of things like salt and electrolytes. Now, electrolytes are charged minerals that conduct electricity to power your nervous system. They also regulate hydration status by balancing fluids inside and outside of our cells. LMNT was created with a science-backed electrolyte ratio of 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 60 milligrams of magnesium with no sugar. So even though these taste incredible, they don’t have added sugar, and I love my kids consuming them as well.
Electrolytes are a key component of healthy hydration. And here’s what happens when your electrolyte levels are dialed in. You find you have steady, maintained energy, better cognitive function. I noticed this really helps me get rid of brain fog. I suffer fewer headaches now, experience fewer muscle cramps, even during severe workouts. I perform better and longer. And for people who follow any kind of fasting or low carb diet protocol, when you stop eating carbs or when you’re fasting, the absence of insulin allows the kidneys to release sodium, sodium, replacing that lost sodium with an electrolyte solution can help you continue to feel good. And since LMNT is zero sugar, it won’t break a fast. You might also find that getting your sodium levels in the right range can help improve or maintain healthy blood pressure, regulate digestion, this is a big one for a lot of people, and keep skin hydrated. We know that hydrated skin is happy skin and these minerals are a big key in that as well. You can check out and try LMNT at drinklmnt.com/wellnessmama. And by using that link, you’ll receive a free LMNT sample pack with any order. So you can try all of their amazing flavors. My favorites right now are watermelon and grapefruit, but I also love their chocolate flavors with hot water as a form of a hot cocoa. So again, drinklmnt.com/wellnessmama to receive a free sample pack.
This podcast is sponsored by Hiya Health. It’s a company that I love for my younger kids because typical children’s vitamins are basically candy and disguised. They’re filled with up to two teaspoons of sugar, unhealthy chemicals, or other gummy junk that I personally don’t want my kids to ever eat. And that’s why Hiya was created. It’s a pediatrician approved superpower chewable vitamin. Now, while most children’s vitamins contain sugar and they contribute to a variety of health issues, Hiya is made with zero sugar, zero gummy junk, doesn’t have the artificial colors, flavors, additives that we don’t know where they came from, but it tastes great and it’s perfect even for picky eaters.
Hiya is designed to fill the most common gaps in modern children’s diet to provide the full body nourishment that our kids need with a taste that they actually like. It’s formulated with the help of nutritional experts and it’s pressed with a blend of 12 organic fruits and vegetables, then supercharged with 15 essential vitamins and minerals, including Vitamin D, B12, C, zinc, and folate, as well as others to support our kids’ immune systems, their energy, their brain function, their mood, concentration, teeth, bones, and more. It’s also non-GMO, vegan, dairy-free, allergy-free, gelatin-free, nut-free, and free of everything else you can imagine. It’s designed for kids two and up and it’s sent straight to your door so parents have one less thing to worry about, which I appreciate. We’ve worked out a special deal with Hiya for their best-selling children’s vitamin. Receive 50% off your first order. To claim this deal, you must go to hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama. This deal is not available on their regular website, so make sure to go to hiyahealth.com/wellnessmama and get your kids the full body nourishment they know they need to grow into healthy adults.
Hello, and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com. And this episode is about understanding your human design and through that, knowing yourself better. And I’m here with Barbara Ditlow, who is a certified human design analyst, as well as a coach, a real estate broker, and a teacher. And she has studied energy and esoteric healing with practitioners from around the world with an expertise in feng shui, astrology, yoga, intuitive healing, art therapy, and cult interventions. Prior to human design, she worked in sales and marketing at CBS and was the president of MetaQuality, which is an international company, as well as being a real estate broker. But in this, we talk deeply about human design and understanding the specific type that you are and how that drives your decisions, as well as ways that this can practically help you in your life through decision-making, through managing your energy levels, through the way even that you eat. So something new I’m learning about and excited to share with you today. So let’s join Barbara Ditlow. Barbara, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.
