Waking up with Jess - Podcast Interview with Werner Pitzal
Jess Bubbico interviewed Werner Pitzal in October 2023 for her podcast 'Waking up with Jess'.
In this 54 minutes interview, they touch on
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Jess Bubbico interviewed Werner Pitzal in October 2023 for her podcast 'Waking up with Jess'.
In this 54 minutes interview, they touch on
- how Werner first got into the original Human Design System (spoiler alert: it was NOT about finding his true self),
- the 6 Lines or perspectives of IHD,
- how INTEGRALHUMANDESIGN evolved from the Human Design System,
- Ra's original view of the Bodygraph as a map of your filters of consciousness,
- Consciousness vs. Awareness vs. Awakeness,
- The importance of not over-identifying with any system of thought,
- and more.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Apple Podcasts
Transcript
Jess: Hello everybody and welcome back to the show. I am very excited because I have Werner Pitzal with us here today, and we are going to be diving into the Integral Human Design (IHD) methodology, system. I don't know if we're going to call it a system, but we're going to dive into Integral Human Design (IHD) and hear his perspectives on many different things. So Werner, thank you for being here with me today.
Werner: Thank you for having me.
Jess: Yeah. So can you give everyone a little bit of a background into the type of work that you're doing at this point in time, and then we'll kind of rewind and talk about your experiences with Human Design.
Werner: I'm mainly a psychotherapist. I started out as a body psychotherapist. So I worked with people on mats with heavy breathing and screaming and so on in the 80s, when we still thought this is a good idea. And then trauma work came in and psychotherapy developed. And today my main work is working with people individually and with couples and couples therapy and coaching, business coaching, developmental coaching. And my wife Laura and I, we developed Integral Human Design (IHD) after having been involved in the very early years with Ra Uru Hu, and teaching it for a while. We developed our own approach to it. It's not a system just to refer to that.
Jess: Yeah, I had heard you say there's a difference between human design and the Human Design System (HDS). So we'll get into all of your work, but I would love to hear a little bit about how you got involved in the Human Design System (HDS) back in the 90s, how that came into your work and into your life.
Werner: It was kind of unusual because I made a friend who was involved with it and we talked and I thought as a psychotherapist, that would be really cool to have something where you can just calculate aspects of a human being that cannot change, because then we could save a lot of time and money for our clients as psychotherapists. We had stuff where you could just say 'Don't do therapy on that issue because it will never change!' So I learned the Human Design System (HDS) with that hope, and this hope was disappointed. People can change if they want to change also in what's outlined in their design and in their chart. But that's how I came into it.
Jess: Yeah, and I just want to say, too, you have such a varied background with so many different modalities that you use and your approach and life experience and all of that. So I know that the work with human design is just kind of a fraction of the work that you're doing in the world. But I'm curious, some of the limitations that you experienced, I guess, or maybe, I don't know if it's limitations, maybe points of evolution that you saw within the system because obviously you talk about human design as Integral Human Design (IHD). What were the points that you saw that you went, oh, there's possibility here within this?
Werner: The Human Design System (HDS) outlines our filters of consciousness. That's how Ra put it once, Ra Uru Hu, who was the founder of the Human Design System (HDS). And unfortunately, many people don't understand that. And unfortunately, also the Human Design System (HDS) especially in the last years is marketed in a way that it promises something else. So it's not so much about the Human Design System (HDS), it's about how people understand it.
If you see it as a map of your filters of consciousness and in that sense, the Bodygraph as a map of limitations, like your QR code, how you plug into the consciousness field, then you won't spend your time studying the QR code as much as people do. But the Human Design System (HDS) is sold as something that tells you who you are, who you were born to be. It tells you stuff like 'you can make money like this' and 'you can have a healthy relationship like this' and 'you should live your life according to a strategy' and so on. And people take it as a personality profiling system, which it is not.
Jess: So I guess if, from your perspective, if you're not seeing it as a personality profiling system, in what ways might you characterize it?
Werner: It shows like the QR code as I said before, or the barcode on the product that you are, so to speak. Nobody knows how consciousness and matter merge within us. This is an unsolved problem. For a long time, science has tried to solve the so-called hard problem of consciousness by studying how consciousness could come out of the brain in some way. And they couldn't find an answer for decades. And now some people turn it around and they say maybe it's a hard problem of matter. Maybe we should ask the question, how does matter come out of consciousness? How does our brains evolve out of consciousness?
Anyway, the Human Design System (HDS) postulates a very peculiar way of how consciousness is twisted into the flesh at 88 degrees of the movement of the sun, or technically the earth, of course. So that's a postulate. That's a hypothesis.
Anyway, the personal evaluation that you might draw from the internet or from somewhere, it basically shows these anchor points between your physical form, your form body, and the consciousness field. Now, this is very important because we are consciousness in form, and everything about our lives is about this connection, and the form is much less malleable than the consciousness and how we operate in the consciousness.
Sometimes I say something like, 'The activations you have in your Bodygraph are like the linchpins which you use to dry the linen of consciousness.' You have a big sheet of white linen that you take out of the washing machine when you're born. And then you put it up the line and then you have 26 linchpins. That's not who you are. It's just the anchor points of consciousness in your body.
Jess: I love that. We're so much more than maybe just the things that we see printed out on the paper that I think in the Human Design System (HDS) world, it's easy to go 'That's me. I'm that thing because it says printed on that piece of paper that I am that thing.' And I think oftentimes that satisfies ... I can only speak from my experience, but that oftentimes satisfies my mind because I can go that is certain. I can hang on to that. I can grasp on to that. And yet there's so much more to the story than that. There's certain aspects I could go, okay, well, technically, I identify as a woman and we could go, okay, well, what does a woman mean? That means that. Like that is what a woman is or that is what a man is or that is what it means to live in Florida or whatever it may be. And so I love the idea that ... and this is what I appreciate about the Gene Keys is it's sort of a portal and a doorway to maybe ask ourselves more questions rather than trying to identify and find certainty in a statistic or a point of reference like this is what it means to be a manifestor.
I'm curious, you know, what it means from your perspective to look at the ideas of consciousness versus awareness versus awakeness.
Jess: Hello everybody and welcome back to the show. I am very excited because I have Werner Pitzal with us here today, and we are going to be diving into the Integral Human Design (IHD) methodology, system. I don't know if we're going to call it a system, but we're going to dive into Integral Human Design (IHD) and hear his perspectives on many different things. So Werner, thank you for being here with me today.
Werner: Thank you for having me.
Jess: Yeah. So can you give everyone a little bit of a background into the type of work that you're doing at this point in time, and then we'll kind of rewind and talk about your experiences with Human Design.
Werner: I'm mainly a psychotherapist. I started out as a body psychotherapist. So I worked with people on mats with heavy breathing and screaming and so on in the 80s, when we still thought this is a good idea. And then trauma work came in and psychotherapy developed. And today my main work is working with people individually and with couples and couples therapy and coaching, business coaching, developmental coaching. And my wife Laura and I, we developed Integral Human Design (IHD) after having been involved in the very early years with Ra Uru Hu, and teaching it for a while. We developed our own approach to it. It's not a system just to refer to that.
