The Role of the Mind According to Human Design
The mind can never make up its mind. Have you noticed? It just goes on and on and on, wanting this, then wanting that, never satisfied.
I remember when I first became aware of my mind. I was reading Michael A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul. This book awakened the awareness in me that I am not my thoughts. Hmmmm. Ok, so if I am not my thoughts, what am I?
I then went to India and dove head first into Buddhism. I took courses and read all the books and heard lecture after lecture after lecture. Buddhism is all about the mind—mastering the mind. If one listens closely, that’s the entire premise of Buddha’s teachings—master the mind. There is no talk of God or deities or religion or anything like that. Buddha is telling us to master the mind, so that we can be free of it, awaken and reach enlightenment. As long as we’re letting the mind run the show, we will suffer.
The teachings of yoga are similar. In yoga, we refer to the mind as the ego. (At the end of the day, it’s all just language and you have to find the language that works for you.) In yoga, we learn to “tame” the ego (for lack of a better word), so that we can find inner peace, awaken and self-realize. If the ego is not “tamed”, we will continue to suffer in the Maya (the illusion) of life and come back lifetime after lifetime until we eventually reach samadhi.
I’ve spent years psychoanalyzing the role of the mind. I became obsessed with first trying to master it, then tame it, then control it—it was fascinating and frustrating and there was something missing.
When I was ready, life brought me Human Design. With my years of studying Buddhism and yoga, I was finally ready to put this mind puzzle piece together and truly understand what the mind is all about.
Human Design, like Buddhism and yoga, teaches us we are not the mind But it focuses on one simple thing—decision making. Straight and simple, the mind is not here to make decisions. That’s not the role of the mind. The mind is here to analyze, plan, plot, organize, think, but it is not here to decide. It can’t. The mind doesn’t have that ability, that power. It doesn’t know what it wants. One day it wants this. The next day it wants that. If it finally gets what it wants, it doesn’t want it anymore and wants something else. It takes you on a never-ending hamster wheel of wanting this and that and wanting more and less.
You see this all the time. It’s how the majority of us live our lives. We spend our entire lives just running on this hamster wheel of mental decision making, only to reach our last day wanting this and that and more and less.
The mind doesn’t know what it wants. Therefore, it can never be the source of your decision making.
I finally understood the role of the mind. Ultimately, it’s what Buddha and the yogis HAVE been saying. Observe the mind. Don’t let it run the show. The mind isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, the mind is extremely helpful for analyzing, planning, plotting, organizing, thinking—but it’s completely useless when it comes to making a decision.
Observe the mind.
Learning to do this will change the trajectory of your life, bringing more inner peace and helping you to live the life you are meant to live. Being able to sit back and just watch the mind go on and on and on, not trying to force it to stop (that will never happen, as long as we’re in human form we will have a mind that goes on and on and on), not trying to force it to be quiet, not trying to force it to do anything, just simply watching it, will enhance your life and create the much needed space to be present.
Not using the mind to decide will give you so much free time to create, rest, and just be. With the clutter of mental decision making cleared up, you will actually have the time, space and energy to live life in the present moment and enjoy it. It’s amazing stuff I tell you.
So how do we make the best decisions for our life? You must follow your Strategy and Authority. ESPECIALLY for the “big four” decisions: career, romantic relationships, where to live, and friendships/bonds. Your mind will naturally try to decide this for you, taking you on a joy ride of anxiety. But when you learn how to step back, observe the mind, and follow your S&A when it comes to making these bigger decisions, what’s meant for you will happen organically, without having to force anything. It WILL just happen.
If you really want to be radical in your Human Design experiment, you can follow your S&A for almost any decision. The more radical, the more magic.
Wondering what your S&A is? Get your free Human Design chart here.
The mind can be a powerful tool or a powerful weapon. Learn to observe it, follow your S&A and allow it be the powerful tool it wants to be.
Hi! I’m Janelle, celery juice junkie, solo-traveling soul-seeker, over-sharing storyteller, healing foods expert, chronic deep thinker, spiritual self-help bookworm, sober Miami girl, papaya eating fanatic, eager grocery shopper, and free spirit foodie, sharing my journey into awakening and love for conscious food, kinda like Anthony Bourdain meets Oprah.
I created The Free Spirit Foodie in 2016 as a way to process a lay off, a year-long solo trip around India, and a search for God. It evolved into a sacred digital space to share everything I was experiencing and learning.
We’re talking solo-female traveling, plant-based living, holistic healing, and all of the AHA moments in between. Thank you for joining me on this journey. May you be reminded you are not alone and that living an authentic life is our only purpose.
Want to learn more about me? Click here to read my full story. It’s a crazy one.
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