Ep #181: Human Design Parenting with Aypril Porter

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Kim: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Than Mindset show. Today we are talking all about Human Design. We are going to geek out about Human Design and parenting, getting to know your children as they are. My guest is Aypril Porter, she is a published author who just wrote on this topic. And so Aypril is coming on to tell us about the importance of understanding your child for who they are and not trying to make them someone else.

Aypril, can you just give us a slight introduction of who you are, what your background is, and a little bit about how did you come across Human Design and what led you to write the book? You can just choose one of those for now, but just who you are, how did Human Design come into your world?

Aypril: Sure, so I am a Human Design life coach now, but before this I was a nutritional therapy practitioner. And I worked with clients on a lot of things but one of the things that I struggled with was getting through that mindset piece. And I had a lot of parents that I worked with and at some point Human Design found me.

And it was one of those things where once I saw it, it was like I had to know more and I just kept going back for more. I was confused at first, I was like, “What is this crazy thing? I don’t understand it but I need to know it.” And I felt like it explained me in a way that nothing else ever had before.

And I looked up my family’s charts and I have a projector mother, I have a manifesting generator father, and I have two projector children, and I’m married to a manifester. So there’s a lot of non-sacral energy around here and my mom actually lives with us, so nobody in our house has a defined sacral.

So it’s been really interesting to see the energy patterns and to see the dynamics play out between my kids, who one is emotionally defined and one is not. There’s me and one of my children are emotionally defined with the same channel, 37-40, and then everybody else is open. And so there’s a lot of emotion that flies around.

And initially, it was really difficult to understand why we would have these big emotional outbursts at times and where they were coming from and why the typical advice was not working. And so once we realized this child is just amplifying everything around them, we changed our tactic and a lot of things changed.

Kim: So when you say a lot of things changed, what was the most significantly noted? Because I agree with you. Was it the actual understanding the emotional body? Because I’m an emotional being and this is such a huge topic in my house. Or was it recognizing their type?

Aypril: I think it’s both, I think they’re tied together. And I think that, well, my child who is open emotionally is a mental projector. So she is very, very open and she’s very sensitive. As she got older it seemed like she got more sensitive and we were trying to figure out what’s going on.

And you go through all those parenting moments where you’re like, am I doing something wrong? Is there something else she needs? What do I need to do for her or get her or help her with to help her understand this and deal with this? And you go through those moments where you’re like, am I failing as a parent? What what am I doing wrong? I don’t understand what she needs, and what everybody else needs, because it’s different.

And so once I had Human Design as that map, you know, that blueprint to say, oh my goodness, she just needs things differently than I need them, than I experienced, and I can give her that, everything shifted.

Kim: And you are a projector right?

Aypril: Yes.

Kim: And how many of your children are projectors?

Aypril: Both.

Kim: Both. So yeah, I was thinking of this with us. So I’m an emotional generator, my husband is a generator. I’m a 6/2 he’s a 1/3. And two of my children are projectors, but we have five kids and we are like workhorses. And then we’re out here in Louisiana so we’re like get the shovel, get the bucket, you know, we go out and we get things done. And that was the energy of the household, you had to do what everyone did.

And so there was that responsibility, right? This is the way we do things. And when I realized the two were projectors I was like, oh crap, we’ve seriously turned them into generators. And they do very well, they do very well. But I can for sure see where they really want the recognition. They’re brilliant, they’re super smart. They’re always watching, they’re so observant, so I was able to see it.

But it woke me up in a different kind of way. And this was after, you know, it’s like my kids are all gone and out of the house. But what I can do differently is I have grandchildren who are projectors.

Aypril: Yes.

Kim: So it’s like teaching their parents the significance of that. So could we speak to that for a minute? Since you have so much experience with projectors, like what’s the difference between the projector and the generator? Because I do find that everyone’s trying to be a generator or a manifester because that’s kind of what we’ve been told to do. So just for those who are new to human design and they’re like, what are you guys talking about?

Aypril: Yeah, I think that the thing for us projectors is we’re roughly 20% of the population. 70% are generators meant to do, and work, and have renewable energy resources, we don’t. But we’re bathed in it all day long, everywhere we go.

I’m in a unique situation where there’s no one in my home that has a defined sacral, so there is respite here. There’s that quiet time, that downtime, and there’s a lot of downtime around here. But when we go out, we all get amped up, we all feel that energy and it’s like, let’s go do all the things. Let’s take it on.

And we start committing to things and it’s like, oh, wait a minute, I need to pull back here and look at is this really what I need to be doing? Because we do get conditioned as projectors. We grow up around that energy and we think that we can do just like everybody else. And we want that recognition, you’re right. It feels good, it feels good to be helpful. My projectors love to help.

Kim: Yeah, I was wondering this, I was telling my daughter with her projector, she’s 13 years old. It’s such a fragile state, right? Where when you want to be recognized and you’re not being recognized as you are, that you are going to seek that recognition somewhere else.