Jess: Yeah, I had heard you say there's a difference between human design and the Human Design System (HDS). So we'll get into all of your work, but I would love to hear a little bit about how you got involved in the Human Design System (HDS) back in the 90s, how that came into your work and into your life.
Werner: It was kind of unusual because I made a friend who was involved with it and we talked and I thought as a psychotherapist, that would be really cool to have something where you can just calculate aspects of a human being that cannot change, because then we could save a lot of time and money for our clients as psychotherapists. We had stuff where you could just say 'Don't do therapy on that issue because it will never change!' So I learned the Human Design System (HDS) with that hope, and this hope was disappointed. People can change if they want to change also in what's outlined in their design and in their chart. But that's how I came into it.
Jess: Yeah, and I just want to say, too, you have such a varied background with so many different modalities that you use and your approach and life experience and all of that. So I know that the work with human design is just kind of a fraction of the work that you're doing in the world. But I'm curious, some of the limitations that you experienced, I guess, or maybe, I don't know if it's limitations, maybe points of evolution that you saw within the system because obviously you talk about human design as Integral Human Design (IHD). What were the points that you saw that you went, oh, there's possibility here within this?
Werner: The Human Design System (HDS) outlines our filters of consciousness. That's how Ra put it once, Ra Uru Hu, who was the founder of the Human Design System (HDS). And unfortunately, many people don't understand that. And unfortunately, also the Human Design System (HDS) especially in the last years is marketed in a way that it promises something else. So it's not so much about the Human Design System (HDS), it's about how people understand it.
If you see it as a map of your filters of consciousness and in that sense, the Bodygraph as a map of limitations, like your QR code, how you plug into the consciousness field, then you won't spend your time studying the QR code as much as people do. But the Human Design System (HDS) is sold as something that tells you who you are, who you were born to be. It tells you stuff like 'you can make money like this' and 'you can have a healthy relationship like this' and 'you should live your life according to a strategy' and so on. And people take it as a personality profiling system, which it is not.
Jess: So I guess if, from your perspective, if you're not seeing it as a personality profiling system, in what ways might you characterize it?
Werner: It shows like the QR code as I said before, or the barcode on the product that you are, so to speak. Nobody knows how consciousness and matter merge within us. This is an unsolved problem. For a long time, science has tried to solve the so-called hard problem of consciousness by studying how consciousness could come out of the brain in some way. And they couldn't find an answer for decades. And now some people turn it around and they say maybe it's a hard problem of matter. Maybe we should ask the question, how does matter come out of consciousness? How does our brains evolve out of consciousness?
Anyway, the Human Design System (HDS) postulates a very peculiar way of how consciousness is twisted into the flesh at 88 degrees of the movement of the sun, or technically the earth, of course. So that's a postulate. That's a hypothesis.
Anyway, the personal evaluation that you might draw from the internet or from somewhere, it basically shows these anchor points between your physical form, your form body, and the consciousness field. Now, this is very important because we are consciousness in form, and everything about our lives is about this connection, and the form is much less malleable than the consciousness and how we operate in the consciousness.
Sometimes I say something like, 'The activations you have in your Bodygraph are like the linchpins which you use to dry the linen of consciousness.' You have a big sheet of white linen that you take out of the washing machine when you're born. And then you put it up the line and then you have 26 linchpins. That's not who you are. It's just the anchor points of consciousness in your body.
Jess: I love that. We're so much more than maybe just the things that we see printed out on the paper that I think in the Human Design System (HDS) world, it's easy to go 'That's me. I'm that thing because it says printed on that piece of paper that I am that thing.' And I think oftentimes that satisfies ... I can only speak from my experience, but that oftentimes satisfies my mind because I can go that is certain. I can hang on to that. I can grasp on to that. And yet there's so much more to the story than that. There's certain aspects I could go, okay, well, technically, I identify as a woman and we could go, okay, well, what does a woman mean? That means that. Like that is what a woman is or that is what a man is or that is what it means to live in Florida or whatever it may be. And so I love the idea that ... and this is what I appreciate about the Gene Keys is it's sort of a portal and a doorway to maybe ask ourselves more questions rather than trying to identify and find certainty in a statistic or a point of reference like this is what it means to be a manifestor.
I'm curious, you know, what it means from your perspective to look at the ideas of consciousness versus awareness versus awakeness.
© Linda Bunnell / The Definitive Book of Human Design, The Science of Differentiation, written by Lynda Bunnell, Director of the International Human Design School, and Ra Uru Hu, Founder of The Human Design System / page 340
Werner: The way I use the words – and I found something that Ra once said that seems that he had a similar understanding – is that consciousness is more tied to our five senses and to our personal sense of identity. 'I am conscious of something.' I'm conscious of my own self concept if I'm more evolved. I'm conscious of what I'm seeing and hearing. This is me as a person having a conscious experience. Awareness is not personal in its essence. Awareness is something that's everywhere, right there. And it is boundless and limitless. And it is like the background of our personal consciousness. And then awakeness is the possibility that not only can you let go of your sense of self in a way that you can transition from being conscious to being aware, which is being present with everything that is then. But then also you can take another step – and it takes a lot of practice, usually meditation practice to do that, to be stable in that – you can take the step from awareness to awakeness to awakened awareness. You can see, or see is not the right word because it's not senses anymore. You can be in a state where awareness is everything there is. And at the same time you have a kind of a meta cognition where awareness is aware of itself and sees itself and awakens to itself eventually. That's the path that's taught in Eastern traditions and that's practiced through meditation.
Jess: You had talked about in one of the other interviews that I had listened to about these sort of stages of development that we go through as human beings and how I believe you spoke to the way that we might look at something like the Human Design System (HDS) but anything in general, though I think the way that we learn through these stages of development of kind of looking at I first and then we and then how we fit into the greater whole. And as you were talking about consciousness to awareness to awakeness, it sort of sparked a curiosity within me around how we develop as human beings on the planet and how we go from that process … Is it a process to move from consciousness into a sense of awakeness? Like what is that developmental process like? Is it linear, nonlinear?
Werner: It's nonlinear and there's a certain sequence in the stages. First of all, I really like that your podcast is called Wake Up with Jess. That resonates with what Ra Uru Hu always said about the Human Design System (HDS). He said it is about waking up, and he said it's very easy to wake up. You don't need all the details to wake up. All the details are necessary for the professionals. Now everybody's a professional who goes into the details, but that's just a side comment.
One reason why we used the word integral here with human design is … two main reasons. The one is because we want to say that the Human Design System (HDS) depicts only a small element of your integral human design, of your design as a human being. Similar to the genetic markers in your genetics that are only like 0.1% of your genetic code. And the 26 activations of the 69,120 possible activations that make us human beings in this layered code of the Human Design System (HDS), it's 0.04% or something. So it's a very small fraction of the code that determines what we look at in these evaluations. So that's one aspect of the Integral Human Design (IHD).
The more important aspect is the integral approach developed by Ken Wilber and others – is something that can give you orientation in what you just asked. There are elements in our human experience that don't change, like your imprint at birth. So the Human Design System (HDS) in that sense depicts your type, or your auric type, to be more specific, that is related to how consciousness is twisted into your specific flesh. That doesn't change.