Barbara: Thank you. It’s a pleasure.
Katie: I have been excited about this upcoming conversation for a long time. And there’s a couple of directions I’m really excited to go deep with you on. But for anybody who’s not already familiar with you, I think a little bit of background on your own journey would be really helpful as context for this conversation, because you have quite the incredible life experience and resume and background in this work that you do. So I would love if you could just share some of your path.
Barbara: Wow. Okay. So when we look at a person’s life, I’m looking at major turning points. And I would say a distinguishing factor of my life is how my friends view me and how they view me as someone extremely adaptable, someone who’s able to look at the variables in front of me and be adaptable and attuned to what I need to do in order to become self-empowered rather than become victimized and be a complainer and drain other people’s resources.
So what allowed me to move in the direction that I did is I always had a deep faith that there was a higher power, that I was connected to something greater than myself. And so I would always turn to that awareness and that hope and possibility that I wasn’t seeing things correctly from my point of view. So I didn’t need to be right. I didn’t need to have power over other people. I simply had to understand that I was a small part of a larger whole. And most situations required me to open up to a larger perspective of what was possible.
So I ended up being a teacher, college level in art. Then I moved to living off the land for five years without heat or running water. Then I ended up being a educational sales manager at CBS Publishing in Manhattan. And then I ended up having my own consulting company. And then I ended up getting into real estate, renovating homes, being a salesperson. But that was one chapter or one fork in my life.
The other one was meditation, starting yoga back in the 70s, being initiated into TM back in the late 60s. Following the whole New Age movement and then getting into Jungian astrology. And then meeting Ra and Eckhart Tolle about 24 years ago. And then that began to put me in the teaching and studying of human design. And that’s where I found human design is a tool to really help people understand their gifts and their direction a little bit better. And I’m still in real estate, but I also do readings because I find that at this point in the world, there’s so much change and so much uncertainty that people do need to gather as many tools as possible to navigate through the changes.
Katie: Yeah, and certainly human design is something I’m very new to learning, but currently fascinated. And I have a rule for myself that if something comes up multiple times, especially from multiple people I trust, I will look into it. And that happened with human design and with you. And I have many dear friends who love to literally sit at your feet and learn from you in person where you live. And so I’ve just been entering the research side of this world, but I find it already so profound. I would guess a lot of people have heard of human design. But for anyone who hasn’t, can you talk a little bit about what it is and what makes it so unique? And we can also go through the types and understand a little bit about those.
Barbara: What makes it unique is that it’s a map and it’s a map that you can use. The metaphor that I would use is if you want to come into a city, you can wander through the city and say, I’d like to have this, I’d like to have that and not know where you’re going. Having no map that shows where things are located or directions to turn left or right. In human design, it is a map to personally know yourself. And it’s not something that can be a limitation. It helps you understand and transcend limitations that you may have and move in the direction where life flows freely, where your gifts are, where anything that you do has a potential and ultimately the possibility to be effortless and bring you the satisfaction or the peace or the success or the delight that you’re looking for. Any of those different things. But it’s a map and it’s a logical map.
Katie: And within that, it breaks into types. And the first time I read about my type, it was almost eerie how accurate it was. And that definitely piqued my interest for learning more. Can you maybe give us a high-level overview of what the different types are? Because this might be a new concept for people listening. And as an example, I’m a 6/2 projector, I believe, which they call a hermit role model. And I know there are other types as well. But can you kind of walk us through a little bit about each type and their distinctions?
Barbara: Yes. There are four basic types according to Ra. Now Ra Uru Hu, who was the person who received the revelation. And the four types break down into when you’re born, how does a life force, how does the energy, the spirit move through you? In other words, does it have a strong, strong life force or a weak life force? Does not mean that you’re strong or weak. We’re just talking about the life force and how you experience it.
So the four types are the manifestor, the generator, the projector, and the reflector. Now, all of these types work seamlessly with each other. In other words, in the world as it is, we need these four types in order to create the possibilities of what it is to be human.
