127. Human design and intuitive eating, with Charlie Garnham

In this week’s episode I’m talking to Charlie Garnham. 

Charlie is a Human Design expert, specialising in helping women to move away from their Good Girl conditioning and stepping away from the frantic “doing” of their businesses and lives and finding more flow and ease by becoming the natural leader they were born to be. Intuitive, yet practical, Charlie uses the Human Design system to uncover your personal map to success in life through teaching the system to others and guiding them to embody their unique design. 

A marketer in her corporate career, Charlie has spent her life trying to understand why she is so different and found the answer in her experimentation with the Human Design system which has enabled her to stop feeling stressed and bitter, and live with ease in all aspects of life. 

In my conversation with Charlie, we talk about the concept of human design (a system that helps individuals understand their true selves and what makes them different based on their time and place of birth), and its application in areas like eating behaviours, emotional states, and movement habits, with an emphasis on aligning individual needs with lifestyle choices for improved well-being. 

Some of the things we covered are:

⭐ How human design can be linked to how people approach eating behaviours and body confidence by understanding your individual conditioning and learning your unique decision-making process.

⭐ The importance of recognizing personal preferences in eating, moving, and living rather than following societal norms or influencer trends.

⭐ The primary health system derived in human design charts and how understanding your environment can affect digestion.

⭐ How human design can serve as a deconditioning tool.

⭐ The sacral response and gut instinct, and the importance of asking yes or no questions to elicit a bodily reaction for decision-making.

⭐ Emotional authority in human design, and the importance of emotional awareness in the decision-making process for food choices. 

⭐ The importance of sleep and its impact on health, and how your human design can help with that.

⭐ Movement based on the body graph in human design.

And you can find Charlie here:

