Episode 240: My Human Design Incarnation Cross
A frequent question is, “Now that I know my Human Design, what do I do with it?”
So after releasing an episode on a Human Design fundamental, I like to follow it up with reflections on it from my own Human Design to demonstrate what I do with it.
The last episode, Episode 239, was on the Incarnation Cross in Human Design (hint: it’s our life theme, spanning all aspects of our lives throughout the span of our lifetimes).
In this episode, I share my Incarnation Cross, going over each of its four gates and then what their combination means.
I also share my thoughts on:
My reaction to learning about my Incarnation Cross and how it landed with me
How my perspectives of it have evolved
The impact it’s had on how I live since learning about it
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Read the Transcript:
Hello, and welcome back to The Live Fab Life Podcast. I'm your host Naomi Nakamura.
Last week's episode, Episode 239, was on the Human Design Incarnation Cross. As promised, I’m following it up with an episode exploring the Incarnation Cross from my own personal Human Design, the Right-Angle Cross of Rulership.
So, if you haven’t listened to Episode 239 yet, please pause this episode and go and listen to it. The Cliffs Notes version is that your Incarnation Cross is your life theme. It's your purpose throughout all facets of your life over the span of your entire life.
To find the Incarnation Cross on your Human Design Body Graph chart, look at the columns on each side of your chart. The column with the black boxes on the right side of your chart is your “conscious” side – think of it as “how you see yourself.” The column with the red boxes on the left side of your chart is your “unconscious” side – think of it as “how others see you.”
Your incarnation cross is the top four numbers - the numbers in the top two boxes on the right and the top two on the left.
Looking at my Body Graph chart, the top right black box has the number “26”, which is Gate 26. Gate 26 is my conscious Sun. The second box, the one below it, has the number “45”, which is Gate 45. This is my conscious Earth.
Moving to the left side of my chart, the top red box has the number “47” for Gate 47, which is my unconscious Sun. And below that, the second red box from the top has the number “22” for Gate 22. That’s my unconscious Earth.
When we put these four gates together, that’s my Incarnation Cross.
So, let’s go through each of the four gates that make up my Incarnation Cross and then what they collectively mean together, and I’ll share my thoughts on all of it.
My conscious Sun is Gate 26. Gate 26 is in the Heart center, and in my chart, the Heart center is undefined. The Heart center is all about ego energy. It's about motivation, and it's your will. It's about your worthiness, your self-esteem. It's your sense of value.
While the Heart center is undefined in my chart, Gate 26 is an active gate and is my conscious Sun.
Before I get into what Gate 26 is about, let me say that each gate has gifts and shadows.
So, what’s Gate 26 all about?
Gate 26 is about knowing how to message things. It's about being able to tailor your message - your voice, your point of view – to whoever you’re sharing it with. It’s about being able to take the same message and customize it according to the audience receiving it. It's about knowing how to deliver your message in a way that resonates with each person. It's about meeting people where they are.
Those with an active Gate 26 can recognize where others might be stuck in old patterns or traditions in ways that they can't see for themselves.
So, it's important to be clear on the message to be shared – what your point of view is, and then to deliver it in a way that resonates - in a way that counts.
If you think about it, Gate 26 is about sales and marketing energy.
With Gate 26 being my conscious Sun in my Incarnation Cross, it’s one of the strongest points in my Human Design, and what a gift it is – knowing how to message things, knowing what my message is and how to deliver it in a way that resonates.
The shadow of Gate 26 is manipulation. Because there’s so much influential energy with Gate 26, its shadow is using the gift of knowing how to message things in selfish ways to manipulate people and impose my will on them versus sharing a message for the benefit of others. It’s sharing the energy of selfishness versus altruism.
So that’s the first part of my Incarnation Cross, my conscious Sun in Gate 26.
Next is Gate 45, which is my conscious Earth. Gate 45 is known as “The Gate of Gathering Together. It’s located in the Throat center, and in my Human Design, the Throat Center is defined.
The Throat center is the center of communication. It’s manifestation energy as manifestation happens through communication. It's about self-expression - using our voices, and sharing our truths. It's about transformation.
The gift of Gate 45 is the ability to see the big picture. It’s about gaining wisdom and learning from past experiences, and as a result, knowing what matters – what’s important – and using that knowledge to shepherd the collective - the group, the community - and leading and influencing the group, providing them with the resources they need to be collaborative so each person can reach their personal goals. Collectively, the group can reach their common goals.
So, it's about using past experiences to bring people together - The Gate of Gathering Together. It’s about being able to direct people - more leadership and influential energy.
The shadows of Gate 45 are hesitating to take the lead, using their influential energy to impose their will on others, being controlling and manipulative. Its shadows also worry about things that haven’t yet happened and may never happen. Worrying about things that haven’t or may never happen is wasted energy.
So those are the two gates, Gates 26 and 45, on the conscious side, the right side of my Incarnation Cross on the right side of my chart.
Moving to the left side of my body graph chart, at the top of the red column is my unconscious Sun, Gate 47.
