37. The Not-Self Hierarchy

Speaker A: 00:00:00

My not self mind shows up most on the surface through the conditioned narratives of my undefined sacral not knowing when enough is enough. Below that are the not self strategies of my undefined head.

The mental pressure obsession with figuring things out leads me to not knowing when enough is enough.

At the root of it all for me, the distortion that is ultimately running the programming for all of the not self in my design is the not self of my undefined ajna, an attachment to mental certainty through dualistic thinking.

This leads me to getting fixated on the mental pressure of figuring things out and thus getting stuck in the on position through my sacral conditioning.

Speaker A: 00:00:47

Welcome to the Living Your Design Podcast. I'm your experimentor, Kelsey Rose Tortorice. This podcast is an audio only release of the full length in depth Human Design Foundations course I've been teaching over the last several years.

It is a no bullshit, comprehensive, embodied introduction to the human design system that will challenge your ego mind and support you in your process of reuniting with the unique wisdom of your body.

In episode one, I speak a bit about the process that led me to releasing this course for free in podcast form, and I offer a few notes that might be useful to contextualize and clarify what you'll hear in this episode and beyond. I recommend giving that short intro episode a listen if you haven't yet. The LYD podcast is part of a larger living body of work, a growing archive of my teachings about consciousness through the languages of astrology and human design, hosted in an online community space where I stay in orbit with my students, mentees, alumni, peers and collaborators.

For more information about how to connect with me and tune in to my archives and ongoing live teachings, including how to access the original LYD course, complete with videos and slides. Stay tuned to the podcast or check out patreon.com/KelseyRoseTort.

Thank you for tuning in to my transmission of Living Your Design. It's a deeply personal and somewhat vulnerable share that I feel honored, humbled and excited to release into the world. I hope that it helps you remember and come home to yourself.

Speaker A: 00:02:13

We are going to take a look at a tool called the Not Self Hierarchy and this is bringing us back to a focus on the centers. So we're spiraling hurling back to the centers. As always, let's be mindful of how our mind wants to orient to language.

So in this case specifically the word hierarchy, the Not Self hierarchy is not a tool to measure just how wounded or just how conditioned you are. Rather, like everything else in the Human Design system.

It's a tool for mapping out your unique experience of conditioning and thus also your path towards the differentiated self that lives beneath your conditioning.

So this isn't to say that if you have centers undefined near the top of the hierarchy, so let's say ego, solar plexus G that your problems are greater than people whose first undefined center maybe shows up near the bottom, the AJNA or the head or the root or the sacral or the THR wrote.

On the flip side of that, this isn't to say that if you have most or all of these centers near the top of the hierarchy defined, that doesn't mean that your conditioning is not as challenging as others. Right? Okay.

So just be mindful of the potential like victim consciousness that might show up or even any sense of inferiority or superiority or grass is greener one way or the other that might show up as you orient to this. This is just another tool for you to get a feel for the way that the not self mind shows itself in your experience.

And I really think of the not self hierarchy as just like a map. It's a way to to sort of tap into the way all of our programming from a center's perspective is laid out.

So the way that our programming from one center shows up in relationship to our programming in another center.

I'm going to talk about it in a way that's sort of linear, and I want to preface that the linearity itself, the hierarchical structure that's going to come out in a very linear fashion throughout this whole unit. It's a way of orienting to something much more complex and nonlinear that's happening within your system.

So there's going to be an exercise that you're invited into throughout the second half of this where I'll invite you to pause and actually engage in a process of creating your not self hierarchy map and then journaling and reflecting on it a bit.

It's going to invite you to think in this sort of linear fashion to help you attune to and orient to the relationality between the not self strategies in your design. And that will hopefully kind of, you know, calibrate you to see your programming in a new light with a bit more awareness.

But of course, the actual experience of wading through the waters of your conditioning of your programming and detangling your programming and your conditioning is much less linear than the way it's presented in this lecture. What we are looking at when we look at the hierarchy, that linear structure is we have a list of centers numbered from 1 through 9.