And a lot of other dimensions in us change. One of the aspects that change is our states of consciousness. We can be in a very gross state of consciousness, only relating to the outside and to the material world. And we can be conscious of ourselves and we can be in states any moment in time and shift between these states, between being conscious and being aware and being awake, for instance. States are free, you can experience that as a baby, you can experience that anytime at any level of development.
The other thing is levels or stages of development. That's a sequence we have to move through. And that's the most important dimension we added to Human Design (HDS) as an approach. Because with this map, it's just two dimensional. It's an imprint. But then from there, how you look at the map - this is stages of development. And everybody starts … that's a sequence that's the same all over the planet. It's the same for everyone. You don't have to go through all the stages, but you can. And if you go through all the stages, you land in awakened awareness. But then as a stable vantage point. Everybody starts out with self-centric opportunistm. Yeah, it's all about me. And then we start to form with a group and learn to be diplomatic and also see the other person, not only ourselves. And then we develop like a third person perspective and we develop expertise. That's where most of Human Design folks live because experts talk a lot about difference and uniqueness, and 'I'm this, and I know more here than you.' And that's the skill-centric phase. Everybody needs to develop some skills to develop a sense of identity. That's part of our journey. And then we move on and we become achievers and we try to use our expertise to improve or to grow in some way. All of this is kind of conventional as an approach, and it has not very much of an inward orientation. One good thing about Human Design (HDS) is that it tells people to look at themselves, but in these phases that I just described, in these stages people don't really look inside in terms of contemplation, what Richard Rudd calls the Art of Contemplation. They just look at the map and infer something from it. And only then in later stages, in post-conventional stages, where only like 15% to maximum 20% of the population lives, we start to be able to question a view. To see pluralistic approaches, various approaches. You can see things differently and everybody is right in their own way. That's a later stage of development. And then it goes on into seeing what is more correct than other, and applying skillful means. And so that's then the Strategist. And then the Magician only is really able then to see the power of language. And eventually … that's like an arc of development. You start from unconscious unity and you become very much a self with a self identity. And if you have a Human Design (HDS) chart, you become a self identity that's based on HDS ideas. And then you let go of the certainty that you mentioned before. In the post-conventional phase, you're less and less certain. And everything that you have created is a story about yourself and how life is and what life is about, it shifts and it fades, and eventually you become one with this unbounded, timeless, changeless awareness. That was a long answer.
Jess: I loved it. There are so many things that you said that … one of the things I was thinking about as you were speaking is … obviously you and I are what I think we're exactly three decades apart from each other. So you've got a little bit of … a few more decades on me. And one of the things that I've noticed is, you know, in my Human Design, Gene Keys, etc. profile I would be considered a 4/6 profile. And so, when I learned that was right when I was crossing into 30 and asking myself, looking back going, 'Oh my gosh, what did I just do?' I was like the Tasmanian devil getting to 30. And now I have some friends who are younger than me who are crossing over at the 30 year threshold. But I also have, you know, my parents are in their mid 60s. So I watch them, and I watch their friends, and I watch their evolution and then I have friends who are crossing over into the boundary of 50. And one of the things that I, you know, take from this sixth line in Human Design is this idea that, you know, you cross over the threshold of 50 you become … the story is you become the wise sage. And I look at these people that I know in my life, looking forward and I say well they're in their 50s, and some of them have gained quite this wisdom and this knowledge, where they're less … as you were talking a word that was coming to me was the flexibility. There's a lot of, I feel like flexibility in the way that you're describing the human experience, or these different stages, whereas perhaps the Human Design System (HDS) in its original form is a bit more fixed, like 'You are this', and there's not a 'There's the linchpins' but there's no sheet that can blow in the wind and move and change and the rainstorm can combine … the sheet can get wet or whatever. There's a lot more flexibility in the way you're describing it.
But I find it very interesting because the way you're kind of describing development that maybe isn't so linear is kind of described in the sixth line process that maybe from a human design perspective is described as the … just this type, just this profile line goes through this process whereas what you're describing it feels to me much more like the evolution and the journey of a soul. If the soul is choosing to look inward during this lifetime. I don't know if that resonates or if I'm receiving that in the way you're putting it out there, but I kind of it that I've found for myself a lot of comfort in the idea of 'I get to grow older and wiser. I don't have to have it all figured out now.' I go from that self centric, it all has to be now so that I can retire at 65 and, you know, live a great life, it's well no this is potentially just the journey and evolution of what it means to be a soul and a body at this point in time.
Werner: Yeah. And it applies to all the profiles and all the people and that's important to realize. For a sixth line in the profile it's good to get this permission that that you have time to mature. But what I just described is independent of any profile in Human Design.
Jess: Yeah, yeah. I feel as you said it I'm like, I feel a sense of spaciousness inside of myself as you describe that.
Werner: Beautiful.
Jess: Yeah, especially too because what I guess the way I'm receiving some of what you're saying from through my own lens and filter is like: The self centric self, if it's looking at itself often can't see the much bigger picture until something in its life makes it emerge into that space of not just looking at the self but looking beyond the self, which I guess would come into that space of awareness.
So, can you share a little bit I would love to … I purchased my Integral Human Design (IHD) chart with these different frequency bands. There's kind of three charts for anybody who might go and take a look at their chart. I found it … I really, I love the chart. I emailed you I said how can I help you with your work or support you is there any way to support you and they said come on, come on the podcast, but we have sort of three frequency bands, which would be 'Embracing your Shadow. Releasing your Potential, and then Embodying your Essence' which for anybody who's familiar with the Gene Keys, the words on the chart go from the Shadow to the Gift to the Siddhi.
Can you explain a little bit about these three different charts and how, how we may look at them, work with them understand them in our own lives?
Werner: That's Richard's and mine and other people's attempt to soften and enrich the Human Design (HDS) charts through gene keys language and spirit. We created these keynotes for all the elements in the HDS Bodygraph. And we're still keeping it back a little bit, we're going to release a program that will explain them, mainly because it doesn't solve the problem of the Bodygraph so to speak, but it gives you a different way to look at your imprint when you load Gene Keys language and spirit into it. So it's like in the HDS you have just one version of your filters of consciousness. And if you really listen to Ra, at some point he publicly said that the Rave I Ging for instance, that describes the details of that, is written for the so called Not Self. So it's not a very philanthropic description of these filters.
The Gene Keys as an approach are very uplifting and very, very philanthropic and optimistic also about our options for development as a species and as individuals. So that was like our first attempt to open up the Human Design System (HDS) by including Gene Keys, more or less. Then we continued to put it into a larger frame of reference of the Integral Approach, and we include neuroscience to really see how the totality of our design as human beings operates in the form body, and then we looked for ways to transcend the system and systems altogether. So, the Evaluations that we offer are for people who are familiar with the Bodygraph of the Human Design System (HDS) but want a more soft, open, and positive version of it, and who want to engage in the Art of Contemplation of the shadow aspects of this imprint, which just means to bring something to light where you're contracted for whatever reason, mostly for a trauma reason. And also to have words that point towards what we called awakened awareness before. The Siddhis, or what in Integral Human Design (IHD) is called the Essence. It's words that don't describe actually what awakened awareness is because there are no words there anymore. But if you contemplate your imprint with these words, something might expand and open up in you. And that's why we offer these three Bodygraphs, these three versions of looking at your map of limitations. And the third Bodygraph shouldn't be a Bodygraph, it dissolves at this point, but that's technically difficult.