And it’s such a vulnerable position when you have a teenage girl who is looking for that and you’re in a busy family where you’re playing sports every week and sometimes six to eight games a day. No kidding, from one ballpark, to another ballpark, to a dancing recital, because that’s what their life looks like.

And I may be wrong here and you can correct me if I am, but this is the take I saw on it and the opportunity is could we recognize her for all that she is so that she can get it from here until the frontal cortex is developed and onboard so she’s not coming from that emotional reactive state? Which all children do. It’s like the holding state of the nurturing, and recognizing, and seeing, and give them what they need.

Aypril: Yes. And so projectors are here to be recognized for what is defined in their chart. So if we can look at their charts and we can say, whatever is in there we can understand the energy, we can recognize that and help to support them to find ways to fulfill what is in that chart versus living out of the chart.

Then they can learn to recognize the things that make them feel like themselves and they remain themselves so that they’re not trying to live out this conditioned life of I get recognition when I speak really loudly, when I’m goofing off, when I’m making a lot of noise. Because you can’t make a lot of noise in all of your life for the rest of your life, it’s not going to go well. You’re going to get hoarse, you’re not going to feel good, people are going to turn away from you. And then you’re going to get bitter as a projector.

So if we can learn to recognize how do we remain ourselves? How do we show the world what we have to offer? And if we can do that from when we’re children, we can raise our children that way, then they don’t have to try and live out of the chart to get that attention.

Kim: Yes. And I think you and I have this in common, it’s almost like if we can give the kids the Human Design chart rather than the birth certificate.

Aypril: Yes.

Kim: Right. Can you imagine if the hospitals just printed that up when they were born?

Aypril: Just put it on the back.

Kim: Like here’s the instruction manual.

Aypril: Exactly.

Kim: I mean I see that. I see that in our future. Matter of fact, grandmother of 12 here, my kids know when those babies are born that’s the first thing they have to do, is they look at the clock and they send me the time. So I get the time on the wall before we get the actual birth certificate. And right then and there I pull them up.

And I start playing with it and checking it even before they’re born. Like when they’re getting close and they’re in labor I’m watching the time to see what we have and to see what’s going on. And it has been for me it’s such a gift because I see the potential of the child now rather than, what I’ve experienced anyway, is the child is born, people come in to visit and they’re like, oh, they have papa’s whatever, or they have grammy, you know, this person’s, or they have aunt whoever’s this, and oh, feet like that, they’re going to play basketball. The suggestibility starts at the onset.

Aypril: Yes, yes. That is exactly how we’ve been doing life over and over and over again. Well, you come from this family, you’re going to be a doctor. You come from this family, you’re going to go to college. Or we didn’t go to college so you’re going to go to college. Right? So we start putting all of these expectations on to our children and we forget to see them for who they are and what their desires are and what their talents are.

Kim: Yeah, I have one grandchild who is not interested in hunting the way the family is. I mean we’re really big hunters and fishermen and we go to the camps. And like in the wintertime they stay in camouflage with their four-wheelers backed up to the trailers and all this stuff. And he’s not really that interested. And it’s like I’m really watching that pull, it’s really hard.

It’s hard to be the child that’s not like everyone else and just really wants to be himself. But they don’t understand it because they’re not like him. And it’s like, well, how can you expect him to understand you?

Aypril: Exactly. And it’s really difficult to be the child that doesn’t fit in. To be the one that stands out and doesn’t do what everybody else does.

Kim: Yeah.

Aypril: Because you want to belong, you want to be a part of it. But if we can find another way for that child to be a part of it and do something different, maybe they are hunting rocks while you’re hunting animals. There’s so many different ways that we can include them and let them have their autonomy to be who they are.

Kim: Yeah. And I think really, just when we get to know our own individual selves, we will naturally give others permission. And so I think that’s a big part of the equation also. Because it is coming from the parent’s responsibility. Like this worked for me and this is how I turned out this way. This is why I didn’t go sour, or this is why I didn’t go to jail, or go bad, or this is why I got the job.

And so the adult has that belief that the reason that they are successful is because they followed this framework. And so the limited mind believes that that is the framework.

Aypril: Our society says that we are here to raise our children. But is that true?

Kim: I know, our kids are here to teach us.

Aypril: Are our children raising us? You know, if we step back, we keep them safe, but we step back enough to let them blossom and become who they are, we also become the best version of ourselves.

Kim: Yeah, yeah. And I was like there’s no fault to anyone at all in the past.

Aypril: No, no, no, no.

Kim: Our parents did exactly the best that they could with the resources that they had. If you think about it, we didn’t know anything about the emotional body 20, 30 years ago. That wasn’t even on board. The work that Joe Dispenza, and Bruce Lipton, and Gregg Braden are doing just with epigenetics and really understanding how you can change the cells of your body, you can change, your belief system can change your reality.

That work was not on board so how could our parents have possibly done something different when it wasn’t in their awareness? And, you know, they came from survival states and so it’s like they just taught us how to survive and they were trying to survive in the midst of that. And I feel that with when I was raising my children.

