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Episode 210: Reflections on the 48-16 Channel


In this episode, I’m reflecting on the only channel that I have in my Human Design chart - the 48-16 channel that connects my Spleen Center to Throat Center.

You’ll hear me share:

  • What Gates 48 and 16 are about individually

  • What the connection of the gates to form the “Channel of the Wavelength” represents

  • Observations on how they correlate to other parts of my design and how it’s shown up in my life


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210: Reflections on the 48-16 Channel Naomi Nakamura: Functional Wellness & Human Design Coach


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Read the Transcript:

Hello there, my friends and welcome back to The Live Fab Life Podcast. I'm your host, Naomi Nakamura.

Today we’re talking more about gates and channels. Specifically, I'm looking at the gates and channel in my own Human Design chart.

But before I get into that, let's do a quick review on what are gates and channels. As we know, there are nine energy centers on the Human Design body graph chart. Each center has numbers on them, and those numbers are what we call gates.

There are 64 total gates, and gates are how energy enters and exits each center. And when two gates connect with each, that connection is what we call a channel.

Each gate is represented by different energy, different qualities if you will, and when a gate is activated in your chart and you know if a gate is activated if it’s shaded in red or black, the energy of that gate is a gift that you have.

So, as I said, there are 64 gates and 36 channels. Channels connect the energy of two centers together through activated gates. When that happens, the energy of the two gates alchemizes and fuse together the energies of the gates.

As I've done in previous episodes where I’ve done one episode on a Human Design Fundamental, and then I followed it up with an episode on my personal reflections of that fundamental from my own design, and I do this to show you my thought process and show you how you might go about processing these things from your own chart, and that's actually what this episode is today – a personal reflection follow-up on Episode 209 on gates and channels.

I only have one channel in my design. If I had multiple channels I’d do more episodes on them, but since I only have one this is going to be the only episode on my personal reflection here because there’s nothing else to reflect on when it comes to channels.

As a side note, I do have other active gates in my design that I’ll likely have future episodes on.

If you listened to the last episode, I’m going to be talking about the same gates today. And if you're thinking, “Oh no, she's just gonna repeat herself,” hear me out - stick with me because I’ve heard so much on this and other Human Design topics from my own mentors, I’ve read about them many times over, from many different sources, from the same sources, and every time, in fact even as I prepare for this episode, I still learn something new. Something is reiterated, or I see a different spin or an expanded perspective.

So, let's just get to it. I have one channel the 48-16 channel which connects Gate 48 and Gate 16.

Gate 16 is in the Throat center, and as I shared in the last episode, some people refer to this gate as “The Grinch” because those who have this gate activated, and I quote, “can refuse to share an enthusiasm.” On some level I relate to this because I kind of am a grinch, meaning that I could be really into something and then the minute everyone else gets into it, I lose interest and don't want to be part of it anymore. I don't know why this happens, it's just how I am.

If I’m into a tv show and then everyone else gets into it, I don’t want to watch it anymore. I guess it’s kind of like Wordle. Everyone's into Wordle right now and like, “Nope, not for me.” I don’t know how to play it, and I don’t want to know how to play it. I'm just different that way and to me, that's kind of what it means to be a grinch.

Gate 16 is also known as the Gate of Skill. It’s about experimenting. It's about being a novice, being a beginner. It’s having an excitement and interest in something new-to-you, and you dedicate yourself to learn and study it.

You’re disciplined in your study, practicing your craft repeatedly, to the point where you’ve developed a skill around it, and then it becomes your talent.

So, you might start off feeling like a beginner and not very confident in this new thing. But as you learn through repetition your confidence builds and grows - through focus, repetition, and dedication.

Eventually, the better and better you get with this interest it evolves to become a skill, then transcends to become an art form. You feel confident enough to share this talent and when you do, you become recognized and asked to share it more and more. This is Gate 16 - The Gate of Skill.

Gate 48 is in the Spleen center and is called the Gate of Depth. The Spleen center is about intuition and so is this gate. It's about intuitively recognizing a problem or something that needs our attention, then knowing how to meet that need practically and logically, how to solve the problem for the betterment of the community and the world that we live in.

So, if you have Gate 48, you're someone who's always observing and looking for new and vital information.

When Gates 48 and 16 connect, it creates a channel called, “The Channel of Wavelength” or the “Design of Talents.” This channel is about deeply identifying with the skill that you've learned in Gate 16, then your gradual transformation from novice to master that evolves to become your skilled talent.

So, it's about combining your intuitive depth from Gate 48 with your repetitive experimentation and practice of Gate 16 to completely identify with what you love to do.

It’s the transformation from apprentice to mastery, and then being recognized for it and asked to share that talent.