Jess: Just a blank page where everybody gets. What's your vision for this, because I think there's obviously how the Human Design System (HDS)has been birthed and used, What's your maybe shared collective vision around integral human design and how that goes out into the world and affects the people who come into contact with it? Vision or hope, intention?
Werner: The vision generally is that it might help people in their process of maturation and awakening. That was the original intention that Ra Uru Hu also had with the HDS. But as I said, I think it was lost. As a project, it's very much also tied to the Bodygraph coming to an end in 2027 in its current form. We are transforming as humanity and also our Bodygraph transforms. So Richard Rudd and I are working on a bigger project to both release all these keynotes for the centers and for the gates, for the streams and for the channels, so that people could look at their Integral Human Design charts with some background information. But also, we try to come up with something that helps people to really liberate from the system of the HDS and the system of the Gene Keys, and enter into this space that all of this is a preparation for. Richard and I feel it's really time for us to support awakening more directly.
Jess: Beautiful. As you were speaking, I've always had this question of like, if the systems … what does it look like after 2027? What does it look like? We have this Bodygraph that we've all become obsessed with and we've learned about and we know what this center does and that center. It's kind of like what you're saying, what happens when that dissolves? Because I think there's a lot of us out there who have kind of gone like 'This is the truth', like 'HDS is the ultimate truth of how humans work'. And then all of a sudden in 2027, we're like a different 11 centered being and it looks different. I think it's an opportunity for anybody who's listening to also start to see that where we've potentially constricted, contracted around this idea that this is the way that the world works. And what happens when things shift and change, because we are shifting and changing as beings.
So I'd love to hear like, what are we have, from your understanding, and from what you and Richard are working on, like, what are we evolving into? What are we becoming into?
Werner: I don't fantasize about the future. Richard might, he's more into stories of all kinds. I answer this question from a very different perspective. It's technically speaking, it's very much about integration of our brain hemispheres. What you just described, becoming obsessed with something, looking into representations of something, for instance, into a representation of your filters, or of who you think you are. This is very much how the left side of the brain operates. The right side of the brain is more ready for awakening at any moment, and therefore access to consciousness, awareness, awakeness is there at any moment. If your brain is more integrated, it's right there. And that's the state shift that I talked about.
As humanity, if we don't want to be going extinct, I would say, we need what Daniel Schmachtenberger calls a third attractor. The one attractor is catastrophy, because people come from self-centeredness and left brain overuse and get attached to stuff and destroy the planet and themselves. So it's either catastrophy. or what Schmachtenberger says, it's dystopia – where we need a control system to get a handle on the left brain going insane. Or the third attractor could be what we call awakening, could be full brain integration and living in a state of expanded awareness and possibly awakeness, most of us most of the time. And it's not that difficult unless you get lost in any kind of system. That would be a vision of where to take this and how to go.
I don't know what Ra concretely meant there. People among my friends who say, well, it's all about AI is going to 2027, everybody will have two AI's, and that's the three entities working together. I don't know. Definitely we are in a phase shift in our development as a species. And it's important to not identify with systems that limit your self identification in the first place, but even if you had a system that would be very expansive, or even if you put all the these words into the Bodygraph, it's still something where you create a self identity from. And then most people reify this self identity, and therefore again, use their left brain much more than their right brain. And this is philosopher Iain McGilchrist, he wrote beautiful books on that, one is called The Master and his Emissary, where he really says that the right hemisphere is meant to be the master and send out the emissary, the left hemisphere, to like focus on things and grab things and to distill things into details. But really we need to hold the spaciousness of the right hemisphere view in order to integrate all that - also HDS, Gene Keys and all that.
Jess: That's beautiful. I'm curious. This is such a left brain question for me to ask after you gave this beautiful description of the right brain and this integration. But I'm curious, like, for people who are on this journey that are resonating with what you're saying … Again, I'm going to ask this, and I'm like 'This is such a left brain question'. It's like, how do we start doing that? You know like how do we start coming into that space? I guess it would just reflecting on what you said in the beginning around like awareness like, how do we start to develop our awareness of shifting from being so left brain identified to allowing that sort of right brain experience?
Werner: Technically, but just taking in the whole vision field and generally becoming more receptive. And concretely, with the Human Design System (HDS) for instance, if you go to the level of the tones: Don't buy into variables as the way you designed to operate. Because there are people where the Human Design System (HDS) says you are born to be strategic, or that's how people take it. Oh my God, that would mean that you're supposed to use your left brain to be strategic. We have two sides of the brain in order to have a juxtaposed stereo experience of reality. And maybe just from knowing that … you know, the one side of the brain, the left side, it focuses on something to create a representation from it. The other side of the brain is receptive to take everything in and sees and can hold the whole picture. Just from knowing that and reminding yourself: Do I have both of these online right now? Maybe that's already a start.
Other than that, there are all sorts of meditation techniques that you can engage in that train the stability of holding a right hemisphere view. Because that also evolves in stages. You can shift into a very open right brain experience of this moment, that's a state experience. But then if you lose it again, then it's like, oh yeah, that might motivate you to go on a journey to find more stability in that. For all the people that I know, including myself, it's a lot of work to learn to stabilize more and more open and in that sense, right brain perception. And it's not really perception technically but a vantage point, a view, a basis of operation.
Jess: Yeah. I love that. There was … in the interview, one of the interviews I had listened to, you said to the gentleman something about how people say to you, you breathe a lot. Like you pause, and I think that's such a powerful … I love the question that you presented around, am I kind of in both spaces? Can I hold awareness, while potentially also being in that left brain state? Can I … I keep seeing this image of both sides of my brain holding hands, like best friends and just starting to come together. My background is in speech pathology. And I have recently gotten back into working with kids again. I had written a children's book and I said, it's time for me to get back into this space, and it's been very interesting looking at development and the way that I was trained to look at development as going: Okay if you didn't score within the normal range, you know, that you can say these sounds at this time or do this at this time. And I think that's a really important part of what a lot of this work has opened my mind to has been the fact that everyone is wired very differently and that development doesn't necessarily look the same, and to be able to … I had a one of my old bosses at another time working in the speech therapy realm again. And she said one of the struggles my therapists have is that they're so … we have to get the right number of trials, we have to make sure we reach all of our goals by the end but they have … the word she used is they have trouble using their intuition, at the same time. And so, that vision, moving forward in my mind of bring both sides of the brain … Can I hold awareness, while I can also hold maybe that more directed focused, you know, left brain energy at the same time I think can be a beautiful practice. Like how can I be in it, and be aware of it, whatever I'm doing at the exact same time?
Werner: Yeah, that's another dimension that is just bring in: Can I be in it? … I always have metacognitive awareness. Everybody has access to witness consciousness. That's like inside and above in a way, looking at you from a witness perspective, left and right is a polarity at the same time. And yes, intuition is very much your right brain capacity. Well, both hemispheres are involved in everything. It is not just on one side.
Jess: Absolutely. I love it. No, I, I wanted to ask you about this I feel like this is maybe a little bit of like an offshoot but you had when I sent you the information about the podcast you had mentioned something that I was very interested in, which was the IDH … well actually want to ask you this first. What does integral mean to you, or integral , do you say integral or integral?
Werner: I think people say both.