We were in survival, we did not have money, we had five kids, the house had burned, what we did have is my husband had a job, period. There was no savings, he had just gone through a divorce and we literally did not have a home. We were looking for a place to live because the house had just burnt and we didn’t have insurance. We were starting fresh and trying to find ourselves.

It took us 10 years to catch up from that. And so they were born in that we don’t have enough and we have to watch where everything goes and this is all that you can have. And I noticed, like it seemed like it was a theme that was going to live forever because that’s where my past came from.

But I remembered the moment my child was born and I laid my hand and I said, “God help me break this generational cycle here and now and this never happens again.” I was so depressed. I couldn’t imagine bringing a child into the world that was going to live that same depression, that was going to have that same lack mentality.

And that mission never, it never died. And Human Design is a big part for me. And that’s why I wanted to bring you on, is so many parents want to break the cycles. They want to change the way that it was for them. And they really don’t know how, they don’t understand how. And I feel like this tool, this modality can give them that.

So can you speak to that? Let’s talk to the person who maybe this is the first time they hear about Human Design. How do you explain what it is?

Aypril: It’s always a tricky thing, right? Like depending on who you’re talking to, and for me it’s a projector. When I’m one on one with somebody I can understand where they’re coming from and I can tailor it to that.

But generally I tell people it’s a blend of ancient and modern wisdom. And it’s a tool to help us decondition and come back to the truth of who we are before the world told us who we had to be. Before our families told us how we had to be, or society told us those things. And it allows us to drop back into our true authentic self so that we can live out our life’s purpose.

Kim: So it’s like, okay, let’s just say you were born at this exact time. And in that moment there was a screenshot where every planet was and the nature or the characteristics of those and where it impacted you. And so if we can believe in the Farmers Almanac and what to plant at what time of the year according to that. Can you imagine, how we do anything is how we do everything, that that’s also available for humans?

Aypril: I love that.

Kim: Yeah, I mean, what do we know? The hospitals are crazy when there’s a full moon, right? The crabs are full when there’s a full moon. The teachers know what’s happening in the classroom when there’s a full moon. What’s happening when Mercury’s in retrograde? Jeez, we’re lucky if Zoom works, right? Times getting mixed up, communication goes crazy.

So if we can believe that, then why wouldn’t we believe that there is an individual in every single human, an exact blueprint of what they’re here to create, what their characteristics are, what their potentials are? So that’s how I see it in my terms.

Aypril: Absolutely. And I think that we have this fear, as a parent, that we’re going to screw up.

Kim: For sure.

Aypril: We know that what we did as children, what our parents did worked enough for us that we’re still here today. So we’re like, this seems like a safe bet so I’m just going to go with this until something else comes along to tell me different. And even then it’s like I have to trust it before I can move into this new thing.

And that’s what I love about Human Design, it doesn’t say you must do these things. It says, hey, look, here’s another way to look at it. If you choose to experiment with this, this is what’s possible. Do you want to try?

Kim: Here’s a little data, a little information, would you like to explore it? It’s like throw it away if you don’t like it.

Aypril: Yeah, because you have choices.

Kim: Yeah, I think the other empowering part of it is this is so interesting for the adults. We’re talking about the kids here, but when we’re introducing it to the adults and reading the potential of what’s possible, they know it. They all know it. They always knew they had something bigger to do. They always knew they were here to create an impact. They all knew that that struggle was meant for them to learn something, to teach something 100% of the time. It’s the thing that they’re afraid to admit.

Aypril: Yes.

Kim: Because I admit that or I omit that I will be shut down because my parents tried to protect me. Don’t be too big. Don’t get up on that pedestal. Don’t think too highly of yourself because then you’re going to fall.

Aypril: Yeah. Or you can’t make money at art, so find a real job.

Kim: This is true. Especially I know because I work with healers and that is for sure taboo, right, to start talking about money. Yet money is the language of the material world and we live in the material world. That’s actually my cross, is to cross a plane. So I’m like you want to get on that topic? It’s like, oh, heck no, right?

Because thoughts are the language of the mind, feelings are the language of the body, and money is the language of the material world. Can we just let our kids know that that’s okay? They all want to be rich. Quit telling them they can’t be. It’s actually their birthright to be abundant. So you’re right, we have so much to learn from our children if we allow them to show us who they are. And they have so much to contribute to us.

Aypril: Yes. Yes. It’s been amazing for me as a parent finding Human Design, seeing my kids, watching what they grow through, and then looking at my own life of what’s happening and what’s changing and evolving. And also looking back to when I was their age. And it’s like what was I going through? And they’re giving me this opportunity to heal that part of my past as well.

Kim: Yes, for sure.

Aypril: I never expected that.

Kim: I was surprised myself. Yeah, it’s kind of like in coaching, right? The more we teach and the more we coach, the more we understand ourselves better. And when we try to learn the map, or the format, or the systems, or the numbers, and we try to dictate who everyone is and we put that judgment and comparison, guys, that’s not the way to do it.

