In this previously recorded interview with Human Design Reflector Candy Leigh, we discuss how Human Design gives us a framework to discuss the experiences of our lives. We also go into how being open-centered beings requires balance, boundaries, and sometimes napping :-) Enjoy, and please feel free to comment below about how learning your design has impacted you!
CL: Hello everybody! I’m so excited today to have with us, Libby Hoffmann, who is a Human Design expert and owner of Moderne Homemaker, where you can make your soul at home. Thank you Libby for hopping on with me today.
LH: Sure, absolutely! Thank you for having me Candy. I’m excited to be here and to share, and to just chat.
CL: So Libby, just share your background and what brought you to become the owner of Moderne Homemaker.
LH: Yeah! So, I was introduced to Human Design back during the holiday season of 2018. So, it’s been a few years now that I’ve been experimenting for myself and with my family. That’s where I started. Then I integrated it into my work [in holistic wellness].
My business, Moderne Homemaker, is about making your soul at home on this planet. That is really my focus, to empower others. I mainly work with women and mothers, and people who identify as a woman or mother. But the Moderne Homemaker movement is for everyone.
My goal is to provide inspired and practical guidance. I believe that is how we sustain awakening, is having those tools, so we can really embody the knowledge. Not just consuming the knowledge but embodying it. So we can thrive, and nurture ourselves and the next generation.
CL: So, when you were introduced to Human Design what was your initial response?
LH: I remember the first time that I saw my bodygraph. [laughing] I was like, what… is… this?! I have a pretty open chart, but I saw all the numbers, and like, the shapes and the lines, and I was just like, I don’t even know where to begin [laughing].
But then I just started taking little pieces, you know. I dove into my Type first. I’m a Projector with Emotional Authority, [actually] a 2/4 Emotional Projector. Once I dove in to just those foundational pieces, I felt so validated and it all just made sense. You know, I think that is what you have to do because Human Design is so deep and layered so richly. If you just start with those foundations, that is when the world really opens up for you.
I just felt so seen and recognized, and as a Projector that is super important [for validation] right off the bat. A lot of feelings [came forward]. Wisdom and knowledge that I’ve felt my entire life, that I finally felt like I had the language to speak about. To speak about what I had felt about myself and other people my entire life.
CL: I love that it’s about the language. It gives you a framework to start to dissect, or even process some of the experiences that we’ve had in our lives. I know, when I saw mine too and started talking about it I felt like I actually had permission to step into myself. Like I had permission to just be me. That this was my actual design, and it was okay, to you know, be a little different from the rest of the world.
LH: Yeah, exactly. And then you start to see why. [You think] “Oh, well you know this didn’t work for me because I wasn’t meant to use that strategy.” Or like, you know, we are given this body that’s created just for us, and Human Design is just that blueprint that helps you know how to use your body in alignment with your soul that has been put here.
CL: I love that. So like basically, you are, as a Human Design expert, and within Moderne Homemaker, you’re helping souls awaken. You’re helping people awaken to their calling and their purpose, and just understanding how to navigate their journey on this planet.
You alluded to this before, but kind of as that agent of awakening that you are, what is one of your biggest goals?
LH: I think for me, one of my biggest goals is just to help women, and honestly myself, because all of my work that I do I embody for myself as well. To feel at home here, in the body, and to just enjoy simply being in life. I think that is where the joy comes from, not just from being in the magical but in the mundane. That is what life is all about for me…being able to claim that joy and claim the abundance in every moment. To hold the good and the bad. That’s the beauty of life.
CL: Yeah. It’s like finding presence across all of those moments, and learning that everything is an opportunity to learn a little bit more.
LH: Yeah, and feeling like you belong here. Because there have been several moments in my life, before I found Human Design, when I didn’t feel like I had a place. I felt…and I know a lot of people in the spiritual realm, who consider themselves an empath or spiritual [person], they go through the same thing where they feel like they don’t belong. They don’t feel like they’re at home.
