11: Empowering Others through Human Design with Linda Nicholson

[00:00:38] Cherie Lindberg: Welcome to another episode of Cherie Lindberg Elevated Life Academy. Today I am here with Linda Nicholson. And where are you located, Linda?

[00:01:26] Linda Nicholson: I'm in Downeytown, Pennsylvania.

[00:01:28] Cherie Lindberg: Wonderful. And today we're gonna talk about Linda's journey. I met Linda recently through a colleague of mine. I had heard about human design and she's like, oh, you gotta meet Linda and you gotta get a reading. And so that's how I met Linda. And I thought it would be engaging for our listeners to hear about Linda's journey as a coach, and how she moved to doing readings for folks with human design.

[00:01:54] So welcome Linda. Please start with your journey. How did you go towards becoming a coach, and then how did that lead you to human design?

[00:02:03] Linda Nicholson: Well, I was a social worker for 36 years. I started with an agency when I was a senior in college as a direct service worker. I worked with people with intellectual differences and people recovering with mental health issues, and I fell in love with it. So I actually wound up staying with that agency for 36 years and I kind of hit every rung along the way. I was a manager and a program manager and the director of personnel and the trainer. And eventually the last 15 years I was the executive director.

[00:02:35] When I left, that really did feel like my purpose. I was obsessed with finding my next purpose. Our soul wants us to find that when you have an open identity center in your human design, we're actually meant to be shown like pulled along a path, and we don't actually have as crystal clear an idea as other people do, but there's a yearning, like almost a pressure to find our purpose or the right thing. So I went on the Martha Beck website to get a coach for myself. I was just in this spot. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had some kind of purpose. So I went on the Martha Beck website. There was this little movie on the front of the website where Martha was dangling a rock.

[00:03:19] And so she's sitting out in nature. She's dangling this rock from a piece of string, and she said, this is a load stone or a lead stone. And the thing that's special about them is when they're struck by lightning, they become magnetized and you can use them as a compass.

[00:03:33] And she said, people that are struck by lightning: job loss, divorce, trauma, can become magnetized. And once we heal we can help other people just like this.

[00:03:44] And we can become a compass for other people. I fell in love with that movie. I felt so inspired watching it, and then on her website they talked about be a coach. That movie was to get people interested if you wanted to take coach training.

[00:03:59] I got really interested in it. At the same time, I had gotten on the website of a naturopathic doctor in Canada named Tina Christy. I don't remember how I actually got on her email list, but I used to get so excited when I'd get her emails, knowing I have a defined sacral center, my human design, so that's a big part of my GPS.

[00:04:20] So she had advertised a class on intuition, and I was really drawn to that. I signed up for her intuition class and she said, we're gonna use this tool. It's called Human design and it gives you so much information about yourself, so much validation. And as soon as I saw my chart, my eyes popped outta my head. I had no idea what any of it meant, but I do think it's very interesting. Like my story is a good example of what I tell people in readings that we don't have to have the whole path laid out. It literally reveals itself to us. We get drawn along the path. One step. One step. When I signed up for Tina Christie's email, I had no idea that it was gonna lead me anywhere.

[00:05:03] And that's how it works. So I learned about human design and then I coached with Tina for a few months. And she gave me the courage to sign up for the Martha Beck class. I was really scared. Even though I wanted it. It's that scared sighted thing where you want it, but you're afraid.

[00:05:19] So I signed up for the Martha Beck coaching class and then a few months later I signed up for a human design class with Chetan Parkin and Carola Eastwood, his wife. I kind of did them at the same time, but I finished the coaching class first. And I decided that my niche would be working with women who had career changes later in life, since that's what I did. But I have to be honest, I started coaching people and all I wanted to do was the human design. I didn't really quite feel in my alignment. Like this is it kind of thing. And I got very nervous because I trained to be a coach.

[00:05:54] I was gonna do this, what is going on? But I completely dove into the human design. And something interesting happened once I finished the level four certification class for human design. My coach passion came roaring back in. It's an example of the path that my soul was guiding me, and we can really follow that.

[00:06:14] So, it was fascinating to me and I had a good laugh with myself because as soon as I finished that. I wanted to coach again, and I realized it was a mingling of the two. How human design is, a self-awareness and a self-empowerment tool. It helps you see yourself.

[00:06:29] But so what I do is I do the human design tool and then I coach people helping them follow their own inner wisdom. I love how Martha Beck talks about coaching. It's literally just connecting that person with their own inner wisdom, not telling them what to do.