Take your chart and allow it to change you. And then allow your kids to be themselves without conditioning, without putting them in a box or on a label. If that happens from the start, they’re not going to have to go through this 20, 30, 40 year healing cycle that we have to go through. Because that’s what’s happening with us, right?

It’s like we’re undoing the conditioning. But Ross says this is for the children. It’s almost like, you dumb asses, you’re not going to listen anyway, just at least use it for your kids so we can save them from all this trouble. Because for some, I never say it’s too late, but the conditioning is so thick and it’s brought on more and more of those experiences.

And so it’s like driven in so deep. So the layers, it takes time for those layers to come off. There’s no instantaneous deconditioning. It’s a process.

Aypril: It’s a continuous process. We never reach the end of that. We’re continually conditioned by the world, by life, by people, by the planets. And we get to choose to keep going through these deconditioning cycles and learning more and more about ourselves and the world around us.

Kim: Yeah, I love that you said by the planets. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Aypril: Oh, I just mean like as the planets transit, they go through all the gates. And so we get to experience the flavor of them in these different positions and these temporary energies in our chart that we don’t have in our birth chart. So it gives us more understanding of other people.

Kim: I’ll see clients look at the chart and see what’s defined and then have this, that’s who I am. And then just kind of be be stuck in that or be conditioned by like that’s just how it is. That’s not true.

You get to experience everything that’s in other charts because, exactly what Aypril just said, when the planets are coming in, when the transits are happening, you’re actually experiencing that when those gates are highlighted. And I think it’s important to understand that the conditioning is because you feel it, you think it’s real, like you think it’s you.

Kind of like when Mercury is in retrograde, you think you’re just a screw up because everything keeps getting messed up, right? If there’s a conversation that’s going to get mangled, it’s going to get mangled during that time because it’s coming back. But then if we’re not aware, we fall into the cycle and we repeat it. So I love that you mentioned that.

Aypril: And what we see all over social media is when Mercury is in retrograde is how horrible it’s going to be, and nobody’s going to understand, and you’re going to get in fights, and your technology is not going to work. And, okay, technology doesn’t really work for me during that time. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

Kim: No.

Aypril: I mean, it’s this continuum of like, yeah, we can be stuck down there. Or we can take this as that opportunity to reflect on what is going on in our life. These are opportunities to improve communication.

Kim: Yeah, it’s another catalyst. So if you’re the vehicle, you’re just going through whatever storm is being presented at the time. And if you’re in alignment, you just put the winter wipers on and you just keep on going. But if there’s something to be cleaned up, there could be a tsunami coming through. And so it’s like, make sure you have air in your tires, you have gas in your tank, you’re taking care of things and it’s going to be fine, you’re equipped for it.

Aypril: Right, snacks in your purse.

Kim: What’s been the biggest takeaway for your clients or for yourself? Like what’s the most amazing transformational aha that you have experienced? This might be putting you on the spot, but like anything coming to mind that someone has said or something that you’ve personally experienced, or someone in your life?

Aypril: I think that the biggest ahas I get are around the emotional piece. When parents understand that some of their children have their own emotional wave and what that wave does, how it operates, what it looks like, and how it shows up in their child. And then also how they have emotionally open children who take in and amplify what’s around them, who often look like the most emotional kids in the room.

When they can understand that and try not to control their behavior because they’re very emotional kids, but to help them understand that this isn’t even theirs and to let it go, to move it through their bodies, to use movement and dance and exercise and things to move it. Then life changes. And those have been the biggest aha moments for my clients.

Kim: 100% for me as an emotional being and my husband not being emotional, and recognizing he is so uncomfortable. And I can be completely calm, I feel fine and we’re having a transparent conversation. And so he’s like this calm lake, right? And I’m like the ocean or the tsunami and like I come crashing in on his lake and he’s like just trying to hold, just hold still. And I’m like, boring.

Aypril: My husband also has the 5 and I have the 15, I tell him I’m his hurricane.

Kim: It is. I used to think, like before I understood it was that, like he’s sitting there just being his calm self and I come in like a two year old lab. And I see his face, do you see your husband’s face?

Aypril: I called home one day, I was stopping at the grocery store and he didn’t know exactly what I was doing. But it was after work and I was coming home and I call and I’m like, “I got a chicken.” And there was this dead silence. And I’m like, “Are you there?” He’s like, “Is it alive?” Like he thought I was bringing home live chickens because I’ve been talking about we should get some chickens in the backyard. So he just never knows.

Kim: He never knows.

Aypril: It could be a roasted chicken, it could be a live chicken.

Kim: Exactly. And he said a couple of nights ago, we had confirmation for one of the kids so we were all together after. And he’s like, “She has no filter, you never know what’s going to come out.” And I’m like, true story open head, open Ajna, open throat, open root, like it just does, you know?

And so it’s like awareness, the awareness piece and the coaching, like you were saying earlier, really comes into play because you can’t, like as an emotional being I don’t want to be reactive, I want to be responsive. You know, I want to respond. And you said you are emotional?

