The story of the shifts that have occurred in my work, recreation, living arrangements, relationships, friendships, and health since I began my Human Design experiment three years ago.

It’s really hard to believe that it’s been three years since I first learned about Human Design and committed to applying it to my life in a major way. It feels right to take a moment to reflect back on my journey so far. It’s been quite the wild ride, and has taken me in some unexpected directions. I hope you enjoy reading my story and that it supports you in your own process of awakening to your true nature.

April 17, 2019 : My Life as I Know it Falls Apart

Like many millennials, I first heard about Human Design on a podcast (this podcast, to be exact). I was 29 years old at the time and deep into the process of my Saturn Return. I had downloaded a bunch of podcasts to listen to while I made the drive across Western Canada, from Squamish to Canmore. I was living in Canmore at the time, and contemplating a move out to Squamish. I’d spent the last three weeks in Squamish, interviewing for a counselling practicum position, competing in my last ski mountaineering race of the season (which turned out to be my last race ever, although I didn’t realize it at the time!), and getting a feel for the town to see if I would like to relocate.

On that trip, it felt like everything that possibly could go wrong, did go wrong. I’ve had a few of these experiences in my life before, and I call them “energetic expulsions.” It’s a collection of very clear signs that all say the same thing: “Courtney, you are NOT meant to be here!” I won’t tell the long story of that trip because it’s beside the point, but I will say that I had arrived in Squamish feeling excited at the possibility of relocating there permanently, and I left Squamish three weeks later feeling like I’d had a door slammed in my face. It simply wasn’t the next right step for me, and that was so crystal clear on every level. So, as I made my way back across British Columbia to return to my home in Canmore, the main question on my mind was “If not that, then what?”

I felt strangely calm on this drive. Like I said, I’d experienced a few other energetic expulsions in my life and I knew that with patience and awareness, something even better was about to drop into my life. It felt like a huge void had been created in the space where the dream of living in Squamish had previously been. What was next for me, I had no idea, but I felt (mostly) calm and confident that I would figure it out.

I had downloaded several podcasts for the drive home (it’s about a 12 hour drive), and many were interesting and helpful, but my jaw fully fell on the floor when I came to the one about Human Design. I felt this bubbling feeling of excitement inside of me. I knew that this was big. When ideas, projects, people, or opportunities come into my life that the Universe/God wants me to pay attention to, they are always accompanied by a quality I describe as a “pop.” People that I’m meant to enter into relationship with “pop” out to me. Opportunities that I’m meant to explore also “pop.” In this case, this podcast and my first glimpse into the world of Human Design “popped” to me in a major way. And this was absolutely impossible to ignore.

As soon as I got in the door to my place in Canmore, I pulled out my phone and looked up my chart. Mentally, I was definitely not ready for what I saw and the journey it would take me on. For the majority of my life I’d been an athlete, a star student, and a super achiever - pushing my body and mind to their limits and placing all of my self-worth into awards, athletic performances, scholarships, and accolades. I was a super active high-level athlete on a national team and I trained an average of 2.5-3 hours per day. My mind was not ready for what I saw. But my soul had been waiting.

*Ski Mountaineering race in Whistler… not realizing at the time that it was to be my last one!*

April-September, 2019: Not Here to “Do”

Even with what little I knew about Human Design at the time I pulled up my chart (my knowledge was limited to the aforementioned podcast), seeing that I am a Projector was a shock to my system. From listening to the podcast, I initially thought I was an MG, because I was so active and I “did” a lot more than the average person. My instant first look at my chart was one of mental disbelief but deep soul recognition. Even looking at the chart, without knowing really anything about it, gave me the feeling like “this explains everything… everything you’ve struggled with, every place you’ve gone off-track, and how to get back into alignment with your true nature.”

(I should also mention that this “ah-ha” moment was not out of nowhere. I would say that I had a big spiritual awakening in 2017 that was catalyzed by giving up alcohol, getting back in touch with my inner child, listening to a lot of spiritual podcasts, and wandering in the beauty of nature. This evolved into a daily meditation practice, mindful movement, and even receiving an intuitive reading from a clairvoyant friend. In many ways, I’d been opening up to receive the Human Design System and my own journey with it for two years prior to first looking at my chart. Even 6 months before that time, I’m pretty sure I would have dismissed it and continued on with my life. The circumstances for me discovering Human Design were exactly right for me. Divine timing, as timing always is).

I dove into learning about my chart and the charts of my friends and family right away. I listened to every podcast I could find on Human Design, watched every Youtube video, read every book. I was enthralled. I couldn’t believe how well it explained myself and all of the people in my life.

