LOVING BETTER WITH GATE 46
Fiona takes us on a deeper dive into the energy of the G Center and, more specifically, Gate 46 and what is has to teach us about loving others and creating greater harmony in our relationships.
Audio Episode!
by Fiona Bicknell, July 2024.
TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00
OK, I'm going to talk a little today about the G Center and in particular about Gate 46 in the context of how it can teach us to better love others, to better love the self and to better love other people in our lives. And this is this, has come about from an article that I wrote recently that is up on the website in the reading room, in the Human Design reading room on my website, and and in that article I looked at the various Gates of the G Center to explore what we can take away from those, from the guidance of each of those Gates in terms of giving us something we can put into practice to better love others.
And there is one Gate in particular which is Gate 46, that since having written that piece, there is one line that I wrote for Gate 46 that has just seemed to pop up again and again. It's come up in conversation with friends and it has come up in multiple client sessions over the past week and a half and it just feels like a very relevant piece to focus on right now.
But before I dive into that, I'm going to give a little bit of context here for people who are newer to Human Design. I want to make sure that I’m, yeah, I'm making sense to you what I'm sharing.
So when you look at the Human Design chart there are nine different Energy Centers. These are the shapes that you see - triangles, squares and one diamond in the middle of the chart. So these nine different shapes we refer to as Energy Centers and you can think of them as like similar to the chakras of the Hindu Brahman chakra system. So this is a slight evolution on the traditional 7 chakra system. You'll notice we have 9 centers here.
And each Energy Center carries, you know, a different kind of energy that lives within our system, or each, each center represents a different kind of energy that we carry within our system. And it is the combination of these different energies that make up what it is to be human.
So you'll see those nine different shapes. And then you'll notice within each of those shapes are numbers. And each number is referred to as a Gate, and these Gates correlate to the I-Ching. The I-Ching was an ancient Eastern text, and the estimates for when the I-Ching was written is anywhere from 3 to 10,000 years ago, it is unknown.
But the I-Ching was this book - it's translated as the Book of Changes and it encapsulates these 64 different energies. And my somewhat crude summary of this book, of the I-Ching, is that I reference it as being the 64 different energies that make up what it is to be human.
It is the combination of these 64 different aspects that encapsulate the entire human experience. Whether you experience these things in the self or you experience them in another or you experience them through connection it's like every single part of what it is to be human can be found somewhere in the I-Ching. It can be found somewhere in these 64 different energies and it's called the Book of Change or the Book of Changes, sorry, because each of these different aspects operates on a spectrum. There is a low frequency expression and there is a high frequency expression of each aspect and we want to think of this as like we can be in the shadow side of something or we can be in the high frequency of something.
That there can be a particular aspect that operates in such a way that it can create behaviors that are, let's say, not supportive and helpful. Or it can create behaviors that are supportive and helpful. But it's like the same energy just being expressed in different ways.
An example I often give of this that, that helps to paint a picture quite quickly. Gate 21. This is the shadow of control, the gift of authority. So when we are like like, there's such a subtle difference in that right? But this is the this is the gift of authority, which can become control if we are not careful. If we're in the shadow side of things, or if we're using this energy in a way that is creating behaviors that are not so helpful, it becomes control. When we are in balance and in harmony with this energy within the system, we can hold ourselves in a place of authority. Which actually gives power to other people rather than, rather than putting us in a position of power over others.
So that's just an example. I hope I'm not going off on too much of a tangent here, but that's just an example of how each of these different 64 energies operate on a spectrum. There is the gift, and then there is the shadow of each.
00:05:39
So you'll notice that each of the Energy Centers has a number of of different Gates on there, and each of these Gates is a reference to an aspect of the I-Ching. So there's 64 gates in total.
And the Energy Center I'm going to focus on today is the G Center, which is the diamond in the middle of the chart. And the Gate I'm going to focus on is Gate 46.
So the G Center is the energy of love and self-expression. And it might seem strange that these two things are pulled together. In the traditional chakra system these are separated. We have the heart center as being the energy of love, and we have the solar plexus as being the energy of the self.
And what we're doing in Human Design is, is we bring these two things together, and this isn't to say one is right and one is wrong. It's like all of these different frameworks are just offering us a perspective. They're just offering us like a lens to to view ourselves through. And this is just one way of looking at it.
But the reason that this, that I love this is that, that yeah, that that pulling together the the energy of love and the energy of self-expression just shows us how these two things are completely intertwined, that these two things are are so wrapped up in each other and it's it's like these kind of cliched sayings that are so true, like “we can only love another as much as we love ourselves.”