So we start with a manifestor. In the manifestor, is the top of the hierarchy in terms of their ability to go out and initiate and inform people this is what we’re going to do. And the types are based on aura so the you could say the manifestor has a closed, repelling aura. It does not mean that they’re closed and repelling to people. It simply means that they have business to do. And when you meet a manifestor, you’re going to feel that there’s a difference in how they appear, how they show up in the world. They’re designed to be very impactful. And the closed and you could almost say repelling aura allows them to move out and initiate. And in initiating, they get things done. So the rules for being a manifestor and making decisions is going to be different from the rules of making a decision, let’s say, for that generator.
Now, the generator, 70% of people are generators. And you could say generators are God’s chosen. Now, why do I say that? Because they carry the life force. They have vitality and energy to do work, to get things done. So with six children, you probably have some generator children. And the beauty of generators is they are to go, go, go consistently until they’re tired, and then they drop. They have an open, enveloping aura that pulls anything that they need to them. Now, the key here is that when we say the aura is open and enveloping, we’ve already stepped away from the distinction with the manifestor that is closed and repelling. The generator is open and pulls everything to you.
Now, 70% are what we call generators, but there’s also a subtype of the generator aura, which is the manifesting generator. Now, the manifesting generator has an open, enveloping aura. In other words, the types are categorized by aura. The manifesting generator can respond, but then they have to initiate. And a distinction of the manifesting generator is very impatient. They just want to go out and initiate, but without responding first and sensing what the frequency or what the opportunity is, they can end up going in a direction totally not for them.
The third type is the projector. The projector is very, very different because their aura is not open and absorbing. In a way it is, but there’s a distinction here. And in the manifestor, it’s not closed and repelling. The differentiation for a projector is their aura connects one-on-one. It does best one-on-one. Now, any aura can be misunderstood depending on your relationships with other people. And the key with the projector is oftentimes they’re misunderstood because there’s an intensity in the projector’s aura because it’s probing. It probes. It pushes. And so when it meets someone, it wants to penetrate very deeply into that knowing of the other person. And so the issue of the projector is wait for the invitation to be invited to move in and really connect to the other person.
And then the last one is the reflector. And the reflector, they are amazing people, one out of a hundred. And what the reflector, their role is to sample other energies, almost to be Teflon, to be resistant to other energies, but at the same time, sample. And in the sampling of energies, they’re able to sort of average out in the group who’s different, who’s ready for a change, who’s ready for something different.
Now, the key with all of these auras is simply to mean that these auras raise another issue, which is how to make decisions and what is a basic question. So the manifestor, their basic question is who is, who are they going to impact? Who is in their world that they’re going to have an impact on? Because they may not understand how this closed, repelling aura can affect people. They have no clue, so they have to understand that. Now, the generator is designed to ask the question, who am I? Who am I in this world? So they’re seekers. They’re people that really want to know their connection to something greater.
Now, the projector has a role which can be very challenging because the projector can only learn about themselves through other people. And what happens is the projector’s aura can penetrate the other person and get an understanding of that other person that’s relatable to themselves. So they end up being the guide, but in their guidance, they learn about themselves. And then the reflector is very different because they’re looking at the group. You know, who’s ready to be different in the group? Where’s the difference? And the awareness of the four different types allows people to understand how the energy is most appropriately used.
So that is a quick summation of the four types. And when an individual does understand their four types, then they can understand how they need to make decisions to be more effective in bringing out their uniqueness and ultimately their sense of satisfaction or success.
Katie: And I know each of those could truly be a lifelong learning without ever completely understanding and that we could do many hours of podcasts and still barely scratch the surface. But what’s struck out to me so far is how understanding those pieces for yourself and for people you’re in relationship with can tell you so much about yourself and about your environment. So can you walk us through what are some of the things by learning our human design that that can tell us or help us learn about ourselves or our environment or how we move through the world? What are some of the ways your clients find this most helpful?