It also presented a major problem in terms of my own experiment. When it came to alignment with my Projector self, I recognized right away that I was WAY off. When I learned a little more about what it means to be a Projector, I instantly felt a soul-deep exhaustion. “Not here to do.” Wow. That hit me HARD. And for me, it was a very physical experience because I had been doing so much physical activity every day. I instantly lost all motivation for my training. I went from being super motivated, loving the training and racing, competing for team Canada at the Ski Mountaineering World Championships, setting goals for next season…. to: “I just want to take a stroll by the river.” Not kidding. Previously, I’d loved hiking and running up mountains. After learning I was a Projector, I just didn’t want to do it any more. It was wild. And it was quite disconcerting. It was as though I’d felt into my body for the first time in a very long time. And my body said very loudly and clearly “this is not for you anymore. You are very, very, very tired.”

This period of time was a very tough transition for me. I quit the national team. I decided to move away from Canmore, which I had previously thought was the best place in the world and that I would live there forever, living my best life running and skiing up and down mountains all day. To let go of this dream was a huge paradigm shift. I felt lost but I also felt guided. (As I mentioned, this was all happening during my Saturn Return, so many of these changes may have taken place anyways, with or without Human Design. However, without Human Design I would have been a lot more lost and panicky. With it, I knew that my body and soul were simply realigning to the correct path for me and what I’m really here to do and be in this world. My mind was panicking, but at a deep level I knew that everything was rearranging itself just fine).

By the end of summer 2019, I’d moved to Calgary, the city one hour east of Canmore, to complete my counselling degree and my practicum placement. I knew this was a temporary stop, and it felt good to have a physical and energetic relocation away from my “old life”, which already felt like the distant past. By the end of that summer, my friendships were beginning to shift as well. Many of them had been based on a mutual love for crushing it in the mountains, and now that I was not doing that nearly as much, many people began to naturally fall away. I also entered into what I would say was my first conscious relationship. His face “popped” out to me on a dating app, and I knew that we had to meet. I read his Human Design chart for him on our first date, and I couldn’t believe that a real live man was actually interested in what I had to say on the subject! Although our relationship ended up being short-lived (a few months), I was very grateful for his support at that time and to have someone who truly saw me for who I am, rather than simply as an athlete, student, or other role I was playing. At a time when so much was changing and falling away and I felt so lost, I was grateful to be witnessed as my new emerging self.

September 2019-March 2020: Excitement, Passion, and Fear

In a new location, with a new frequency, and a new self emerging, I received the guidance to create my business. At the same time, I was finishing up my coursework at the University of Calgary and doing my practicum placement as a school counsellor. In my spare time, I visioned and birthed the first iteration of this business, which I called Human Design Counselling. I was so excited, so passionate, and so terrified. I was excited because everything about it felt so right to me. I was receiving intuitive downloads daily about different aspects of the business. I was creating freely and loving every second. I was passionate because I knew that my skills and knowledge as a professional counsellor would marry perfectly with this epic new wisdom I was acquiring through my study of Human Design. And I was terrified - mostly at what other people would think. Would I be kicked out of my Master’s program for talking about this stuff? Would my family still want to talk to me? My friends? Would I be burned at the stake for this in some way? As I fought through each one of these fears, my vision emerged and was officially birthed in the form of this website on November 12, 2019.

I look back on this time of finishing up my degree and starting my business with a lot of fondness, but I know it had its challenges. Looking back now, I remember a lot of passion, drive, and hope for the future. I remember the enjoyment of re-discovering how to move my body in a way that enlivens instead of exhausts. I remember leaning in to my Emotional Authority for the first time. In fact, it was the first time I had ever given myself permission to feel my emotions at all.

It was also a tough time, as I learned more about my wounded inner child, my shadow, and the ways I had been living that were not in alignment. I had a series of very hard revelations about the childhood trauma I had not previously released I had experienced, which consisted of narcissistic and emotional abuse. This revelation, which happened at the end of 2019, set the stage for a long process of healing from wounds I hadn’t realized were there. This healing journey has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. However, I know that my journey with this type of abuse and recovery is the basis of a lot of my depth and wisdom as a human being and as a counsellor. It’s been my path to walk and I’m walking it with love and forgiveness. Not to say there wasn’t a lot of anger along the way - there was - and that’s an important part of the process. Feeling anger that was repressed and gaslit a million times over the course of my life. Allowing it to be there, and allowing myself to say “it wasn’t ok that I was treated like that” were all important parts of my healing journey. This period of time is where that all began.

