the joys of being a generator

on freedom, being lit up and energetic breadcrumbs, as I talk to Nadia Elmagrabi about her experience of being a Generator type in Human Design

me, lit up (with a car full of trees)

I have a simple way of deciding what to bring into my world & my work…

“does it help build self-belief?”

If it ticks that box and it lights me up it’s a YES!

Human Design ticks that box massively for me, because it’s a permission slip to be entirely myself, and of course I want to share that feeling! So I hope you’ll come with me on this journey.

And it is a journey, because let’s face it, Human Design comes with a lot of moving parts; type, strategy, authority, centres, gates & so on. Sometimes it looks a bit much to untangle, but you know me, I’m good at untangling! And I’m bringing you a series of posts to demystify the big chunks of this weird looking system.

Weird looking it may be… Human Design is also a blend of modern science and ancient wisdom, and the ultimate profiling tool, giving us full permission to be ourselves. It’s like a user manual for each of us, showing us how to be who we’re designed to be, how to work with our energy and how to make great decisions that are just right for each of us. We can find our purpose, our ideal environment & our superpowers on this map. And we can journey through it to heal ourselves, our relationships & our work. If you’d like to find out more, download your free chart here or book a chart reading with me here (intro rate £50 - the price is going up on 1st December!)

Today I’m interviewing my friend Nadia Elmagrabi in video form; we met in a deep Human Design study group and I just couldn’t resist asking her to be my first guest… plus I just know you’ll love her warm energy. Nadia is a spiritual coach and past life guide, you can connect with her here to find out more about her beautiful work.

But before we dive into our chat…

A quick intro to Human Design Types…

So, when I’m unpacking a chart, we start out by looking at ‘type’, and this the first place I get to tell clients “here’s how to be YOU, and yes it’s ok, you really get to be like this!”

After that, we start to get into the nuance because, you’ll already guess, we don’t all fit neatly into one of just five little boxes of Type… but it’s a great starting point..

Ok, within Human Design there are five Types, and each type has a purpose on the planet…

• Manifestors - about 10% of people - you’re here to initiate and inspire

• Generators - c 35% - you’re here to create, build and do what lights them up

• Manifesting Generators - c35% - you’re here to move fast, try things out and and show the way

• Projectors - c20% - you’re here to guide others to their highest potential

• Reflectors - c1% - you’re here to reflect the possibility in the world and others

… but what often happens as we grow up is that we’re conditioned to be something other than the way we’re designed, because some types are ‘too much’ or ‘too lazy’ or simply ‘too different’ from the people around them. Because our parents or teachers expect us to be the same as they are. When this happens it can leave us feeling our energy is out of whack, that we don’t make great decisions, and we’re basically living out of alignment, sometimes close to burnout… not a comfy place to be and not good for self-belief!

Today we’re talking all about the Generator Type:

Generators make up around 35% of the population and we’re here to do the work that lights us up (hello! yes, that’s me!) - to build, to create and to create life-force energy for the planet. We are designed to be inspired and to respond to life (not to initiate anything) and we can tap into our sacral (gut) for the yes or no decisions that will guide us to our next right step.

But there’s more to it than that, so here’s our chat to tell you more. I’ve shared the video & audio, as well as Nadia’s answers typed up, for you to choose how you want to take in this interview…

(I don’t appear in the video, I’m not sure why, although you can hear me)

Here’s what we talked about…

✨how long have you been in your experiment¹ and known you’re a generator? Did it resonate right away?

I had my first Human Design reading in January 2020 after a friend of mine, a manifestor, told me “you need to do this!” so I scheduled a reading, learned all this about myself and then had to sit with it to let it integrate… it took me a good year to dive in. I don’t know if it resonated right away, I thought “that’s the majority of people, I don’t want that one!” But being an emotional² generator, that resonated right away, have emotional authority. I need to take time to make decisions; I would get down on myself for not being able to make a decision quickly… but then it was like permission, I don’t have to, I can sit with something and tell someone I’ll get back to them the next day or whenever I’ve decided, not in the moment. I’ve always judged myself for that, so it was very freeing. That piece really struck me.

✨ what do you love about being a generator? How does it serve you?

