Follow Your Feelings ebook

Follow Your Feelings

...to recognise the opportunities to say “Yes!” to and make decisions you don't second guess.

Firstly, Who Am I?

Hey, my name is Mark Reynolds and I live on the Gold Coast, Australia.

Before I was introduced to Human Design, I initiated ideas constantly and gave up on them just as quickly. I second guessed every decision and self-sabotaged my efforts at every turn. My mind led me in circles and my aspirations went unrealised. 

Mark J Reynolds

It was only while experimenting with my Manifesting Generator Type, Strategy, and Authority that I discovered the power of letting my feelings be my guide!

In just 8 months, my approach to life profoundly changed. Instead of allowing my mind to seek and initiate, I now patiently wait for the right opportunities, people, and ideas to respond to.

Why Am I Sharing This?

Because I fear that some of you may give up on Human Design before you have been able to fully grasp and intentionally use your Type, Strategy, and Authority effectively. It is my hope that I'm able to make these concepts easier for you to comprehend, apply, and witness the same life-changing results in your own life. 

Who Should Read This?

If you have generated your Human Design chart and discovered you are a Manifesting Generator, I have written this book specifically for you. 

However, Generators will also benefit as both types share the same Strategy and Authority.

Anything that relates specifically to Manifesting Generators will be titled to clearly state this. 

SECTION 1 - CONCEPTS

Surrender Your Mind, Embrace Your Feelings

Before we dive into the topics of Strategy, Authority, and the traits of our type, it is imperative to understand the vital leading role that your FEELINGS play in Human Design and why your mind needs to surrender all control. 

So let's start with...

Your Mind

The mind is an excellent servant but a terrible master.

Your mind does an excellent job of communicating what it sees and experiences during this thrilling ride we call life. While it serves you well as a processor, interpreter, and translator, it is terrible at making decisions that have your best interests at heart.

Obsessed with self-preservation, your mind thinks that your "best interests" mean staying safely within your comfort zone. It won't hesitate to drop seeds of self-doubt or outright sabotage to thwart any attempt to push beyond your comfort zone and into unknown territory. Much like an abused child will cling to its abusive parents when the Child Protection department comes knocking, so will your mind cling to your less-than-desirable comfort zone when perilously close to unknown territory. The mind perceives unknown territory as scary and to be avoided at all costs.

For this reason, allowing your mind to lead the way will often produce inconsistent and frustrating results. The thing is, as you advance nearer to the edge of your comfort zone, your mind serves up feelings of doubt, anxiety, and uneasiness and conjures up new, exciting ideas to distract and derail your plans.... the same plans your mind came up with! 

Each time you start over with a new idea, you restart the loop, a never ending loop, a loop I was in for 17 years! Fortunately, in mid 2021, Human Design came into my life and offered me a new way of operating so I could exit the loop. 

The Higher-Self

For the entirety of my adult life, I felt I was destined for greatness despite having no concept and evidence of what I was going to achieve and how. This feeling came courtesy of my Higher-Self because it could see my whole life, not just the present moment. Thus, it gave me a feeling I could not justify.

Nowadays, I think of myself as a conscious puppet and my Higher-Self as the puppeteer. The puppeteer gives me free reign to explore my interests and make copious mistakes, but when it's time to get me back on track, the puppeteer pulls my strings, which causes me to take certain actions and have certain thoughts. This shunts me back onto my correct path.

How Your Higher-Self Communicates With You

Think of your life as being a desert, your ideas as mirages, and your dream life as an oasis.

Only your Higher-Self knows where the oasis is and how to get there. If you let your mind lead the way, you will be left feeling frustrated and exhausted as you chase one mirage after another.

The only way to find your oasis is to fully embrace the guidance of your Higher-Self, which communicates with you through your feelings.

You literally FEEL your way to your oasis.

Your mind will often lead you to frustration. Follow your feelings to satisfaction.

That's one powerful reason to FOLLOW YOUR FEELINGS.

Now let's look at another. 

Following Your Feelings Regenerates Energy

You Regenerate Energy when you Correctly Respond to your Strategy or Authority

Understanding the bolded terms above is essential for effectively applying your Human Design, so let's define those terms now and a few more.