Aypril: Yes, I’m a 37-40.

Kim: And it’s like recognizing that it’s not me, that’s the biggest thing. It’s not me, it’s moving through me. But it is my responsibility to sustain like a calm. It’s my responsibility to be calm inside as it moves through. Whereas I used to, like it went down, I went down, man. I had lows, I was diagnosed with bipolar, I was on antidepressants for years, which is probably the worst thing for an emotional being.

I’d love to hear if you have any feedback on that because there are so many children that are medicated, and they are emotional beings, they are not like defected children, right? It’s just that they are emotional beings and that inability to handle that emotional wave, and then being medicated. I swear, I was very close to just dead, just numb.

So my sacral is defined and my emotional center and my spleen is defined all the way across, and then I’m numbed out on my emotion. And it’s my power. It’s my gauge, I feel my way through life. I was so suicidal and depressed and it was a horrible experience.

Aypril: Yeah, I mean, that’s what medications are designed to do. They’re designed to take the peaks and the valleys away. So we have this wave that should go up and down, and now we’re trying to stay here. But when we stay in the middle, like what kind of life is that?

Kim: It must be what the fives feel like.

Aypril: I mean, and there’s a time and a place for it, right? Like absolutely, and I would never say stop taking your medications ever. We’re not saying that.

Kim: Yeah, disclaimer, we’re not saying that. We’re talking about personal experience, this is what it was for us.

Aypril: Yes, but you can also look at, say for instance, a child is on a medication for mood. Understanding their wave will help you understand their pattern. And when you understand their pattern you’re not trying to correct that out of them. You flow with it, rather than trying to push against it.

It’s like if you’ve ever stood in the ocean and tried to hold the waves back, it’s not going to work, you’re going to get knocked over. And that’s the same thing that we’re doing in our parenting, is that we’re saying, stop having this emotion. Stop feeling this. This is uncomfortable for me. People around you don’t want this so hold it in and stop it. But you can’t stop that, it’s designed to move. It has to move. But we can teach them how to move it responsibly.

Kim: Love, love, love that. I hope everyone got that one.

Aypril: And ourselves as parents, right?

Kim: Yeah.

Aypril: We’re designed to have emotions too, but we don’t want to direct them at our children because we’re hangry, because we’re tired, because we’re not taking care of ourselves. We have to be resourced so that we can be the best parents we can be. If we are emotionally defined that we don’t let those little things ratchet us up in those waves until we explode at our children. I’ve been there.

Kim: I’ve been there way many times. I’ve apologized a lot for all it.

Aypril: One last, “Mommy, mommy, wipe my butt” and you’re just like, I’m done today.

Kim: Yeah, they scream one more time I will stop the car and they will get out. We still talk about, I was going to lose it. I didn’t know what else to do. I had no resources, I had no tools. You know, I was like it was a mess.

So while we’re talking about this, about trying to hold down the waves, like holding your child’s emotions down as if they shouldn’t be emotional beings when they are emotional beings. Or even if they’re wide open emotional, they’re still feeling the emotions of what’s around them.

Let’s talk about rules and regulations, labels and boxes that we set according to how you’re supposed to raise children. Bedtimes, when to eat, not trusting their divine intuition, their knowing. Can we open that box? Are you okay with that?

Aypril: Yeah, let’s open it.

Kim: Let’s start with bedtimes.

Aypril: Okay. Yeah, bedtimes, right? So we know that children need a certain amount of sleep. At different ages they need a certain amount of sleep. But do they need it continuous? Do they need to be in bed by 7pm? Do they need to be lying down in bed before so that they can unwind? Or do they need to use up all their energy so that they can actually sleep?

Are we forcing a child who is a generator, who needs to use up all of their sacral energy in the day to, after sitting around on devices for half the day, after being in class before that, to get into bed and expect them to fall asleep? That’s not fair to them. We have to teach them how to move their bodies and how that they best support their bodies so that they can get good sleep. And maybe they need less sleep.

Kim: This I learned, when I read about that I was thinking back to myself and trying to go to bed at a certain time and I hadn’t used my energy, it was a nightmare. I mean, I was insomniac because I was trying to go to sleep before I was tired. I was trying to go to sleep before I used up the energy and my energy was used to flop around in bed.

And my husband and I’s sleep patterns are so different that it created a lot of trouble. He was you know working nights and sometimes he was getting up and going to work at 3:30 in the morning and I’m still sitting up like trying to make this different.

And I was like, oh, holy smokes, that’s exactly it. When I get up between 4:30 and 5:30, I use up my energy, I am ready for bed at 10 o’clock. I can’t even think anymore by 10 o’clock. And then I’m up early again. So it’s been huge me just learning that about myself. But I think about my children that we had these rules for.

Aypril: Yeah, and even projectors, they can absorb all this sacral energy all day long. And if you live in a family with other sacral beings, they’re going to be taking that in. So some quiet time away from the family, maybe they get to go read in the room for a little while. Or maybe you even give them a Netflix show for 20 minutes.