And at the top of that hierarchy are the centers which, when operating from a not self place, are ultimately kind of running the show of all of the not self tendencies of each of the centers below it.

So in other words, the conditioning of your ego is ultimately what's driving, and I kind of want to say fueling, the conditioning that shows up in the solar plexus. And then it follows that pattern.

And at the bottom of the hierarchy are the centers whose not self strategies show up most at the surface of our experience. So I kind of tend to think of the bottom of the not self hierarchy as like the not self's first line of defense.

And that's specific in regards to how we are interfacing with the external world.

And so when we see the throat there, it should kind of click and make sense immediately, because I've introduced the throat center to you since the beginning of living your design as the portal between the inner and the outer worlds. And so the throat center is where the self begins to engage with everything outside of us.

So when we're behaving or acting or speaking in a not self way, that begins at the throat, that begins with this portal, this window where the inner experience is coming out into the outer world.

And so for people with an undefined throat, one way to kind of generalize this is that all the conditioning from any of your other undefined centers shows up in the behavior of the undefined throat. If you have a defined throat, but an undefined sacral, the sacral is going to be where the not self shows up most at the surface.

So that inability to stop that conditioning and that programming to keep trying to keep up with the generator world, even though you're a non sacral, that's like the not self's first line of defense. That's where you see yourself performing. You perform openness. If you're a generator, you perform this busyness, this energy being ness.

If you're a reflector or a projector, that programming is being run by these centers that are higher up on your hierarchy.

So we'll break this down a bit, but that's the general sort of lay of the land of this linear, hierarchical way of considering the conditioning in our undefined centers. This reverse list, which is typically how I think of and introduce the hierarchy, is in reverse order.

The top of this list is what shows up most on the surface. This is the distortion or dysfunction that we see. That is the most obvious, notable, and in some cases even accepted.

For instance, conditioning of the undefined Sacral doing too much is often very accepted in society. And it's also the thing that non sacrals are noticing about themselves. First is that I'm tired because I'm doing too much.

I don't know when to stop that sacral burnout.

Say you have the sacral defined but an undefined root, that sort of pressure, like constantly moving, keeping busy, not sitting down because you're amplifying all this pressure in your body and you're trying to get rid of this pressure. Very connected in ways to sacral conditioning. Right. Those two centers, if they're both undefined, feed right into each other.

And both of those ways of being are kind of accepted in our society. And we see it a lot, we even encourage it.

And then you see the mind centers, the head and the Ajna overthinking over strategizing acceptable in society. Right? Very common. Personally, I find that the throat center tends to bring up a lot of shame.

So that throat center, not self behavior of like seeking attention and speaking when you maybe didn't really need to speak and there wasn't actually anything valuable worth saying. Which again is not always the experience of the throat center.

When the undefined throat center speaks from a place that's aligned with strategy and authority, rather from a place of amplifying the pressure and the articulations that are wanting to come out of the void of the body. From a not self perspective, when it is true, when it is according to strategy and authority, it's a very impactful voice.

But it's going to be likely less frequently, less consistent and less fixed than the way somebody with a defined voice will speak and express and make impact.

However, what I notice as I work with people through their deconditioning and introduce human design is that people with an undefined or open throat tends to be a very tender experience to witness oneself in the process of deconditioning the throat. And I tend to see a lot of kind of like core wounding and existential pain showing up in the not self strategy of the undefined throat.

So in most cases I would say that the centers lower on the hierarchy or most at the surface tend to be the most noticeable and in most cases kind of acceptable and less existential or tender.

And then as we get higher on the hierarchy or lower on this flipped version of the list, this is where there's the critical dysfunction in the shadow where our core wounds live. It's more of the existential challenges of being human and can be a bit more tender to examine.

