But what is "correctness" anyway?
Continuation of "Entering into it Correctly (as a 2/5 profile)"
In my last writing, I shared the story of how I found my current job and how the path that led me there taught me, on a visceral level, how to tell the difference between what feels correct for me and what does not.
It was a deeply illuminating experience, but the story does not end at, “I got the job and then I lived happily ever after. The end.”
The story keeps going.
It was a lesson not only in discerning what to choose and how to choose “correctly,” but also - and most importantly! - what correctness actually means.
Correctness is not about happily ever afters or eternal sunshine and rainbows
I have noticed this underlying tendency to feel that by following our Human Design Strategy & Authority (S&A for short), we expect to always feel good. Not everyone necessarily *thinks* this way on a conscious level, but I do feel it is more pervasive than we even realize within ourselves. The desire to choose the right thing so that we do not have to suffer. It’s kind of human, isn’t it?! And it can be there even if we see the intellectual unreasonableness of the desire.
I have also seen critics of S&A condemn it for that very reason, stating that the nature of life makes it impossible to feel good all the time.
While I most definitely do agree there, I think that they also miss the point.
Strategy & Authority is not meant to help us choose the things that will always be pleasant, make us “feel good,” and allow us to live challenge-free lives.
On the contrary, correctness often takes us into the very heart of some deeply painful and challenging experiences.
But they are the CORRECT challenges for us.
The ones that we need to grow and become more ourselves.
To become healthier.
To let go of conditioning.
To learn to function as our true selves!
Facing myself and growing through my new job
As I recounted in my previous writing, I entered into my new job in a way that felt so correct. My body took the lead, and it was incredible.
Overall, I am very happy there.
But it has been deeply challenging at times.
I have wanted to run away screaming.
My splenic fears have screeched and howled so much, regularly sending my mind spiraling in anxiety because there was really nothing to be done about it.
In the past, this is the feeling that would make drop everything and quit whatever it was I was doing. I would be gone so fast, stopping just short of actual running or screaming.
My mind desperately tried to come up with viable solutions for leaving. “Go look for another job.” Or “We can get by with no income for a bit. If worse comes to worst, we can always probably move in with dad for a bit?!” Or “Maybe if we won the lottery…” 😅
However, a deeper part of me (my sacral!?!) was calm and unmovable.
“Nope, stay.”
It was correct to be experiencing exactly what I was experiencing. Deeply excruciating, but also deeply necessary.
Practicing self-awareness and self-observation were monumentally important. By simply watching myself and the people around me, I was able to see that it was all the stories in my head that were driving me crazy.
The stories that told me I could not make mistakes. The stories that told me if I didn’t know everything, then everyone would be mad at me. The stories that demanded absolute perfection of me. The stories that mounted countless untold unrealistic expectations of what I should be in order to be liked and respected in my position.
But when I could step back and objectively look around at everyone else, I was almost astounded to find that no one else was holding any of those expectations of me.
Everyone else was so kind, accepting, and forgiving.
You’re new here, it’s all good. Omg, it’s so much for you to learn, no worries. You got this. You are doing an incredible job!!
I was the only asshole berating me, judging me, finding me lacking… just me.
Recognizing this discrepancy between my perception and the objective reality of the people and situations around me made me realize just how much I was living through my conditioning in certain aspects of my relationships with others.
The awareness of my design, given to me by Human Design, was invaluable and instrumental in my understanding of what I was experiencing.
Being a 2/5, like I wrote about in my previous writing, has some innate challenges. The double projection can be tricky, and I certainly have had my fair share of difficulties because of it. The awareness of it does make a huge difference though, and it has served me well in this job.
One thing I have always noticed is that people tend to project upon me that I am trustworthy. Throughout my life, I have found it amusing that people I barely know will say things like, “I know I can trust YOU.” I mean, 👉 I 👈 know they can… I deeply value honesty and do whatever I can to be as truthful and honest as I can in all moments. But it’s not like you can tell that by looking at me.
Same with thing with being intelligent. That gets projected onto me too.
I suppose that’s part of receiving correct projections… you are able to live up to them, so they end up not being a problem.
And so it has been with my job. I can clearly see how they have projected a lot of positive attributes onto me there… and yet, what they are projecting onto me, I actually am. The result? I am able to live up to those projections without any problems! The way it works in correctness is almost mind blowing to me.
Now, I will admit, there is a part of me that keeps waiting for “the other shoe to drop,” as the saying goes. In Human Design, they talk about 5th line paranoia, and hoo boy, I tell you- it sure is a thing 😅
That part of me feels a little concerned about it maybe being inevitable that at some point the projections will become incorrect. But so far, it’s been over 10 months, and it feels so refreshing to find myself in a projection that actually fits.
I do, at times, get to feeling heavy, overburdened, or overwhelmed… but then I will have a conversation with my boss or someone else, and find that the reason I was getting overwhelmed was solely due to the pressures I am putting on myself. It’s just ME being the asshole to myself again. No one else is participating.