Jess: Okay, I'm curious like, how do you define that word as it relates to the system, or not system but approach.
Werner: It's about including. It's about allowing all the aspects to be part of the bigger picture. And then the Integral Approach itself, it's about including and transcending. When you move through the stage development, then you always include the former stage and go into a later stage where the former stage is included and transcended. And you see everything in a different way. Like your 'I' has changed, your operating system has changed. And at this point, let me mention that the later stage is not a better stage, it's just the later stage. It's what we move through when we mature. There's no judgment in it. It's just that we people operate on different levels of stages, and we need all these stages to function as a society.
Jess: Amazing. Okay, the last, last question you had talked about the IHD hexagram, and the six stages of contextualizing IHD information in a bigger picture. So I'd love to hear about that.
Werner: Yeah, that's a little bit how we structure the course that's going to come out with Richard and I and maybe other people. Like, because HDS people love to view things through hexagrams.
Line one is, so to speak, is the Human Design System (HDS), where we started from in this aspect of our exploration. And it's about the Bodygraph, how the Bodygraph works. That's how we focus our attention and training when we learn that.
And then line two is you load and feed all the Gene Keys stuff into the Bodygraph. So you have a wider view of how the source code and the imprint actually works. Yeah, so you get a different possibility, a much more open possibility for working with, and working from this imprint. And you establish a different sense of self on line two, so to speak. From the perspective of the Bodygraph, it's still an experiment but then if you also juxtapose what we do in our Evaluations, if you juxtapose them the Integral Human Design three Bodygraphs with the Golden Path, then suddenly you have the notion of contemplation, and you have the notion of journey. That's line two. And then you have all the good stuff from Gene Keys you have related to the HDS calculation and database.
Line three then is like to go around and see what else is there. That's the integral approach. Then we shift in line three and four, it's about how people work. It's no longer about how the imprint works, it's about what is our human operating system. And part of that is, what is our design in the form body. So it's a larger frame of reference where we see there are types - the aspects in us that don't change we call that type. And there are lines of development, and there are stages of development, and there are states of development or states of experience, all that stuff. And quadrants of apprehension. So you open up dimensions of being able to better understand and relate to aspects of our human experience and understand how the operating system actually works.
And line four is, how does neuroscience teach us about how people operate ,and a focus here is about connection and relating, because the main difference in the understanding of the human brain-mind interface that the HDS talks about is, there is very … The HDS says 'Just hold up your differentiation by isolating yourself'. Our brain says exactly the opposite. If you relate in a successful way, your dopamine goes up and you're a happy camper. So, and like all the aspects of brain that we just talked about, so that's neuroscience, body psychotherapy, relating as a practice also. Line three was integral life practice (ILP), train and evolve in all aspects of your being, body, mind, spirit, everything. Line four is: Use relationships as your spiritual practice, and open through that.
And then line five is what Richard calls the Art of Contemplation. It's actually then … yeah, line one and two was how does the imprint work? Line three and four is how do people actually work, not only the imprint. And line five and six is how does mind work, and mind beyond our personal identity? So that's the thing we talked about – consciousness, awareness, awakeness. Line five is more, how can you work with your ordinary mind so you evolve into a being that can hold awaken awareness, first for an instant, and maybe as a state, as a gift, to start your exploration, and then eventually as your vantage point. And there are many stages in here as well. So Art of Contemplation.
And line six is, so to speak, that's what you've called the blank sheet before. It's what Iain McGilchrist calls the duality of non-duality and duality. I love that. Where you can live in the relative world and focus on stuff with your left hemisphere. And at the same time, you're completely connected to everything. Technically, probably more with your right hemisphere, but anyway, operate out of awakened awareness, which means … the Eastern traditions call that enlightened activity, or enlightened action. The integral people call it showing up on a very deep level. You have to clean up your shadow. You have to wake up through states of experience. You have to grow up through levels of development, and eventually you can show up, and ideally as a third attractor, if a number of us could show up in a state and stage where we can operate from awaken awareness, we can contribute enlightened activity. That's a big word and I'm not there. I'm working on it. I like it as the third attractor.
Jess: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, I can't wait to see what is created and well, it sounds like a lot has already been created and is in creation, but I'm very excited to witness when you launch what you're launching and more that is to come. I know you said in your survey, you don't do social media, but I will certainly share as things come out on my social media so that as people who are interested can, you know, kind of come and see what you guys are creating. And as you were speaking, I know we'll wrap up because we're almost out of time, but out of time. But I was thinking about how I have some family members who have not changed their home in a really long time. Like, in fact, one of my family members will go and purchase things on eBay from the 80s to replace things if they break in the house, because he wants it exactly as it was, you know, which we could probably psychoanalyze, but we won't go there. But what's interesting to me is to think about this idea again of the word that keeps coming to me is like flexibility with the system and evolution with the system. And it's comforting to go to a house that's the same as it was when I was a kid in certain ways, because it feels nostalgic and it feels good and it feels safe. And yet there's real beauty in allowing ourselves to evolve from the original. And I find it inspiring to tune in, you know, Richard Rudd I know was there in the earlier years with Human Design and had his experience of it. You have had your own experience of it. I look at people like Karen Curry Parker, who's also, she sent an email saying she's been in this for 24 years. And it's beautiful to be able to say, you know, so many of us, including myself, have come into this in the last five, six years. So I only have perspective from 2018 to 2023. But to be able to recognize this idea of like we stand on the shoulders of giants and that you all have a very different perspective because you were there from a very different time than many of us were. I think it's really beautiful to see what time and evolution and your own journey with this, not just human design, but other things that you've been involved with in your life journey, bring to the table. So I'm very excited to see what you create, what is put out there. And I will link all of your information underneath here, so people can connect with you and your, I would recommend, yeah, if anybody feels called to check out the reports that you have created up on your site, you can order your report.
Is there anything that you want to leave everyone with or something that they can do to connect with you outside of what you have on the Integral Human Design website?
Werner: Well, that's the best way to approach the Integral Human Design side of my work anyway. I want to invite everybody to hold all of this information lightly and play with it, and to see it as an inspiration rather than something that describes who you are. In any case, avoid reifying it and avoid reifying your self identity because it limits the speed of your evolution and that would be a pity.
Jess: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being here. Everybody out there, have a great day. I'll see you back here on the next episode of the podcast.
Werner: Thank you.
Jess: You had talked about in one of the other interviews that I had listened to about these sort of stages of development that we go through as human beings and how I believe you spoke to the way that we might look at something like the Human Design System (HDS) but anything in general, though I think the way that we learn through these stages of development of kind of looking at I first and then we and then how we fit into the greater whole. And as you were talking about consciousness to awareness to awakeness, it sort of sparked a curiosity within me around how we develop as human beings on the planet and how we go from that process … Is it a process to move from consciousness into a sense of awakeness? Like what is that developmental process like? Is it linear, nonlinear?
Werner: It's nonlinear and there's a certain sequence in the stages. First of all, I really like that your podcast is called Wake Up with Jess. That resonates with what Ra Uru Hu always said about the Human Design System (HDS). He said it is about waking up, and he said it's very easy to wake up. You don't need all the details to wake up. All the details are necessary for the professionals. Now everybody's a professional who goes into the details, but that's just a side comment.
