Now - Your Power

Now, the current moment. Have you ever thought about the concept of Now? Are you good at being in the Now? I am not good at being present in the moment. I find it much easier to hang out in the past or worry about the future. Actually, worrying about the future is my personal strength and for many years anxiety ruled my life, to the degree of an anxiety disorder. There are lots of cool quotes about the present moment and it's interesting to give it some thought. The past is past. Nothing can be changed there anymore. The future is unknown. Regardless of how much we plan or want to control it. The only moment that truly is, or matters, is now. This present moment.

 

In this article I am going to share my contemplations on the current moment and its power, Human Design and how using Human Design can help you to rewrite your stories, by sharing one of my stories with you. I hope that by sharing my thoughts and stories, I might be able to inspire you to become curious about your thoughts and your stories. Because we tend to have disempowering stories about ourselves. And that…. that is all they are: stories. I believe, we all have the power and ability to rewrite them. Some alone, and some with help. And there is a lot of beautiful help out there nowadays. To me, each moment holds the key to rewriting to our stories and living happier lives.

The present moment is the only moment you can truly influence. All your power lies in it. What you do, think or plan NOW, is what shapes your future. The past is a series of moments. Where you are now is a mixture of what you decided in each moment, paired with what happened to you - which is often outside of our control. From our past we draw lessons. It shapes us and very much determines how we move forward. Or not. A lot of the time we let our past stop us from moving forward. We worry. We don't want the same thing to happen again. We don't want to repeat a mistake, or get into a particular situation again. We try to protect ourselves. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Out of our control remains a problem though. And will. Forever. Because it is outside of our control…

 

There are countless quotes on the concept of now. Eckhard Tolle even wrote an entire book about it - called.... The Power of NOW (if you fancy reading it, please know that this is an affiliate link). I think the Now is quite a difficult concept to grasp the more you think about it. It's easy to understand but not that simple to live by. We are hardwired to worry. It helps us to survive. And if you wanted to be really sarcastic, you could argue that we are the descendants of successful worriers. The laid back people likely died not paying attention to the dangers around them... But while this is somewhat funny thought (at least for me :-), you can google "negativity bias" and a whole interesting world opens up! It makes perfect sense to worry! And it's hardwired into us for a reason:  to ensure our survival for as long as possible. You won't get rid of it either! No point hateing yourself for worrying! It’s not as much your fault as you think. Nonetheless, if out of control, as it was for me, it's definitely worthwhile confronting

But in our current world, at least here where I live, we worry unneccessarily a lot.

I have a very special relationship with the present moment. Not just because I struggled living in it for the most part of my life,  which I think is a very common challenge. But when you look at me from a Human Design perspective, you'll find that the present moment is where I function best. Maybe you could even say where I am meant to function best.

 

What is Human Design? Human Design is one, of many, personality tools. It came into existence in 1987. In a - I am very open to that :-) - very strange way. Officially it was channelled, but I am open to other interpretations too. I still love it. For reasons, I never fully understood, I got REALLY excited when I learned about Human Design, and not a day has passed where I didn't study it in more depth since. It has enriched my life so much and is infusing joy into it on a daily basis!

 

Human Design is a spiritual concept (and I am deeply spirtiual) but the more I study it, it seems to me, it's an amazing and pretty comprehensive description of being human. All the challenges, strength and nuances it describes are always true for all of us. It seems to me. And in Human Design we often read "we all have all of the chart". Which I feel is true. Additionally, we have our definition. Based on the day, time and place we were born. I personally believe that we are perfectly designed for our purpose. That there is a place for all of us, where we thrive, while others benefit from us being in that place too. It's a win win situation. That is something I have believed for as long as I can remember.

 

And while I am on the topic of purpose: Purpose is not something that you'll find one day. It's something that you have been doing all your life already. There is a red thread, a theme, in your life. Living our purpose is more fun an meaningful when we are at the right place, but we are doing our purpose from day one.

 

I have always had the desire to see people in their right place. And interestingly Human Design, paired with tools from soul purpose coaching, has finally given me the words to help people to find it. But Human Design alone is not enough. You are so much more than your design! There is all your life experience and resulting from that, all your stories. We are complex beings, with complex histories. I personally believe, that our life experience, regardless of how shitty it is, is the icing on the cake! It made us to who we are today. And even though we often don't feel powerful or even good, we are all powerful. In our own way. And this unique way is what makes us special.