So Generally, this is the way I sort of see the conditioning operating based on the centers. However, the throat to me is a little bit of an exception. It's certainly the one that's on the surface that's the most obvious and noticeable.

But the conditioning there, from what I notice, it tends to be tender. Similar to the conditioning of these more, what I tend to call the more existential centers, which have to do with like my worth, my.

The worthiness of my being alive and my existence. The ego, extremely existential.

The emotional experience and the emotional empathy and the discomfort of getting taken over by that wave of emotionality from outside of you. Avoidance of truth and confrontation, right? People pleasing, fawning. And the way that. That shows up so viscerally in the undefined solar plexus.

Also quite existential. Also very existential. The g. Who the fuck am I? You know that question, where am I going? Who am I? Where can I find love and direction and the spleen?

How do I stay safe? How do I hold on to life?

How do I remain alive and well and healthy versus Again, you know, I kind of introduced sacral, root, head and ajna as being like, well, these are kind of acceptable behaviors in our society. We might kind of like roll our eyes or laugh or joke about the pain that shows up in these versions of our experience.

Staying really busy, you know, productivity, culture, burning out, sacral and root, overthinking, you know, being too much in the mind, mental anxiety, heteronorgena. And then the throat, you know, the throat kind of always is its own thing, so it sort of operates in its own way in the not self hierarchy as well.

This is just where it shows up.

And I would say, you know, even people with defined throats, we are not actually conditioned through the throat center, but our conditioning from the other centers shows up in the throat center as well.

As a manifester, I can still influence an impact via my motorized defined throat in a distorted way because of the distortion of my undefined centers. So I would say for all of us, it shows up on the surface in the throat. However it's gonna, the frequency of it and the distortion.

The programming that is sort of informing how the throat shows up is different based on whether the throat is defined or undefined. These are just some ways that the not self voice and the not self strategy of your undefined centers might sound.

There are other ways that you might hear those narratives, hear those mental dialogues, but these are just some ways to kind of feel into it. And now let's take a moment to map out your not self hierarchy.

So we're starting at the center that is lowest on the hierarchy, which means the highest number. Apologies that this gets a little confusing. The voices and strategies of this not self center, whatever is on the top of your list.

This is where your not self shows up most on the surface.

These are the first tactics of your not self mind in thwarting you from your natural alignment and thwarting you from the organic flow of your strategy and authority. These are probably the not self voices that you tend to be most aware of or at one point in your life were the most aware of.

For me, the sacral is where my not self shows up most on the surface. It's through that not self voice of not knowing when enough is enough, getting stuck in the on position, trying to keep up with the generator world.

And when you get to the bottom of your personalized list, which will be the lowest number, you're looking right in the face of the not self mental distortion that's ultimately running the program for you. So for me, I have what I called these kind of more existential centers defined all four of the ones at the top of the list.

But for me, that doesn't mean I don't have massive existential core wounds based on my conditioning.

What it means for me is that the ultimate distortion that that feels the most existential for my experience that's running, the distortion that shows up in my head and then in on the surface in my sacral comes from the worries and the obsessions of my undefined Ajna. So for me, everything comes down to I better be certain. I have to prove that know the answer.

And it's that existential wounding and core wound for me.

Core distortion for me that will perpetuate my being in the head conditioning of the mental pressure and the mental anxiety and getting constantly distracted and fixated on different ideas and different questions. It's because of this fixation of trying to be certain in the Ajna.

And then it's those together that keep me in the sacral conditioning which is what shows up most on the surface. The keeping going, the not knowing when to stop chasing satisfaction, et cetera, et cetera.

Making myself way more available for work and response than I actually am. So this is the exercise. I invite you to write a narrative of your not self hierarchy.

So forget for a moment that this is something that's happening in way more tangled up in complex ways than the simple orientation of it as a linear hierarchy. And just allow yourself to as a thought experiment as an awareness enhancer.

