BUILD YOUR TRUST IN THE AUTHORITY
Fiona shares on the ways in which the Authority can support us in our decision-making and create greater self-trust. Audio episode!
by Fiona Bicknell, July 2024.
TRANSCRIPTION
00:00:00
OK. Number zwei. Well, number two.
Number two in this series of Human Design musings, recordings, discussions…I will eventually land on a name for them. I guess actually it's not really a discussion though if it's just me speaking.
But anyway, I'm going to talk a little today about the Authority. Sometimes referred to as the Inner Authority. This is our inner guidance system. The Authority represents the way in which we can tune into ourselves and tune into something that is beyond the intellectual mind to offer us guidance.
And if you're new to human design and you are all wondering where to start, or if you are someone that maybe only wants to take away one thing from this practice, that one thing I would suggest to learn is the Authority. For me, this is the piece of the practice that has the potential to create great change on its own, because when we learn to tune in to our Authority, we are listening to something and guiding ourselves from something that comes from beyond the intellectual mind and therefore beyond our conditioning. And the whole process of Human Design is said to be a process of de-conditioning.
It is about learning the parts of self that have been placed upon us by messages and outside energy that we've come into contact with throughout our life and getting to the core of who it is that we truly are and who we are designed to be. And if we are following or if we are creating our path and making our decisions from a place beyond conditioning we are setting ourselves up to do just that, to really come into alignment with who it is we are at our core and then all the other parts of the chart naturally fall into place.
And I make it sound easy. It's not necessarily the the easiest thing in the world, and I'm going to talk a little bit today about how it is that we can learn to or begin to build more trust in listening to our authority because it does go against largely how it is we've been taught to lead our lives and how it is that we've been taught to guide ourselves. We very much live in this world that is driven by the intellect and driven by logic and yeah, it doesn't always serve us. That isn't me saying it doesn't have a place of course it does, but there are other energies and other forms of intelligence that we can tune into for ourselves as well.
00:02:40
So some might say that the Authority is our most aligned decision-making process. The way in which we are designed to make decisions. And every day we are making countless, countless, countless decisions. We are constantly making decisions about how it is we want to look after ourselves, how it is we take care of our bodies and our health. We are constantly making decisions for our relationships and our interactions with other people. We are constantly making decisions on whatever it is that is expected of us, whether that be in work, in family, in community, we are constantly making decisions about our vocation and our environments and our life path. And and this is happening largely unconsciously, every single day. Endless, endless decisions being made.
And my dad actually always used to say to me, "you know, life is just the choices you make”. And yeah, I very much understand that and I guess as I've gotten older, that's become more and more ingrained for me. That the culmination of all of these countless decisions we are making, that is what makes a life.
And so to have a practice or even to spend some time diving into why it is we make the decisions we make or what it is that's driving the decisions we're making in life, that is so, so valuable and such a worthwhile way - in my opinion - such a worthwhile way to spend some time, something really worthwhile getting curious about because yeah, we are constantly making decisions. So to know what is driving it or to understand what is driving it is hugely beneficial.
And it's largely our unconscious mind that drives our decision making.
00:04:36
And you know, I I kind of carry this belief with me - something that gives me a lot of peace is - that I don't really think that any of us know what it is that we're doing. And even when we make these decisions that we feel so certain about I don't know that we really know why we are doing things.
And there's this really beautiful teaching in the Tao, and it says that the ‘highest attainment of wisdom is to know and yet believe that we do not know.’
That life is largely unknowable for the the intelligence that we have. For the level of human consciousness that is currently available to us - and who knows, it may change in future as consciousness is constantly changing also - but for what is available to us right now, and the way that we function as a species right now, we can't know everything. We don't know everything. We actually know a very small portion of how it is that this world works and our part within it.
And, yeah, there's there's this quote that Richard Rudd, the author of the Gene Keys, says, he says that “today's facts are tomorrow's fables", and I love it so much because it just helps us release this striving to know.
The mind is conditioned or trained to constantly seek to know, because ‘to know’ creates safety, creates security. If we know, then we are in control and at the end of the day we are really not. We are really not in control. And that isn't always going to serve us to try and control everything in our lives.
So this, well, actually on that note, that “today's facts are tomorrow's fables”, if we look at history we see that pattern. Things that we believed to be true and and maybe believed to be true for decades, for really long periods of time. You know, eventually things are debunked. Or, yeah, as science evolves, technology evolves. Our understanding of the world evolves and we come to see that the thing we believe to be true perhaps five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, we can we recognize we got it wrong. And that pattern is, that is a certainty. That we can look at history and see that pattern unfold and so this teaching of the Tao, I I I love this. For me it has helped create a lot of peace, I guess to just recognize we're not always going to ‘know'. And even if we believe we know something, recognizing maybe we don't. And so to hold ourselves in a space of recognizing that we are limited, that the mind is limited and can really serve us.