Aura: You are here to learn how to wield your life force and regenerate your energy. Your aura works in such a way that it does the work of pulling people, inspiration, and opportunities to you. When you respond correctly, you regenerate life force.

Correctly Respond: To act on the opportunity or decision that is correct for you. 

Strategy: How to recognize which opportunities are correct for you. The moment the correct opportunity comes into your awareness (touches your aura), your body instantly responds with a feeling that I describe as an "excitable, electric, buzzing sensation in my body" or a "body buzz" for short. It puts a smile on my face and literally gets me leaping into action!

Moment of Truth: This is perhaps the most challenging aspect of being a Manifesting Generator because moving forward happens in two phases.

First, there's the lit up gut response to something outside of ourselves that says "HELL YES!" 

Then, we take action and begin experiencing it. At this moment, your excitable energy will either be sustained or it will completely disappear. Sometimes you'll know why and sometimes you won't. If your energy is maintained, you can take that as the green light to continue moving forward. If your energy disappears, the opportunity is no longer correct for you, so let it go! Sometimes your impulses and actions merely serve as a catalyst for others.

Read this Facebook Group Post for further insight.

Manifesting Generators are not supposed to mentally initiate anything. Sacral energy is not an energy for initiating an action, it's an energy for sustaining an action. However, it is correct to say that we "initiate in response." This means that when an idea, opportunity, person, or question touches our aura, our sacral responds instantly. If the response excites us, then our sacral generates the necessary energy for us to move forward with experiencing it. 

Once we meet the Moment of Truth, the energy can be sustained or it will disappear, depending on whether it is correct for us or not.

Inner Authority: This is how to know what the correct decision is for you. For Manifesting Generators, the inner authority will either be Sacral Authority or Emotional Authority.
NOTE: I will be referring to Inner Authority as simply 'Authority'  for the remainder of this ebook.

Sacral Authority: When making a decision, your body will instantly emit a subtle "Yes" or "No" feeling. This yes/no feeling can also be described as a sound your sacral makes, where "ah huh" is yes and "uh uh" is no. Alternatively you can perceive the yes/no as a feeling of uplifting versus heaviness, pulling towards versus repelling away from, or seeing bright color versus gloomy grey/darkness.

No doubt you've heard the saying "Your first instinct is usually right."  This is because the first instinct is your authority's response! Then your mind kicks in and tries to talk you out of it.

To tune into your sacral response, have someone else ask you questions that can only be responded with a "Yes" or "No" answer.

Emotional Authority: Watch this excellent Facebook Group Video Post by Amanda Miller to see how this works for her. In a nutshell, Amanda says that you need to see the decision from many different points throughout your emotional wave. These varying viewpoints overlap each other like lenses over your eyes and give you a general picture of yes or no. She says that you'll never be 100% clear in your decision, but if you're 70% sure, then you're good to go! 

Signature: Following your Strategy and Authority and deploying your Sacral energy correctly will cause you to feel satisfaction.

Not-Self-Theme: By not following your Strategy and Authority, you are prone to becoming very frustrated with your life because of the situations you find yourself stuck in. You will gain no personal satisfaction from the use of your powerful Life Force energy, and you're also prone to becoming the slave of everyone else.

Regenerate Energy: Any time you have an excitable "yes" response to external stimuli, you are rewarded with more energy so that you can action it. This can be from an opportunity or a decision. 

Draining Energy: Any time you take action on something that is not correct for you because you've initiated with your mind, you drain your energy instead. Until you begin responding correctly again, you will continue to drain energy from a limited supply until you run out. Running out will bring about feelings of extreme lethargy and frustration.

Waiting To Respond: Your Manifesting Generator aura is magnetic and inclusive, which means the aura will do its work to attract opportunities, people, and ideas to itself. If you patiently wait for these to come to you, you will receive everything you need at the moment you need it. If you don't wait and instead initiate ideas with your mind, you will spin your wheels, drain your energy, and very likely end in frustration!