Gate 47 is in the Ajna center, an undefined center in my design.
The Ajna center is about our ideas, beliefs, and opinions - how we think about things and how we view things. With this as an undefined center in my design, I'm able to see things from different perspectives.
Gate 47 is called “The Gate of the Need for Revelations,” so Gate 47 is about releasing the mind from logic and reason and welcoming revelations.
In other words, it’s about answers revealing themselves when I take my mind off searching for them. I could be wracking my brain trying to find a solution to a problem, but when I give it a break and focus on something else or just let my mind rest, the answers will become clear.
So, welcoming fun, rest, and relaxation into my day is important. Sounds easy enough, but it’s one of those things that’s easy to say but not always easy to do.
Being conditioned to be a Type A, it’s very easy for me to get caught up in things, to get lost in my thoughts, almost to the point of brain exhaustion. Still, by giving my mind and my brain (it’s important to understand that these are not the same things) a rest, what I’ve been searching for, will be revealed. It’s about trusting the process.
The shadow of Gate 47 is conditioned to be a non-believer in revelations. It’s the need to prove everything with facts and logic and not trust the process that all will be revealed.
It’s being so left-brain conditioned, only dealing with facts and logic. There’s nothing wrong with facts and logic, but the shadow is not making space for more than facts and logic. Sometimes we just need to accept that some things happen that can't always be explained. It’s very much like Splenic energy.
An example is feeling the need to “prove” that Human Design is real to non-believers. At one time, I was probably a non-believer. Some people are surprised that I’ve embraced Human Design and done so wholeheartedly, but in my brain, Human Design makes total sense. There’s no question to me that it is Human Design. I've allowed myself to trust and accept it.
Past me would have felt the need to explain and justify it to others with facts and logic, but that’s not how I want to use my energy. I prefer to use my energy to share my knowledge of Human Design, my perspectives, the fundamentals of it with you and how I integrate it into my daily life.
I’m not spending time on the nitty-gritty factors like the neutrinos in Human Design because it’s not what I want to be spending my time and energy doing, and not feeling the need to do so aligns with the energy of Gate 47.
The final gate in my Incarnation Cross is found in the second box from the top of the red column. It’s my unconscious Earth which is in Gate 22. Gate 22 is in the Solar Plexus center, an undefined center in my design.
The Solar Plexus center is the energy of our emotions, our feelings. It's our energy in motion, emotional intelligence, and awareness.
The gift of Gate 22, and I'm smiling a little bit as I share this, the gift of Gate 22 is grace and charm.
I certainly don't see myself as someone who is graceful or charming, but the gift this gate is having is something about us that’s magnetic. It’s having charisma that draws people to us and makes them pay attention.
Like Gates 26 and 45, the shadow of Gate 22 is using its energy to manipulate and control, using the energy selfishly to impose our will on others.
With charm and charisma comes a feeling of “being on.” Another shadow of this gate is not honoring your boundaries and feeling the need to be “on” all the time. It’s not honoring the ebbs and flows of your energy to allow yourself to be “off” when you need to be.
I recently spent some time with some family members that I rarely get to see these people and am not particularly close to. While I wouldn’t necessarily say I felt the need to “perform” or be “on” when I visited with them, it did require different energy than when I spend time with family who I see all the time and am more relaxed around.
After visiting with these family members who I haven’t seen in years, I was so tired. I was so exhausted that it took the next day to recover from the visit. It’s not that I didn’t have a good time, I had a great time and was happy to spend time with them, but I was t-i-r-e-d.
A shadow of Gate 22 is always feeling the need to be “on.” Equally, another shadow is not turning on the grace, charm, and charisma when it’s naturally inclined to do so. It’s playing small out of a fear of being seen and heard, as well as holding back on my voice and what I must share and offer because “I” think people can’t handle what I have to say. It’s not up to me to determine that for them; I just need to share my voice, speak my truth, and let my audience decide if it's for them.
So, there you have it - the four gates that make up my Incarnation Cross – Gates 26, 45, 47, and 22.
When we put it together, my Incarnation Cross is the Right-Angle Cross of Rulership. The Right-Angle Cross of Rulership is about being a leader.
The commonality with all four gates that comprise my Incarnation cross is influential energy: its leadership energy:
With the Right-Angle Cross of the Rulership, Gate 26 is about knowing how to message things with charm and personal touch. Ra describes this as “being a politician.” I felt uncomfortable when I read that because I don't see myself as a politician – it’s the last thing I want to be a part of, but how have I been conditioned to perceive a politician?
With the Right-Angle Cross of the Rulership, Gate 45 is about having “CEO energy” – that leadership theme again.
With the Right-Angle Cross of the Rulership, Gate 47 is about leading with the wisdom gained from past experiences.
And then, with the Right-Angle Cross of the Rulership, Gate 22 is about the gift of listening with grace and charm to teach and lead the community.
So, my Incarnation Cross, the Right-Angle Cross of Rulership, is all about leadership and influential energy.