I have spent many, many hours thinking about and observing how this channel has shown up in my life – like to the point of overthinking it. Not gonna lie there it’s taken a while to figure out how to interpret this channel. And still doing that - I'm still observing how it shows up and comes together, even as I say these words as I record this episode.

In my observations, I can so clearly see how this correlates with other aspects of my Human Design. I see my One Profile Line which is about finding safety and security in knowledge and information which corresponds with Gate 48.

I see my Third Profile line which is all about trial and error and learning through experimentation which parallels Gate 16.

I clearly see the correlation with my Human Design Need Motivation Variable and Novice Trajectory. I mean, I’m literally using the same words -- Novice to Master.

So of course, the channel deeply resonated with me and in self-observation, I can see how it’s shown up in many different experiences and situations throughout my life.

But today, I'm going to share my observations in the context of Human Design because it’s what we talk about here.

I still consider myself very much a novice when it comes to Human Design. It’s taken a lot for me to even feel competent enough in myself to begin offering Human Design Readings and Coaching Services.

I've had to do a lot of inner work, a lot of deep work to get into a level of confidence to do this. I've worked with mentors and coaches, spoken with my peers. Because in addition to the 48-16 channel, I’m also a Projector and have a deep need to be recognized and I’ve come to observe that this has a direct impact on my confidence.

For a long time, I’ve felt, and at times still do, paralyzed to share about Human Design and because I don't yet feel like I'm a Master with it.

But at the same time, I don't know what it will take for me to feel like a Master in Human Design. At what point is someone considered a master in anything? When they get a degree or certification, which actually is the opposite of the nature of Human Design.

I've asked myself this many times, “What will it take for me to feel like I have a mastery in this?” Is it the number of years I study it? Is it the number of clients that I work with?

I don't know I'm still in observation-mode.

What must happen for me to feel like Human Design has transcended to become an art form?

But then I think that it’s not necessarily about Human Design. While it’s the center of the work that I do, the nature of my work is really about supporting my clients through their discovery and integration of their Human Design.

It's actually about listening and making them feel like they're seen and heard. It’s holding the space for them to see the vision they have for themselves and living their best lives, through Human Design to make that vision happen.

This is actually coaching, and in many ways, I do feel like I've reached a certain level of mastery in coaching based upon my past experience with coaching clients and my inherent traits, being a Projector - a guide, seeing the big picture, and seeing others in a very penetrating way.

It’s been an interesting exercise in self-observation, trying hard to do so with non-judgment.

Part of my observation has been, why does it feel so paralyzing to share about Human Design on social media versus on this podcast. Perhaps it’s because there’s an instant direct response on Instagram, or because there's people there that I know in real life, as opposed to the podcast where I have no idea who’s consuming any of this unless they reach out to me directly.

I find this observation so interesting because I like to think I don't really care what other people think of me, but I guess on some level I do.

So, this is deconditioning that I’m working through. And if this sounds ominous or scary to you, I think just building an awareness and doing an exercise of self-observation with non-judgement is a really great place to start.

Recently, I was asked, “How do you bring Human Design into your daily life?” This is it; this is what I do with my design. It’s a constant observation of, “Why am I thinking this way? Why do I react to something this way? Why do I do things this way?” It's a constant observation of myself.

To wrap things up, the 48-16 channel is the one channel that I have in my design, and this is my observations of it. This is how I process my train of thought around these gates and how they connect to form this channel.

Now, let me ask you - Do you have any specific gates or channels of your design that you'd like to hear more about here on the podcast? And if so, let me know and I just might do an episode on it.

Let me give you the content you want - you can let me know by reaching out through my website by leaving a comment for the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/ 210 for Episode 210, or you send me a message through the Contact page.

You can also find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi.

Now, I've shared about the free workbook that you can download from my website called, “Your Human Design, Discovered” which introduces Human Design to you, but I also offer services that will help you understand your specific Human Design.

This service is called, “You Human Design, Explained” and I offer three options for it:

You can order a PDF where I'll look up your chart and create a 30+ page PDF that details the fundamentals and key points of your Human Design. I also offer that PDF with a recorded reading where I’ll provide you audio of me explaining your design to you.

We can get on a Zoom call and have a live conversation where I’ll go through your design and we can have a back and forth so I can answer any specific questions you have like, “How can I apply this in my daily life? How can I apply this in my relationships with others? How can I apply this in my job and my career?”

These are really powerful experiences, and you can find more information on them at www.livefablife.com/services.

Thank you so much for listening. It’s therapeutic for me to be able to do these episodes with you; it helps me build my confidence in my journey towards mastery of Human Design.

Thanks for listening, that's it for this week and I'll see you back all here again next time. Bye for now!


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