One reason why we used the word integral here with human design is … two main reasons. The one is because we want to say that the Human Design System (HDS) depicts only a small element of your integral human design, of your design as a human being. Similar to the genetic markers in your genetics that are only like 0.1% of your genetic code. And the 26 activations of the 69,120 possible activations that make us human beings in this layered code of the Human Design System (HDS), it's 0.04% or something. So it's a very small fraction of the code that determines what we look at in these evaluations. So that's one aspect of the Integral Human Design (IHD).
The more important aspect is the integral approach developed by Ken Wilber and others – is something that can give you orientation in what you just asked. There are elements in our human experience that don't change, like your imprint at birth. So the Human Design System (HDS) in that sense depicts your type, or your auric type, to be more specific, that is related to how consciousness is twisted into your specific flesh. That doesn't change.
And a lot of other dimensions in us change. One of the aspects that change is our states of consciousness. We can be in a very gross state of consciousness, only relating to the outside and to the material world. And we can be conscious of ourselves and we can be in states any moment in time and shift between these states, between being conscious and being aware and being awake, for instance. States are free, you can experience that as a baby, you can experience that anytime at any level of development.
The other thing is levels or stages of development. That's a sequence we have to move through. And that's the most important dimension we added to Human Design (HDS) as an approach. Because with this map, it's just two dimensional. It's an imprint. But then from there, how you look at the map - this is stages of development. And everybody starts … that's a sequence that's the same all over the planet. It's the same for everyone. You don't have to go through all the stages, but you can. And if you go through all the stages, you land in awakened awareness. But then as a stable vantage point. Everybody starts out with self-centric opportunistm. Yeah, it's all about me. And then we start to form with a group and learn to be diplomatic and also see the other person, not only ourselves. And then we develop like a third person perspective and we develop expertise. That's where most of Human Design folks live because experts talk a lot about difference and uniqueness, and 'I'm this, and I know more here than you.' And that's the skill-centric phase. Everybody needs to develop some skills to develop a sense of identity. That's part of our journey. And then we move on and we become achievers and we try to use our expertise to improve or to grow in some way. All of this is kind of conventional as an approach, and it has not very much of an inward orientation. One good thing about Human Design (HDS) is that it tells people to look at themselves, but in these phases that I just described, in these stages people don't really look inside in terms of contemplation, what Richard Rudd calls the Art of Contemplation. They just look at the map and infer something from it. And only then in later stages, in post-conventional stages, where only like 15% to maximum 20% of the population lives, we start to be able to question a view. To see pluralistic approaches, various approaches. You can see things differently and everybody is right in their own way. That's a later stage of development. And then it goes on into seeing what is more correct than other, and applying skillful means. And so that's then the Strategist. And then the Magician only is really able then to see the power of language. And eventually … that's like an arc of development. You start from unconscious unity and you become very much a self with a self identity. And if you have a Human Design (HDS) chart, you become a self identity that's based on HDS ideas. And then you let go of the certainty that you mentioned before. In the post-conventional phase, you're less and less certain. And everything that you have created is a story about yourself and how life is and what life is about, it shifts and it fades, and eventually you become one with this unbounded, timeless, changeless awareness. That was a long answer.
Jess: I loved it. There are so many things that you said that … one of the things I was thinking about as you were speaking is … obviously you and I are what I think we're exactly three decades apart from each other. So you've got a little bit of … a few more decades on me. And one of the things that I've noticed is, you know, in my Human Design, Gene Keys, etc. profile I would be considered a 4/6 profile. And so, when I learned that was right when I was crossing into 30 and asking myself, looking back going, 'Oh my gosh, what did I just do?' I was like the Tasmanian devil getting to 30. And now I have some friends who are younger than me who are crossing over at the 30 year threshold. But I also have, you know, my parents are in their mid 60s. So I watch them, and I watch their friends, and I watch their evolution and then I have friends who are crossing over into the boundary of 50. And one of the things that I, you know, take from this sixth line in Human Design is this idea that, you know, you cross over the threshold of 50 you become … the story is you become the wise sage. And I look at these people that I know in my life, looking forward and I say well they're in their 50s, and some of them have gained quite this wisdom and this knowledge, where they're less … as you were talking a word that was coming to me was the flexibility. There's a lot of, I feel like flexibility in the way that you're describing the human experience, or these different stages, whereas perhaps the Human Design System (HDS) in its original form is a bit more fixed, like 'You are this', and there's not a 'There's the linchpins' but there's no sheet that can blow in the wind and move and change and the rainstorm can combine … the sheet can get wet or whatever. There's a lot more flexibility in the way you're describing it.
But I find it very interesting because the way you're kind of describing development that maybe isn't so linear is kind of described in the sixth line process that maybe from a human design perspective is described as the … just this type, just this profile line goes through this process whereas what you're describing it feels to me much more like the evolution and the journey of a soul. If the soul is choosing to look inward during this lifetime. I don't know if that resonates or if I'm receiving that in the way you're putting it out there, but I kind of it that I've found for myself a lot of comfort in the idea of 'I get to grow older and wiser. I don't have to have it all figured out now.' I go from that self centric, it all has to be now so that I can retire at 65 and, you know, live a great life, it's well no this is potentially just the journey and evolution of what it means to be a soul and a body at this point in time.
Werner: Yeah. And it applies to all the profiles and all the people and that's important to realize. For a sixth line in the profile it's good to get this permission that that you have time to mature. But what I just described is independent of any profile in Human Design.
Jess: Yeah, yeah. I feel as you said it I'm like, I feel a sense of spaciousness inside of myself as you describe that.
Werner: Beautiful.
Jess: Yeah, especially too because what I guess the way I'm receiving some of what you're saying from through my own lens and filter is like: The self centric self, if it's looking at itself often can't see the much bigger picture until something in its life makes it emerge into that space of not just looking at the self but looking beyond the self, which I guess would come into that space of awareness.
So, can you share a little bit I would love to … I purchased my Integral Human Design (IHD) chart with these different frequency bands. There's kind of three charts for anybody who might go and take a look at their chart. I found it … I really, I love the chart. I emailed you I said how can I help you with your work or support you is there any way to support you and they said come on, come on the podcast, but we have sort of three frequency bands, which would be 'Embracing your Shadow. Releasing your Potential, and then Embodying your Essence' which for anybody who's familiar with the Gene Keys, the words on the chart go from the Shadow to the Gift to the Siddhi.
Can you explain a little bit about these three different charts and how, how we may look at them, work with them understand them in our own lives?
Werner: That's Richard's and mine and other people's attempt to soften and enrich the Human Design (HDS) charts through gene keys language and spirit. We created these keynotes for all the elements in the HDS Bodygraph. And we're still keeping it back a little bit, we're going to release a program that will explain them, mainly because it doesn't solve the problem of the Bodygraph so to speak, but it gives you a different way to look at your imprint when you load Gene Keys language and spirit into it. So it's like in the HDS you have just one version of your filters of consciousness. And if you really listen to Ra, at some point he publicly said that the Rave I Ging for instance, that describes the details of that, is written for the so called Not Self. So it's not a very philanthropic description of these filters.