Life Balance: As you get the knack of responding correctly, you will find you have a HUGE supply of satisfying sacral energy at your command. And because you don't know how long it will last, you feel pressure to take advantage of it while you can. As a result, other areas of your life are often neglected while you are experiencing these high bursts of energy.

There will come a time when the correct response will be to do something other than work, such as to relax, have fun, and embrace the less serious and perhaps mundane aspects of life (house chores, tax etc.). 

No matter what you are being called to do, the correct response is to obey the correct response! Obeying the correct response is the only way to begin regenerating energy. If you want to get back to your exciting projects sooner, simply do whatever it is that your sacral is currently responding to. Doing that will bring about life balance. Fighting against it will only drain your energy further, hold back "aha" moments, and cause you more frustration. 

The Rewards of Correctly Responding

I've found that when I correctly respond to life, better ideas and solutions are often my reward. These "aha" moments level up whatever it is I am working on. 

Let's say that my correct response is to take a walk in the sun. The following could be my reward:

  • I regenerate energy.
  • The exercise burns some energy to help me sleep that night.
  • I witness a sign or synchronicity that answers a question or causes thoughts that change my perception.
  • Movement of my physical body shifts stuck energy which causes a change of thinking.
  • As I walk and take my mind off my challenge, my Higher-Self has an opportunity to drop in a new idea or solution.

Sleep

You should fully exhaust your energy prior to sleep to ensure full regeneration overnight. Your sacral centre is designed to “regenerate” fully after a single night's sleep. But this only works correctly if it can regenerate from an exhausted state

I personally find that working hard at a desk all day only exhausts me mentally. I still need to get up and do some physical exercise to sufficiently exhaust my sacral energy to get the best sleep. The more days I string together without exercise, the more lethargic I feel and the more unfocused my work efforts become. 

Also, when you throw yourself into your exciting projects and you have tons of energy to burn, you might find that your sleep begins to suffer because you are working too late and not giving your mind sufficient time to switch off before bed. In this case, commit to finishing your work by a certain time each night, say 6 p.m. 

Rest for Manifesting Generators

Excerpt from https://djtigerlily.com/

When MGs are on their game, they’re basically humans with superpowers. Like Generators, MGs have a *lot* of energy, but instead of having the consistent, steady, grounded energy of generators, MG energy comes in waves. At the onset or peak of that wave, the energy is like being charged by rocket fuel. It is intense and unstoppable. Because the energy is so intense, at a point it tapers off and the need for rest is very, very real.

Because you’re used to (and probably somewhat addicted to) these intense energy waves, you might feel resistant to switching off at the bottom of the wave, but at that point, rest is the single most productive thing you can do.

Actionable Steps:

Create an evening slow down ritual or routine. When you feel your energy level dropping, do your very best to honor it, even if you’re sitting still with your eyes closed for five minutes or taking a few deep breaths.

Timing

Generators move fast and Manifesting Generators move even faster! But the one thing we have in common with all the other types is that our progression still happens at a rate that is much slower than what our minds would like!

So you're going to have to learn some patience because things don't happen on your time, they happen on universal time.

If you try to find things to respond to, you are going to fall into the trap of initiating and spinning your wheels, depleting your energy and feeling frustrated because your efforts aren't amounting to satisfying feelings or results.

Please note that if you respond correctly all day long, your day will be full; It just won't necessarily be full of work or the work that you planned to do! Allow yourself to move with and where the inspiration takes you. 

The PAUSE

Progression in each of your specific interests is like a never ending tunnel of locked doors. Each time you unlock a door, you move freely and swiftly until you reach the next door. The key to unlocking each door is to provide the correct response. The pause lasts for as long as it takes you to recognize what the correct response is and actually do it!

If the correct response is to go and do something completely different from the work you were doing, then the sooner you do that, the sooner you'll regenerate the energy and excitement to continue the work from before.

Tunnel of Locked Doors

How to feel the correct response:

  • Check-in with your feelings about what you feel like doing at that moment. 
  • Look around you and take note of what captures your attention. Are you tired and need a break? Feel like taking a walk, reading a book, having a nap, a snack, a moment of mindless entertainment, or all of the above?
  • What other projects, tasks, or activities are calling you but you have been ignoring them because your mind is fixated on completing the current one?
  • Have someone else ask you Yes/No questions so you can feel your sacral response.

