Ep. 11: Sacral Authority: The Gut Just Knows

Sandy: Welcome to Human Design Field Notes. This is where we learn human design in a way that's simple, fun, and actually useful in real life. The kind of thing you can try for yourself, talk about with your girlfriends, and before long, you'll want to know everyone's chart. And I'm not just teaching it, I'm testing it too. I'm rebuilding my coaching business using my own human design and I'll be sharing the field notes as I go. The experiments, the insights, the wins, the mistakes, and probably a few things we can all have a good laugh about. Because human design isn't meant to be stared at on a chart. It's meant to be lived. I'm your host, Sandy Connery. Let's see where this takes us. Welcome to episode 11. This is the second episode in our authority series. And today we're talking about sacral authority. So if you have sacral authority, your body has a remarkably simple way of telling you yes or no, often before your mind even has a chance to weigh in. So in this episode, we're gonna talk about what that sacral response actually is, what it can feel like in your body, and how you can start using it to make decisions. We'll also talk about how to support someone in your life who has sacral authority. And toward the end, I'm going to give you some really simple a really simple experiment. You can try to actually hear or more like feel your own sacral response, a way to get in touch with that your own sacral response. But first, let's review, let's do a quick reminder of what we mean when we say authority. So in human design, your authority is your internal decision making system. It's like your inner compass. It's rather than trying to think your way or logic your way to the answer, your authority gives you another way, the right way in human design speak, of knowing what's right for you. So there are seven different authorities. So you may or may not be sacral, but there are seven different ones, and they don't all work the same. And we are gonna go through them one by one in this series. And the last episode was on emotional. Today we're focusing, focusing on sacral. So, what is sacral and how do you know when it's talking to you? So, first of all, It's important to understand that this sacral authority, this sacral decision-making skill, only is available to generators and manifesting generators. Both of these types have a defined sacral energy center, which is the second square from the bottom on the body graph. And if that is defined, you have sacral authority and you are either a generator or a manifesting generator. and I should just say once again, if you are like, I want to know if I have sacral authority, please just go grab your own body graph, your own human design chart, and you can get that for free off my website, sandyconnery.com. Okay, so let's take a look at this sacral center a little closer. The sacral center is associated with life force. That is why generators, many gens are always talked about as having so much energy and working on things that really light them up. They have this sustainable life force energy to work, to build, to create, to make things, to just go out there and engage in life. They generators, so generators and many gens have access to this powerful energy, but here's what's so important. It doesn't mean that you have energy for everything, for absolutely anything and everything. And the way I like to think about this this response, this sacral response or sacral authority, is when you tap into your sacral It helps direct your energy. It's almost so it's almost as if your body is saying, Yes, I have energy for that, or no, please, please don't spend energy don't spend me over there, right? So when a decision appears in your world, maybe that's a job opportunity or an invite to dinner or you know, a potential romantic partner or some idea that pops in your head, your body. Can respond before your mind has had time to build a case for or against. Your body knows before your mind does. And that's why I'm using this, these terms like sacral response or gut response, somewhat interchangeably, because the gut is probably what you've called it your entire life. So it's kind of the same thing, sacral or a gut, and it's the feeling of in your body like. I don't know why I know, but I just know. So what it actually feels like if you are someone who has sacral authority, it's not gonna necessarily feel the same for all of you. For some people, it's actually like audible. They'll hear themselves go, uh-huh, or uh-uh, like yes or no, uh-huh or uh-uh. Sometimes these sounds come out before you've consciously answered the question. It's just a gut body, instant body response. For other people, including myself, I am sacral, it is much more physical. So it could be feeling like a little buzz or a tingle in your belly, an expanse expansion or like a surge of energy. You might physically lean towards something, or you have a feeling or a sense of being. Hold towards something. Sometimes it's super subtle and sometimes it's full body. I get full body like screams from my body, yes, do that. So a no can feel very different. It can feel flat, it can feel heavy, it can feel like your energy kind of dips or drops. Maybe you sigh, like before you're even aware of what you want to say, there's a little sigh that escapes. or maybe your body kind of like physically turns back. And sometimes there's just nothing. Like there's no response. It's just blank, empty. And that is also worth noticing. I think that when there's no answer, either you're not quite tapped in maybe it's just not important to your design. But let's talk about timing because this is really fascinating. A sacral response happens in that moment. It is immediate. It is right away you know the answer if you are able to listen to your body. You do not need like days and days to analyze the question or the decision. in fact, the more time you give yourself is the more time the the brain or the mind gets an opportunity to start making things so much more complicated. I always have this image, like your body responds and then your brain arrives with its like briefcase and starts pulling out papers trying to convince you like this is a terrible idea. Like what are you thinking? it also reminds me of if any of you watch Clarkson's Farm on Amazon where Jeremy Clarkson, He was one of the co-hosts of of Top Gear, a big huge show about cars, and he bought a farm and he's trying to figure out how to be successful at farming. And