[00:06:46] And I love that. So now I do the you human design readings, but I also do coaching. And it's pretty broad right now. It's kind of based on like wherever that person is when we do their reading. When I look back now, it's much easier to see your path in hindsight.

[00:07:00] And that's what I say to people who were terrified. What am I gonna do? I gotta find my purpose. The path really does reveal itself. Now I'm willing to keep letting it reveal itself because I believe it And I love how Abraham Pick says we learn best from our own experiences, words give us belief.

[00:07:16] It gives us a starting point. But then we actually have to practice things and teach ourselves by our own experiences. The more we have the experiences, the more we believe it and it gets stronger like a muscle. That's what happened with me.

[00:07:29] Cherie Lindberg: Wow. What a interesting journey. So tell me a little bit about what it was like to go from being a social worker to a coach doing human design.

[00:07:39] Linda Nicholson: I started in the social work world during a civil rights movement for people with intellectual disabilities.

[00:07:45] The famous case of Pennhurst versus Halderman, which was in Pennsylvania, was a leader in services for people with disabilities. There was this institution called Pennhurst, and it went to the Supreme Court. And that's where that right to the least restrictive treatment. That's where that came from. So I worked with people like getting them out of the institutions, helping them move into the community when people threw rocks at us and things like that. And so that really felt important. And I loved being a part of that. And then there was a movement about positive approaches for people with disabilities, basically with the theory being rather than pathologize our behavior, like if somebody was hitting their head on the wall or something, rather than pathologize the behavior, you take a look at why, what is driving that with the basic assumption that everybody has a good reason for what they do. Really resonated with me. But the last 15 years of it, I felt things were changing. Things got more focused on rules and regulations, writing reports and things like that. And it wasn't as much about working with people anymore. And it wasn't as meaningful anymore. And so I think the universe was kind of moving me on because in this, being a coach, it's very different. We kind of make our own rules to a certain degree and we can really uplift people in the way we want to. And I love that. I never, wanted to be an entrepreneur. I love working with a team of people when we're all working together with one mission.

[00:09:18] But I love that now too. I can uplift people in the way I want and elevate people. That's the best for me rather than focusing and, so I think a lot of people in, helping positions like doctors people are saying the same thing.

[00:09:30] The focus so much on getting billable hours and making sure that you have the report for the insurance company. So many service professions are feeling this pinch. One of my doctors told me they were allowed 12 minutes per person. And so I think this is a thing that's happening in the world where we're experiencing this contrast. Of like the pitch of like traditional way of doing things and it's creating like a desire in us to find other ways to open things up a little bit more and do it more individually.

[00:10:04] So I think that's where the world is going right now.

[00:10:08] Cherie Lindberg: I really agree with you that folks are desiring liberation, freedom and choice. They're tired of the same old way. And I also think they're desiring connection. Yes. And what's happening right now is disconnection.

[00:10:26] There's a lot of disconnection in our world, so I totally agree.

[00:10:30] Linda Nicholson: Yes, yes. A thousand times. Yes. The connection is so important. We're hungry for it.

[00:10:36] Cherie Lindberg: Yeah. Well this is very interesting. How did you, as you were shifting and you kind of talk a bit about the experiences helped you. What about those moments of doubt? Those moments of, oh, is this the right thing to do? How did you continue. in the direction you were being led, even though those moments were popping up.

[00:10:56] Linda Nicholson: Oh, so much doubt. I have doubt in my human design. I have the gate of doubt. There's lots of gifts with it, but the challenge is self-doubt. So yes, all the time. One of the things that helps me, first of all, lots of support. I work with a lady who channels angels. She calls them the mothers. Her name is Margaret Claire Jacobs, Peggy Jacobs.

[00:11:14] And I would get readings with her, and I'd record the readings. It was amazing how they would talk about things. She used to come to my healing center and there would be a group of us. She would come and everybody would get their own reading, but we'd hear each other's.

[00:11:28] And one day they were talking with me about what people are calling the witch wound, this fear that in previous incarnations and previous lives, we experienced a lot of difficulties, a lot of persecution from speaking our truth.

[00:11:44] And so sometimes when we are afraid, she told me that one of the things I was experiencing was this wound of speaking up in previous incarnations. And they were so emphatic. They said, in this incarnation, you were promised you would not experience that.

