Human Design talks a lot about conditioning and deconditioning. Deconditioning I’ll cover at another time!

Let’s review what HD conditioning is: it is a mechanical process where we take in the energy of others through proximity to them.

Conditioning is not something that is meant to be controlled. In and of itself, it is neither good or bad. It is without judgement.

Simply put, where you are open in your design you will take in the energy of those people you interact with who have definition in those same areas. Conversely, where you are defined, your energy will interact with those around you who lack definition in those areas.

1. You are conditioned by the auras of your close family members during the first seven years of life.

From the minute you are born the conditioning process begins.

For the first seven years of your life you will be conditioned by the energy of those who are closest to you – your parents, your grandparents, your siblings and any other people who spend time looking after you.

Where you are open – centres, channels, gates – you will be impacted by the energy of your family. At this age, conditioning has a great impact on you that will continue through to now. It may be that when you compare charts between the people who brought you up and the people you are currently with there will be similarities.

Part of the conditioning process means that across our life we will be continually drawn to similar energies as those from our childhood. The adage that you’ve married someone just like your father/mother has some truth to it!

Conditioning is just a mechanical process but we can absorb long term conditioning in a way that makes us believe that we need to act contrary to our true design. 

It can be a very interesting exercise to look at your chart alongside other family members. This will give you information about where conditioning took place and you will then be able to begin to change those patterns from a place of knowledge.

As an example, my father has a defined Will/Ego centre, while mine is undefined. I still find myself returning to old patterns of behaviour around questioning my worthiness and value. These are both themes that are conditioned in an undefined Will/Ego centre. Obviously, across my life, I have had other factors that have also conditioned this centre, but I feel the reason that it is such an ongoing struggle for me is because of the early conditioning I experienced.

2. You are conditioned when you enter someone else’s aura, even if it is someone you don’t know.

Every time we enter someone else’s aura, we are being conditioned through our openness and they are being conditioned by us through theirs. The less time we spend with that person, the smaller the overall impact.

However, it may be that they trigger some deep seated conditioning from our early childhood, which will have a more lingering impact particularly if we are unaware of the process involved.

It is also possible for you to take on something from the other person in passing that does become life changing.

Imagine that you are out shopping and decide to stop and have a coffee. You sit down at a table and only a short distance away is someone else sitting also having a drink. You have an undefined Head while the other person’s Head is defined. The other person is sitting looking at travel brochures and is feeling inspired to take a trip to Europe.

You’re just enjoying a peaceful cuppa when you get this idea that it would be fantastic to take a trip to Europe. (Remember, your undefined centre amplifies the energy coming in!) Feeling really excited, you rush home and tell your partner that you’ve had a fabulous idea – to go to Europe! Your partner has an undefined Solar Plexus to your defined one, so even though they are not really wowed by the idea, they want to please you so they agree.

A few months later, you find yourselves in Europe just not enjoying it. You look at each other and wonder what happened!

3. You are conditioned by the planetary transits.

Our designs are constantly being conditioned by the planets as they move around in space.

At any moment different astrological/astronomical bodies are found within the 64 different gates of Human Design. 

This means that they are influencing how the neutrino stream from the Sun (and other stars) impacts us. At every moment of the day we have the stream of neutrinos passing through us and interacting with us. Essentially, this means that they are opening and closing the different gates as they transit from one position to another.

Effectively, this means that over time – a month, a year, several years – you will have gates in your Human Design chart that are meant to be inactive, activated and this has the capacity to change your entire design.

At the moment that I’m writing this, I have four centres that are usually undefined, energised and defined. For this moment in time I have the energy of an Emotional Generator, rather than a Self-Projected Projector. Underneath this pattern, my original design is still the one that needs to be aligned with but I do get to experience life from some different perspectives for a short time!

Conclusion

Conditioning is something that happens within us energetically, whether we desire it to or not!

It is neither inherently good or bad – it just is.

But, it can have an impact on decisions that we make, thoughts that we have and ways in which we act. The lack of awareness of conditioning and how it works can create a negative impact on us, but it can also become the guide to help us learn to work with our design, which includes conditioning.

It is an amazing learning tool!

If you are interested in going deeper into Human Design then I would invite you to join the Living By Your Human Design group.

Or check this link for other ways to connect with me.