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INTRODUCTION

‘I wanted to dismiss Human Design as cobblers,but you read me to the point where I couldn’t deny it.You should write a book about this one day.’

DS, Yorkshire, UK

‘Just be yourself,’ they say. How many times have we heard that? It’s often said to help ease a nervous first date, a daunting social invitation or the first day on a new job. There is always someone armed with that well – intentioned advice: ‘Don’t worry, just be yourself and everything will be fine!’

The problem is this: how many of us know what being ourselves actually means? Who is this ‘true self’ – the private inner being that hides behind the mask it wears for most public interactions, that real person we are when stripped of our ego and acts of social graces aimed at winning respect, approval or popularity?

Psychologists the world over would say that millions of people pass through life without ever realizing what comprises their true self. It’s as though we have forgotten our unique individuality in the collective rush to be all things to all people; to fit the picture – perfect portrayals in magazines, television dramas and movies. It’s as though the naturalness and authenticity with which we were all born – and which we unleashed with unaffected abandon as children – has been crushed, repressed or even disallowed.

Instead, conformity and responsibility in adulthood have combined to distort or shrink our true natures. Millions of us parade as someone other than our true selves without even realizing it, adopting an ‘acting personality’ shaped by the conditioning of our pasts and the judgements, expectations and rules of others. Along the way, we’ve picked up and collected traits and acceptable responses that are deemed the ‘norm’, so there’s always a tendency to act as we believe we should act, or how we’ve been trained to act, all the time keeping our inner beings bound and gagged.

In that regard, I am reminded of a woman who sought me out to help rediscover a lost connection to the real person who, she said, had mysteriously disappeared during her marriage. Jayne told me:

‘All I want is to be myself again, act like myself again, feel like myself again. I don’t want to be this person I’ve created and become. I know the real me is different, waiting to get out and be braver, less afraid of being hurt, less worried about the judgements of others, less afraid of taking on the world, desperate to laugh and dance again. She’s in there. I know she is. But I’ve no idea where to look anymore. I need to be reminded of the me that has become lost.’

Like Jayne, most of us adopt a persona – a word which originates from the Greek for ‘mask’. But what really matters is the authentic person behind the mask; that we are ‘seen’ and recognized for who we truly are.

In writing this book I hope to bring you back home to the essence and safe harbour of your inner being, reuniting you with the person you were born to be and the life you were meant to live. That’s why this is not a self – help book, but a self – reminder, directing you to rediscover the essence and uniqueness of the real you.

What I’m introducing is a one – of – its – kind system and self – awareness tool called ‘Human Design’, a system where science meets spirituality, a system which intends you to be loved, accepted and understood for who you are. Which is why it asks one question at the outset: ‘Are you living your human design?’

This system is built on the wisdom that the acceptance and embracing of your true nature are the essence of finding personal happiness, fulfilment and freedom which, in turn, can lead to finding and creating healthier relationships.

This book is the culmination of 15 years in the field of Human Design. I have immersed myself in its truths, giving one – on – one readings and holding group seminars, and it has been a long – held wish of mine to share its prescient insights with a much wider audience because of the quiet revolutions it kick – starts.

I have lost count of the people who have walked through the front door of this system and emerged through the back exit as someone renewed and invigorated. Once its truths become apparent, it induces an awakening which is both empowering and transformative. It provides concrete information for you to act on by altering the way you view yourself and approach interactions with others.

In the words of American educator Stedman Graham: ‘When you have a sense of who you are and a vision of where you’re going in life, you then have the basis of reaching out to the world, and going after your dreams for a better life.’

Once you apply this system’s knowledge to your life, the possibilities are endless. But knowledge is not the only qualification I bring to the table. Experience has also been my teacher, and I personally have Human Design to thank for bringing me back ‘home’ and changing my life – a life which was seemingly going nowhere back in 1975.

I was sure the perfect storm was going to consume our 100ft motor yacht. There almost seemed a surreal lull in between the heaving rolls of the 40ft swell as we were driven across the Atlantic Ocean, a lull between life and death. I remember the chill, the pitch darkness and freezing spray of Atlantic water as this hurricane storm suddenly struck two days out of Bermuda. I was at the wheel, between Nassau and Malta, when the mother of all waves hit and the boat was knocked sideways. I gripped the wheel for dear life, convinced we were capsizing and that death was imminent.