[00:11:58] And then she looked up and she said, this is actually applicable to every single person in this room. I need constant reassurance. I listen every morning to podcast. I either listen to my messages from Peggy, I listen to Abraham Picks all the time. I listen to uplifting podcasts like yours.

[00:12:15] I need the constant reminder. And I think we can help each other too. When one of us is feeling scared on any given day, like how Martha Beck said, I could coach you or you could coach me because we're all humaning at that moment. And to just admit it and then to bolster each other.

[00:12:32] And of course you have the ultimate gift in your human design of uplifting other people. So there's no better on uplifter than you, Cherie, but like to help each other and bolster each other. I use article cards a lot. I need constant. reassurance with that doubt. One time in one of my readings with Peggy the angels told me that I needed to deal with how I felt. Like one of the reasons why things were slower for me in the beginning was because I had to deal with how I felt every time I did the work, which was terrified. When I took my certification class in human design, I wanted to just do in-person readings. I wasn't even on Zoom.

[00:13:10] And then Covid happened and I got a Zoom account. It's sort of increasing your comfort zone, little by little. And now I feel really comfortable on Zoom. But before Covid, I didn't even have a Zoom account, and I was afraid to do Zoom.

[00:13:23] I wasn't comfortable. So partly for me too, since I'm very open, energetically, I always considered my being able to interface with somebody in person was like part of my superpowers. But I realize that's okay. It might be, but this is fine too. I reassure myself or I do something inspiring that gets me in a better frame of mind. Mm-Hmm. The other thing that really helped me was to totally focus on the service of it. I remind myself of all the people that I could help, I pictured them all out there, and I set the intention to draw in the people who are ready for this liberation.

[00:14:00] When I focus on the people I could help and every time I do it, when I see like that validation and like that, I love connecting people with their gifts and magnificence. And so I remind myself of that and that calms me down kind of on any given day.

[00:14:17] Cherie Lindberg: Having had a reading, energetically just having that reading and feeling your excitement to read the reading or to connect me with my gifts was wonderful. Being in that energy was just absolutely wonderful. So let's talk a little bit about human design. Some of the listeners, this is gonna be their first time even hearing about it. So what is human design and how can it help us?

[00:14:40] Linda Nicholson: Okay, so human design isa self-awareness tool. It's similar to other tools like the Enneagram. But one thing is very different about it. Your chart is done by scientific software.

[00:14:52] It's not developed by questions answered by the person. It's a self-awareness, self-empowerment tool that is a combination. of various ancient wisdoms.

[00:15:03] Astrology, the chakra system, the Kabbalah, the I Ching and modern science quantum physics and genetics. And this is the part that is kind of hard to believe, but it's true. It was downloaded to this man named Ra Uru Hu in January, 1987. So it came into the world then. He lived in Ibiza, Spain. He came home to his little cottage. And he heard a voice that said, are you ready to work? For eight days, he downloaded this information. He has the same life theme as you do Cherie. The life theme of the Clarion. So he and you are people who put new information into the world and are courageous about it. So he downloaded this information and he started doing readings with people. He eventually started doing trainings. It wasn't an easy road for him. His name was Robert Alan Krakauer from Canada, and he was more in a business world before.

[00:15:58] And so he wasn't like this mystical person or anything. he started all this and so it's been in the world this long, but it's been building, building and just in the last couple years it has exploded into the world. And one of the things that my teacher Chetan talked about was that our world has been preparing for years. Like other things. My husband is a marriage and family therapist, and he does what's called emotionally focused therapy. That came into the world in 1987. EMDR came into the world in 1987. I don't know when brain spotting came in. I know that's something that you're an expert in.

[00:16:34] So we've been getting ready for 2000 years. We were in what's called the Piscean age, which was all about get with a company, get with a family, be in a structure, follow the rules. Hierarchies are necessary.

[00:16:48] In twenty-twelve, we changed to the age of Aquarius. And the age of Aquarius is the age of the individual. So all these modalities have been coming into the world to support this awakening that's happening on the planet, in the universe that is moving us more toward the age of the individual. That's one of the most important things about human design. It says we don't have to be homogenized anymore. We don't all have to be the same, that we're the vehicle that we chose for this lifetime. And we chose certain gifts to bring into the world.

[00:17:21] These are our gems that we said I'll bring. Our soul plans some challenges, because these are the things where we wanted to grow and expand. When you look at it from that angle, it brings meaning to some of the difficult things we've dealt with.