one of the people in his life is Charlie Ireland, who is his I think he's his land agent. But every time Jeremy has like an idea of like, I'm gonna buy a drone and it's gonna these robots are gonna seed the fields for me. And then like Charlie comes in with his briefcase, rifles through things and like, look, Jeremy. This is a terrible idea. The farm is moving money. It's not going to work. And, you know, and so on. And that's kind of what I picture now as my brain, as this like very nerdy, fact-based, like, here's why it's not gonna work. Like, sort of the person or the character that always sort of brings you down after being really excited about something. So the brain's like. Rifling through the papers and like, is this really sensible? Like, what are people gonna think if you do this? Shouldn't you take this opportunity? This is a great opportunity. What if you regret it? What if you can ever get another chance? Right. And so the practice, when you have sacral authority, the practice you need to dive into is to learn to recognize that that first bodily response, to witness it, to trust it before all the minds commentary enters the picture. Okay. So A yes is energy. That's the part I really want you to understand if you're a generator or manifesting generator. A yes is like, yes, we have energy for that thing that you are deciding about. But it doesn't mean that, you know, okay, we've got energy. I want you to, you know, your body's indicating this is the right direction for you to go. Do this thing, do this thing. It doesn't mean you're gonna enjoy every single minute of it, right? It doesn't mean that nothing will be hard about it or difficult or uncomfortable. It's like saying yes to like I'm gonna start my own consulting practice, but you're still, you know, maybe gonna hate bookkeeping. You're gonna say yes to running a a marathon, but kilometers thirty to forty-two are still kind of uncomfortable, awful. Or you might have, you know, say yes to having a child, but then when they're waking up at three AM every night, you're like, my God. So It doesn't mean that it's gonna be super easy. There are gonna be some uncomfortable parts to it, but it is your body saying yes, your body is coming alive around this question and saying, Yes, direction is the that you know, that's the correct direction. And at the end of the day, if you can follow that energy, that those yeses, that energy, A generator or a manifesting generator, it's such a feeling of satisfaction. Like the end of the day, you're like, my God, that was a good day. That was a really good day. So I wanted to give you a couple of examples. here's a I gave you a couple examples in the last two episodes ago when I spoke of the first field notes when I talked about how I'm running my business using my sacral response. but here's a couple more. So this is a sacral no example. I had been working on a project with someone and some circumstances changed, but there was still an opportunity to continue on this particular project to continue working on it. And initially I thought, yes, of course, yes, I'll do it, we'll do it. And it, you know, in my brain, it was like obvious next step, right? We've already done a lot of work to make this thing. It was logical to like just keep going with it. There was a lot of good reasons to say yes, I will work on this. Except when I removed myself from the conversation and got really quiet, my body was just saying no. And it did take me a little while to recognize that because my mind had already decided and verbally committed to working on this project. It told me what the sensible answer was, and there was definitely some people pleasing in there too. You know, you know, I don't want to disappoint anyone. I really didn't want all the work that we had done up to that point to be wasted. So I had really good, like perfect perfectly reasonable explanations of for why I should continue. But as I said, when I got really quiet, it was such a clear no. It was such a clear no. Like I just like I don't want to do this. And when I finally said that out loud and I just the feeling was just an enormous sense of relief, a sense of calm. I felt so much more free. I felt so much more clear. and my mind, if I had really like allowed it, my mom would have absolutely talked me right back into it. Right. this is the tension of like witnessing that sacral gut response and going with it versus what your brain may say. Another example I have is This was years ago, way, way, way, way before I knew anything about human design. I was back then I was in my retail store and I had a clinic and then we were doing gate analysis and selling footwear and so on, whole thing. And I was not very happy with it. I did end up leaving, but before I left, one of my solutions to make myself feel better was I started studying nutrition through the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition. And I was one case study away from finishing that program. One case study away and I would have had whatever certification they gave you. But in just before that, like working on that case study in fact, I listened to a podcast about building software companies. And I was like, my God, this is what I want to do next. I want to do this. And I stopped my I quit the program. I quit the natural nutrition program. And all of my friends were saying, what are you doing? Like You have you've worked on this on the side on the weekends. You are inches away from finishing it. Why are you going to quit? But I just full body knew that I didn't want to do that. I wanted to do the software. I wanted to go and build a software company. even though it meant leaving something. Again, like the logic doesn't make sense. Like, why don't just hand in the case study and finish this program? But I just no, it wasn't where I wanted to go. So That is it's interesting to me to reflect on that because I didn't know about human design, but I sure did back then was able to listen in that moment anyway to my body saying, No, go over here. The energy you have should be spent over here. So the work, this is my work, I think for all of us, when we learn what our authority is to listen to our body, to figure out how to work with our body and trust it, even though other people, even though your mind is gonna tell you differently. Okay, so let's talk about some potential challenges with sacral authority. So, the biggest challenge, as we just said, is like letting your mind override your body. Your gut says no, but your