Let them unwind. Let them disconnect from what is going on around them and just focus on one thing so that they can dispel some of that and then get up and dance. Just dance to move it through their bodies and then try and sleep.

Kim: I love that. So for those who are fairly new, what Aypril is talking about is a projector doesn’t have that emotional energy, I mean the sacral energy. And if there’s other kids around, or even us, like in my case, my kids shared a room. So both of my projectors shared with a sacral being. I didn’t know this information, right?

And so the projector is actually taking on that sacral energy, which it’s conditioning. They believe that they have that energy, but then they don’t. But then what happens, Aypril? Like you as a projector who’s been in sacral energy and you think that it’s your power.

Aypril: Yeah, and it’s stimulating. So if you’re trying to sleep, you’re laying down trying to sleep and you’re sleeping next to somebody who has that generative energy, it’s going to be stimulating and you’re not going to sleep well.

So if you have children, sometimes it doesn’t always make sense because you have different sexes or whatever. But sometimes if you can group them into sacral and non-sacral they’ll get better sleep in their rooms.

Kim: Yeah, or like you just said, you know, give them that pull away time so that they can decondition, so they can move it through. And then set up whatever you need to set up from there. But I know it’s crazy and when we talk about sleeping in separate rooms people are like, “What the heck?” That’s conditioning too, right?

Aypril: Right.

Kim: I never understood this, why do the kids get their own room and we have to share?

Aypril: I know, right?

Kim: I want my own space. The kids get their own space. I need a lot of space. I’ve got a huge energy, I’ve got a lot of, and my husband has got that super calm and I just want to die around that. It’s so boring and it’s so neutral. I got the 15.2 three times in my chart.

Aypril: Oh my goodness.

Kim: I’ve got the 36, like the 59-6, like there’s so much happening for me to just go behave like that. I’m like, they’d just as soon just like stop my heart because it’s dullness and dissatisfaction.

Aypril: Yeah, so cramming you into that box where you’re forced to just slow down and be. It’s like you’re like a Jack in the box and you’re like winding, winding up and you’re going to explode out of it at some point. You can’t hold that in forever. And our children are doing this too.

Kim: Yeah, it’s the Jack in the box, it’s holding down the waves, it’s the two year old Labrador Retriever just you know what I mean, like wagging and bouncing and chewing up the shoes and going crazy and you’ve got to like try to pin them down. You can’t, you’ve got to open the cage and let them run.

Let’s talk about a manifester. There are very few, but I’d like to hear more. And I have a grandson that’s a manifester, so I would love to hear your take on it.

Aypril: Yeah, I actually enjoy manifestos a lot. And it’s fun to me to find the manifester children because now that I have so much awareness of Human Design I can usually pick them out after I get to know these kids a little bit.

In fact, one of my kids has a friend who is a manifester. And before I knew Human Design, kindergarten, this little girl hopped off the school bus, because I would take my kids and walk them into school. I watched the school bus roll up, this little girl gets off the bus, turns around from school and walks down the road. And I was like, somebody needs to get her. Like, teacher, she’s running away, I don’t know where she’s going. But she’s five, right.

So now I know she’s a manifester. She probably saw something on the bus and she was like, hey, I got to go check that out. They follow their impulses. Something inspired her and she was like, I got to go see about that.

Kim: Yeah, yeah.

Aypril: And I’ve watched how parents try and control that. And that is really disheartening for me because the more you try and control them, the more you unintentionally take that sparkle out of them.

Kim: Yeah, 100%.

Aypril: And then they start to question themselves and what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I behave? Why can’t I do these things? Or they find a secret way to do the things that they want to do. They get up in the middle of the night and they leave the house.

Kim: I’m very sensitive to it because I work with adult manifesters. And I use the word harm and damage and I know it’s unintentional, but I want to say it in a way because I want to get your attention. I’ll say if you have that kid that just comes barging in from neighborhood, just like goes into your house and opens up the Oreos and makes themselves at home. And it’s, it’s not that they haven’t been parented right. It’s who they are. They need to do what they’ve been brought here to do.

Aypril: Right. And they need someone to take their hand and say, “Hey, you want to explore that? Let’s see how it works. Let’s go check it out.” And not always say, no, no, no, no, no. No, you can’t do that. No, that’s not okay. No, we don’t do that here. No, we’re not interested in that. You hear no enough times and it shuts down that creative drive that they have to initiate, to bring new things into the world, new ideas. And that’s their gift. That’s their magic.

Kim: And the getting curious gives them the opportunity to inform.

Aypril: Yes.

Kim: If we can put our children in the proper position, instead of pushing them down, like the adults are supposed to be here and they’re supposed to be here. And I think there’s a misconception around that, like you’re going to spoil them, or they’re going to be too bossy, or they’re not going to have discipline. But it’s not true, you can have discipline and respect. They can be validated and seen.

Aypril: Yes.

Kim: Without you actually ruining them. But I mean, I get it’s what we’ve been told, right? That’s what’s wrong with that kid, because that parent did that. Or that’s why they did this certain thing. And then the parent goes into the fear and tries to protect that from ever happening, they get super strict, they put their children in a box.