I really believe that if we are on this planet then we are home. We have the opportunity to claim that for ourselves. It’s always available for us to do that.
CL: What are some of those 3D struggles you personally encountered before you found Human Design? What did you face that you had to overcome on your journey [so far]?
LH: One of the big ones for me as a child, was the [physical] energy. My parents are both Generator Types, so they have that consistent Sacral energy to work with, and to keep going. I don’t.
I remember like, having to get up super early because they worked at different times. One worked day shift and one worked night shift, so there was a lot of like, hustling back and forth, here and there, to like daycare and then school and then after school. It was always like that, go go go, that hustle mode. I always just felt like I was forcing myself.
Now I know, being a Projector, I realize that is not the best way for myself [laughing]. I need to embrace my inconsistency. My way is to be inconsistent; be on when I’m on, but then when I need a break, and rest, and play, then to honor that as well. That makes me more potent, more efficient, and more powerful.
So, as a child, not having that language that we talked about, is hard. You know, society forces us to fit in and go along with the flow of society [at large] and all of that. I think giving this knowledge and the tools, to see the different strategies for people and their children is really important, because they can set their children up from day one, with the correct strategies and energetic tools. Permission to be themselves and not have to be homogenized into what everyone else is doing.
CL: I really love that. While you were talking, it was making me remember too. I remember getting up as a child, getting up very early for school. You know, hustling, whatever needed to get done, go to the babysitter, and feeling almost ill if I got up too early. Exhausted to the point of like, feeling dizzy and sick. Living in a household where you just did it, this was the expectation. We go, we hustle, we move, we get things done.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not necessarily a good thing. It’s just what it was. But feeling like I’m bad, or I’m not helping by being exhausted or not feeling well. [Thinking] I’m contributing to something bad as opposed to acknowledging, ‘No, this is just me.’ I just need a little bit more time. And how do we work with that?
LH: Yeah, and feeling worthy of that rest. As a child, you don’t realize. Like you said, you feel like something’s wrong with you. [You think] like, well you don’t need rest [as a child]. Why do YOU need to sleep later, why do YOU need to go to bed earlier? That comparison can steal our joy honestly.
CL: I’m a 1/3 Reflector, so I’m fully open Centered. And Libby, you’re a 2/4 Projector, so we both know what it’s like to have those open Centers. So once you came into Human Design, how did you start to make others aware of what your needs are?
LH: I remember when I first started really trying to recognize when I needed that break. It was hard to make that boundary for myself, to make myself physically stop and take a break [laughing]. Whether that was taking a nap, just sitting down instead of standing up and do, do, do. Just taking that step to pause was super important, because then that makes it easier and easier to honor that boundary.
I needed a lot more rest in the beginning when I first started embodying my design, because I was catching up on all that exhaustion. Having to push through and perpetuate that unsustainable cycle. So there was some nervous system work that I had to do, to be able to hold the exhaustion and hold that space for myself to rest. Stop listening to the like, ‘You need to do this and that, get up…’ You know, all the unworthiness coming through.
But then once I started honoring that, I realized that I didn’t have to take a two hour nap. Now I can just do a ten minute meditation or a 45 minute nap and feel so much more refreshed and rejuvenated. I honor those inconsistent cycles more and I take that break before I’m exhausted, instead of waiting until I’m COMPLETELY exhausted. When you’re in that unsustainable cycle of exhaustion, it takes more and more time to be able to recuperate.
CL: Isn’t it interesting, because I’ve experienced this too…Once you start to really shift and put the boundaries around what your actual needs are. Like you said, when you’re on, you’re on. You can be so much more productive when you have that down time or away time just to recharge. It’s an incredible realization once you start to dial into that and be fully present for what you need yourself. That makes you a better person, a better mom, better wife, a better human, better sister [laughing]. All the things.