mind says, This is a fantastic opportunity. Why don't you do this? This makes total financial sense. You could make some more money. Everyone's gonna be disappointed in you if you say no, right? And suddenly you're like, Three months into something that you didn't really want to do, and you just have zero energy for it. So that that is like the main point is that your mind's gonna try to override. Another challenge is asking other people to make the decision for you, right? When you just your mind gets involved and you just can't decide and you're playing both sides of the coin over and over in your in your mind. You call a friend, you call your part you talk to your partner, you talk to chat GPT or whatever. And all of those things can give you information, but none of them can access your own authority. And the third struggle is people pleasing, as per usual. sometimes we are so practiced, conditioned at anticipating what someone else wants from us or wants us to do that we'll just say, sure, like that's the extent, Sandy will do it. That's the expected answer, is of course. And it comes out of your mouth before you've even checked in with your body whether you have the energy for that or not. And it could be as simple as like going to lunch or to a party, you know, or taking on more responsibility at work or whatever it may be. And the final struggle is it's important to understand that the sacral authority operates in this. present moment in this second right now. So you can also fall into the trap of getting really caught up in predicting what it's going to be like six months from now that you stop noticing what your body's telling you about what's in front of you right now. So you might be like, what six months? I might want to sell my house. So why should I put all the reno renovations in now? Right. But the trick is to listen to the now. And again, a yes now doesn't mean a yes forever, and a no now doesn't mean a no forever, right? Just means not now. So often, you know, something changes or the opportunity comes back around for you and your body can respond differently. So just know that that sacral response is in the immediate. So if you are in relationship with someone with a sacral authority, you have children or parents or friends. here are some helpful things you can do to give their sacral response something to respond to. So the first thing is we covered this in the generator episode is like generators and many gens don't do well with open-ended questions. So if you're helping them to arrive at a decision, yes, no questions are fantastic for this to just really get them to think quick in the immediate. Is it a yes, is it a no? So, you know, if you were like, What do you want to do this weekend? And they would say, I don't know. And so instead you you should say something like, I don't know, do you wanna go hiking? No. Do you want to go for brunch? No. Do you want to just stay home? Yes. And that way they can like they're just responding quickly to their what their body is, what their b what their body's answer is. So that can be particularly helpful if if a sacral authority is stuck in their head and using their mind, just get them to go like You know, super fast yes no questions. Okay. And if you have children, with who are sacral, who have sacral authority, it's kind of a fun thing to experiment. So again, it goes back to the yesno questions, you know, what do you want to wear today? I don't know. But instead you say, Do you wanna wear this blue shirt or this green shirt? And they'll probably know instantly which one they would prefer. So it's like allow them to experience what a bod a bodily yes or a bodily no feels like so that they don't spend decades learning to override that natural innate wisdom like so many of us have, right? You're not making the decision for them. You're helping them learn or hear themselves, feel their way to that answer. So for all of you who like me have sacral authority, here's your experiment. So in the field with your sacral authority, here's something you can try. Get someone you trust to ask you a series of simple yes-no questions. It doesn't like just start with things that don't matter, like do you like coffee? Do you like fall, the changing season? Do you want pasta for dinner? Do you want sushi for dinner? Do you want to go outside today? Like super simple yes-no questions. And as you are listening to these questions, don't think about your answers. Just answer, notice your body. Notice what comes up and and let that be be your answer. And note like, is it a sound that escapes from you? Do you lean forward? Do you feel like energy and expansion in your lower belly? Do you physically pull back? Does everything kind of go flat and heavy? And then you can start to begin recognizing what that response feels like. You know, on thing when you do this little exercise, it's like things that don't matter, right? Do you like coffee? It doesn't really matter, but it's this experiment of understanding what your sacral response actually feels like. And then you can move that into bigger decisions. So you'll never be perfect at this. it's it's always a practice, I think, but it's really important to know what it feels like in your body, and then watch how quickly your mind kicks in to try and talk you out of it or talk you into it. So that is your field experiment for this week. thank you everyone for listening to the Sagral Authority. next up we're going to do splenic authority. This one's a little bit of a mystery to me. I'm gonna have to do a little bit more digging. Obviously, I don't have splenic authority. it's very much focused on intuition and an again and a like a whisper of knowing. Anyway, we will go through it next episode. Thank you all for joining me. And again, if you want to know what authority you have, please go download your chart off my website and follow along with these episodes so you can understand. how you make decisions. Thanks everyone. We'll see you in the next episode. If you're ready to start learning your own human design, grab your free chart at sandyconnery.com. And if you want some help making sense of your particular chart, you can book a private human design reading with me. We'll connect all those dots and talk about what your design actually looks like in your real life. You can book that at sandyconnery.com too. And if you're enjoying the show, make sure you subscribe and share it with a friend. Now go get your chart and let's get you living your human design.