I know, for most of us, our uniqueness is more what makes us weird, strange, different and all the things we don't want to be. But that, what makes you unique, is what the world needs. Often we have an incredibly shitty story around our uniqueness. And often it causes us a lot of pain!

 

BUT.... I have noticed in my Human Design readings, that many of our pain points are also our super skills. But because we didn't experience it like that, and because of our negativity bias, and because of our negative past experiences, our talents often remain a source of pain. Additionally, we don't tend to see our life experience necessarily as valuable (unlike our work experience!), which is a  shame.

 

But, it's usually quite complex too. It's not as simple as this caused that and that's why. There is usually a lot of layers to a story. And Human Design is a really cool perspectives to make these layers visible. It is by no means the only tool! There are many more personality type tools that are working too! Spiritual, as well as non spiritual. I just happen to feel called to work with Human Design. 

 

But to come back to my point of stories: often all that is required is a different perspective to rewrite our stories from shitty one to an empowering one, without simply putting a positive spin on things. When we look at our stories, we tend to come to one, most likely conclusion. But... what if..... I could offer you an empowering view of your story?

 

That is one of my talents (and pain points :-). I have this incredible ability to see all sorts of options! They literally present themselves when someone talks to me. And this is how they were my pain point too: Firstly, I can't explain where they come from. I have nothing to back them up. It's just a feeling. And thank God I found Human Design, because I can now back them up! Secondly, don't ask for my opinion on something. You will find that more often than not, I don't have one. I can always see all sides and more possibilities. Which makes it close to impossible to confine myself to just one view on something. But, that let to me facing two problems: 1. I am seen as someone who can’t make her mind up, who can't reach an opinion, and 2. people don’t always feel supported by me enough, because I am not sharing their point of view with great conviction. So basically, I am a bit of a disappointing friend on occassion.

 

Having said that, it wasn’t just negative! Certainly not! But I struggled with my inability to come to a conclusion.

 

And because I can always see options and possibilities, I tried to lean onto knowledge to give me a sense of certainty. And how that didn't work out is literally my life story, of which I will share parts as and when they come out, here on my blog and social media.

But let's go back to the present moment. Because of my design I have a strong need to be and work with the present moment. Which is true for everyone, because the only thing we can truly influence is the moment right now. That is not just true for me. It's where we have control and power! Everyone.

 

If you want to study the art of being present in the moment, you can find tons of spiritual texts on that topic! Or read Rumi's amazing poems and try to understand them! It will inevitably take you into the present moment! And twist your brain on occassion, at least they keep doing that to mine :-)

 

Or study Stoicism, a philosophy introduced to the world by the great ancient Greek and Roman philosophers. Read Marcus Aurelius for example! To me, every word he said, is wisdom placed into a word. And while I love so many of his quotes, I want to leave you with this one today: "The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

That is a really hard statement to swallow I think. At least it was for me. For it puts all your responsibility into your own hands. But by doing so, it also gives you incredible power to influence and shape your life!

 

I came across Marcus Aurelius three years ago. Jon Butcher, the founder of Lifebook, introduced me to him. But studying the concepts of stoicism, paired with a big fat healthy dose of female compassionate energy for yourself, has the power to transform your life for the better! But please take compassion with you on that journey. Otherwise you are going to set yourself up for failure if you don't happen to fall into the category of people for whom discipline is seemingly easy. Stoicism has a very male energy underlying it. And by male or female energy I don’t mean men or women. Male energy is the ability to give structure, plan and take action, while female energy is related to flow, creativity and possibilty. Ideally, we use both. Both are available to all of us. And we are benefiting from having them both. Think of yin and yang.  

Anyway, I keep deviating :-) Let's briefly go back to my design before concluding with some thoughts on the present moment.

 

I won't bore you with all the details. Let's focus on the three most important parts of my design that relate to the importance of the present moment in my life: I have channel 57-20, the Channel of Now. Channels in Human Deisgn are really strong strengths of ours. I am a Generator with a 3/5 profile. Which simply means I am meant to respond to each moment (Generator) and try things out (the 3 in my profile). My second channel is channel 46-29, the Channel of Discovery, which is all about trying things out - but comes with the little caveat of trying out "only the right things or it will drain your energy faster than you can imagine". Now, you will find, that all these statements apply to everyone! I think. What makes this special for me, is that there is indeed an emphasis of these in my life.