There have been no undue pressures coming from the outside.
It has been almost shocking, in a very pleasant way, to find that everyone seems to expect me to be, well, just me! Funny how it’s almost been hard to wrap my brain around the fact that this is actually a thing.
The big lesson
When we have entered into situations and relationships where there is an objective outer reality that constrains and oppresses us, it can be difficult to see the ways in which WE are (**also**) keeping ourselves stuck. There is something outside of ourselves to attribute our lack or difficulties to. “If [insert person or situation here] was different, then I could [finish sentence with your desire]…”
And on one level, yes, there IS truth to that. The objective situation is very real.
The outer reality we have entered into IS absolutely putting whatever obstacles in our way. There is no way around that reality, and I don’t mean to discount that truth.
However, there is another, deeper level as well. A level that is harder to get in touch with when the outer, objective reality is so obviously problematic in and of itself…
At this deeper level, it is our own mental conditioning that is creating internal constructs that are restrictive and oppressive.
Now, I realize that this concept is nothing new or revolutionary these days; everyone is talking about (dare I say, paying lip service to??) how “your thoughts create your reality.” But what I have begun to see through my lived experiences is the underlying mechanics of these concepts.
I need to break off from my narrative for a moment here, dear reader.
For some reason, I have been having the hardest time getting my thoughts out in this section here. It’s been two days that I have not been able to even sit down and write… and I am not quite sure why, exactly.
There is something that I feel I need to express here… and yet, it feels like I keep circling it. My mind keeps wanting to avoid actually going into it.
I can’t tell if it’s fear of expressing the concepts themselves or if it has more to do with how to express them… or even if it may be a lack of clarity on the full scope of what I am sensing within myself…
Or maybe I’m just trying to make a bigger deal out of it all and I feel like it will come off as silly or insipid when it’s actually all said and done!! 😅
Anyway, I just needed to put that out there to break out of a small short-circuit my mind seemed to be having lol. Let’s try to get back to the story at hand…
What I have come to realize and observe, in real time, is just how easy it would have been for me to ascribe all the limitations I have been experiencing to the situation around me at work, had my outer reality matched my self-imposed limitations.
If my boss was expecting me to be who I am not and placed undue burdens upon me, I would believe that my feelings of anxiety and oppression were due to that.
However, the lack of those undue and incorrect outer burdens and expectations have NOT resulted in the absence of those feelings of anxiety and oppression.
And this has truly been the most powerful lesson of all, I think.
It is my inner self-imposed limitations which arise from my internalized expectations of both myself and what others need/want from me - aka, my conditioning - that is the real obstacle.
And, in every situation, every time, it has always been the main obstacle.
It’s just that sometimes - ok, most of the time?? - I would enter into outer situations that would bring obstacles that matched, and thus, masked, this truth.
Making it difficult to see the deeper truth that lay below the outer, surface truth. (Hmmm, I hope this makes sense!!)
How correctness helps
By entering into my outer situation correctly, the world around me was not asking me to be who I am not, and I came face-to-face with the stark truth that I am and have always been the one creating the limitations that tell me to be NOT-me.
Most importantly, this correctness has given me the chance to begin to undo that conditioning.
The light of awareness is the first step to change.
As I see how I am holding myself in my not-self limitation, I can begin to discover what it would mean to let go and lean into who I am, and how my energy wants to naturally flow.
It’s not easy. NOT. EASY. AT. ALL!!!
Because my energy is used to flowing in those not-self, limited ways… and it gets real strange and even scary to start allowing energetic movement to happen in new ways. It feels unsteady. Uncertain. Wobbly.
Saying no when I might have said yes. Not saying or doing anything when I might have been compelled toward compulsive action before. Taking action when I would have stopped myself and waited for others.
So many little ways I denied my truths and tried to be someone I was not!
Entering into this situation correctly has been the greatest lesson I have experienced so far.
Final thoughts on correctness
I deeply and firmly believe that life can be trusted. That if we can learn to step out of our own way and listen to our inner guidance, we will be led to the people, places, and situations that can afford us the greatest chance of growth.
Correctness is not about following some outer prescribed standard. By its very nature, it’s only something that we can feel into for ourselves.
It will lead to all manner of experiences. Some might be awesome and feel great. Others might be heavy and painful.
I would venture to say that, generally, those that are heavy and painful are so because there is conditioning we must face, work through, and let go of.
They bring us lessons that can help us by challenging us to become ever more ourselves and, in the process, ever freer.
But they do require us to face ourselves and our truths… and that can be the hardest thing of all.
In the end, however, there is nothing more amazing than the feeling of letting go of what you are not and embracing that which you are.
And THAT is what correctness can bring us.
If you want to read the first part of this story of my lesson on correctness, head on over and read Entering into it correctly (as a 2/5 profile)
One of the most important parts of learning to enter into things correctly is by learning to listen to your inner authority, and I share my story of how I began to get in touch with my sacral authority in Following my Energy
If you are curious to see my chart, I shared it here