But if we knew who they were individually, we could validate it and treat them differently. That’s hard. When you have four, or five, six kids and this one gets to do this and this one doesn’t get to do that. I mean, because there’s that, oh yeah, that one spoiled. The youngest one always gets everything, they always get their way. Every kid thinks that the other kid gets something else. So what would you say to the parent who has a variety of types?

Aypril: Yeah, I know that it can be overwhelming at first. When you find Human Design and you’re like, “Wow, this is amazing. But how am I going to parent all my children differently? This is never going to work.” We take it from the top and we go, okay, how many of your children are sacral beings? How many are non-sacral? Let’s start there. Let’s start by asking them the right kind of questions.

Ask those generator, manifesting generators, yes no questions. Ask the non-sacral, the projectors, reflectors, and manifestos the open-ended questions and let them talk. Where do they need more time? Those kids with the open throats, the non-motorized throats, they’re going to need more time to speak. They’re going to need you to invite them to speak.

We look at these more foundational pieces first, before we get into gates and channels and all of that stuff. Because that’s just like, that’s interesting, right? It’s interesting and it gives us nuance. But we look at this core piece and we allow them to move their energy in the way that they are designed, and the rest will start to fall into place.

We teach them their strategy and how to make a decision. You’re emotional, wait. Make sure that you know how you feel about something before you move forward with it if it’s a big decision. If your splenic, trust that. Don’t second guess that child, don’t ask them 16 times are you sure you want to go? Are you sure? But what about this? Are you sure? Because then they’re going to second guess their own knowing.

So I think that those are the most important pieces. If we can let them know how their energy works and how to make decisions, they will find their way even if we don’t know the rest of the chart.

Kim: I love that. And I’ll tell some of the parents, I was like they come in saying uh-huh, huh-uh and then we pat them and tell them they’re supposed to say yes ma’am or no ma’am. Like when you’re trying to give them the carrots and peas or they need to go kiss Aunt Lucy, they’re like, huh-uh and then we correct them and tell them to override that and go and do it because that’s not nice. That’s impolite.

All right, so I want to respect your energy. How are you feeling?

Aypril: I’m good. I’m good.

Kim: Okay. Is there anything that I didn’t ask you or we didn’t discuss?

Aypril: I would say that one piece that we do talk about in the book, and that comes up in sessions that parents really, really find helpful is to look at the mistaken motivations of behavior.

So that attention seeking behavior, it’s because they’re not feeling like they’re getting enough attention. That they don’t know if they belong, if they’re lovable, if you have a place in your heart and your life for them. And they’re just looking for more assurance that they are okay in your life, that they are wanted in your life.

And so unfortunately that usually comes out as you being on the phone and them hanging off your arm and, “Mommy, mommy, mommy, I have to go to the bathroom right now” or something along those lines.

Kim: Kicking the tires and throwing rocks and you’re still talking to your friend.

Aypril: Right, it’s always at that most inconvenient time because they want to know that they’re more important than that thing that you think is important. Or power, you know that power struggle we talked about when the manifester is trying to initiate and we’re trying to shut them down because that’s not what we do. That’s not appropriate behavior, or whatever else we want to, you know, go by these old rules that have come from generations past.

Kim: Wherever.

Aypril: We get into that power struggle of, well, I’m the parent so I have to have the upper hand. But where are we not allowing them to feel like they have appropriate power in their lives? If we can allow them appropriate power over their lives, even if it’s just choosing do you want peas or potatoes, that makes a big difference. They need to know that they have some control. That they have a say in who they are and what they do.

And then inadequacy, we can have that child who you know that they can do their math homework on their own but they sit there and they struggle and they struggle and they struggle. And four hours go by and you’re like, why are you not done with this? You should have done it in 20 minutes. Maybe they’re overwhelmed. Where are they feeling like they can’t do it on their own? Or do they just need some more of your support and attention?

And then if we don’t meet that, you know, we go into that revenge state where it’s like you have not given me what I need to feel secure and loved and like I have a place. And so now I want you to know how I feel, so I’m going to treat you badly so that I can push you to your limit to make sure that you’ll say that, no, I want you, I love you. You have a place in my heart in my life.

And unfortunately, sometimes we get to that point where it’s gone on so long that there’s this name calling and things happen and we say awful things that we regret. But we don’t have to get to that point. When we understand what our children need, we can give them what they need so that they don’t have to go through these cycles and these steps.

And if we have gone there, we didn’t know better. We learn, we do better. There’s no judgment for what has happened in the past. The past is the past. But we have now and we have moving forward and we can choose another way.

Kim: I mean, when you have misinformation there’s no blame. We only have the information that we received until we know new information. And so I’m with you on that and I think we have so much guilt. What we should have known of could known and, you know, it’s like, gosh, I wish I’d have known this when I had my kids because now I’m watching it pass to my grandkids.