And the the opposing side of this teaching or the flip side of this teaching is that our greatest downfall as humans is “to not know and believe that we do”. So if the highest attainment of wisdom is to know and yet believe we don't know, our downfall is to not know and believe that we do.
And you can look at any system of ancient wisdom and you will always, always find a teaching of the ways in which we need to keep the intellect in check.
It is this incredible tool. Truly it is so advanced and so complex and has offered us something as a species that has created advancement far beyond. I don't know, like anything else that this planet has seen, but it really can work against us as well. And when we are making decisions in life - you know these constant, endless, countless decisions that we are making - we are in large part making those decisions from the subconscious mind.
00:08:41
So we even even these teachings that we, we can draw from ancient wisdom, we can see this pattern or see a similar understanding that has been formed in modern psychology or neuroscience - that we are in large part unconsciously moving through the world. And it depends on which study you look at but studies range that anywhere from 85 to 95% of the time, we are operating from the subconscious mind, we are operating from our beliefs and our understanding of the world that is is not actually in large part accessible to us consciously. It is hidden.
And I believe there is so much value in spending some time or doing some investigation into the subconscious and bringing some of those beliefs to the surface. And there are many ways that we can do that. And I highly, highly recommend, but that's not what I'm going to focus on here. What I'm going to talk about is the way that we can get past the conscious mind and learn to rely on something outside of it.
And this isn't me saying that the intellect doesn't have a place. The view that we take in Human Design is that the authority guides and the mind implements. That we tune into our energy for our guidance and then the role of the mind is to act upon that guidance. But the role of the mind is not to lead. If you have the conditioning to believe that there is a best choice for you, the mind will try and paint the picture to show you why something is your best choice. But the body might be guiding you towards something different.
Or if you have the conditioning to believe you're not good enough or you're not capable, your mind is going to constantly try and create these stories and scenarios to make you believe that perhaps the opportunity in front of you, that could be incredible, you're not ready for it.
So the Authority really gives us something else to tune into that is beyond these conditioned states of the mind.
And yeah, the Authority is determined by particular energy centers in the body. So each authority is connected to a different defined energy center in your system. The the one exception here is reflectors. Reflectors have no defined centers and therefore their authority and is actually driven by energy outside of the body. But for everyone else it will be an energy center in the body that is your most reliable source of guidance.
00:11:22
And there are seven different Authorities. I'm not gonna go into them all here. If you're interested in looking at what the seven Authorities are, there is an article in the Reading Room on the website. I believe it is just called "The Authority, an Introduction”, and it gives a brief kind of overview of each of the seven Authorities.
You can look up your Authority, if you don't already know it, by downloading your chart on the website. Or if you have your FOUNDATIONS report, then that goes in depth into your own personal authority and gives guidance on how to implement it.
So I'm not going to talk about each of the Authorities here, but what I am going to touch on is the one thing that they all have in common.
00:12:03
And the shared aspect of the Authority is that it doesn't always give you a “why”. This is something that offers us guidance or pulls us in a direction or gives us these little inklings of what is for us or not for us, but it isn't going to explain why, because it doesn't operate in the way that our intellect does, there isn't always logic to go with the Authority, and this is largely what creates, you know, this is the greatest barrier for us or the greatest obstacle to overcome when learning to tune into ourselves in this way, because it can feel really irresponsible.
And at times it can even feel delusional. And I can attest to that. There's definitely been times where I'm, like, am I just delusional? Operating on something that is completely not real?
And, but the more I've gone into this practice, and the more that I've allowed myself to trust my instincts the more I have been shown time and time again why it is something worth while trusting, and that “why” becomes filled in after the fact.
When you allow yourself to act on the guidance that you are receiving, and you don't know why, what you likely will find is that after you listen to it, after you commit to it, after you take the risk to just go forward anyway, things fall into place in such a way that we find ourselves in these moments of like, ah, that's why that's why I did that.
And so as a starting point here, I invite you to reflect upon perhaps any moments in your life where you have made a decision that has largely come from a place unknown that you don't really know why you were doing it, but you had a feeling it was the right thing to do, or it was the best thing for you. And that you have been shown after the fact why it was, why that was the truth, why it was actually the best thing for you.
And I want you to have a think about what feeling came with that decision. What feeling was there in the body?
And when I talk about the the feeling, I want to actually make a note here that this isn’t necessarily, a bodily response that comes from the nervous system as such. Because that can largely carry, that can largely be informed about by our subconscious mind and our conditioning as well. Like you know, if I get butterflies in the tummy when I meet a person or a sick feeling in the stomach from something - yeah, that can often often be an indication of the body body responding to our beliefs about a situation.
And the Authority, depending on which Authority you have, likely will come with a feeling that is a little bit beyond a nervous system response. It isn't necessarily a bodily reaction, and it might feel a little more - what’s the right word here? Yeah, a little less charged. Not necessarily emotionally charged, if that makes sense.
And and that's going to be, it's going to feel different for everyone as well. I can't. I can't tell you what your Authority feels like, but if you learn about your Authority, it can give you a little bit of guidance about what it might feel like. And then really, my suggestion is to go deep on exactly what it feels like for you. And it might be a bit different for everyone.