During this time period, I also began to receive messages that the next correct move for me was back east to my hometown in the Gatineau Hills, Quebec. This was surprising to me, as I never in a million years thought I would move back after experiencing what Western Canada had to offer! However, after taking a couple of long “feeler” trips out there, and waiting out my emotional wave on the matter, it absolutely felt like the next right step to take in my life. I put my ego aside, waved goodbye to the mountains in my rearview mirror, and drove across the country right at the beginning of the pandemic. I peed in a lot of ditches on that trip because every restaurant and public restroom in the entire country was closed, but I made it to Chelsea in one piece on March 31st, 2020.

*The beginning of a new journey… so exciting yet so terrifying!*

April 2020-September 2021: The Pandemic Time-warp feat. Mom

This long period of time is what I like to call the “pandemic time-warp!” Was it really a year and a half? Sure didn’t feel like it!

My plan when I arrived in Chelsea was to stay with my mom for about six months while I finished off the remainder of my degree, continued to work on my business, and planned my next steps. Spoiler alert: those six months turned into nearly two years. If I had known that at the time… I don’t know what I would have done! Kicking off my 30s living with my mom in the midst of a global pandemic and lockdown after lockdown was not at all how I thought my life was going to go after getting my Master’s degree. But, again, I know that we were brought together at that time and under those circumstances for a very good reason.

That reason was to heal, both together and individually with each other’s support. With few distractions, my mom and I were able to dive deep into our wounding and our ancestor stories, clearing and healing and transmuting what felt like many lifetimes of karma, trauma, and wounding… not to mention this lifetime’s psychological and emotional abuse, which she had experienced in a big way for most of her life as well. Those were tough months and years for us, but they were also really beautiful. We made delicious meals and walked in the woods a lot. We got to know each other again, as I’d been living away from home in several other places around the country since I was 17. It was a beautiful time that felt slow and frustrating, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I deeply feel that we had a contract to work out what we needed to work out, and that we needed to do it together. I’m so blessed to have a mom who is so awake and aware and willing to go deep, acknowledge her own shadow, and step into embodying her highest expression. She went through the ups and downs of my business with me in its first stages and growth. She piloted all of my offering ideas, and entered into her own Human Design experiment at almost the same time I did! So massive shoutout to my mom, for being the most loving human, best caregiver on the planet, and one of the most hilarious people I’ve ever met.

During this period of time I was single and very hermit-like. A few invitations came my way, but my emotional authority said “no” to all of them and I listened. Friendships were also quiet during this period, and I was perfectly ok with that. This was a period of deep retreat and contemplation. At one point, I did receive an invitation for a place to rent and I said “yes” because it felt right in my authority. However, it was not to be, as that opportunity fell through at the last minute and I ended up back at mom’s! Apparently, we still had more to go through on our journey together.

In the midst of this time-warp, I also frequently struggled with truly letting go of my identity as an athlete and a student. It was extremely tough to transition from a very structured life, where I felt like I knew what I needed to do to succeed, to a completely unstructured Human Design Experiment as a quad-right, emotional Projector. What on Earth was I supposed to do? What time was I supposed to wake up? Was I really supposed to just do everything I “felt” like doing? I did a lot of experimenting with movement that felt good for my body vs movement I was only doing to prove myself. I also experimented a lot with being too rigid versus being too flow-y (it was more of the latter in this period of time!). I felt like I was trying to recalibrate and settle into a new way of being. It was a massive transition. A massive “roof” moment (I’m a 6/2), of climbing up there and getting used to the view and the new vibes. It felt like a massive void and a massive period of trusting in the divine mystery.

On the work side of things, I did start seeing 1:1 clients in March 2021. I received such beautiful invitations in this area, and was so happy to finally begin offering the work I had dreamed of out in the world. However, I felt challenged at how to market myself and my services as a Projector (and just in general!), and I struggled to attract the number of clients I needed to cover my expenses. Another energetic shift was needed.

*One of many, many, walks in the woods during the pandemic time-warp era*

September 2021-Present: An Emoji Can Be an Invitation

In September 2021, that energetic shift arrived. Throughout the summer, I had begun to notice that an old friend from high school was “popping” out to me on Instagram. He’d been following me from the beginnings of Human Design Counselling two years prior, but only in summer 2021 did I really begin to notice his energy. I felt it very strongly - even though we hadn’t seen each other or connected in any way in 15 years, I began to feel like he wanted to reach out to me, or that we needed to meet for some reason. I didn’t want to get my mind involved and read anything into it too prematurely, so I waited. I waited for a couple of months, and it got to the point where I picked up my phone and went on Instagram with the expectation that he might have sent me a message (again, this would have been completely out of the blue.. we hadn’t spoken or seen each other since 2006, and we didn’t have any friends in common so we hadn’t crossed paths in any way since then), only to be disappointed when I saw that he hadn’t. Of course this was “crazy” but it was a feeling I could not ignore. That’s why I was so excited in early September of 2021 when I picked up my phone and saw that I did, in fact, have an unread Instagram DM from this high school friend! I was so happy and excited to see this notification that I really savoured the moment. I took my time and didn’t open it right away. My heart was fluttering. Finally, I clicked on it and it was…… the clapping hands emoji, reacting to a story I had posted earlier that day. I laughed and said out loud: “Ok, good enough!”