And so that’s why I have such an urgency to let’s break the cycles, let’s stop this, you know, the labeling and the conditioning because it’s going to continue to pass on. We can’t tell them to do something different and us not be doing something different. They’re going to do what we do.

Aypril: Right, they’re watching. They’re watching us.

Kim: They’re watching, especially those little projectors.

Aypril: Yes, the projectors are always watching. But they really are, our kids are taking in everything. All the things we think we’re hiding, the things that we think that they don’t hear or see, they know. But when we can have those conversations appropriately, I’m not saying giving them all the details about things.

But in this emotional instance if you are upset and you’re crying and your child comes to you and says, “Mommy, are you okay?” And you’re like, I’m fine. I’m fine, everything’s fine. And they can see that you’re not, they start to distrust their own sense of reading other people. So it’s like, I see you’re crying, I see you’re upset, I feel this. But you’re telling me you’re fine so I must be wrong. I must not understand. That’s okay. Okay, now I’m really confused, right?

Kim: Yeah, 100%. That’s a great point, yeah.

Aypril: But when we can say, you know what? Mommy is sad right now. And it’s okay, sometimes we feel sad. But I’ll be okay and I just need a few minutes and then maybe we’ll go for a walk. Right? Like normalize it.

Kim: You’re right. You’re correct, there is something not right here. It’s the transparency, and I think it’s done with good intention.

Aypril: Yes, we don’t want our children to hurt.

Kim: Right. And I’ll say it’s like, for those who, I want to just plant a seed of motivation. It’s like if they can be empowered by who they are, then you save all that time and pain and suffering the teenage years and beyond.

I mean, it’s one thing to have suffered myself. Watching the children suffer and you not able to do anything about it. It’s something about the control. You know, when you know you can’t control someone else and make them get something. That’s the motivation, is figuring it out and allowing their very presence of who they are to be valid. Their differences to be valid.

We’ll save all of what we are experiencing right now, what we’re trying to heal right now, what we’re trying to recover from. That’s why Aypril and I are having this conversation, is can we help to avoid some of this now that we know better?

Aypril: And it’s never too late.

Kim: Oh, for sure.

Aypril: So you may have those teenagers that are angsty and moody and disrespectful, and we can change. We don’t start by trying to change their behavior, we change our behavior.

Kim: Yes, always.

Aypril: We have to change us first and then we can be that role model and we can start opening that conversation.

Kim: I love it.

Aypril: Because if we’re not walking our talk, they’re going to call us on it.

Kim: For sure. And I’m just thinking, like when someone finds out about Human Design and they find their chart, instantly like they want to find what’s wrong with their husband. Like can I get my husband’s chart? This is the same thing, there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s like you can’t do someone else’s work. But when you do your work, they all change. I’ve watched them all come on board, it’s fascinating.

Yeah, so can you pick up the book, my daughter has mine, so I don’t have it, but I wanted to have it behind me.

Aypril: There it is.

Kim: It’s Parenting The Child You Have: Re-imagining the Parent Child Relationship Through The Lens of Human Design by Aypril Porter. It is on Amazon, we will post the link below so that you can get it. And Aypril we can put your contact in there. So do you do readings? Like what do you have to offer in order to help parents with their children?

Aypril: I do readings, I am working on a couple of self-paced classes right now. I have a parenting class that is going to be starting in the next couple months. And I do private coaching.

Kim: Is there anything about the book that you wanted to say, like get the book because…

Aypril: So I think that this book is interesting in that you can read it front to back and you can learn a lot. But then it’s designed and laid out so that you can go back through and pick out the parts that are relevant to you and just really dig into those pieces. So it’s easy to reference if you just want to narrow in on a certain part of it.

Kim: That’s what I was going to say, it’s a very simple resource and reference guide that you can flip back and forth to. I sent it home with my daughter, I put little sticky notes for all of her children and exactly what to read according to what she was struggling with, you know, what was going on.

I was like, okay, if you go and check this about them and you can validate this, you know, it was just a way for her to get to see her children better and in their own way. Because I think as parents we do judge. We’re so afraid that they do something wrong, and they don’t succeed, they get left out. And so we pressure them. We pressure them and it’s like, well, if you just did this, then they would invite you. Or if you just did this, then you would get this.

And I think that’s the part that we can bring to our awareness, is actually that’s not true. If they can be themselves they will find exactly the right people, the right mates, the right crowds.

Aypril: Absolutely.

Kim: Thank you so much for writing it. I know I have been on you, I was like “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re doing this.” And I would like send her messages like “Is it out? Is it out? Can you tell me when it’s out?” And I’m not messing with you, like I truly am the biggest fan of this. I was so excited to reveal this to my clients, to my audience, to everyone who has children. This is a great resource.

And so thank you for coming on. Thank you for sharing. I’d love to have you back again if there’s any particular topics that you want to discuss, you have an open invite. And if anyone wants to reach out to Aypril, we’ll have the links below. I feel complete.

Aypril: Thank you so much, this was a lot of fun, I’ve enjoyed this.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than Mindset.