HD is Changing the Rule Book for Good Parenting

Starting with Understanding Personal Boundaries - Part 1

Grace Dakini

Aug 09, 2024

1×

0:00

-15:06

Why are boundaries so important?

They safeguard your mental and physical well-being and are fundamental in creating self-esteem, self-respect, and self-love; Essentially creating a healthy authentic individual who can contribute their uniqueness to life.

As someone on the autism spectrum who grew up in an abusive environment, I didn’t know there was such a thing as boundaries, until much later in life.

What parent hasn’t wished for an instruction manual on how to raise their kids?

The more children you have the more you realize you can’t parent them the same way. As much as you want to be a good parent and treat them fairly, if you try to parent them with the same rules and a one-size-fits-all approach, you’re conditioning them to be the same. You’re not respecting their individuality and you’ll get resistance from them - frustration, bitterness, anger, and disappointment on all sides.

Good parenting isn’t enough because if you’re not respecting your child’s auric nature you will fail to teach them their boundaries and how they connect with others.

Boundaries are also a two-way street. Yes, they teach self-respect but they also teach how to respect others. They teach us how to genuinely and authentically connect with each other and this transforms the energy of our world. Ok, your world may be limited to your household but that transformation goes far beyond what you perceive.

If you have the belief that everyone has the same auric nature, you’re mistaken.

According to Human Design, we have four auric natures. You could imagine these four kinds of auras like water, earth, fire, and air. Each is distinct. Each behaves differently from the others. Each influences or impacts the others uniquely. You can’t treat them all the same way, can you?

So, the question arises, why do we try to parent or educate children as if they are all the same? Think of the consequences of doing that. You don’t have to use your imagination, just think about your own life experiences when you didn’t have the freedom or support to be yourself.

Imagine a husband and wife, he is Earth and she is Water and they have two children, a boy that’s Air and a girl that’s Fire all under one roof. You can see how Earth and Water can get along. But look at how their children potentially could interact - Air stirring and rousing Fire.

Ok, so I’m using these elements metaphorically to demonstrate my point, and they have nothing to do with Human Design. But you could potentially have all four energy types all living under one roof and for them to cohabit successfully each of their natures would need to be understood and respected.

Why am I even talking about boundaries and auric natures in the same sentence?

For starters, boundaries have to do with your limits, your outermost limits. Our bodies are not our outer limits. Our auras are our outer limits - without getting into the esoteric stuff here. After all our bodies produce our auras. We can imagine it as a sphere around us. Each of us has our own physical space that we occupy. But not all auras are generated the same way and therefore not all auras operate the same way.

We also share our environment. Our environment is another space where boundaries need to be understood and respected. It’s why laws exist, like rules of the road. You need to know who has the right of way otherwise collisions will happen.

According to HD, there are four types of auras.

Generators make up +66% of the population and have an open and enveloping aura. What is unique about their auras is it has a magnetic attraction. They draw life towards them. But you need to understand what it means to have an open and enveloping aura that is magnetic. Think of a large body of water. Every civilization is drawn to water. Water is a life force. We cannot live without it. It’s open to you, to all the elements, from every direction. When you climb into a tub of water, how do you experience it? It envelops you, doesn’t it? It feels warm and inviting. You can also take a glass of water and drink it. It fills the open space of your stomach. The Generator aura does the same, it makes you feel whole where you are undefined. And just like our waterways need to be protected and not taken for granted for our continued sustainability, Generators need to be protected by teaching them how to respect their boundaries. Water is better left to flow according to its rhythm, like the tides of the ocean. It is consistent. While you can manipulate water and dam it up to use it for the power it generates, look at how water behaves then. It becomes agitated. Sometimes explosive. Now, look at our planet and how water has shaped it, and transformed it by flowing, gradually over time, without force, it has produced spectacular results. These are all qualities of a Generator’s aura. Be grateful for their precious life force if you want to drink from their cup.

Note: A Manifesting Generator has the same auric nature as a Generator and has been included in the statistics on Generators.

