The 5 Human Design Energy Types

(Photo by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash)

"We are all powerful creators. But in order to create in a powerful way, you have to know how you operate. Your Human Design type shows you exactly how to create in a way that is empowering, fulfilling, dynamic, successful, and exciting." - Karen Curry Parker

Think of Human Design as a giant puzzle with roughly 8 billion pieces, each piece representing a human being. While each piece is unique and some have similar qualities, there are five fundamental puzzle pieces. So, there are five types of people: Generators, Manifesting Generators, Manifestors, Projectors, and Reflectors. Each Type has its own operating system, a Strategy to best navigate the world, and brings a unique contribution to humanity, each with its own unique challenges.

Just as no puzzle piece is more important than another in the big picture, no individual's Type or unique design is more important than any other.

If you want to find out what your Energy Type is, you can get your free Human Design chart here.

Incidentally, I have six kids and have at least one of every Type (I have two Manifesting Generators)!

The Five Types:

The Generator

Generator's make up roughly seventy percent of the population. Whenever the Sacral Center is defined, the person's Type is automatically a Generator or Manifesting Generator. The Sacral Center is one of the four motor centers in the chart. It is the biggest motor and functions like, well, a generator motor, that is either turned on or off. When it's turned on, the person has sustainable life force energy available to them. When it's turned off, not so much. This on/off motor is designed to respond to the world around it by either resonating and switching on, or not resonating and switching off.

Generators are designed to work and part of their purpose is discover the right livelihood and master it. For Generators (or any other Type for that matter), work should be fun and energizing. It’s very important for a Generator to understand that they can’t just do any work, it has to really light them up. They're not supposed to work themselves to the bone; on the contrary, when they are doing things that makes them happy, they will have lots of energy. For generators, the old adage is very true: do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

The Generator's Sacral Center motor acts like a battery pack that is designed to be used all day long. It is optimal for Generators to stay busy during the day – doing things they enjoy – and fall asleep exhausted at night. When they wake up the next morning, their battery pack will be recharged and ready to go.

Generators are the lifeblood of our world. They are radiant when they are living their design. They flourish when they do things they love everyday. Everything from their clothes, their food, their work, should ideally be chosen because it makes them happy. When a Generator is happy, then consequently the people around them will be happy just by being in their aura.

The Generator Strategy is wait to respond. Generators are not designed to initiate action, but rather they are meant to have a relationship with life and wait for their motor to be turned on before they take action. This can be difficult in a culture where waiting and honoring our inner guidance is not a cultural value.

When a Generator is on track and following their Strategy correctly, they will feel satisfied. When they're not on track, they will feel frustrated. This is the emotional theme for Generators.

The Manifesting Generator

Manifesting Generators are the world's powerhouses and make up approximately thirty three percent of the population. Manifesting Generators are fundamentally Generators and have all the attributes listed above that come with the Generator motor.

So what makes them a Manifesting Generator? It's adding a motor to the Throat Center. If there is a direct or indirect Channel going to the Throat Center from the Sacral Center, it is called a motor to the throat. All Manifestors have a motor to the throat. That is the definition of a Manifestor (read more about Manifestors below). This gives Manifestors and Manifesting Generators power and force and enables them to create. They can impact others and can be heard. People who don't have a motor to the throat are driven to connect with people who do have one – Manifesting Generators empower people just by their presence.

Not only do Manifesting Generators have sustainable energy, they also have consistent access to the energy of impacting and creating – but only in response to the Sacral Center. They are uniquely designed to move quickly and to multitask. They are very capable and often prefer to handle things themselves rather than explain to someone else what to do.

Manifesting Generators are generally fast learners, but also tend to get bored with things quickly. The most important thing for a Manifesting Generator is that they do things that is exciting to them in that moment. If they're not excited about what they’re doing, they’ll probably feel drained (this is just good advice for anyone). Once something stops feeling exciting, it’s okay, and actually correct for a Manifesting Generator to drop it.

The Strategy for Manifesting Generators is to wait to respond, inform, then act. They must wait for the Sacral Center to be turned on before taking action and need something from outside of themselves to flip that switch. When the Sacral turns on and they have a yes response, then they need to inform their boss, partner, or whoever it will impact. Even though there's a tendency to want to act on their own (the Manifestor part of them), when they inform they will have a better possible outcome.

When a Manifesting Generator's momentum is interrupted or plateaus, the Generator part can get frustrated and the Manifestor part can get angry. This can be a knee-jerk reaction, but understanding that this is part of the Manifesting Generator's design, can bring some space and compassion to a pattern that will need to be worked with. When a Manifesting Generator is on track and in their flow, they feel satisfied.

The Manifestor

A Manifestor has an open (white) Sacral Center and one of the other three motors going to the Throat Center. They make up approximately 8 percent of the population. Unlike the Generators and Manifesting Generators, they do not have sustainable energy. But their open Sacral Center takes in and amplifies all the Generator energy around them, so for a period of time they can do more than any Generator. Since they cannot sustain this energy, they will burn out if they try to act like a Generator.

Manifestors need more rest than Generators and need to take breaks and be by themselves to dissipate the motor rev. Manifestors are vulnerable and tend to not know when enough is enough and can overdo things.