The Gene Keys as an approach are very uplifting and very, very philanthropic and optimistic also about our options for development as a species and as individuals. So that was like our first attempt to open up the Human Design System (HDS) by including Gene Keys, more or less. Then we continued to put it into a larger frame of reference of the Integral Approach, and we include neuroscience to really see how the totality of our design as human beings operates in the form body, and then we looked for ways to transcend the system and systems altogether. So, the Evaluations that we offer are for people who are familiar with the Bodygraph of the Human Design System (HDS) but want a more soft, open, and positive version of it, and who want to engage in the Art of Contemplation of the shadow aspects of this imprint, which just means to bring something to light where you're contracted for whatever reason, mostly for a trauma reason. And also to have words that point towards what we called awakened awareness before. The Siddhis, or what in Integral Human Design (IHD) is called the Essence. It's words that don't describe actually what awakened awareness is because there are no words there anymore. But if you contemplate your imprint with these words, something might expand and open up in you. And that's why we offer these three Bodygraphs, these three versions of looking at your map of limitations. And the third Bodygraph shouldn't be a Bodygraph, it dissolves at this point, but that's technically difficult.
Jess: Just a blank page where everybody gets. What's your vision for this, because I think there's obviously how the Human Design System (HDS)has been birthed and used, What's your maybe shared collective vision around integral human design and how that goes out into the world and affects the people who come into contact with it? Vision or hope, intention?
Werner: The vision generally is that it might help people in their process of maturation and awakening. That was the original intention that Ra Uru Hu also had with the HDS. But as I said, I think it was lost. As a project, it's very much also tied to the Bodygraph coming to an end in 2027 in its current form. We are transforming as humanity and also our Bodygraph transforms. So Richard Rudd and I are working on a bigger project to both release all these keynotes for the centers and for the gates, for the streams and for the channels, so that people could look at their Integral Human Design charts with some background information. But also, we try to come up with something that helps people to really liberate from the system of the HDS and the system of the Gene Keys, and enter into this space that all of this is a preparation for. Richard and I feel it's really time for us to support awakening more directly.
Jess: Beautiful. As you were speaking, I've always had this question of like, if the systems … what does it look like after 2027? What does it look like? We have this Bodygraph that we've all become obsessed with and we've learned about and we know what this center does and that center. It's kind of like what you're saying, what happens when that dissolves? Because I think there's a lot of us out there who have kind of gone like 'This is the truth', like 'HDS is the ultimate truth of how humans work'. And then all of a sudden in 2027, we're like a different 11 centered being and it looks different. I think it's an opportunity for anybody who's listening to also start to see that where we've potentially constricted, contracted around this idea that this is the way that the world works. And what happens when things shift and change, because we are shifting and changing as beings.
So I'd love to hear like, what are we have, from your understanding, and from what you and Richard are working on, like, what are we evolving into? What are we becoming into?
Werner: I don't fantasize about the future. Richard might, he's more into stories of all kinds. I answer this question from a very different perspective. It's technically speaking, it's very much about integration of our brain hemispheres. What you just described, becoming obsessed with something, looking into representations of something, for instance, into a representation of your filters, or of who you think you are. This is very much how the left side of the brain operates. The right side of the brain is more ready for awakening at any moment, and therefore access to consciousness, awareness, awakeness is there at any moment. If your brain is more integrated, it's right there. And that's the state shift that I talked about.
As humanity, if we don't want to be going extinct, I would say, we need what Daniel Schmachtenberger calls a third attractor. The one attractor is catastrophy, because people come from self-centeredness and left brain overuse and get attached to stuff and destroy the planet and themselves. So it's either catastrophy. or what Schmachtenberger says, it's dystopia – where we need a control system to get a handle on the left brain going insane. Or the third attractor could be what we call awakening, could be full brain integration and living in a state of expanded awareness and possibly awakeness, most of us most of the time. And it's not that difficult unless you get lost in any kind of system. That would be a vision of where to take this and how to go.
I don't know what Ra concretely meant there. People among my friends who say, well, it's all about AI is going to 2027, everybody will have two AI's, and that's the three entities working together. I don't know. Definitely we are in a phase shift in our development as a species. And it's important to not identify with systems that limit your self identification in the first place, but even if you had a system that would be very expansive, or even if you put all the these words into the Bodygraph, it's still something where you create a self identity from. And then most people reify this self identity, and therefore again, use their left brain much more than their right brain. And this is philosopher Iain McGilchrist, he wrote beautiful books on that, one is called The Master and his Emissary, where he really says that the right hemisphere is meant to be the master and send out the emissary, the left hemisphere, to like focus on things and grab things and to distill things into details. But really we need to hold the spaciousness of the right hemisphere view in order to integrate all that - also HDS, Gene Keys and all that.
Jess: That's beautiful. I'm curious. This is such a left brain question for me to ask after you gave this beautiful description of the right brain and this integration. But I'm curious, like, for people who are on this journey that are resonating with what you're saying … Again, I'm going to ask this, and I'm like 'This is such a left brain question'. It's like, how do we start doing that? You know like how do we start coming into that space? I guess it would just reflecting on what you said in the beginning around like awareness like, how do we start to develop our awareness of shifting from being so left brain identified to allowing that sort of right brain experience?
Werner: Technically, but just taking in the whole vision field and generally becoming more receptive. And concretely, with the Human Design System (HDS) for instance, if you go to the level of the tones: Don't buy into variables as the way you designed to operate. Because there are people where the Human Design System (HDS) says you are born to be strategic, or that's how people take it. Oh my God, that would mean that you're supposed to use your left brain to be strategic. We have two sides of the brain in order to have a juxtaposed stereo experience of reality. And maybe just from knowing that … you know, the one side of the brain, the left side, it focuses on something to create a representation from it. The other side of the brain is receptive to take everything in and sees and can hold the whole picture. Just from knowing that and reminding yourself: Do I have both of these online right now? Maybe that's already a start.
Other than that, there are all sorts of meditation techniques that you can engage in that train the stability of holding a right hemisphere view. Because that also evolves in stages. You can shift into a very open right brain experience of this moment, that's a state experience. But then if you lose it again, then it's like, oh yeah, that might motivate you to go on a journey to find more stability in that. For all the people that I know, including myself, it's a lot of work to learn to stabilize more and more open and in that sense, right brain perception. And it's not really perception technically but a vantage point, a view, a basis of operation.
Jess: Yeah. I love that. There was … in the interview, one of the interviews I had listened to, you said to the gentleman something about how people say to you, you breathe a lot. Like you pause, and I think that's such a powerful … I love the question that you presented around, am I kind of in both spaces? Can I hold awareness, while potentially also being in that left brain state? Can I … I keep seeing this image of both sides of my brain holding hands, like best friends and just starting to come together. My background is in speech pathology. And I have recently gotten back into working with kids again. I had written a children's book and I said, it's time for me to get back into this space, and it's been very interesting looking at development and the way that I was trained to look at development as going: Okay if you didn't score within the normal range, you know, that you can say these sounds at this time or do this at this time. And I think that's a really important part of what a lot of this work has opened my mind to has been the fact that everyone is wired very differently and that development doesn't necessarily look the same, and to be able to … I had a one of my old bosses at another time working in the speech therapy realm again. And she said one of the struggles my therapists have is that they're so … we have to get the right number of trials, we have to make sure we reach all of our goals by the end but they have … the word she used is they have trouble using their intuition, at the same time. And so, that vision, moving forward in my mind of bring both sides of the brain … Can I hold awareness, while I can also hold maybe that more directed focused, you know, left brain energy at the same time I think can be a beautiful practice. Like how can I be in it, and be aware of it, whatever I'm doing at the exact same time?
