We gotta talk about recognition…

Recognition is a word I see used all the time in groups and on social media, especially addressed to Projectors. Yet, it seems to be so misunderstood…

For years now, when I’m studying Ra’s teachings, I’ve got to see the concept of recognition gaining depth, texture, color… This text seems like it has been slowly bubbling up for months now. Apparently today, I’m allowed to write about it! I find recognition quite confusing because it’s a word most of us do know about, but as all common names used in the Hunan design system, it has a much narrower, very precise meaning.

Here are the things I wish I had found on my self-study path when I started to learn about what it is to be a Projector and what recognition implies.

Recognition is mechanical

That’s probably the piece I see the most dismissed. Why it’s important? Because it means that most recognition isn’t verbal, doesn’t come to consciousness, we don’t know it’s there, it’s just there. If I had to choose words to define the concept as simply as possible, it would be “recognition is what happens when our aura picks up anything from the frequency of another aura”. Yeah, anything.

That means that it’s an unconscious mechanism that happens any time we’re with other people. It may trigger things that are often confused with recognition in the way people talk about it. It may trigger communication, it may trigger actions (like an invitation), it may trigger consciousness (like something we notice about someone or the reaction they trigger in us), that would be the surface reactions that can come from recognition, but most of it? It just goes unnoticed. We’ll never get to know everything our aura will recognize from others.

That’s why it’s completely inaccurate to start looking at recognition from the premise we can always know it’s there. It also means…

Recognition is not always pleasant for either person involved

Oh, that’s such a huge one. When I usually read someone using the word “recognition” it’s almost always to say “did they see parts of you that you like being seen and tell you about it or show it through their actions?”. That’s not recognition in HD. It can be part of it, of course, but a very tiny part of it.

We recognize and are recognized for our not-self too. You know when we’re stuck as Projectors in situations when we’re the super slave, getting exhausted trying to play Generators or Manifestors and people come to us to ask us to do stuff for them, piling on even more stuff on our plate? Or when someone is calling out someone else for their not-self showing? That also comes from recognition. It’s just recognition from our not-self.

And as long as we are in not-self, what is recognized from us, is our not-self. Which is not necessarily a pleasant experience for any of the persons involved in the interaction. Which also means…

Even invitations rooted in recognition can be incorrect!

So when people say “invitations stem from recognition”, they’re absolutely right, but that doesn’t mean the invitation are correct. For example, I used to get a ton of invitations rooted in the recognition of my not-self. Exhausting invitations. Labouring invitations. Bittering invitations. Invitations to come meet people super far away when my body is passive and I only have a root as motor. Invitations super far away in time even if I’m splenic and basically only live in the moment. But our not-self is absolutely recognized too, and can without a doubt triggers all kinds of shitty invitations…

All that is why…

“Was there recognition?” is usually not a good question and should especially never be a substitute for our authority

I see that question all the times in groups, usually when people basically wonder “was that thing that person did/said an invitation?”. That question in itself and the “was there recognition?” are both feeding a mental approach of our authority. It implies that if something can be construed as recognition of our mechanics, it’s a trustworthy invitation. This is a perfect example mental approach of recognition.

The mind can be so sneaky it can construe anything as good for us is that allows it to stay on the wheel, to be our “decider in chief”.

My not-self often shares too much of my knowledge, for free of course. Usually in very draining ways, often, not even the other’s fault, I don’t know when enough is enough as a non-sacral, remember? They’ll ask a tiny question, I’ll give them a mini lesson. They may love it even (pleasantness of reaction is not a measure of correctness…). Mindy will tell me in those moments stuff like “they want you to explain things to them, what you know, that’s our Sun and Earth (43-23), our “life mission”, they recognize you and they love it, success!” 🙄 Give me a fucking break 🤣 That’s just my open ego wanting to prove its worth and be seen as smart using my HD knowledge to manipulate me 🤷🏻‍♀️

So let’s say I just started my deconditioning, and that happens, and I wonder “was this an invitation?” and ask in a group where I’m asked “is there recognition?” I will easily be told “of course, sure, it’s even a textbook description of your incarnation cross!” (it is!!) and I’ll feel really good about it, my tiny open ego filled with pride. And you know the tragic part? I’ll have totally miss what’s actually happening. Which means I’ll have totally miss the opportunity for deconditioning, unless someone tells me “you’re asking strangers to be your authority and you’re trying to measure your “S&A performance” instead of seeing everything that happens, pleasant or not” if I’m able to hear that (awareness has a timing).

What about self-recognition?