My life theme and purpose is choosing to use these gifts of leadership and influential energy that are bestowed on me for the benefit of the collective, the community – in benefit of others.
Shying away from doing this is not following my life theme, my purpose. It’s not being in alignment with my Incarnation Cross.
But choosing to lead, guide and influence others to make them better is for the benefit of the community is what others need from me. When I choose to do so, I’m helping to improve the community and the people in it.
So, my thoughts on learning about my Incarnation Cross?
I have people tell me that their Human Design doesn’t resonate with them, and I completely get it because when I learned that this was my Incarnation Cross, I didn’t identify with it. Being a 1 / 3 Splenic Projector made sense to me, but this part of my design didn’t.
I don’t see myself as a leader or as being able to influence others. I never have.
In reflecting on this, it’s because of how I've been influenced, i.e., conditioned to believe about what leadership is, how a leader should be, and what a leader “looks like.
It's the stories I've created about myself in believing that I’m not how a leader or “influencer” is “supposed” to be.
I lacked self-confidence in who I am and what I have to offer. I lacked self-trust in trusting myself, my decision-making, my ability to lead, and even believing that anyone found me interesting.
It came down to a lack of self-love and embracing who I am, who I truly am, what I'm here to do, and what I have to offer.
I have shied away from leadership opportunities in the past. I've played small, made myself small, and not spoken up when I’ve felt prompted in opportunities where I know what I had to say would have benefited others. I‘ve turned down management opportunities because, well, being in middle management doesn’t appeal to me, but also because I didn’t believe I’d be a good leader.
That being said, just because someone is in middle management doesn't automatically make them a leader; you can be a leader without managing others. Anyone can lead whether they manage people or not.
This is all part of my ongoing deconditioning process by perceptions of leadership and self-perspectives of how I fit into that role. It comes down to learning how to trust myself, trust my instincts, and trust the revelations that are revealed that can’t always be explained (Gate 47).
I hope that sharing this part of my design, my Incarnation Cross, puts into perspective what I’ve shared in Episodes 214, 215, 234, 235, 237, and 238, which at the heart of all of those episodes was about knowing how to express my voice, knowing how to message things in such a way that’s not manipulative or controlling. Maybe now you can see why it’s been such a huge, important thing for me to work on and work through because it’s been a struggle and an ongoing learning journey that I learn a little more about every day.
It's part of my life theme, my purpose, and why I'm here – to know how to message things so lea and influence the collective, be a resource to them, and do it with grace and charm.
As someone with a lot of conditioning to release, it’s been hard for me to step into this and believe that this is what I'm here to do. This is the journey that I'm on, and this podcast has been instrumental in helping me not only refine my voice but step into and to align my purpose.
I don’t always see how what I share helps people, but every so often, I get a message from someone saying how something said, sometimes in passing, has been transformative in their life.
A few years ago, I had a friend, who I’d lost contact, contact me out of the blue to share that something that I had shared with her years prior stuck with her and hugely influenced her life.
I don’t recall the conversation, but I had shared with her how I had worked hard and become debt-free, and it inspired her to get her finances in order so she could be debt-free too. And she was contacting me years later, after we had dropped out of contact, to tell me that she finally reached that goal and had paid off her last bill. And it all came about from one conversation we had that I can’t even recall. And I had no idea.
Every once in a while, I have these conversations like these where someone will say, “Hey, back in this episode, you said this…” or “years ago we talked about this…” and this is how it helped me or influenced me to do this, and now here I am, for the better.
Moments like these remind me that this is why I have this show, and this is why I share what I share, and there's someone somewhere who I likely don't even know who's hearing something shared here that helps them for the better.
I’m reminded that just sharing my experiences and what I’ve learned can help others, just sharing my real people's stories, my own included.
So now, what about your Incarnation Cross? Now that you know what it is and where to find it, I invite you to find out and explore what’s your Incarnation Cross.
If you are brand new to Human Design and don’t yet have your Human Design chart, I have a free workbook on my website that you can download that walks you through what you need to get your Human Design chart, where to get it from, and then once you have it, how to understand the main parts of it.
And if you would like some guidance and support around understanding your unique design, and your Incarnation Cross, I invite you to schedule a session with me. I cover the Incarnation Cross in my Intermediate level readings.
Helping others gain insight and understanding into their designs is one of my favorite things to do.
I feel so happy to share their design with others because it's so insightful, and I love being able to give the gift of Human Design to those who want it.
And don't forget, from now until November 9, 2022, I have a special promotion going on for 20% off a reading with me in celebration of the five-year anniversary of this podcast! The code is 5THPODCAST20.
So, there you have it, my Incarnation Cross. Do you have any questions on Incarnation Crosses? I'm always happy to answer them. You can come over to the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/240 for Episode 240, or you can come and find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi.
Thank you so much for listening and sharing your energy with me. I hope this has been an insightful episode, and I encourage you to go and find your Incarnation Cross too!
Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here next time!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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