Then, with agonizing slowness, the boat righted herself. It was a terrifying experience and the rocky ordeal lasted for nine days and nights. I remember tying myself onto a bunk with ropes, wedged between two wooden drawers, and disappearing into a place beyond prayer. Two days after nearly capsizing, as the storm still raged, it was my birthday – always a time of review and reflection. I took a break in the grey light of day and hunkered down in one of the speedboats tied to the top deck to smoke a rare cigarette by way of meagre celebration. As I did so, everything inside me went quiet, the storm around me seemed to mute and I had a sudden realization of how miraculous our escape had been. I thought to myself, ‘Surely there’s more to my life than this!’

I had dropped out of school in England, travelled the world for two years and then completed an apprenticeship before earning a mechanical engineering degree at university. After taking one or two small jobs in Europe, I’d ended up repairing and delivering luxury motor yachts around the world. But after we’d arrived in Malta and I’d thanked the gods for my survival, I packed it all in and retreated to the Shetland Islands, to the north of Scotland, to take stock of my life. All I knew was that I needed to get away.

I started asking that ‘Who am I?’ question, and don’t mind admitting that such introspection led to a pretty dark time. The remoteness of my croft house on a hilltop in the middle of nowhere was almost a perfect analogy for the personal wilderness in which I’d lost my sense of self. During those 18 months in the Shetlands, my dad, Roderick Parkyn, passed away. Another rope tethering my stability started to fray. Then, one night, sitting in the candlelit gloom of the croft, one week after scattering his ashes on his favourite seashore in Scotland, I felt his unmistakable spirit enter the room. Those who have known grief and have felt another’s spirit will know what I’m talking about. It was a powerful experience and one which released me from my isolation. In a quiet but reassuring voice within I heard him telling me, ‘It’s alright. You can go now.’

A couple of days later, with some synchronicity, I was sitting on the front doorstep, flicking through Exchange & Mart, when this advert jumped out and called to me: ‘Free Trip to Nepal for Diesel Mechanic.’ Propelled by Dad’s reassurance, I applied and successfully landed the job – as both mechanic and driver for the trip to Nepal. This was the start of an exhilarating journey of self – discovery.

I soon found myself driving a Magic Bus on the hippie trail to India, a place that ultimately became my home for five of the next 11 years. In 1979 I was introduced to the ashram of Osho, an enlightened master who at the time was known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Being in his company is another story for another time. For now, let me just say that he continues to touch my heart very deeply.

One guidance Osho offered was that if anyone had really personal questions about themselves, they should visit a ‘shadow reader’ in Bombay (now Mumbai). Of course, I had to do it. This remarkable man met me, smiling, at the door of his apartment. He was clean – shaven, late thirties, wearing a billowing shirt and trousers, and there was a bright twinkle in his eye. In a parking area below his apartment, his son proceeded to measure the length of my shadow, cast into the ground by the sun. Back upstairs, the shadow reader did some calculations, rolled his chair along a huge bookshelf, pulled out one of many identical – looking volumes, turned to a page and started reading in Sanskrit, a classical language of India. Among many things, he predicted that my personal awakening would happen later in life. I would be introduced to a system, would master it and then teach it.

‘System? What system? What is he talking about?’ I thought.

His advice was that I should experiment reading for people to learn the skills of interaction while imparting personal and important information relevant to their lives.

One week later, I met a psychic palmist who gave me a fast – track introduction on how to read hands and faces. And so it was that after some practice makes perfect I began to read palms. It came naturally to me and I loved it. My travels took me to America, Switzerland, Brazil, Holland, Germany and Japan before I settled in Hawaii for the next nine years, reading the stories contained within people’s hands.

Then, in 1993, I heard that a woman friend was organizing classes for a man called Ra Uru Hu who was introducing a system to America called Human Design. I was sent a curious – looking chart in the mail that was supposed to represent my life’s design and it dawned on me that this was the very system the shadow reader had talked about.

Its origins were intriguing. Ra, a Canadian previously known as Alan Krakower, had been a born cynic who had worked as a newspaper advertising salesman and film – maker but had gone through a series of major disappointments which had led to him flying to Europe and catching a bus to Spain. A casual remark by a fellow passenger had directed him to the island of Ibiza. There, an event took place which changed his world.

On the evening of 4 January 1987, he was returning home on foot with his dog, Barley Baker, when he saw a light shining from inside his remote cottage. He knew perfectly well that the lamp had no oil in it, so he wondered what was going on.

As man and dog entered the property, Barley started to growl, then fell prone to the floor. Ra himself described feeling some kind of internal explosion. Within moments, he was standing in a pool of his own perspiration. He then heard a male ‘voice’ insisting he get to work. He was receiving something profound from the Universe. Call it channelling. Call it inspiration. Call it what you will. But he started writing and sketching and continued for eight days and nights. From those writings, Human Design came into being.