Orient to it in this linear way with a little bit more reflection and a little bit more context. So I invite you to write yourself a little narrative orientation to the list that you made in reverse order, using your own words when possible.

So I shared three paragraphs here for each of my three undefined centers that I just gave an example of.

So maybe you're someone who, you know, you want to go do it right now before I condition you more with examples or it might be helpful to hear how I phrase different undefined centers and the interplay between them.

So just FYI, there's going to be three examples and you are encouraged to pause and move through your own process with this at whatever point feels best for you.

Stretching out a bit more the example that I've shared already of my own design, My not self mind shows up most on the surface through the conditioned narratives of my undefined sacral not knowing when enough is enough. Below that are the not self strategies of my undefined head.

The mental pressure obsession with figuring things out leads me to not knowing when enough is enough.

At the root of it all for me, the distortion that is ultimately running the programming for all of the not self in my design is the not self of my undefined ajna an attachment to mental certainty through dualistic thinking.

This leads me to getting fixated on the mental pressure of figuring things out and thus getting stuck in the on position through my sacral conditioning. Here's an example for someone who has the reverse amount of centers defined and undefined in their design.

Six undefined centers in this design and I'll take you through how I oriented that here. This person has a defined throat which is nine, so we go to eight. So this is a mental projector design.

So it's just like my design and emotional manifestor. The surface distortion is going to be via that non sacral orientation, non sacral conditioning.

So example for this mental projector, my not self mind shows up most on the surface through the conditioned narratives of my undefined sacral not knowing when enough is enough. Below that programming are the not self strategies of my undefined root.

The pressure to move and handle things keeps me in the sacral conditioning whenever I see the root and sacral both undefined in a design that's really a recipe for really not knowing when enough is enough and constantly beginning and going and beginning a new thing because of the stress and the pressure that's being amplified.

So you can see the channels in the root literally lead to the channels in the sacral and so when a non sacral is stuck in the on position trying to keep up with the generator world, all these non sacral things, and they have an undefined root, it's that amplified pressure from the undefined root that's keeping them stuck in the on position, right? You can see it really clearly if you understand the mechanics of those centers in this design below.

That kind of root sacral dance of enabling not self is the not self fixation on security from the undefined spleen. This keeps me hooked into the urgency of my undefined root.

So this voice of undefined spleen, I have to hold on to this or I won't be safe or healthy.

I have to make sure I maintain this job, this living situation, this relationship, this routine, you know, this structure for my way of moving through my day, these rituals, whatever it is, I have to hold on to those.

It's that fear of being unsafe, that fear of insecurity and that fixation on security that keeps a person locked into the pressure of the undefined root that keeps them stuck in the not knowing when enough is enough of the sacral. So this is all what's most on the surface of this not self version of this mental projector.

Then underneath those narratives, speaking as this mental projector, is the not self strategy of my undefined G, a fixation on finding a consistent sense of direction and love.

This keeps me holding onto things that are not healthy spleen and thus stuck in an addiction to stress root and burnout sacral at the root of all of this.

So now I'm kind of combining the solar plexus and the ego together is an avoidance of truth and confrontation that comes from the not self narratives in my undefined solar plexus, which are ultimately run by the programming in my undefined ego, the not self narrative that I need to prove my worth and vindicate my life existence. So here's another example that I see often. The combination of the undefined ego and the undefined solar plexus.

I have to prove my worth, prove my loyalty, vindicate that I am worthy of being alive and observed and in relationship with someone that is ultimately running this avoidance of truth and confrontation in the solar plexus, afraid of being honest about my own truth and my own needs and instead allowing myself to get swept up in someone else's emotional experience because I'm trying to prove my worth ultimately. For our final example, we'll look at this generator design sacral authority generator design.

And this is our only example that we're looking at that actually does have an undefined throat.

So this example where the first signs of not self show up on the very most surface in the way that this person speaks in the programming to speak out of alignment rather than to, in this case wait to respond when there's a true sacral response to share rather than sharing, expressing, behaving, initiating, moving because of the voices of not self, these other four centers.