 

I will only share one exmaple today as I am very conscious of the length of this article already :-) But I will share more in the future. Let's pick channel 57-20, the Channel of Now. Apologies for the weird Human Design terminology. I hope I am going to make sense without explaining too many Human Design details. So, channel 57-20 connects the spleen centre with the throat centre. In plain English that means: the ability to speak in the moment from your intuition. That is not what I embraced looking back on my life! If anything, it terrified me all my life. All sorts of things come out of my mouth! Especially a lot of my deepest thoughts.

Being vulnerable can feel so scary! But I also learned from all the many occassions where that simply happened, how healing my words and vulnerability for others often are. And I had a lot of opportunities to experience that because I had to move house a lot. I can’t say I enjoyed that, but it had its positive sides too. For example, it taught me to be more ok with speaking freely due to introducing myself so many times in new schools. So, in terms of being with people who I meet, I have learned to embrace being me more. From this perspective I can see the benefits, for both, me and the others.

 

Can I briefly get technical again? I have a defined G-centre, and I often talk from that place - my identity. But the channel 57-20, the Channel of Now, connects the spleen centre, which can per definition only work in the now, as it's our instinctive awareness, to the throat centre. When I say something, I tend to hear that thought for the first time too..... and while it's often not that bad.... I have terrified myself on occassion! Especially when my gate 51, the Gate of Shock, comes to play too….. Anyway. Let me try and focus. 

I was a very, very, very, very shy child. Saying anything at school was not part of what even seemed available to me. But on occassion we had to recite a poem or were asked a question in class. Which where always moments I wished I had had that superpower of becoming invisible. But I didn't have that superpower. Sadly. Poems were ok. I hated reciting them in front of class. But I could do it, and if you had really good hearing, you could hear me reciting them well too..... It was something I could prepare for. And I did.

 

But later it got more complicated. We had to hold presentations on topics we were given or allowed to choose. And to my horror this happened every single time: I prepared them WELL! Like really well. I anticipated all possible questions. Studied everything I could possibly study (which was harder at the time when the internet was not readily available yet!) and as such I was usually really well prepared and knowledgeable. If I might say that about myself. BUT I didn't stick to my concept, plan or slides! Never.

 

Overall, I was forced to hold three presentations in my life. Whenever I could avoid one, I did....

 

So, these infamous three presentations.... I prepared them well. I knew what I was going to say. The only uncertainty were the questions that my teachers and classmates were going to ask. But then..… every single time….. I opened my mouth, starting to talk, and didn't - to my horror - stick to my presentation! I started talking freely!

 

Now, all my presentations went extremely well. I had prepared well for them, so I could afford to deviate from the slides I had prepared, without messing up I guess. But I scared myself. You must take into account, that I was extremely shy and that I was terrified of both, being seen and making mistakes. Thankfully I didn't. Due to my preparation really. I knew what I was talking about.

 

I usually got exceptionally good marks for my presentations, and survived too. But I instinctively knew, that my preparation had been key to not messing up. However, I think, not only. The other was my ability to speak freely. Sadly, that is not how I saw it at the time.

 

I came to this conclusion instead - every single time, and it became my story: I had been lucky that I got away with not sticking to my slides. And that was that. That I had got away with it. Because I had prepared well. A shitty story, right?

 

I have no idea, why it didn't even occur to me to write this story instead: "I am damn good at presentations! I am capable of preparing well and speaking freely. I am good at that. I can even capture the audience!" - which I have video proof of from 25 years ago!

 

You see, I took a rhetoric class at school, because my favourite teacher taught it, and I felt I wasn't good at talking :-) And of course we had to each give a presentation. I chose a topic I had researched well a few years prior. I actually can't remember why, but there were two political conflicts I was particularly interested in as a teenager: the conflict in the Middle East and the Red Army Fraction, a terror organisation here in Germany back in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. A bit random, right? Anyway, I chose to talk about the Red Army Fraction in my rhetoric class. We were supposed to give a 10 minute presentation. I talked for 40 minutes! And I can literally hear everyone laughing, who knows me in person.... because I CAN talk a lot ;-) The remarkable thing was this: everyone listened attentively and my teacher did not interrupt me. He let me talk for 40 minutes and everyone seemed to find the presentation interesting!