Oh my goodness, self-recognition is one of my pet peeve concepts, especially for Projectors 😂

We don’t recognize ourselves

Not even Generators do. Recognition is something we pick up in the other.

We may notice our mechanics at play. It’s not the same as mechanical recognition. This is part of our reactivity. We are a reactive species. We pick up (recognize) something mechanical in the other, and it makes us SOMETIMES react in a certain way. Maybe it triggers an emotional wave, thoughts, communication, actions, sensations… We can’t know exactly what happens, all the ways we react and especially what we react to, we’re not here for that (but the mind will try…). We’re here to see part of the result of everything that happens at the same time.

The way recognition plays a role in our interactions takes so many forms and is not about us

Definition (what we’re defined by, gates and channels) doesn’t come with awareness (that’s the perk of openness). We’re not here to use our mind analysing ourselves. There’s a massive difference between picking up information about what is happening, knowing we may be mistaken, and analysing that information.

Noticing sensations, thoughts, emotions? Information gathering. Explaining what’s happening, giving it meaning, even names, deciding with it? That’s analysing, a mental process, that’s never accurate when it comes to ourselves, that’s why you keep hearing if you study the system from the source that our mind is useless when it comes to ourselves. But it may be wonderful for the other. I’m able to explain recognition through my mind. Because I don’t use it as much to explain myself to myself. 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

It’s like… I can share with you guys my knowing (I have a 43-23), but I can’t explain accurately how my knowing works, I have to rely on what open Ajnas pick up to know more about it, because they amplify me, and they’re not here to just be a knower like me, they’re here to filter knowers (and thinkers and believers and see the differences). I may see better believers and thinkers because most of my head and ajna are open outside the knowing circuitry. But it’s limited because my mind is here to know and that interferes with everything I’m recognizing from them. Definition doesn’t come with awareness, only openness does.

Our definition (what we would recognize about ourselves if we could) happens to us, and we may get to see where it leads us when we stop using our mind to decide (otherwise it’s too busy being useless deciding for us). But we can’t analyse it. We may instead recognize and get to be more aware of our own mechanics or our mechanical differences in other people and learn about ourselves from it, but that’s awareness derived from recognition of others. It’s certainly not self-recognition. Even explaining what we recognize isn’t recognition anymore…

Projectors are even less able to recognize themselves

Our aura is focused on the other. The concept of self-recognition and the trend that comes with it that advises Projectors to “recognize themselves first so they can be recognized by the other” comes from the conditioning of Generators. It comes from the evil “you need to love yourself first so others can love you” that is torturing so many beings. (damn I hated this one so badly already when I was still believing in the idea we can cultivate self-love through other ways than our S&A 🙄)

But at least, Generators get a tiny bit of self-love in that. Distorted mostly, but still. Because they’re here to be self-centered, even when tribal or collective. Their life question is “who am I?”, if they don’t learn about themselves, they can’t be satisfied (notice my words : I still don’t talk about self-recognition… it’s not random).

But for a Projector, this is such a terrible fucking trap. Our life question is “who are you?”, focusing on ourselves doesn’t bring us success, it gets us lost, and very very bitter. Have you noticed yet how much Generators and Manifestors are generally not good at seeing others? How much it’s easily distorted? This is because of their aura. It’s not made for that.

This is our gift, our aura is solely focused on the other, even with every center -but the sacral- defined interfering energetically with their reading of another, a correct Projector will still see the other much better than an energy being, because our aura plugs into the magnetic monopole of the other, the heart of who they are. Because of our gift though, we’re terrible at knowing who we are, and it shouldn’t be our focus in life, EVER. What we do indeed need to learn about ourselves, we will, from understanding the others and the world better. The less we think we know about ourselves, the less Mindy will be able to fuck with our correctness.

I still remember how much when I started to work as a psychologist, my whole self-image shattered. I thought I knew myself so well. Me and my undefined G-ed ass, sure, sure. 🙄🤣 But only when I had that opportunity to plug into those people and understanding them did I get to see everything I thought I knew about myself was either wrong, terribly distorted or completely irrelevant. I love the disturbing layers HD bring me in addition to this, showing me that even what I thought I then learned about myself through others thanks to psychology and self-development and shadow work and trauma work and bla-bla-bla… mostly still wrong, still distorted, still irrelevant 😂 It just doesn’t matter. (I actually have a lot to say about how even for Gs it doesn’t matter, but… not the place 😅) And the more I get to see that I don’t need to give into that self-recognition shenanigan at all, the more I’m free to not use my mind to decide for me.