Barbara: The first realization that they have is that, hmm, I always knew this was who I was, but thank you for the validation and verification so I actually can live this and not the life that I’m living, which is superimposed upon that because we have the conditioning influence of our culture, the language, the diet, the news, the school. So we’re working in a culturally conditioned environment and that imposes certain restrictions on our life.
Now conditioning is not necessarily bad but what the gift of human design is to understand how you relate to the conditioning. Proximity to certain people can be very positive. Proximity to certain people can destroy any potential of realizing your success or happiness in life. And having the ability to realize how important people and conditioning are in your life is probably the main gift in human design. It gives people the permission to say, oh, I can feel that way about this situation, this job, this person, and let it go and maybe find a new pathway with different people, a different job. It allows, again, that point of flexibility where they can re-look at their life in a very different way.
Katie: That makes sense. And I was also amazed by how practical a lot of the things I am learning in human design have been in sort of how my nervous system feels and how I’m setting up my environment. So as an example, according to human design, my natural environment is caves. And perhaps in a minute you can speak to the different types of environments. But realizing that and realizing I live in a house with six kids that is not very cave-like and there’s always a lot of energy around, I set up my bedroom to be almost like a sanctuary, even to the point of having sort of a canopy around my bed that I can close that feels like a closed safe space and having plants in there and nothing cluttered. And I felt such a difference in my nervous system from that small practical tip of changing little things about my environment. So can you talk about the environment piece and what are some of the natural environments and how those can vary? I would guess, for instance, not every projector’s natural environment is the caves. Or maybe it is. But what the environment piece can teach us?
Barbara: So the environment is part of what we call the four transformations. Now, the four transformations deal with attuning your awareness to, we call it passenger consciousness, or being more open to watching how life moves through you. So there’s the first piece of decision-making based on your type. And then it’s aligning yourself to the environment, which is really essential during the Saturn return, which is 28 to 32 years old. Because what the environment does, it begins to stabilize your life and gives you a way to see the world, and your life in the way that you’re designed to see. So you could say the environment is very much connected to your perspective.
So if we look at the environment, there’s what we call hardscapes and landscapes. And they all have a different frequency. And it’s very attuned to what will allow you to fulfill or flower in your life with the support of the correct environment. So the first one is the caves. And the caves is what we call an environment that says, you need protection from the outside. Similar to a cave, it can be a car or a canopied bed with curtains around it. But it also means that you have to be in control. I don’t want to use that word, but it’s the only word that comes to me now. You want to be in control or be able to decide who comes into your environment and when they come in. So you could say that your nervous system is more relaxed now because you have protection from unexpected intruders, okay. And so you can go in your little cave and say, okay, the door is closed. I can relax. I can feel safe. I can enjoy my space now because I’m not going to have the extraordinary conditioning influence of the energy of other people. So that’s the cave.
And the next one is fairly fascinating, and that’s what we call the markets. And the markets is where you’re called to exchange energy with other people. And that interaction with other people means that you can be very good in business. You can be very good in negotiations. But you’re where there is, I would say, you’re called out to interrelate with other people. And it can be the marketplace of ideas. It could be going to the grocery store. It could be going to a farmer’s market, but there’s stimulation that you can have here in the market with a change of ideas, exchange of ideas.
The third type is what we call kitchens. Now you can have dry kitchens or wet kitchens, but ultimately it doesn’t preclude someone who loves to be in the kitchen. My granddaughter has a kitchen’s environment. She loves to be in the kitchen. Her mother has a market environment. Her mother loves to shop and get food for the kitchen. And so even when my granddaughter was little, when she would have tantrums or uncomfortable, I would say to her mother, take her in the kitchen and open up the refrigerator. It would stop the tantrum immediately because she’d look in the refrigerator and that stimulation would center her awareness.
