Human Design IRL: The Gate of Stillness as an Anchor in New Parenthood

A lot of people I love dearly are having babies right now. I've just had a baby and am overjoyed at the abundance of little buddies about to make their way onto the scene—but it's also got me thinking about chaos, stillness, and wading "through the soup" during times that are particularly fraught with emotions, intensity, uncertainty, and piles and piles of mess.

Having gone through the absolute hell of birthing a human, then being tasked with caring for them with zero time to rest, recover, or even process wtf just happened, I really can't believe people are walking around who have gone through this and NOT spent the rest of forever talking about it. Who are you superpeople just playing it off like it's no big deal? Is it that it's impolite to make your experiences feel "too big"? Or is it the ever-turning wheel of time that cuts the edges off our memory, smoothing it out until it feels soft and cozy - something we can hold as just the same as any other experience?

Open Centers and Stillness

In the days that followed bringing a wiggle potato home, I was left to sit and process – or attempt to while also doing an immeasurably hard job (again, superpeople, you are). Only now can I look back and see the shimmers of the Gate of Stillness shining in these moments, anchoring me through the electricity roiling in my open centers. Because frankly, at the time, it felt like the waves of feeling would never end.

I have seven defined centers and open heart and solar plexus centers. For me, these open centers feel a bit like a water filter – places where a sense or a feeling comes in and needs to trickle through layers of thoughts, emotions, and movement for me to understand it on the other side. Depending on how much has built up in the filter, or how much I am gripping onto it, this happens more quickly or slowly.

During a period of heightened emotional "BLAH" (a stand-in to describe a cacophony of feeling), I tend to get swept up in the feeling of it all because all my awareness goes to what I'm experiencing in this openness. My first instinct usually is to shake it off, ignore it, call it a fluke. Up came old patterns of comparison, feeling my emotions might be “too much” for me or anyone else, and concern about my “value” or if I’m doing enough or doing it right. The experience of openness can drag you away from the sensations of alignment, making all of the definition or strengths feel inconsequential. AND I want to caveat all of this with the fact that postpartum, or any experience of big-life-intensity, is not a great time to overemphasize your human design – it is only a few months out from all this, I’m able to reflect and consider the HD of it all.

Something that helped me, likely because it helped me pull out of the openness and back into my definition was a post from Pea the Feary. Pea described emotions as things that need to move through your experience, and she recommends leaning into describing the feeling rather than trying to rationalize it. She gave the example of feeling anxiety and focusing the mind on coming up with a description for the experience—saying "this feels like a million little bubbles in my stomach being swept up by a tornado" instead of over-rationalizing why you're feeling the way you are. The simple action of accepting a state of experience by acknowledging the complexity, but not gripping it too tightly or identifying with it. Using my defined head and ajna to get as creative as possible about describing a feeling, speaking it through my defined throat to really hear and release it, all felt super supportive in allowing the gust of activation to move through the open centers. And then, I remembered my sun placement.

The Metronome of Gate 52

My sun is in Gate 52, the Gate of Stillness. This particular gate is located in the root center, but it refers not to stillness in the body, but stillness of the mind that enables focus and then action. The wisdom of a defined root center is knowing when "it's time" and when it's not. To me, this feels like having a physical metronome. It tells me when it is time to jump into the jump rope or enter a dance, timing the right beat for the moment to move.

This gate has been front and center during a period of time that is, by nature, unpredictable and chaotic. Reflecting on the early days of new parenthood, I felt this grounding force keeping me anchored and focused on the now, trusting that the right time for the right thing would show up. It helped me remember to just stop when the thoughts were swirling and the fingers were googling “can [x magical thing] make my baby sleep through the night?” Sometimes it took longer to remember to pump the brakes than others. While focus may be short-lived, I find it helpful to fall back into it and remember the stillness that this gate teaches. I hope to share the gift of stillness and presence with my child. To learn to feel safe in the momentary pause. Taking that moment to take a deep breath, assess the situation, remember to use intuition, trust the gut, and follow the inner wisdom.

Sifting through it all, I am grateful for my Gate of Stillness in line one – steadying the storm and inviting exploration and curiosity. I hope to remember this as I continue to navigate what's to come and the general unpredictability of life.

For now, I'll hold this contemplation close, lean into the cuddles and coos, and hope to be surprised and delighted by the depths of whatever comes up next.