And the way that we express ourselves and the world is so tied up in what we believe about who we are in relation to others. That we don't exist alone, we don't exist in silo, self-expression is not something that happens without connection to others. And that is why I kind of love this way of of looking at things in Human Design; that our understanding of self is completely wrapped up in in the in the way that we love others, in the love that we have for others, in the connection that we have with others.
And there is a really beautiful teaching in Kundalini that is something that has always stayed with me and really did change the way that I view connections for myself. And that teaching is that when we are connecting with another person, at the root of connection, what we are seeking to do, is have an experience of the self. In all of our connections we are striving to experience parts of self. That we all came here to experience what it is to be human and that can't be done alone, that we we understand who we are, when other people reflect our energy back to us. It is in connection that people mirror back to us parts of ourselves that we come to understand ourselves in a deeper way. And that's what we're all here to do is to experience what it is to be human.
00:08:32
And, and on that note, like something that led me to, um, I guess these, these contemplations of looking at the Gates in this way - just to be perfectly upfront like the the way the Gates have been taught to me, like this isn't how… I what I'm offering about the Gates here is not how they've been taught to me. What I'm going to offer is like how we can use the energy of each of these Gates to show us how we can love another better. But it has come through kind of my own contemplation and that contemplation has come about from the book The Art of Loving.
This is a book that was written by Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and he wrote this in 1956, and essentially this book poses the idea that to love is not something that necessarily comes naturally to us. And, you know, we all will experience love or I, I truly hope that we will all experience love in some capacity, whether we try to or not. But to experience it in its fullest takes work and it takes commitment and it takes practice. And that in some ways we need to be taught how to love. In fact, not in some ways. In many ways, I really do believe that. And as yeah, as I go on living and connecting with people, that is just being proven to be more true and more true for me that, yeah, love doesn't come naturally.
Maybe the understanding of what love feels like, or the understanding of the concept of love. Maybe we all innately know what that is, but to be able to experience it in the deepest ways we can with another, or even in relationship to the self, it takes some work and it takes some practice and that is what is posed in this book, The Art of Loving, what the author is really posing is like, yeah, that we need to be taught how to love and how do we learn how to love? What is it that can inform us and teach us how to love better?
And there are a few key things that he shares that are required. He says that commitment is required, discipline is required and practice is required.
And and So what I've been looking at recently is these different Gates of the G Center. That is the energy center of love and self-expression and what each of these like, what are the, what can we take from each of these Gates that gives us insight into how it is that we can love others better? What guidance can we take to practice loving other people?
00:11:15
I am, I’m gonna actually, before I go into Gate 46, I'm actually just going to give a little bit of an overview of what the shadow side is of this G center, where we can all get tripped up no matter what Gates we have activated in the G center whether we have all of them or none of them. And yeah, there's there's a couple of things to note of what trips us up when it comes to loving in other people. That is a very key lesson we can take from the G Center.
So, if you have an undefined G center - and what that will look like in your chart, it means that diamond in the middle of the chart will be white. If you are someone with an undefined G center, your self-expression is designed to be forever fluid, forever changing.
And we often have these kinds of messages in society, and these conditioned beliefs within us that we somehow believe that we are supposed to figure out who we are. And once we figure out who we are, we stick to that and it is unwavering and and we just continue on in life as that person forever. And if you have an undefined G Center you will never arrive at that place. Your sense of self is going to be forever fluid and forever changing. You're going to feel like a different person in different environments and with different people and in different phases of life.
And while that may be true for all of us, in some sense, if your G center is undefined, it is going to be heightened for you. It is going to be especially true. You will never feel like there is one fixed sense of self. And what is created here, the shadow side of this is that people with an undefined G centre can seek their identity in another. They can latch on to another and try to connect their own sense of self with another's identity. And oftentimes this will be sought in a person who has a defined identity center, a person who has a more fixed way of presenting themselves to the world.
And what happens here is it creates a shadow of expectation. We place all of these expectations on another person that we need them to behave in a certain way because our identity and who we see ourselves to be in the world is so connected to how that person shows up and how they express themselves that we get, we we get totally attached to every little behavior and everything that they do. If they present themselves in a way that actually doesn't align with who we want to be in the world, then it has the potential of kind of threatening this whole identity that we've wrapped up within this other person.
So it creates this shadow of expectation. We place strong expectations or heightened expectations on other people to behave in certain ways because we need them to in order to, I guess, create a sense of safety in the self and who we see ourselves to be.