[00:17:36] Because it's for our sole expansion. So your chart shows gifts that you have, potential challenges. It shows how to use your energy to make things happen in the world. How to make decisions, like certain things to look for within our body that are really good, solid cues that we can use to make decisions.

[00:17:55] It also shows our profile, the role we came to play in this lifetime. These things are meant to be not prescription, but liberation and validation. So they're not meant to say, this is the role you came to play, and you have to do it. If anybody says that, that's a red flag.

[00:18:13] It's meant to lay it out to the person and see how it resonates with them. It's for validation and freedom, not this is the way you have to do it. one size fits all does not work anymore. We're in the age of the individual now, and one of the theories is that those of us who are here now came to be people to usher in this age of awakening.

[00:18:35] And so we each play our own part in this. And the other thing that it really helps with is pathologizing, which is one of my things. And it's been my thing since I worked with people with intellectual differences that we can tend to pathologize each other. Like, oh, there's something wrong with you.

[00:18:52] And basically this helps to see that there isn't anything wrong with us. This is how we're designed to be and how to work with that design the best. I'll give you an example. For me, I have an open root center in my human design and people with an open root center are empaths for other people's stress.

[00:19:10] And I used to get really stressed out and I would think there was something wrong with me. I. And now I realize that I'm just responding to energy that's not mine. Our open centers are where we can gather a lot of wisdom. When I was getting my master's degree, I did one of my big thesis papers on stress management.

[00:19:29] And that's how we gather the wisdom because my soul knew I needed that. So I was drawn to learn about it. It's such validation. It helps you see that some of these things that you thought were a problem about yourself, that some of it is a challenge we came to overcome, but a lot of it, the flip side of it are some of our biggest gifts that we came to bring to the earth.

[00:19:50] Cherie Lindberg: Which is what I love about it. Talking about your gift to humanity. Here are your certain gifts that you are gonna help being in the world. Can you share any of your experiences with doing human design where there was some inspirational stories or some stories of hope and healing?

[00:20:10] Linda Nicholson: This happens a lot now doing readings. I will say first for myself, for many years, I thought there was something wrong with me. I saw that I had gifts, but I always had this ongoing feeling that there was a lot wrong with me.

[00:20:22] Years ago I bought this book by Collette Baron, Weight Loss for People Who Feel Too Much. She talks about being an empath. And I remember thinking, am I an empath? And she basically talks about being very energetically open, and that is one of the things that drives emotional eating sometimes. Like a need for a buffer. And then when I saw my human design, I am so open that I thought, yes, I'm an empath. It was such validation for me, and it's also the reminder of the gifts of it. So, it's helped me to see that a lot of these things I thought were wrong with me are actually my gifts.

[00:20:56] Linda Nicholson: So many people that I do readings with now, I'm noticing that I keep setting the intention for the universe just to bring in the people who are ready. I could just see it. It's not news to people. It almost feels too good to be true. Like I did a reading with somebody a couple weeks ago, a gentleman who is making a life change for a new career. He's moving into it over the next few months, and came at just the right time.

[00:21:20] And it's so interesting because somebody had bought him a gift certificate and it took him months to come for the reading. So that's the thing too. We can trust each other or trust ourselves. It's whatever you feel drawn to is the right thing. So now he's going into this new career change in the next few months. And I could tell he was kind of skeptical. It's something very new. His family member loved it, and that's why she got him the gift certificate.

[00:21:45] But he literally kept smiling and saying, I can't believe this. He said, I knew I had these gifts, but it's almost like felt too good to be true. we have so much conditioning in our society about that. But that's what I'm seeing over and over again that people who are coming, have an inkling that these are their gifts, but it awakens it even more in that person, because it's such validation. And then they have more courage to move forward and step into the gifts. Which during this really important time for our planet, I mean, it's happening again and again.

[00:22:21] And people are coming to me who maybe have some more unusual lifestyle things or different lifestyle desires that might be consideredon the fringe in society, and they're learning that that is exactly, something in their chart.

[00:22:38] Like it's somebody who is meant to have lots of different experiences and be a trial and error learner. So they're meant to learn in that way or to have these experiences, and not everybody has that. It's almost like a permission. We shouldn't need permission, but because of our life conditioning, it feels like a permission to actually step into that. I'm being drawn to that because it actually is me and it's something that's in my soul blueprint, and it's something that my soul wanted to experience. I'm, seeing it over and over again.

[00:23:07] I've had people write to me and say, I have never felt so justified and as a human being in my whole life. And that's the purpose of it.