So for this sacral generator design, my not self mind shows up most on the surface through the conditioned behavior of my undefined throat, speaking, behaving and initiating in attempts to get attention and feel heard.

But beneath that behavior is the beneath that tendency is an amplified sense of urgency that the conditioning in my undefined root center attaches to in attempts to relieve myself of pressure. So there's pressure in the root and then there's this desire to relieve myself of that pressure.

I can feel someone else's pressure and or stress, adrenaline, urgency. And because I'm identifying with it, it motivates my not self mind to want to relieve myself of that pressure by speaking.

Let me change something, let me impact, let me release this pressure. I'll just talk because I'm feeling urgency in my root.

Below that root center attachment is the not self fixation on security from my undefined spleen. This keeps me hooked into the urgency of my undefined root. It's an example we saw in the last one.

The conditioned behavior that runs through and perpetuates all of the above.

The spleed feeding into the root, feeding into the throat, is the avoidance of truth and confrontation that comes from the not self narratives in my undefined solar plexus, which are ultimately run by the programming in my undefined ego not self narrative that I need to prove my worth and vindicate my life existence.

Once you have taken the time to write a little bit of prose, a little bit of narrative reflection on that orientation to the not your personalized not self hierarchy, I invite you to take it a step further by incorporating your strategy and authority kind of as the afterthought to this. Right? It's coming back to this phrase from ra. Nine potential problems, four potential solutions, right?

So we just went through your nine potential problems or your seven or your six or five or four or three or two or one potential problem based on your undefined centers.

Now we're going to move into four potential solutions via your types strategy and the little bonus of your authority as well as a part of the solution to help reassure the solution to these potential problems via your openness. Just like with the last part of the exercise, put stuff into your own words. This is just a potential formula for getting you started.

Here's a way, one way to orient to incorporating these four potential solutions as well as the reassurance of your authority.

When I attach to these narratives of the undefined centers as my mind presents them to me, I witness my not self sabotaging my organic nature as a manifestor in my case to initiate and inform in my case. Instead, I in my case wait for invitations or force myself to be available for response.

So you can, you know, insert your own type and strategy there and then you might include all of the other type strategies as your type not not self. Or you might pick one that you feel you are most prone to. In many cases, it's going to be initiating if you're not a manifestor. Next paragraph.

When I'm at the mercy of my mind via these undefined centers, I also reject and deny the truth of my authority.

So in my case, the truth of my felt experience, the truth of my emotions, the truth of my emotional authority, however you want to phrase that, that feels resonant to you.

The truth of my gut if you're sacral authority, the truth of my instincts if you're splenic authority, perhaps the truth of my voice if you have ego authority or g authority, ego manifested authority or g authority. The truth of my willpower, the truth of my will if you have ego projected or ego manifester authority, so on and so forth.

The truth of my environmental authority, however you want to phrase it based on how you're presently orienting to your authority.

By observing my strategy and authority, I support my mind in maintaining its role as passenger and remain healthily unattached from these narratives of my not self mind so that I can witness the life I am designed to live.

I invite you to revisit this prose that you wrote to kind of clean it up as you get to know as you notice in real time the distinct way that your not self voices come through your undefined centers. You can kind of come back to this and edit it and rewrite it, or just write it out and then let yourself be in process with it.

Let your awareness unfold as a result of kind of seeing this map of your self sabotage via the mind.

Speaker A: 00:30:07

Thanks for listening to the Living Your Design podcast. Stay tuned for the rest of the curriculum.

New batches of episodes are released every Tuesday for immediate complete access to the full course and to explore other perks like learning and community, extracurricular astrology and human design workshops and meeting with me face to face, go to patreon.com/KelseyRoseTort. You can also listen to me on my other podcasts, the Maia Games and Conversations with the Zodiac, and find me on Instagram @kelseyrosetort.