Projectors make up +22% of the population and have a focused and absorbing aura. What’s unique about the Projector aura is its absorbing capacity like our Mother Earth she is vastly open and absorbs rainfall which is purifying but she also absorbs all the toxins and poisons we produce. Projectors have this capacity to energetically taste others and their environmental conditions influence their overall health (i.e. the people who make up their environment). Like the mountains that stretch high into the sky to take in the oxygen and water molecules that allow it to sustain all the life on its surface, the Projector aura penetrates and absorbs the energies of the others. When allowed to be “the mountain” they are highly visible and are best suited to seeing the big picture for they have taken it all in and she is capable of guiding the resources around her. The strength of our land, of earth, is it’s our home. It’s where we gather and take its resources. And that’s the potential danger for Projectors, we could strip her of her power and enslave her for her precious resources, like farmland, and leave her exhausted. There is a give-and-take relationship between Projectors and other energy types that requires balance for sustainability for all to prosper.

Manifestors make up 9.7% of the population and have a closed and repelling aura. Unfortunately, this “by the book” description of the Manifestor aura leads to a bad rep for them. No matter what, their presence is felt by others but Manifestors aren’t aware of how they impact others any more than fire is aware of the mark it leaves in its path. Think of it, fire as an element is self-contained. That’s what closed means for Manifestors. They are self-contained and self-motivated. This is its unique phenomenon. Fire repels you if you get too close and it’s unexpected. That’s also why fire is so scary, it feels unpredictable to others. But at the same time, when you know it’s there, isn’t it nice to sit by a campfire and watch its flames dance and just listen? When we hear closed as its primary descriptor, it’s easy to assume that Manifestors are unaffected by others. But that simply isn’t true. Like fire, when it’s misunderstood, it’s feared. And when we fear something, we try to control it. We smother the fire with earth. We starve it of air. Or we drown it in water. If you were fire and this kept happening to you, how would you internalize this? It would feel like you’re always being punished for your nature. So, you either try to stop being fire or you act in secrecy to protect yourself from others. Robbing us as a collective of their unique purpose in our lives. They are here to be that spark, that initiates the rest of us but how can they if we are always trying to restrain their movement? Can you now see that fire isn’t good or bad? It’s only a question of perspective and to keep the fire alive and well, it needs others to nurture it.

Reflectors are the rarest as they make up +1% of the population and have a naturally resistant aura and yet they sample their environment. The Reflector aura is unimposing, unobtrusive, and gently shifts sampling its environment much like air. They sample everything, others’ physical well-being or not, the psychic, or emotional health or not of their environment, detecting what isn’t working well. Over time as their aura samples, it is also attuning to its environment to be one with totality, with everyone and everything. So, while yes, their auras are resistant when compared to other aura types, it is not completely impermeable. If in an unhealthy environment and they have become identified with what they are meant to reflect, the Reflectors’ health will suffer. They are uniquely designed to show us, collectively, how we are doing as a society like air quality does for our planet. They are also similar to air in the sense of their shifting, ever-changing nature. Every day they are a little different from the day before, moving with wonder and carefreeness. Given their non-intrusive auric nature combined with their heightened awareness of others, what they fear most is to be invisible, like air! How do you support a child who is always changing and who cannot become over-attached to people, to allow them their freedom of expression?

When I sat down to write this article, I had it in mind to explain boundaries according to each of the energy types but that’s like giving you all the answers to a test without first teaching you. Instead, I have given you a way to understand the four different auric types beyond their basic 2-word description. Please remember that I have used the elements of water, earth, fire, and air symbolically as a way to conceptualize these “by-the-book” descriptions given in HD. What I ask of you to do now is look at your aura and your children’s auras and see if you can understand how they work together, and how they influence each other. If you don’t have children, you can still look at your auric nature with anyone else’s.

I want to give you time to process this for yourself and form your opinions independently. Next week, I will take the next step and explain how to raise children according to their energy type.

You can let me know what you learned from this newsletter by leaving a comment or direct messaging me. I’d love to hear what your biggest takeaway was.

Please leave a comment - if you don’t want to download the app, you’ll need to login to the Substack website to leave a comment. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Mental Health Matters by Grace Dakini

Discussion about this post