 

When I re-watched the video that had been taken, I noticed that!

But.... I chose to focus on how many times I moved the pile of paper that had been lying in front of me. I chose to focus on not being able to stick to the time limit by miles. I chose to focus on my stupid laugh at the beginning of the presentation. I chose to focus on my weird-ish sounding voice. I chose to focus on my lack of hair style. I chose to pay attention to the wrong things and drew detrimental conclusions from it!

 

I wrote this shitty story so well, it impacted my career choice in such a fundamental and detrimental way, I had to fail!

 

Not because of circumstances or not good enough. It wasn't of course as simple as just this story, but its impact and effect was massive. And it had nothing to do with the outside world. I got an excellent mark. Once again. I was praised for my knowledge and how well I had done. And no, I didn't grow up with parents who didn't believe in me or gave me a hard time. My parents were super supportive. Always. Their biggest wish for me was to become me, and to be happy. But I was very shy and for as long as I can remember uncertain of my value. Despite all my positive life experience.

 

Looking back from an adult perspective, I can really not make sense of it. But Human Design has given me interesting perspectives and highlighted dynamics that could have been at play, paired with my life experience. The 5 in my profile and the many times we moved house is likely to have had a strong impact. But that is for another time :-)  

So, with the help of Human Design and learning about my 57-20 channel, I have been able to look at my presentation story through a different lens: what if I hadn't failed? What if my strength is speaking freely? In the moment? Especially when I have done my homework (I have a lot of line 1 energy in my chart, and the line 1 needs information, it hates plugging things out of thin air - but that is yet another layer!).

 

I started to embrace that, to play with it! I am playing with it here right now! Being in the moment. Writing about the moment. I sat down today to write a 137 word long text for my WhatsApp status.... 4 hours later and almost 3,000 words later, I am still writing! My intention had been to briefly write about the power of now, which had been my random thoughts of today's shower….. But right here in the now, the words keep flowing and flowing. 

 

Let me conclude my random thoughs on the present moment. As you can maybe see from my long article, the present moment is, how I work with most ease. And it requires me to flow and accept. The present moment can not be planned. It happens. And as it does so, you are in it already. I have created circumstances in my life that allow me to embrace this side of me more. It doesn’t mean I can always flow. I need to plan and function too. But I can’t plan or force these blog articles for example. „They simply come to me“ – I tend to feel a pressure to write, and more often than not, I find myself writing for a few hours then. Enjoying every moment of it! And while I know that my blog posts are probably too long. It’s how I work best. The words just flow. And I have little intention to make them shorter or different. My inner critic has a different opinion of this, but for now I am trusting this gift of writing from my heart in a given moment. I will see where it is going to take me. And if I need to course correct, I will.

And while I wholeheartedly agree with that quote, there is a part inside of me, that feels this isn’t the whole picture (of course there is that part :-). Some of us are here to serve the mystery by demystifying it a bit too, while others are not.

 

We all have different purposes. Non is better or worse than the other. Let’s not judge each other. Let’s embrace each other and let us all benefit from our contribution. It’s not about being right or wrong, better or worse. It’s about sharing our talents, skills and life experience in a way that creates win win situations. For us and for others. It’s how we all benefit. Not always, as we can not just be happy (how would we continue to thrive?!) all the time.

What you think and how you respond to any present moment matters. It shapes your future.

 

Guard your thoughts. Because they are that powerful!

 

Be mindful of the negativity bias. Become aware of how you talk to yourself. Noone speaks as much to yourself as you. What story are you telling yourself? What words are you using? Become aware of them, and change them if you need to.

 

Always (!) take compassion, self-love and curiosity with you. Question your self judgement. Use a different lens. A different perspective. Shine light where there is darkness – with compassion, self-love and curiosity! Seek help if this is too painful.

 

I hope that my story, can inspire you to make you curious about yours. Know, that you have the power to rewrite them. Become curious about them. Swap judgement for self-love and compassion and take it from there. Trust yourself. You have an inner knowing that is valid.  

One to ponder :-) 

 

And if you are interested in me helping you to rewrite your stories, using Human Design and Soul Purpose coaching, I am here for you.

 

Trust yourself. You matter. xxx