Werner: Yeah, that's another dimension that is just bring in: Can I be in it? … I always have metacognitive awareness. Everybody has access to witness consciousness. That's like inside and above in a way, looking at you from a witness perspective, left and right is a polarity at the same time. And yes, intuition is very much your right brain capacity. Well, both hemispheres are involved in everything. It is not just on one side.
Jess: Absolutely. I love it. No, I, I wanted to ask you about this I feel like this is maybe a little bit of like an offshoot but you had when I sent you the information about the podcast you had mentioned something that I was very interested in, which was the IDH … well actually want to ask you this first. What does integral mean to you, or integral , do you say integral or integral?
Werner: I think people say both.
Jess: Okay, I'm curious like, how do you define that word as it relates to the system, or not system but approach.
Werner: It's about including. It's about allowing all the aspects to be part of the bigger picture. And then the Integral Approach itself, it's about including and transcending. When you move through the stage development, then you always include the former stage and go into a later stage where the former stage is included and transcended. And you see everything in a different way. Like your 'I' has changed, your operating system has changed. And at this point, let me mention that the later stage is not a better stage, it's just the later stage. It's what we move through when we mature. There's no judgment in it. It's just that we people operate on different levels of stages, and we need all these stages to function as a society.
Jess: Amazing. Okay, the last, last question you had talked about the IHD hexagram, and the six stages of contextualizing IHD information in a bigger picture. So I'd love to hear about that.
Werner: Yeah, that's a little bit how we structure the course that's going to come out with Richard and I and maybe other people. Like, because HDS people love to view things through hexagrams.
Line one is, so to speak, is the Human Design System (HDS), where we started from in this aspect of our exploration. And it's about the Bodygraph, how the Bodygraph works. That's how we focus our attention and training when we learn that.
And then line two is you load and feed all the Gene Keys stuff into the Bodygraph. So you have a wider view of how the source code and the imprint actually works. Yeah, so you get a different possibility, a much more open possibility for working with, and working from this imprint. And you establish a different sense of self on line two, so to speak. From the perspective of the Bodygraph, it's still an experiment but then if you also juxtapose what we do in our Evaluations, if you juxtapose them the Integral Human Design three Bodygraphs with the Golden Path, then suddenly you have the notion of contemplation, and you have the notion of journey. That's line two. And then you have all the good stuff from Gene Keys you have related to the HDS calculation and database.
Line three then is like to go around and see what else is there. That's the integral approach. Then we shift in line three and four, it's about how people work. It's no longer about how the imprint works, it's about what is our human operating system. And part of that is, what is our design in the form body. So it's a larger frame of reference where we see there are types - the aspects in us that don't change we call that type. And there are lines of development, and there are stages of development, and there are states of development or states of experience, all that stuff. And quadrants of apprehension. So you open up dimensions of being able to better understand and relate to aspects of our human experience and understand how the operating system actually works.
And line four is, how does neuroscience teach us about how people operate ,and a focus here is about connection and relating, because the main difference in the understanding of the human brain-mind interface that the HDS talks about is, there is very … The HDS says 'Just hold up your differentiation by isolating yourself'. Our brain says exactly the opposite. If you relate in a successful way, your dopamine goes up and you're a happy camper. So, and like all the aspects of brain that we just talked about, so that's neuroscience, body psychotherapy, relating as a practice also. Line three was integral life practice (ILP), train and evolve in all aspects of your being, body, mind, spirit, everything. Line four is: Use relationships as your spiritual practice, and open through that.
And then line five is what Richard calls the Art of Contemplation. It's actually then … yeah, line one and two was how does the imprint work? Line three and four is how do people actually work, not only the imprint. And line five and six is how does mind work, and mind beyond our personal identity? So that's the thing we talked about – consciousness, awareness, awakeness. Line five is more, how can you work with your ordinary mind so you evolve into a being that can hold awaken awareness, first for an instant, and maybe as a state, as a gift, to start your exploration, and then eventually as your vantage point. And there are many stages in here as well. So Art of Contemplation.
And line six is, so to speak, that's what you've called the blank sheet before. It's what Iain McGilchrist calls the duality of non-duality and duality. I love that. Where you can live in the relative world and focus on stuff with your left hemisphere. And at the same time, you're completely connected to everything. Technically, probably more with your right hemisphere, but anyway, operate out of awakened awareness, which means … the Eastern traditions call that enlightened activity, or enlightened action. The integral people call it showing up on a very deep level. You have to clean up your shadow. You have to wake up through states of experience. You have to grow up through levels of development, and eventually you can show up, and ideally as a third attractor, if a number of us could show up in a state and stage where we can operate from awaken awareness, we can contribute enlightened activity. That's a big word and I'm not there. I'm working on it. I like it as the third attractor.
Jess: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, I can't wait to see what is created and well, it sounds like a lot has already been created and is in creation, but I'm very excited to witness when you launch what you're launching and more that is to come. I know you said in your survey, you don't do social media, but I will certainly share as things come out on my social media so that as people who are interested can, you know, kind of come and see what you guys are creating. And as you were speaking, I know we'll wrap up because we're almost out of time, but out of time. But I was thinking about how I have some family members who have not changed their home in a really long time. Like, in fact, one of my family members will go and purchase things on eBay from the 80s to replace things if they break in the house, because he wants it exactly as it was, you know, which we could probably psychoanalyze, but we won't go there. But what's interesting to me is to think about this idea again of the word that keeps coming to me is like flexibility with the system and evolution with the system. And it's comforting to go to a house that's the same as it was when I was a kid in certain ways, because it feels nostalgic and it feels good and it feels safe. And yet there's real beauty in allowing ourselves to evolve from the original. And I find it inspiring to tune in, you know, Richard Rudd I know was there in the earlier years with Human Design and had his experience of it. You have had your own experience of it. I look at people like Karen Curry Parker, who's also, she sent an email saying she's been in this for 24 years. And it's beautiful to be able to say, you know, so many of us, including myself, have come into this in the last five, six years. So I only have perspective from 2018 to 2023. But to be able to recognize this idea of like we stand on the shoulders of giants and that you all have a very different perspective because you were there from a very different time than many of us were. I think it's really beautiful to see what time and evolution and your own journey with this, not just human design, but other things that you've been involved with in your life journey, bring to the table. So I'm very excited to see what you create, what is put out there. And I will link all of your information underneath here, so people can connect with you and your, I would recommend, yeah, if anybody feels called to check out the reports that you have created up on your site, you can order your report.
Is there anything that you want to leave everyone with or something that they can do to connect with you outside of what you have on the Integral Human Design website?
Werner: Well, that's the best way to approach the Integral Human Design side of my work anyway. I want to invite everybody to hold all of this information lightly and play with it, and to see it as an inspiration rather than something that describes who you are. In any case, avoid reifying it and avoid reifying your self identity because it limits the speed of your evolution and that would be a pity.
Jess: Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for being here. Everybody out there, have a great day. I'll see you back here on the next episode of the podcast.
Werner: Thank you.