When you master mindful awareness of what you feel like doing in every moment, then you will:

  • Generate a LOT of energy.
  • Feel satisfied and have a well balanced life.
  • Achieve an incredible amount of progression towards your goals.
Key Regenerates Energy

Running Your Energy Reserves Dry

Have you ever exhausted all of your energy? It can take days to recover from this state. There have been times when I couldn't even THINK of something fun to do! Every idea... even watching TV... just felt "meh". I literally ended up horizontal and staring at the ceiling.

I learned this the hard way many times, and as much as I could warn you, some things you just have to experience for yourself to truly learn the lessons.

Your Aura

Your aura is open, enveloping, and it's meant to pull life to you so that you can respond accordingly.

A lot of people wish they could be a Manifestor so they can initiate, and I have to admit that I did too UNTIL I realized this...

You are already attracting what's correct FOR you... TO you

You see, you don't have to go out and find things or figure anything out because when you "Wait to respond," the correct ideas, advice, and solutions just drop in at the exact moment you need them. BOOM!

Oh, and Manifesting Generators... The manifestation happens naturally through the correct response.

When you REALLY grasp the power of being a Manifesting Generator, you embody efficiency at its finest! It's like having a team of celestial beings who know what you need before you do!

Skipping Steps - For Manifesting Generators

Skipping steps is not necessarily a bad thing for Manifesting Generators.

When we work on what lights us up, we regenerate energy. In the unconscious interest of keeping our energy high, we skip the steps that don't excite us so we can get to the steps that do! Hence, we bounce from one exciting task to the next and keep regenerating more energy!

When we do have to go back to a skipped step, we now understand why that step is vitally important and therefore we have an increased desire, energy, and reward for tackling that step.

Example:

Let's say we have a 12 step process for setting up a new website. Steps 1 and 2 are exciting, so we happily do those. Step 3 requires us to learn how to do SEO research, and we find that subject BORING, so we skip it and move onto Step 4 and continue through to Step 12. At Step 12, we now realize why Step 3 (SEO) is so vital for our Google Search Ranking. And so we now return to Step 3, except this time we find the topic interesting and exciting because it closes the open loops in our mind and we can perceive the benefits/rewards waiting for us upon its completion.

How accurate does that feel for you?

SECTION 2 - PRACTISE

In this section you'll find a number of exercises that I devised to tune into and heighten the sensitivity to my feelings. Use them to more powerfully feel your inner guidance.

"Repetition is the mother of skill."

Heighten Your Sensitivity Through Daily Journaling

In June 2021, I unintentionally stumbled upon one of the keys to developing a heightened sensitivity to my feelings such that I can now feel the subtleties of when something just doesn't feel right and when niggling thoughts are masking hidden fears. 

One morning, while trying to wrap my head around the "Wait to Respond" concept, an excitable impulse caused me to leap out of bed to blog the daily trials of applying my Manifesting Generator Strategy and Authority.

By day 20, I profoundly understood the power of daily journaling. I had set out to merely understand "Wait to Respond," but daily journaling yielded far more!

After 20 days,

  • I had fallen in love with the deep introspection of any feeling or circumstance that felt amiss. Drilling down and unearthing what my ego was hiding enabled me to understand, take action, and clear many obstacles from my path.
  • I was excited to dive onto my bed with pen and paper to see what the faintest of niggling feelings would reveal to me next.
  • The speed at which I could pull apart and translate what I was feeling into messages had sharply increased. At first, it might have taken me two A4 pages to unpack a feeling into words and understand the message. By day 20, it often took just a couple of sentences.
  • I suddenly realized I had been honing my sixth sense of clairsentience (clear feeling) - the ability to learn through feeling.