But yeah, see what comes to mind. If you think back on a decision that you've made for yourself that you didn't really know why you were making it, but you just had a feeling it was the right thing and then you were, you were afterwards shown why it was a great decision for yourself.
00:16:09
And then I want to pose two tasks or two challenges, I guess.
The first is learning to own the fact that you might not have a “Why”. Because something that really takes us away from being able to listen to the Authority is when people outside of us ask us why it is we're making a certain decision.
We commit to something and maybe is it is that we really listen to ourselves and we really trust our own guidance system and then we start to tell someone about it and they start questioning us and all of a sudden we realize we don't have the answer and we're taken out of the body and into the mind. And the mind has the ability to go around in circles and question things and create self doubt.
When we can't explain why we're doing something, this is often when we get tripped up, when our confidence in ourselves begins to waver.
And I really believe that you always know what is best for you more than anyone else.
And that doesn't mean don't take on outside opinion. That doesn't mean don't ask for advice. That doesn't mean don't seek guidance, or don’t take on information. By all means, seek it. Take it on board. But what you do with that information, what you do with that advice and guidance, that is where you know what is best for yourself.
And sometimes when people question our decisions and it, it is just an unconscious thing that we all do. I just moved out to LA, well I didn't just move, I came out to LA about eight months ago. And when you tell people that you're new here, the first thing you get is “ohh, so what made you move to LA?” And you know, this is something I'm still learning for myself as well. There are dynamics in which I feel so safe and so comfortable to say, “don't know I just knew this was where I was supposed to be, I can't tell you why". And there's some people that I'm really able to say that to and there's some spaces I feel so confident to be able to share, that is the truth - “I don't know why I'm here but I know it's where I'm supposed to be.”
And and then there are other times where that question has come up, and I find myself trying to rationalize and trying to find reasons why I moved here. And a lot of it can objectively make sense and a lot of it does, even to myself, makes sense. But the place where the decision came from, you know, it doesn't for me, it often doesn't even feel like a decision. It just feels like. Ohh, that's what I'm supposed to do, OK. Ohh, I'm being guided here. OK, but the part about that “why” becoming clear afterwards -
In that eight months that I've been here in LA, there are people that have come into my life, opportunities that have presented, synchronicities that have lined up that are beyond what my mind could have ever fathomed that have shown me exactly why it is that I am here. And these opportunities that are presented to me or the learnings that I've had in the short time that I've been here, it's not something that my mind could have understood prior to making that decision. There's no way I could have seen these things coming. No way I could have understood that this was what was good. These these things, these opportunities, these connections were the things that were going to come into my life in moving to LA.
So it has really shown me and I for myself, I see this time and again the ‘why’ fills in afterwards and it often arrives in a way that is it is kind of beyond belief. It is, yeah, incredibly expansive. So I'm I'm learning the more that I lean into this and the more that I own this fact that I don't know why in large part why I'm making decisions. And yeah, I am learning that there is some kind of magic in trusting it and I am really learning that it is in our best interest to trust it or for me it has been in my best interest to trust and go with it
So yeah, that, that first challenge I'd like to pose to you is in listening to your Authority or your intuition or whatever it is that this feeling may be that that feels like a guide for you and can you begin to own it outwardly a little bit more? And not be afraid to say out loud. “I'm just listening to myself and I don't know why I'm doing this, but I'm just listening to myself”.
And then my second suggestion is, can you offer this to other people? Can you catch yourself if you begin to question others on their decisions. Or where you maybe tend to say things like, “Oh well, that doesn't make sense. Oh, why are you doing that?”
And we all do it. I still do it as well. We all do it. We, you know, like I said earlier in the recording, the mind is constantly seeking safety and security. And the way that it believes it create can create security is to know when things make sense, when things logically make sense is when we feel safe or when we feel secure. Which is a bit of a falsity because, yeah, I actually remember once listening to a a podcast from Esther Perel where she was talking about actually there is no true security. There is no true safety.
But the mind is constantly seeking it. And so yeah, we can all fall prey to this questioning of others or this trying to put logic around things where sometimes logic hasn't been a part of the equation, and that's OK.
So my second challenge to you is can you begin to bring awareness to where you might place this pressure on others?
It's even, yeah, even it can be with really good intention, but sometimes we question others on why they're making certain decisions when they might not have the answers and what it can do for people is create self doubt, rather than build their confidence in being able to trust themselves and listen to themselves.
So yeah, I'm going to leave it there.
Like I said, if you're interested in understanding what all seven of the Authorities are, you can find that article in the reading room on the website. And if you want to go deep into your own Authority and learn how to tune into this for yourself, then there is in-depth guidance in the foundations reports.
And I hope this is helpful in some way. Please know that I'm always open to receiving feedback, so DM me send me an e-mail.Let me know your thoughts and yeah, I'll be back next week with another recording.
I am sending so much love.
00:23:23 End.
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