My mother, a manifesting-generator, always said to me growing up “what does your gut say?” I didn’t realise what she meant but it stuck in my head, and again, it gave me permission to go within and to see “what do I want to do, what feels right for me?” so that part of being a generator, that sacral ah-hah or uh-uh, my body knows! So I don’t need to make decisions with my head. So learning I was a generator, it gave me permission to trust that [the sacral / gut] and to get out of my head, which is how I made the majority of decisions, and often bad ones!

✨are there any challenges for you, in being a generator?

The biggest thing was “most people are generators³, it’s not anything special” but I don’t feel that way anymore, we’re all so unique and our charts are different. The challenges are… well, the more I do my experiment the more I see how I am. Earlier on I was more like “I want to be a manifestor, I want that!” But the more I go, the more I know I’m not meant to initiate, I’m meant to respond to things. It’s that permission, I don’t have to do it the way someone else does it. And that’s another thing, I don’t have to think “what to do next, where’s the inspiration?” It’s going to come to me. I’d say the process of allowing that, knowing I don’t have to figure anything out, it’s helped me get out of FOMO and comparison, thinking “I should do things the way they’re doing it” It’s be a very liberating process, the deeper I get into it.

✨as a generator you’ve got a defined sacral, tell me how that shows up for you?

My body fully lights up for me when it’s a yes. Like where we’ve met in our Mastermind, I knew last year I wasn’t ready to join the group, but this year it was a full body yes, and I’d already been through my emotional wave on it, so I just knew. Sometimes I use a pendulum⁴ to help me if things aren’t clear, but I’ve learned too that for me, it’s like an upward movement for me inside my core for a yes, and a sinking feeling for a no. Yes over time I’ve built the muscle. The no’s are clear for me too. It’s like an inner GPS.

✨ we’re told as generators, we’re told that we’re here to “do the work” how did that land for you?

I know! I have to do the work? Like a worker bee, a work horse… I don’t just want to be a worker! But, when I pair that with something I want to do, listening to that sacral yes, it’s not work, it doesn’t feel like work to build things or make things, it’s exciting, and sometimes it’s hard to shut off! There’s so many things that light me up now, that I want to keep doing those things. I do feel that energy, even stuff around the house, I enjoy it. And moving, that’s another thing for generators, to use up that sacral energy, I need the long walks, or exercise, that keeps me in tune with that sacral energy. I almost feel agitated if I lay around too much.

✨is there anything else you want to share about being a generator?

Someone mentioned about following the energetic breadcrumbs… and that has struck me, I think I’ve done that my whole life, following the things that are exciting and fun, and doing those, it’s been refined now even more, and knowing we are going to get exactly what we need, all we need to do is do the things we like, keep ourselves busy doing what we enjoy doing and the things that are meant for us will come to us. And part of that is saying no, about creating space, it’s harder to feel that yes, or lit up, when we have a calendar full of things that we don’t really want to do, and of course we have to work within some limits but the more we can say no to the thing that don’t light us up, the more we have openings for things that do light us up, that’s huge, the beauty and art of saying no has been huge for me over the last couple of years.

Wow! Thank you Nadia! I loved our chat and so grateful to you spending this time with me 💚

So, if you want to dive into your chart, a 60 minute unpack with me is currently £50 (and yes, I know, this is not enough for the value you get! So the price is going up to £65 on 1st December and again in the New Year)

Or if you’re just intrigued for now, you can take a look at your free human design chart here… you’ll need your date, time and location (town) of birth.

Any questions or thoughts, please email me back or comment below ✨ do you know your type? I’d love to hear!

1. When you first get your chart / reading, it’s really helpful to see it as an experiment. How does this work for me? what does this mean for me? Because we could get caught up in “all generators are like ___” or “everyone with a defined root is ___” but that’s where it can stop resonating and stop being the super-useful tool it really is. So you’ll hear me talking about ‘the experiment’ a lot!

2. Being an emotional generator… here Nadia is talking about her decision making authority (which I’ll talk more about in future posts) which for a generator can be sacral (very fast yes / no) or emotional (the yes / no plus waiting out a mechanical wave of emotion, usually overnight or so). I have sacral authority and Nadia has emotional authority.

3. Yes, most people are generator types, c70% in total, that’s because the world needs so much doing and so much life force energy creating. It needs less initiating and less guidance. So yes, we’re in the majority, and we’ve come to see that’s not a bad thing!

4. I’ll be sharing a video soon on using a pendulum, if you’re not sure what this is all about!