💻 Her website

🖼️ Instagram

💬 Facebook

Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity podcast. I'm Terri, and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity and health at every size and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture, and food rules so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies outside. It is grim. It is raining, It is cold, It is windy. It is winter. It is not spring. But in the recording studio, it's gloriously sunny and warm. Because I'm with Charlie. How'd you like that? I love that. I love it. I love it, Charlie. Hey, Terri. Hi it was that the best intro ever or what? Yeah, completely. So Charlie Garnham, we're gonna have a chat today about human design and how that relates to how we choose to approach eating behaviours and things like that. We're just, it's very vague because we're going to see where the conversation goes. But Charlie, you are human design expert, and this is gonna be something new for a lot of people. Maybe some people have dipped their toes in a little bit, but it's gonna be so interesting. So tell everybody who you are and what you do, because you'll do it more way better than I will. Ok. Thanks, Terri . Ok, so let's start off with who I am so hi, everybody. My name is Charlie. Thank you very much for that wonderful sunny introduction. And if you're watching, then, yeah, you can see that I'm. I put on my brightest jump at this morning because it's so disgusting out there. It's really horrible. There's even snow down here, by the way. No, there's snow. Can you believe it? Well i'm sorry. I am a human design expert and yeah, I've been studying the system for over 4 years now and the human design is literally the most fascinating thing that I think I've ever come across, which is why I do it for a living and I absolutely love to do. It is. It's fast. I don't know anywhere near enough about it, but every time I listen to you talk or I see something come up on my feed or you know, whatever it is, I'm like, it's so interesting. Ok, let's start there then. Do you want to explain a bit about human design for people who know absolutely nothing about it? Yeah, of course yeah so human design really trendy at the moment. So you may have heard of it already. If you have heard the name. You may not even know what it is though because it is kind of complicated to explain. It's just like nothing out there ever. But essentially the way that I like to describe it is it's what's called the science of differentiation, which essentially means it is a system whereby you can understand yourself and your what your true self, but also what makes you different. So the differentiation part is the really sort of like key, unique, individual person of who you are. And i do like to explain that it is a little bit like a personality test, but it's for your soul more than your mind to do, you know, answer the questions etcetera. Because the system is actually based on your time and place of birth, which makes it very unusual. You may feel as though that's, you know, a little bit skeptical and believe me i was skeptical with it as well. But when you've realised the magic within the human design system and the magic within your own human design body graph, it's almost like you forget that it's based on your time and place of birth and you just kind of lean into it and go, wow, this is really accurate, this is really amazing and you can go really deep with it as well. So yeah, how was that for an explanation of human design? Yeah, I like it. You're Yeah, you're right. Because I've only really scratched the surface with mine, but even just scratching the surface, everything I know so far and everything I've read about me and my human design is it makes you kind of go that is me. Which, of course it would be if it's your own personal human design based on you and how you come into the world and what time and place it was. And of course it's gonna be me. But it is. It's fascinating. It is yeah fascinating. Yeah, really is. So, yeah, i just love describing it that way. And essentially what you get when you put in your details, so you know, you can go to anywhere on the Internet, really, that gives you a free body graph. You free human design body graph. And yeah, it will come out with a chart and then you'll get a load of words. And unfortunately, at this stage, this is where people go, well, I don't understand what that is. And then they, yeah, they don't look at it again or they'll, you know, maybe come back to it another time because it is does look odd and it is very complicated. And the human design system definitely uses words in the English language that are a bit odd and means something different in human design to what they mean in the normal dictionary. So yeah, that's where interpreters like myself will come in and help you understand your chart a bit more. Interpreters i like that is right. You've hit the nail on the head with it because I opened mine when I first did it a long time ago and thought, great, that's colourful and there's lots of lines and then it gave me some brief overview of what bits and pieces meant. And I was like, OK, good. And then it was a lot to look at myself yeah so to have people like you yeah who can interpret it and explain it, and then explain how it applies to you and your life? That's the key thing for me is understanding how my human design makes me function as a human being. Yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, that's like the key sort of one of the key issues actually that we have in the human design system is that it's so out there and so strange and so unique that yes, you can learn it, but actually you need to then put it into practice and you need to, you know, embody it And it doesn't take just like, you know, one night or one reading or one week, one month, etcetera. It is literally a lifetime of learning who you are using the human design system. So if you choose to, you can get a lot out of it. Ok, let's dig into that a little bit. So when you say, you take it and you embody it. Can you give some kind of brief examples of what you mean by that? Just because for me, I know that I open the chart and went great, that explains who I am. And then it took somebody to say, and if you did this with it, you can do that and you'll have these outcomes. So can you give us some examples or? Yeah, of course yeah so I think, you know, one of the beauties of the human design system is that because it's showing you a map of who you are at your core, it's also showing you where you've been conditioned by society, parents, teachers, you know, media, social media, etcetera. And sometimes we might think we are somebody, or we might think we are good at something, but yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe not so much. And maybe our wisdom and our real key magic and talent have actually, you know, somewhere else. And it takes a lifetime of, you know, like uncovering this information about us sometimes to realise actually we're quite good at something else. So I kind of like to describe it as like a deconditioning tool. So it kind of helps you to understand, you know, where maybe you've been playing small all your life, maybe where you are actually a leader and you didn't realise it, maybe where you're creative