On the other hand, if you're someone that has a defined G center - so when you look at the chart, it means that diamond will be colored in. If you have a defined G center, then you are someone with a design that is reflective of having a a bit more of a fixed, unwavering sense of self. That idea of like you know who you are and you can hold on to that self-expression in all of these different environments and dynamics , that might feel more true to you. And it doesn't mean you're not going to evolve and change over time. It doesn't mean you're not going to go through different phases of your life and different ways of seeing yourself. More so, that there will be this kind of fixed, consistent sense of self that gives you some kind of grounding that you can carry with you everywhere you go.
And, once again, the shadow side of this is expectation, but it is driven in a different way. This is placing an expectation upon another to behave in the way that you want them to because you expect everyone else to to behave in the same way you do.
And this is unconscious. Please know this isn't me trying to make people feel bad about themselves or tell anyone that they're doing anything wrong. Both of these shadows, they happen unconsciously. But it is through our experiences and through our conditioning that these shadows can come out and and no matter what is driving it, they they both whether you have an undefined G center or a defined G center, the result of the shadow is the same in either case. We place expectations upon others to behave in a way that we want them to rather than letting them be who they are in the world, and so that is the 1st and biggest lesson when it comes to using the G Center to teach us how it is that we can love others better.
Look at where it is that you're placing expectation on another to behave in a certain way and look at what it is that you might be able to do to release that expectation. And this isn't me saying release your needs. This isn't me saying let go of what it is that you need to feel secure in your connections. This isn't me saying don't ask for anything from another person.
I'm suggesting to explore where it is that you unconsciously place expectations on others to behave in certain ways that you need them to be a particular person in the world, that you need them to express themselves in a particular way, and where can you practice dropping those, those needs? Those expectations? And in particular I want you to think about what it feels like to have another place expectation on you to be a certain person in the world.
And my guess is going to be that it really doesn't feel good and it can create a lot of constriction within our relationships and our connections. And I'm not just talking about romantic connection here by the way, this is all connections and in particular somewhere I see this play out in a really big way is parent to child dynamics.
And so if you are a parent listening to this, then yeah, also looking at like how is it that I maybe place expectations upon my children to show up in a certain way - and it's always coming from a place of love. Don't get me wrong, it's always coming from a place of love. It's always coming from a place of because we care about these people and we want the best for them.
But sometimes, if we're not careful, it presents through expectation and it can feel very constrictive in our dynamics and it it sets us up to have disharmony in our connection rather than flow.
00:17:52
OK, so getting on to this Gate 46, the the part that I wrote in this article for Gate 46 was…yeah. I just for each Gate. ohh, I forgotten exactly what I said, but for each Gate I said something along the lines of “how this gate can teach us to love another?” And one of the lines that I put down for Gate 46 was:
“Do not give another your worry, instead, give them your faith.”
UM, and this is the line that has seemingly just popped up over and over again over the past like week and 1/2 or so. Since I put that article up, it has come up in Human Design readings, it has come up in Akashic readings, and it has come up in some of my coaching sessions. So it feels like it's a bit of a theme right now and there's a lot going on in the world right now. There is a lot of collective fear that is moving around and there is a lot of collective anxiety that is spinning around and it's creating a lot of worry.
And this isn't anything new, um, but to project that worry onto others - it doesn't really serve us, and it definitely doesn't serve the people who are on the receiving end of it. So I'm actually just going to to begin with, I’m going to read out from… I'm going to read out the description of Gate 46 here that comes from Richard Rudd’s book of Human Design Circuitry.
So for people who are not familiar with Richard Rudd, he is the author of the Gene Keys. And if you are into Human Design and you have not yet come across the Gene Keys, I cannot recommend it enough. It is life changing. Richard Rudd is, in my mind, a genius. I absolutely love listening to this man and learning from this man and his writing is so beautiful.
But this is a book…it actually came before he wrote the Gene Keys. He previously studied under the founder of Human Design, and he ran a Human Design school in the UK and this is his description of Gate 46. This is the Gate we are focusing on from the G Center.
It is the gate of DETERMINATION.
The description here is "this Gate is about loving the perfection of every experience, no matter how unpleasant the experience may be. For people with this gate, every every experience is right and no feeling should be escaped.”
And and then he says, for when this, when the energy of this Gate is in alignment, it presents as “the determination to follow through with commitment.”
And how this relates to worry? What I'm going to speak about here is like when we worry about another, when we are fearful for another person. Like I said, it is often coming from a place of love. It is often coming from a place of care. We want the best for the people in our lives. We want the best for the people that we love and care about. And so sometimes we worry about them.