No Projector needs self-recognition in order to be invited

We need to wait for invitations, and we don’t know what they’re going to be. And when we do get to wait more and more, then people can pick up from our aura or at the very least the frequency of our voice that we are, indeed, Projectors, that our mechanics work the way they’re meant to. THEN we’re recognized as Projectors, for our true self. THEN the recognition that fuels the invitations we receive get to be correct (sometimes, it’s not like there’s an on-off switch button). And by that time, “is there recognition?” is even more a completely, utterly irrelevant question. We’re just waiting for our authority to tell us if those invitations are correct or not.

Recognition is so different from compliment and verbalization anbout our mechanics. That is the very (pleasant) tip of the iceberg of recognition. Recognition is just some unconscious mechanism that will prompt the other to invite us to be who we are in ever-surprising ways, since when we’re correct, we certainly don’t know how we’re meant to be invited : that’s what we are here to discover and chances are it will change all the time!! So self-recognition so we can know which invitations we’re supposed to get? Omg can you see now how much of a mental trap that is?

Is there anything we can do to foster others recognizing us correctly and inviting us then?

I know, I know… I’m kind of ruthless with your mind here. I’m made for it, to receive it and share the struggle. Not everybody is. And for the first few years of our deconditioning, we all need like training wheels-strategies. Especially for our dear lefties (left minds, I’m not interested in your political views 😂), Im talking enough with a beloved leftie P to know you guys need something to make your mind busy in more correct ways on your way to that “there’s nothing to figure out, nothing to do” place.

There is something that can be done to sort of foster people recognizing you and inviting you correctly, I kind of hinted at it earlier. I love the way Ra talks about the dichotomy of being a Projector lying in how much we’re both here to recognize and to be recognized. That thirst you have for recognition? You can quench it by recognizing the other in that more mentalized way. Honoring that gorgeous nature of our aura : sit down, shut up, and watch the people around you. Start to understand them (not judge them or evaluate them, SEE them), understand their mechanics, pick up how they express themselves, notice how much your resentment towards them or yourself disappear slowly in the process.

Don’t use HD to endlessly (and uselessly for the most part) learn stuff about you, instead, learn about them and how their mechanics condition you.

Did you know that when Ra used to give Living your Design workshops to Projectors, he would ask them to bring the charts of their people, not their own? (to Manifestors too, but for different reasons) He even used to say that a Projector focused on their own chart can only be in not-self. That’s not what we’re here for at all…

I cannot believe how much Human Design started to change my experiences of others when I ditched trying to understand my own chart and started to look at my people’s whenever something was happening firing my curiosity instead, every time I’m picking something up in their behaviour that my mind matches with one of their channel or part of their profile at play. When instead of the blame game of “who’s in not-self here?” in unpleasant situations (Usually Mindy of course made sure it was them 🙄😅🤷🏻‍♀️), I slowly got to not only see the not-self in both sides (it’s always on both sides, if I don’t see it, my awareness isn’t ready), the way the self is conditioned by the not-self, the way the other works and how it’s conditioning me… oh my goodness the juiciness 😻

We’re here to be the recognizer. And from that recognition to be able to guide when recognized and invited. One of the easiest road to recognition in that “they’re really seeing me” very special way (the loveliest of all isn’t it? 🥰) is to really see them.

When the mechanical recognition of their mechanics feeds the beautiful mental recognition of them, and they hear it in the way we interact with them, and because they hear it, they start to invite us to guide them. The more we recognize them for their true self, the more they recognize us for our own. It starts with them and us waiting for them to give us an opportunity to share hat without even realizing it…

Of course, telling people about their not-self when they don’t ask is very much invitation (and an intrusive one at that), I really do not recommend pouncing on people with compliments, it may be less intrusive and shitty than inflicting unrequested guidance, but it still won’t get us recognized as Projectors. It won’t bring as much success as Mindy hopes for, because the recognition that’ll stem from it will still be of our initiating not-self… But waiting until gather all that info may be useful may foster the most meaningful and successful interactions you’ll ever get.

And of course, you’ll initiate anyway. We’re not here to perform our S&A. Not doing something ”because it’s not my S&A” when our body does it is just as mental as “doing whatever I feel like and my mind gives me as ideas”. It’s still deciding with our mind. We’re here to see both what happens when] we get to be who we are and when we don’t, so if you initiate, trying to see it as initiating, and to notice especially the not-self, the resistance will make the most difference in our awareness. Even if the mind would love to focus instead on guessing what is success (and confusing it with pleasure, pride, excitement…) and when there’s no resistance (and confusing it with pleasure, a high wave, pride, excitement… ;)).

Wishing you some success on your road through actual awareness instead, bisous 😘