LH: I describe alignment like a pendulum, or like a fish swimming a path. When you first start experimenting, you might feel like you’re way over here [motions with hand] in misalignment, and you have to bounce way back into alignment. But once you start getting that rhythm for yourself and you’re able to pivot quicker, you recognize when you’re in misalignment. Then it becomes more of this fluid movement, so you’re not doing this [wide swing] all the time. It’s more like a tick tock, that’s an aligned rhythm for yourself.
CL: Has there ever been a point when you’ve hit a wall? For me that wall was, all the sudden I’m having a back surgery and I’m forced to stop and actually pay attention to what my body needs. So, as you’ve become more familiar with your design, has there been a point where you’re like just forced into stillness? Where you say, ok I understand what I need fully.
LH: Yeah, so I would actually go back to when my first child was born. I didn’t have Human Design then, but as soon as I started learning about HD, that whole postpartum journey was put in a whole new light and perspective for me. I definitely hit that wall in my first postpartum.
I was very spiritually connected, and connected to my body during pregnancy. Then when my baby was born, I thought there was going to be like this, even more elevated [experience]. If I’m feeling this, kind of like, nirvana when I’m pregnant, then what is it going to be like when the baby’s actually born? [I thought] ‘It's going to be amazing!’ And it was the complete opposite of that when my baby was born.
You know, in HD we have the [knowledge of] Design of Pregnancy. There’s actually this quantum of energy formed between the baby and the [host] mother. It’s a relational energy. So when the baby is born and separated form the mother physically, outside the womb, then there is like, a death in that energy that was formed. That whole transition time for myself, and for the thousands of other women who face postpartum depression and related illnesses, [we] have to have that support and awareness to journey through that transition [thriving]. That’s when I hit that wall.
I felt I wasn’t clear with my boundaries, like you were saying. I didn’t know my energetic needs and I had for so long, because of the way I was brought up, relied on my own mental and emotional care taking. I had never had to physically care for another person like I had to with a new baby. My emotional and mental self nurturing were already so stretched, then you add that physical nurturing on top, and you’re just [laughing]…you hit that wall.
Once I found HD, I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is what I had needed.’ I needed to have that awareness, the knowledge, and tools and support to be able to take care of my own needs and my child’s needs. If I would have known HIS design, there would have been so much more healthier behaviors and strategies.
Both of my children are Manifesting Generators, so they’re very busy [laughing]. I remember when my first son was like six months or so [old], I would try to force naps with him. That did just not work. I was wasting my time and he wasn’t able to use his energy. I wasted my energy trying to get him to rest. That was this pivotal moment in my life when I recognized all these things, but I didn’t have the language yet.
It was around that six month mark [postpartum] when I was like, ‘okay, I need to start becoming again that person I was before this transition.’ Put in some more boundaries, ask my partner for more help. Connect with myself more spiritually and not put it off anymore, [or keep waiting for things to change on their own.]
CL: Yeah, gosh, as we’re talking, I just think back to when my first child was born. She had some significant health issues and there was very limited sleep. I remember working through that to a breaking point. Trying to handle it, because I wanted to be able to be the one to handle it. And the way our household was set up, I was the one to handle it at nighttime.
You know, moving forward, trying to make sure it was all good and okay. She was good, and the household was good, but sacrificing myself at it. I was the expense along the way. I went into a state of exhaustion and not being able to replenish my own energy to an absolute breaking point.
That was my experience. And I haven’t really thought about it in terms of human design before, so I’m thankful that we’re talking about this. It’s having me remember. And how we can help so much more now, the people who come after us on this journey.
LH: That’s really how I felt, like I was in survival mode. Like you said, that exhaustion for us is even more so than for people that have a defined sacral. And even having to be with another person so close. You know, we need that space [as non energy types] to release that energy that we’re taking in from other people and the environment.