The fourth one is mountains. Now the mountains are very different because it means literally the mountains. It has to do with the capacity of the lungs to process oxygen. It also means literally the mountains, the second floor in a house, higher level in a condominium apartment building, a physical mountain, but it also can mean taking the higher perspective and not being pulled down into arguments or fighting. It doesn’t work. The aura is to be above the fray.
And the fifth type would be the valley. And we have wide and we have narrow valleys. But the valleys are very profound because it means these people have to be in an environment where they can deal with strangers and universalize some sort of information or way of seeing things.
And then the last environment would be the shores. And the shore environment can be what we call a hardscape or a natural shore. So natural shore would be where water meets the earth, seashore. Or it could be where you have condominiums overlooking a field, an open field where there’s no housing. But both are dealing with transitions and the potential and possibility of what’s next, how do we move through a transition.
So each of these have a different frequency and these weave into the life of a person to help them stabilize their perspective and how they can be more aware of their potential and their, you can almost say, their satisfaction or success or peace that they experience in their life.
Katie: That’s such a great explanation. And it makes sense how you wouldn’t literally need to live in a cave or on a beach, but the ways to incorporate those into your environment to kind of touch on those innate needs that you have in your particular type. Can you also explain to us the different energy types and authority and what those words mean in human design?
Barbara: That’s a great question because people can mix this up. The authority is never separate from what we call strategy. And it’s interesting. I’ll throw this in. Human beings are always looking for what’s new. We’re designed to grow just like you put a seed in the ground and the plant grows along. It’s a certain timing. Human beings do that as well. And the words that Ra used are very carefully used. Some people misinterpret it or want to change the words. But there’s what we call strategy is wedded to your authority.
Now, the strategy basically deals with waiting. Basically deals with waiting. Every single type has to wait before they make a decision. Now, we could say spontaneous, 9% of people are spontaneous decision makers. That’s an authority that they have. But there’s still a waiting game involved. So the strategy is waiting. That’s simplifying. The authority deals with is it an inner authority or outer authority? Now, all of us are raised with outer authorities. Our parents, the school, the church, the government, laws, rules. Human Design says look and also you could say soothsayers, fortune tellers, astrologers. And I’m not dissing any of those. But there’s a weakness in humanity where we want other people to make decisions for us. And not empower us through giving us tools where we can make our own decisions and through trial and error find out what really is honing us to be that unique being that we’re all designed to be.
So the authority says, look, be your own authority through a particular decision-making process. And they’re different kinds of authorities. And these authorities depend on your type. Now, there is an authority that cuts through the type and 50% of either type. So 8% of manifestors, a certain type, usually 50-50, make decisions over time. And some don’t. So I’m going to differentiate with the authority that there’s an authority that is in a totally different time zone, time frame. And then there’s authority that’s not dependent particularly on time. So we call this emotional authority based on how people take information in from the world. We could call it the consciousness field, the quantum, whatever word you want to give it.
But when people are faced with, do you want to go right or left? Or let’s say, do you want to go to the movies on Friday? Some people will say, oh, yeah, yeah. And then Friday rolls around. They’ll say, ah, I don’t know why I made that decision. I don’t want to go. And then the partner or the friend says, you’re really flaky. You disappointed me. How can you do this? But there are people, 50%, that cannot be forced into what we call a premature decision. They have to feel into it. They have to sense that they cannot make a decision where they’re really clear, but they can make a decision where they’re less nervous about the outcome or what they’re doing. 50% of the people, we call that solar plexus definition or being on one of four different waves.
Now, modern psychology can label some of these waves as mild bipolarism, but it’s simply not something to be drugged. It’s something to be aware of. The other 50% of the population has an inner authority that’s very quick. It can be sacral authority, which we call the gut response. There are many generators that have this gut response. And what they do is when something comes toward them, they’re not making a decision with their mind. They’re saying, how does their gut feel with it? And what happens is the gut is really a valve that opens up to the frequency, the energy in the room and says, ah, engage your energy or not.