As surreal as that story may sound, its inescapable truth can be witnessed in this book, for these are the teachings that Ra brought into the world; a gift from the Universe. It is a system that simply works.

For the next seven years I travelled regularly from Maui to attend classes with Ra, and in the same way that I had learned to read palms, I taught myself to read Human Design life charts. I started giving readings to friends and clients and began to see that the information was both meaningful and empowering. After four years, it was time to articulate all I had learned to a wider audience and I started teaching classes about the system.

One of the people who came to these classes had a profound impact on me, and it felt as if she was opening a whole new magical doorway. Carola was a spiritual astrologer and counsellor, and she could see in her own way how clearly we were connected. Ultimately, she invited me to move to be with her in California and we married. She started using Human Design in her counselling practice and also noticed how it assisted clients to move through certain issues and find clarity about who they were as individuals.

I, too, was well aware of the empowering impact the system could have on people. For many people, it truly was the difference between being lost and then feeling found, granting them permission to be themselves once more.

Human Design isn’t a guarantee for happiness, nor will it remove the challenges and pain of normal life. But I’ve seen how it can change lives. It changed mine. Now I intend it to change yours.

Most of us, at some point, have become frustrated with our lot and whispered self – searching questions such as: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? What is my purpose?

It seems more and more people are engaged in an endless search these days – searching for the perfect career, perfect partner and perfect life. The very word ‘searching’ means looking for something that is lost, lacking or missing, and we fall into the trap of believing that all the answers lie outside ourselves.

Yet the answers already lie on the inside. Those answers are detailed in a design of which the Universe is the architect, a design of the person you were programmed to be, your Human Design. It is a document which represents your blueprint for life – a blueprint of your personality. Once you’ve become acquainted with this information, you will know whether the life you’re living fits with your design.

This is not some ‘New Age’ concept – its accuracy is inescapable and timeless – it is not a philosophy or a belief, it is an actuality rooted in science which speaks its own power. Nor does it require the attraction or manifestation of wishes or desires. There is no asking, visualizing or positive thinking required, because its truth already exists within us.

When I assert that truth, I’m not making some fashionable statement of rhetoric, I quite literally mean the truth is within – like a set of tools within a box set, waiting to be picked up and used to carve out a niche and purpose in life.

Another lady, called Margaret, discovered this truth when she realized her life was out of synch with her Human Design. As she later told me after a reading:

‘I realize that I was being someone else for too long. I see now that everything I was doing was contrary to my Human Design. But the moment my true nature was seen and appreciated, I felt alive again. I’ve used the tools you gave me, and it feels as if this system has provided the key which has unlocked my true self.’

This book, with the assistance of the downloadable software, will reveal your unique design and give you that same key, providing a chart which illustrates all the ingredients that make you who you are:

• It pinpoints your intrinsic nature and what makes you tick.

• It details the sorts of people you ‘click’ with and the kinds of environment which bring out your best.

• It reveals your true self’s underlying nature, preferences, personality traits, strengths, weaknesses, abilities, dynamics and in – built chemistry.

• It reminds you of the needs and feelings you’re either celebrating or resisting.

• It explains how you can make decisions which foster happiness and fulfilment.

Once reacquainted with your ‘design for life’, you will start to feel the ripples across all areas of your existence:

In relationships and friendships, it determines the dynamics between people, allowing you to see where there is synergy, conflict or nothing in common.

In the family and at home, it explains differences between siblings and highlights the practical and emotional interactions between parent and child, husband and wife.

In the workplace, it illustrates to employers or clients the different natural abilities within each person – a vital tool for improving collective productivity.

In the classroom, it shows teachers the capabilities of each pupil and how to bring out the best in each child.

On the social scene, it makes you aware of the magnetisms at play and why you are drawn to certain people and repelled by others.

Relationships with yourself, your partner, friends, parents, siblings, colleagues and bosses are all impacted by the power of this system. And through it we can learn to understand one another on a much deeper level, thus becoming more effective and empathic parents, friends, lovers and colleagues. It is the most logical, freshest and clearest insight into the self that there could ever be.

I can confidently say that you won’t have seen anything like it before, so prepare for an intimate odyssey where the final destination is a true understanding of the person you were designed to be.

Prepare to meet yourself. Prepare to meet the real you.

Chetan Parkyn

Idyllwild, CA

April 2009