What I’ve come to realize and see the opportunity for, as I’ve integrated HD is that [motherhood] doesn’t just have to be survival. It can be thriving. We can set ourselves up [correctly] and prepare ourselves for thriving . We can have the tools and knowledge to be able to recognize the incorrect things and pivot quickly, so that we can get back into thriving. Instead of just throwing our hands up and acting like, ‘oh this is just how it is’ in postpartum.
CL: Yes, taking a stand and saying, ‘this is what I need in order to be the best mom possible.’
LH: Yeah, absolutely. That’s why I created Crown of Light. It’s a whole guidance program specifically for new mothers. And this could be repeat mothers, it doesn’t have to be your first child or your biological child. It’s really for any new caretakers, or anyone who is caretaking for a new child, because with HD if we know your birthtime, then we can see your energetic blueprint.
CL: That’s so beautiful. So like, your transition, starting to recognize these different things about yourself, your energy. Then transitioning into discovering human design and being able to provide a framework around it, to have a better interpretation of your own life and your family’s lives. Now, you’re really sharing that with others.
So with that in mind, what’s been your proudest moment in your business world so far with Moderne Homemaker?
LH: I would say the work that I’ve done in Nurture by Nature. Because the feedback that I’ve gotten from the women who have journeyed through that program is exactly my intention with my work. It’s feeling at home in their body. Feeling like they have a place in this world, and recognizing their own gifts.
It’s amazing to see the work I do with people translate for them in their own lives. How they are able to step into themselves and their power, and affect the people around them. Their own businesses, their own families. It’s really cool to be able to empower people. That’s really my goal, to empower women, so that they really don’t need me [laughing] after they’ve journeyed through one of my programs. We do that deeply in Nurture by Nature, and I really enjoy seeing the fruits of the work that the women do.
CL: I love that. So I want to ask this question, based on your experiences and your expertise that you have in HD, and the programs that you run within Moderne Homemaker, what is the one simple shift that you could recommend for anyone to choose in their life that would create more joy?
LH: I would have to say, surrender. Surrendering.
First of all, knowing who you are. Just knowing one little piece of yourself, like your Type. It doesn’t even have to be HD, it could be knowing what your favorite thing is to eat for breakfast [laughing]. It could be something so simple, but something that is unique to you. Something that makes you who you are, and really surrendering to that. Embracing it, and like we’ve talked about, having the self-confidence and healthy ego to make that a priority. Let go of anything that competes with that, or that puts pressure on us to not embrace that.
That’s where the surrender comes in; letting go of those ideals that maybe we’ve had our whole lives [that are not in alignment]. If there’s something different that gives you joy, then do it. Who cares what the rest of America eats for breakfast. Or who cares that, you know, other people don’t take a nap everyday. Does it really matter in the big picture? If it helps bring you joy, and it helps you live an authentic life, then surrender to it. Embrace that and let everything else go.
CL: I love that so much, and my word for the year is Surrender!
LH: Oh awesome!
CL: Ok so, a little bit of a surprise question… If we are watching the movie of your life, who is playing you?
LH: I love Audrey Hepburn.
CL: Yes! Perfect.
LH: She was a short haired girl, like me [laughing]. I’ve always loved her, and actually I’m probably going to write a post about this. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, and just how, she really embraces the duality of life. She was a style icon, but she was also not that typical American beauty. She shows us you can be funny and smart. She did so much goodwill, ambassador work, especially in her later years. She gave a lot of herself. That’s what I want to be remembered for, is living authentically, helping others, and showing the beauty of duality. Embracing that in my own life.
CL: Perfect [smiling] Thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation today. It’s always such a treat to talk with you.
LH: Well, thank you so much! I love chatting with you too. I’m so glad we connected and the feeling is mutual.
Candy Leigh is an American award-winning and best selling international author, a yoga teacher and Reiki Master. You may watch our full video interview here. Connect with Candy at candyleigh.com
Libby Hoffmann is a holistic wellness guide specializing in the Human Design System, a birth and postpartum doula, and author of the children's book We Are All Light. Connect with Libby at modernehomemaker.com
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