Manifestors are not here to work like Generators. They are designed to impact people, situations, and projects. They are here to initiate a process, get things moving and let the Generators do the footwork.

Manifestors are powerful forces and can have a closed and repelling aura. They’re often referred to as the generals of humanity and have typically been the leaders of our culture. They don’t depend on themselves, rather on others to take action, and as a result, they can be loners. They are designed to act independently. When a Manifestor walks into a room, you can feel their potency. Because Manifestors have their own sense of authority and don’t tolerate being dominated, they can sometimes be difficult to parent. They need to be allowed to be in their flow and in their creative process. They don’t do well when people try to help them or interrupt their flow. It’s important to give Manifestors the time to complete their thoughts before jumping in.

I want to add here that this is a general description of a Manifestor. My oldest son is a Manifestor and although he has some of the Manifestor qualities, he was the easiest to raise out of all six of my kids. He was easy-going, friendly to everyone and far from having a repelling energy. I think this is largely due to other energies in his chart (Gates, Channels, etc).

The Strategy for Manifestors is to inform. When Manifestors inform people of what they’re going to do, they stand a better chance of diminishing resistance. It’s not about asking for permission; it’s truly informing.

When Manifestors are interrupted in their process or when things don’t go the way the Manifestor wants, they tend to get angry. This can be tough both for them and for the people around them and is something that will need to be worked with without shutting down their creative power.

The Projector

Projectors have an open (white) Sacral Canter and no motor to the Throat Center. Approximately 20 percent of the population are Projectors. They are often referred to as the wise guides, are deeply tuned in to the world around them, and are here to direct and guide people and energy. They are the future leaders of humanity.

Projectors can be a guide for others in literally any realm: politics, professional sports, parenthood, public relations, and so on. They tend to have a specific interest that they niche down to, as they do really well delving deeply into a particular subject.

Projectors are often undervalued and misunderstood in our culture. We are at a point in out evolution where we are shifting from Manifestor leadership to Projector leadership, but until that shift is established, Projectors can have a tough go. Like Manifestors, Projectors don't have consistent access to sustainable energy and are not designed to work in the traditional sense. Again, they are here to function as a guide once they are seen and recognized.

Like the Manifestor, they also need to get out of the Generator field to discharge all the energy they’ve picked up during the day. They need more rest than Generator types and should go to bed before they’re tired. Believing they should act like Generators, they often burn out by the time they’re in their thirties.

The Strategy for Projectors is wait for an invitation and to be acknowledged. This can be tricky, and there is often a sense of not being seen or heard, which they sometimes counteract by exaggerating their visibility. When this doesn’t work, they can become bitter. On the other hand, an empowered Projector is inspiring and moves their energy into action.

Because the Projector isn’t designed to assert themselves on their own behalf and because our culture is so Manifestor and Generator oriented, Projectors can easily feel unseen, unacknowledged, and undervalued. Knowing they have something important to give but not having an arena where their offering is being received can leave them feeling disempowered and bitter. When they are in the flow, they feel, and are, successful.

The Reflector

Reflectors have no centers defined, in other words, all the centers are white. This is the rarest of all the Types, as only 1 percent of the population are Reflectors.

This Type is taking in and amplifying all the energies around them. Reflectors are profoundly fluid, shifting identities and their sense of self almost constantly with each new person, place or planetary shift they encounter. They are designed to reflect the health and well-being (or lack of) of the energy around them. We can gain access to important information about ourselves and our communities when they're around.

Like the other open Sacral Types, Reflectors take in the Sacral energy around them and are vulnerable to burnout. They need more rest than the Generator Types and they need to get out of the Generator field to unwind and restore their energy.

Because reflectors are so open, they are very sensitive to their environments and the people around them. They can be sensitive to food as well, and benefit from eating as cleanly and lightly as possible.

The Strategy for Reflectors is to wait one lunar cycle, or twenty-nine days before making big decisions, although some have called this specific time frame into question. Because Reflectors are so fluid, taking in the thoughts, energies, feelings, identities, and pressures of everyone around them, they need time to get clear on what they think or feel after processing all that energy.

Reflectors are so open and naturally take people in so deeply, seeing what’s possible for them, that when people fall short, the Reflector can be left disappointed, sometimes in a devastated or heartbreaking way. On the flip side, they experience surprise and delight, which is a sense of fulfillment in discovering what is unique and beautiful in the world around them. There is a brightness to them, almost like joy.

Not living in alignment with your Type can create havoc in your life. It's like trying to force a puzzle piece into the wrong place in the puzzle. It just doesn't work. But when you're living according to your Type, Strategy, and Authority (more about Strategy and Authority in an upcoming post), you're living in harmony with yourself, you align with the Universe, and you enter the flow. You're going downstream instead of fighting the current. As you surrender to who you are, you're able to enter the mystery of life in an empowered, co-creative way.

We're all an interconnected web, interdependent on each of us living our piece of the puzzle. As you live your piece, you support the evolution of humanity. This information was downloaded to support our evolution on the planet and is the core purpose of Human Design.

If you would like to know more about your Human Design, click on one of the choices below.