⮞ Tips For Your Own Daily Journaling Exercise

Every day, run through the following list and journal about any question your body responds to:

  • Close your eyes, shift your awareness into your heart space, and ask yourself, "What do I feel in my heart right now?"
  • Are there any niggling feelings about something or someone in your life?
  • What's challenging you? Why? How could you see the situation differently?
  • Are you feeling any resistance to your current task, project, or field of work in general? What do you feel pulled towards instead? 
  • What has you the most excited right now? What kind of work or hobby excites you just by thinking about it? 
  • What excitable impulses or body buzzes have you responded to today and what happened?
  • What decisions did you make today? Did you practice and correctly use your authority? What happened?
  • What excitable impulses did you ignore today? Why? What happened as a result? Will you obey them next time?
  • How much life balance do you have at the moment?

The Forcefield

Do you know the feeling of trying to make progress on something that you're no longer physically excited about but your mind is fixated on its completion? It's hard going, isn't it? It kind of feels like there's a forcefield surrounding the very thing you're trying to get to! You waste a lot of time and energy trying to push against the forcefield, and the longer you persist, the more frustrated and energetically exhausted you become. 

The forcefield is my analogy for when you are incorrectly responding to life. It's when life is asking you to turn your attention to something else. In the search for "things that excite," you need to expand your awareness to feel where your attention is being drawn. I refer to this expanding awareness as "feeling for gaps in the forcefield", because when you find the gap, you easily fall forward into it. It could be that one of your other projects is now exciting you, and you speed ahead with ease and grace. Or it could be that you need to go move your body, socialize, or put your feet up for rest and recovery.

To help sensitize myself to what it felt like to drain my energy, I formed a habit of frequently checking how I felt towards each task throughout the day. When it felt like I was pushing against the forcefield, I would feel where the gap was instead.

⮞ Symptoms Of The Forcefield

Apply the forcefield when you experience a combination of the following symptoms:

  • You've lost the feeling of ease and flow.
  • You are feeling resistance and it requires you to exert more effort, discipline, and focus to move forward.
  • Your progress slows down.
  • You feel tired.

Replace "I think" with "I feel"

Replace "I think" in conversations and thoughts with "I feel". The difference may sound insignificant, but the effect, in my experience, is anything but. 

Say the words out loud and notice where your awareness goes:

  • "I think…" Did your awareness shift upwards to engage your mind?
  • "I feel…" Did your awareness shift downwards to feel your body/heart?

Consider how the quality of what you say could be affected by this simple change. Better yet, commit to making the change and experience it for yourself.

Also, ask people how they feel instead of what they think, and notice the quality of their responses too!

Define Your Feelings

During the first few months of learning and experimentation, I made the mistake of initiating ideas that stimulated me on an intellectual level but hadn't actually given me the sacral buzz. The cause of this was simply that I hadn't developed a strong enough memory of what the buzz felt like. As a result, I mistook the intellectual excitement for the sacral buzz!

So here are some exercises to tell them apart:

  1. Define in your own words the feeling of the "sacral body buzz" or being "lit up".
  2. Define in your own words the feeling you get when you are mentally excited by an idea and are tempted to (incorrectly) initiate it.
  3. Hone your sensitivity and recognition of a range of feelings by recalling one of the following feelings at a time and journaling its symptoms: No, vs not now. Overwhelm, procrastination, anxiety, lack of clarity (brain fog).
  4. Take a moment to recall and write down examples from the past of when you initiated an idea that went nowhere. Can you recognize the symptoms of mental excitement?

Final Thoughts

Use your mind for consuming knowledge, not making decisions. Read books, listen to podcasts, and learn something new every day. Your Higher-Self can then deliver intuitive messages & sacral responses to guide you when to use that newfound knowledge.

Learning how to operate your design on an intellectual level satisfies your curiosity, but experientially applying it to your life is far more rewarding and ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to receive the full value of this ebook.

"To know and not to do is not yet to know."

Reading may expand your awareness, but consistent action forms the habit. 

How Did I Do?

If you found this ebook to be of value, then please let me know in the ManifestingGenerators.com Facebook Group.

Want More Free Stuff?

Human Design Chart Cheat Sheet

If you are new to Human Design and don't understand how to read your chart yet, then I invite you to join our Facebook group and look for the ⚡START HERE⚡ post on the Featured tab. You'll find every link you need and more in there :)