[00:23:17] To connect people with their light, with their agenda. Zoe, one of the human design teachers says that these are the gems that we told the light. I'll bring this to the earth. And the idea that we are all connected. We're one thread in this tapestry of humanity. If I don't live my thread and you don't live your thread, then that thread is missing.

[00:23:39] And so that's why we don't have to all be the same. And that's why there's nothing wrong with us, living that thread of who we came to be. is the most important thing, rather than like trying to be like everybody else or thinking we should be this way.

[00:23:53] And so that's what I'm finding too. More people are willing to actually step into this is who I came to be. And, it's getting rid of this conditioning that the way we are, there's something wrong with that.

[00:24:05] People are finding that that actually isn't true. The conditioning isn't true, but it's a process and that takes time and practice.

[00:24:14] Cherie Lindberg: I just love hearing what you're saying I mean. I was so surprised at how accurate the reading was. We had just met and you were saying the things that I was actually doing. And there's no way for you to know. So it was really like, wow. And the impact of validation. Growing up as a kid, having some of these gifts, using them and people looking at me like I was strange, I was weird, dissing me, and then having to grow up squashing that so I could belong, so I could connect. And now here I am doing the exact opposite like I'm opening 'em all back up again. What a journey. And then for you to be able to read that in this human design chart. My jaw was just dropping the entire time you were doing the reading.

[00:25:02] Linda Nicholson: I love that so much. And the fact that you're living your design is so exciting. It gives you more strength to keep going on the days that things get hard ?

[00:25:14] Cherie Lindberg: It was like a beautiful anchor to say, yes, you are doing what you're supposed to do. And to have an anchor, to have validation. I can't even express how important that is, because it felt like I was flying blind for a long time. And then to have this validation from someone. You're reading my chart and you don't even know who I am. And everything that you're saying is validating. It's just like what you were saying about some of the other people you're reading. I can't believe this. And then when you did my husband's reading, boy, he was flying high after that. He was just like here are my gifts. This is why I'm like that. And now when we get into anything where we're arguing, he's like, well this is one of my gifts. And I'm just like, he's right. So we're gonna do another reading where my husband and I come to you. I'll be very interested to hear about how our charts mingle and how they might bump up against each other as well. And how we can show up more compassionately or understandingly about why we're together and what we're here to do together in the world.

[00:26:19] Linda Nicholson: Yes. I'm so glad you said that, Cherie, because the other big part of it is once you see somebody else's design, you don't take things as personally. Like for instance, your husband and I both have a three in our profile. Okay. And you don't. And so people with threes are trial and error experimental learners.

[00:26:38] And so we tend to try things, we tend to make more mistakes, we sort of have a life, like a clinical trial. But the older we get, we can shut that experimentation down outta fear of making a mistake. And that was so me. Like I could not stand making a mistake. So afraid, like perfectionism.

[00:26:57] Then when I learned this. I started thinking back to when I was more trial and error, when I was more willing to try things. Mm-Hmm. And I decided, I said what happened to her and I wanted to wake it up again. But people who have a three with this trial and error experimentation, we kind of have to do it ourselves and don't listen to other people sometimes. And my husband used to say to me like, why can't you just take my word for it? And I would say, I don't know. I don't know why I'm like that. And we laugh now.

[00:27:24] And two, there's a higher and a lower expression to everything in our chart. We came to be in a world of contrast into a human body. So we are going to be in our lower expression sometimes. And just knowing that, I'll realize and I'll say, how can I soothe myself into a better vibration here?

[00:27:43] And so knowing that about somebody else helps you to understand why they are like they are. And then it gives you more patience. It's really important.

[00:27:55] Cherie Lindberg: Yeah. Him sharing his validation and talking about his gifts, we started to see some of these things. I look forward to going deeper with it.

[00:28:04] This has been a wonderful talk. I wanna thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to discovering more with you. We'll make sure that everybody has your website and your contact information if they wanna discover their own human design.

[00:28:18] Linda Nicholson: That sounds wonderful. And Cherie, I wanna say thank you for what you are doing in the world. I feel so safe with you and inspired and enlivened when I talk to you. You're so authentic.

[00:28:32] Cherie Lindberg: Thank you so much for that, Linda. And I wanna say, well, this isn't my human design. Like, this is who this is who I am. I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to bring these things into the world. And having that validation of why I feel like that is because of my design.

[00:28:47] It supports the journey. So thank you again for coming today.

[00:28:51] Linda Nicholson: You are so welcome.