And the shadow side of this 46, like when it is out of alignment, it is a fear that every experience that you have is like - if, if the if it's the Gate of Determination, if it's the energy of the of determination. To me, my interpretation of that is the energy of self belief. It is the belief that we have what it takes to push through, it is the belief that we have what it takes to get to the other side of whatever challenging experience we might be faced with.
And the shadow side of this is a lack of self belief. The shadow side of this is fear. The shadow side of this is thinking that we are not good enough. We don't have enough. We don't have what it takes to be able to push through whatever it is that we are experiencing and the byline he has here is just is called “pushing upwards". So it's the Gate of Determination with this byline of “pushing upward", it is like this, pushing through obstacles. It is showing ourselves that we have what it takes.
And so if we want to look at this in the context of loving another, how it is that we can better love the people in our lives, what this is teaching us is to offer others our belief, to offer others our faith.
Do not give them your worry. Instead, give them your faith.
Think about what it feels like to receive someone's worry. If someone is worried about you and if someone is maybe checking in with “hey, have you done that yet? Have you thought about this yet? Hey, have you done? You said you were going to do this. Where are you at with it? Hey, remind I'm just going to. I just want to remind you that you still haven't done that. I just want to remind you of this. Remember this. Remember, this is due On this date. Remember? You need to do this. Remember? You need to do that.”
Like what does it feel like? What message does it send?
And most often, the mind is going to interpret that in a way, when we're receiving that, the mind is going to interpret it as, “oh, this person doesn't believe in me. This person doesn't think I'm capable.”
And when we receive that from people we love on repeat, especially if it's the people that are closest to us and the people that see us the most, the people that know us the deepest, if they worry about us or if we if what we're receiving from them is “oh, they know me so well and they see all parts of me and they don't believe I'm capable of this.” - What, what does it create in the mind?
It makes us doubt ourselves. It creates self doubt and it is it pushes this shadow of the Gate 46. It’s the opposite of determination. It puts us in the space of almost feeling helpless. Like what's the point if the people closest to me don't believe that I'm capable? Then how to like, how am I supposed to muster up that courage on my own? It's hard. It is hard, especially when you are being faced with challenges.
And so, yeah, my, I guess, my what I am posing here or what I am offering here is to spend some time in contemplation of the ways in which you might be able to offer those that you love your faith. Your faith in them, your belief in all that they are capable of, your belief in all that they have the ability to create in the world.
And yeah, maybe it's worth even going through each of the important relationships in your life and just exploring where do I give these people my worry?
And I'm not saying don't let yourself be worried about them. I'm just suggesting, like, what might it look like to not then project that worry onto them, to not give them that worry because it's acknowledging that, actually, when I when I share that worry I'm actually not supporting them. I'm doing the opposite. I'm not creating benefit, I'm setting them up to have yet something else to overcome.
Because it's really hard to create self belief sometimes. I really do believe that this is something that is at the basis of so much about, like the human struggle in life is that we don't believe we're capable of something. We don't believe we're worthy of something. We get all of these outside messages constantly telling us we're not good enough. Right, that is a fundamental, universal limiting belief that all of us at some point in time have experienced what it feels like to believe that we're not good enough, to believe that we're not worthy of something. To believe that we're not capable of something.
And so we're all up against this and it’s, it's really hard to to create self belief sometimes, it really is. And so how can we be sure that we're not giving our loved ones yet another obstacle to overcome in creating belief? How can we make sure that we are boosting their self belief and giving them a stronger foundation to stand upon to push through any challenge that they might be facing.
00:26:18
OK, that's it. Basically, that's my interpretation of Gate 46 and how we can use it to better love the people in our lives.
Do not give them your worry. Instead, give them your faith.
Yeah. And I hope that maybe this resonates in some capacity. I hope that it might give you something new to work with that can create greater harmony for you in your connections and might even also show yourself how capable you are.
Again, going back to this idea of in our connections, what we're doing is seeking to have a greater experience of the self. If I offer to all of the people in my life how much I believe in them, maybe what's going to be mirrored back to me is how much they believe in me as well. And then I get to experience greater self belief. I get to experience a greater sense of value and capability in my own, yeah my… in who I am as a person.
OK. I'm sending so much love. I hope this was useful in some capacity. If you want to go deeper on things, you can look at articles in the reading room. Yeah. Or you can book a reading with me. Or I have FOUNDATIONS reports on the website which give you insight into all of the foundational elements of your Human Design.
And that's it. Have a great week! Sending love.
Dive Deeper.
To learn more about your unique chart, our FOUNDATIONS reports - written by Fiona Bicknell - offer more than 100 pages of insight into the foundational elements of your design. One-to-one private chart readings are also available to be booked at the link below.