Because of the energy I had been feeling prior to receiving the emoji (I have feelings cognition, for HD nerds who may suspect that and be wondering!), I took that emoji to be an invitation. I sent him a quick message back, and then he replied with about six longer messages, saying he’d been meaning to reach out and was very curious to learn more about his Human Design and other things I was talking about on IG. I invited him to meet up in person, he accepted, and we had our first of many long conversations when we did meet up the following week. The romantic attraction was not instantaneous, but the friendship, companionship, and intellectual + spiritual compatibility definitely was. On that first meeting, I learned that he is also a 6/2 Projector (w/Splenic Authority). We built our friendship through long hikes in the woods and many long text message conversations in between those in-person meetings. After previous experiences with online dating and feeling the pressure to move everything along really fast, it was so nice to build up this way first with zero expectations attached. This was great for my emotional authority, as I had a lot of time to ride my wave and feel things out.

On November 26th, he invited me over for dinner at his place and we shared our deepening feelings for each other, and have been in a committed romantic partnership since that time. It has been quite the journey of healing, love, beauty, self-acceptance, and growth, to be witnessed so deeply by a Projector partner. Human Design has given us a language for many occurrences in our relationship, and my background as a counsellor and recent experiences with healing my own trauma (ongoing healing) have given me, for the first time in my life, the tools I need to understand my triggers and trauma responses when they arise. The beginning of our relationship has not been all rainbows and butterflies, but it has been the most beautiful love I have ever felt in this lifetime. I didn’t know that a love like this was possible, and I’m grateful every day to have reconnected with this incredible human.

In terms of my business, I felt, once again, many shifts and changes during this period of time. I would like to say I have it all figured out, but that is simply not the truth (will it ever be? Probably not!). I’m still learning a lot about business and marketing, as well as discovering my true self and deepening into that in my work. Recently, new invitations have presented themselves, and I very much feel the new beginning energy of this season of the year and time in my life. Although I’ve had so many moments of frustration, so many thoughts of wanting it all to happen faster and better, and even moments where I’ve considered “burning it all to the ground” (hello, emotional lows!), I’m grateful for this process because I am learning so much and deepening into my surrender and trust muscles. Writing this blog post has actually helped me tremendously on that front. It has reminded me that, time and time again in my life, the exact right thing happens at the exact right time. Why would this be any different? It’s not. So my “Hope” motivation (an aspect of my HD chart) will continue to sit by the river, showing up fully, doing my best, and waiting for those aligned invitations to continue to flow through.

*Surrender, trust, flow, waiting, presence, and patience. Key words on my journey these last three years.*

Thank you for reading all of this! It was very freeing and therapeutic to write. I sat down and did it all in two continuous hours with one bathroom break. Now that’s a Projector work chunk for you! I sincerely hope that this offering of my story of the beginning of my Human Design Experiment has been helpful to you in some way on your own journey. Ra Uru Hu, the founder of Human Design, said that it takes 7 years to fully decondition and begin living as your true self. This is because all cells in our bodies replace themselves every seven years. So after each seven year cycle, you are literally (physically) a completely new human being. This is a great reminder that this process is a slow burn. It feels frustrating sometimes (at least to me) to go on Instagram and see people talking about how much success, money, clients, etc. they attracted simply by beginning their Human Design Experiment. It’s funny because maybe that’s the case for some, but Human Design definitely does not promise that! The only thing it promises is alignment. Beginning your experiment and committing to following your Strategy and Authority, no matter how uncomfortable it makes your mind, is a truly life-changing experience. It leads you to the people, places, and experiences that you are meant to have, and ensures that you arrive fully as yourself.

After three years, I would say that I’ve caught glimpses of my true self but I know that I have a ways to go yet before she becomes my default operating system. This is an immense re-writing process, and it certainly does not happen overnight.

I’m excited to see where this journey takes me next, and to report back again with how the experiment is going whenever I get the next intuitive hit to do so :)