And then we have projectors and projectors are the most diverse kinds in terms of how they make decisions because they first have to recognize what their contribution is, what their gifts are, because they have, they don’t have consistent energy. So their authority can be intuitive. It can be emotional. It can be through their voice. It can be through getting a sounding board of talking with people, talking things out. But ultimately, a projector, their authority is going to be most diverse. And it’s about, do they accept an invitation that recognizes their gifts or not?
And then we have what we call people that have a process, outer authority, but not other people. It’s a process. And the process would be the reflectors who have to wait for the cycle of a moon, 28 days, or the mental projector, which is a category of projectors, where they have to wait to listen to what they say as they speak to a friend or someone who’s not going to interfere with their decision-making.
So basically, the different authorities can be an intuitive authority, a gut authority, an emotional authority, or it could be through the voice. It could be through a process, but it’s not necessarily someone outside of you or an authority outside of you. The goal is to break the conditioning and allow yourself to express a higher frequency or your uniqueness when it’s been buried in order to conform to a group dynamic. Not saying a group dynamic is bad, but ultimately, we’re in a day and age where people have to really find out what’s true for them. Know it’s true. And so the authority is really from what point or from what phenomena or from what position do you make a decision? And it’s always an authority that’s based on your type.
Katie: And as you’ve explained all that, I can already guess people are connecting the dots of how that can change how you show up in a relationship or ways that you might need to reframe interactions or to make space to be in a cave if that’s your type or just knowing your own cycles of that. And I think that’s so valuable because even in relationship, we only have ability to affect our own experience in that relationship and how we show up and how we respond. And so I know that this can be such a valuable tool for helping people in relationships as well. And we’re going to do another episode that really goes deep on that, especially in our relationships with our children, which I know is also a topic that’s so dear to your heart. And I’m very excited to dive into that. But for people who want to go deeper on human design and learn about all those aspects of themselves, what do you recommend as a great starting point for that, especially if it’s a new concept to someone?
Barbara: I would get the Definitive Guide to Human Design. It’s a book by Lynda Bunnell and Ra Uru Hu. The reason being it’s directly from Ra. And Ra received from a voice a precise way of viewing what it is to be human, the energy field. So I would go to the source. There are many people who have reinterpreted it according to their filter. And there’s also power struggles within who’s the real authority here and this, this, this. My feeling is that that book is the best resource to begin with.
Katie: And then I know you have many resources available as well. And I’ll link to those in the show notes for any of you guys listening on the go. But if someone wants to go deeper, I believe you do one-on-one work with people or consultations to help them understand their type better.
Barbara: Yes. I have a website. It’s called Human Design Consultations. And but, and I also teach classes, but the key here is it’s a very complex body of knowledge. I’ve been involved for 22 years. And the challenge that you have is you’re going to absorb the information based on your type, based on how you filter information. And I would say that a one-on-one with different providers can be very helpful and instrumental in having people understand how to go forward in their life to experiment. This is not information that you put on the shelf. You can, but it is very shamanic. In other words, it does create change within you. And because we’re working with two different birth informations, not just the personality, not just the chart that an astrologer works with. We’re working with multiple facets. That’s what I would start out with a reading. But again, human design is not fortune telling. It’s not soothsaying. It’s not giving people the answers they’re seeking for to validate or looking for. The answer is how do they make decision as themselves? How do they make a decision?
Katie: Yeah. And I know, like I said, there’s so much more to learn on this topic. I’ll put those resources in the show notes and you guys please stay tuned for our follow-up to this conversation all about how we can interact with our kids differently based on understanding human design. But Barbara, for this episode, thank you so much for your time. I look forward to our next conversation and I’m so grateful that you’re here.
Barbara: Thank you so much. It was my pleasure.
Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope that you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.
If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.
Leave a Reply