and you didn't realize. It so it just helps you to bring in that, you know that conscious awareness of yourself a little bit deeper. And, you know, we can talk a little bit more about this actually, because this is going to be the main focal point of the conversation. But embodiment really of the human design system is actually that connection to your body, right. So in the human design system, the one of the things that you learn straight away is your unique decision making process. Ok, so we call it the inner authority or the authority if you're looking at your new human design chart right now, if you're listening to me. So where it says authority, that is your unique decision making process. And actually you know we won't be able to go through all the authorities today because there's quite a lot of them. But the authorities generally are areas of our life where instead of making decisions through logic or strategy or fear, because you know sometimes we make decisions from, you know, like a fear based place missing out, that kind of thing. Instead of doing that with our ego minds, we actually make decisions using our most intelligent part of us, which is our body, which is that real sort of like subconscious, you know, sort of like awareness of what we have about ourselves. So that decision making process is a bodily function basically. So we start to connect to our bodies and we start to use what we call in the human design system. We're going to live our lives through our strategy and our authority. So every person has a unique strategy to live by and everybody has a unique decision making process as well. And that is where we start to really start to embody that our charts, our human design, our uniqueness. So yeah. Cool that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. And This is why I wanted to talk to you and bring you on the podcast. Because there's two things there for everything we do in an intuitive eating and body confidence space here. All the work we do here is based around how we feel and what we think and all the beliefs that we have historically. Like you say, all the things that we grow up with, the messages we learn, the environment around us, our availability to food, that sort of thing. We learn all this stuff and we're never really given the option to just be our own person, eat in a way we want to eat, live in a way we want to live, feel how we want to feel about ourselves. And in talking to you, i kind of, I thought that there would be a way to link the human design system into how we approach eating and how we feel about, you know, the way we live our lives in our bodies. And I'd love to just get into that and yeah, start linking the two. Yeah, absolutely yeah and you're right. You know everything you know that we have here today in this moment has been the sum of conditioning, right. They all the words that people say about her or the actions that we've been told to do. And obviously some of us are more conditioned than others. And I will put my hand up and say I was very conditioned before I found the human design system and you as well yeah And yeah, it's, you know, it's all everything that we do today, every micro decision that we make. And when I say micro decision, it's like, you know what, are we putting on our mouths? Or like, you know, what are we drinking? Are we sitting down, are we standing up? You know those little tiny decisions every single moment of the day, they're all driven by conditioning. So and it it's very difficult in this, in this society, especially with social media when there's so much misinformation and the information that's out there is very much this is my way, do it my way and you will be OK. And the human design system is literally a great tool to understand that actually each person has a different way of doing something or a different way of digesting or a different way of you know, moving you know somebody's body. So learning the individuality of yourself, you're going to be different to that person. That's the influencer on social media that's telling you know you should do this and you should do that. And This is why your authority should only ever come from you and yourself. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I spend such a lot of time saying to people, you know, the people on the Internet, they're not you. The people that you are trying to be like, it's they're not you. And the way they live their lives, the food that they eat, the way that interacts in their bodies, that everything about them is not you. And the freedom comes from knowing who you are, what your preferences are, how you like to eat, how you like to move, you know, all that kind of stuff. There's real freedom in taking control of that and saying no, this is me and this is the way I'm going to do. It, yeah. Exactly. So what? Where do we start? It's a massive topic, isn't it? Where do you want to start? How can tell people how we can start to do this? Start to do this, Yeah. Ok. So I think really that start is learning your decision making process, right. Because 50 % of the world have what we call emotional authority, right. And this is you yourself, Terri. So would the emotional authority. This is basically someone who has a wave of an emotion. So, you know, you might be feeling really high and then really low and you'll go through waves. And for you what, what's happening? What your body is doing is it is taking a three sixty ° look at everything, at the decision. And you're coming to a decision after a certain period of time once you have looked at the decision in all angles. So we say with you guys with big decisions, So when I say big decisions, I mean you know who's who to live with, who to bond with, where to live and what to do for work. So like really big decisions here and we always say just to make sure that you don't make a decision in the moment, right. You need to sleep on it and that kind of thing. When it comes to like intuitive eating though, what we can do here is we can take a look and it would be really interesting to understand from your perspective Terri , having the emotional authority is we can actually take a look at bringing emotions into this sort of I guess like the decision making process if you what you want to eat depending on you know how it's going to make you feel you know before and after. So talk to me a little bit about how you do this in your in your life. Ok so the like how can I start this? The types of foods that I choose are very much based on texture and how it feels in my mouth. For a lot of people that are sound strange, but for me, there's a lot of how it's going to physically feel as it's going into my body and how the textures feel to me. To me, textures are far more important than a logical do I need some carbs? How much food do I need? It's all about the sensation of it for me. So for me to link that into my emotions is going to look like if I am low, if I'm sad, if I'm tired, I want something soft and mushy and probably warm and comforting. And if I am upbeat and cheerful and feeling good and energized, then that's probably going to be something juicy, something a bit lighter in texture, maybe something that is a bit easier to eat. So yeah, the emotional links are definitely there in the food choices. Yeah, yeah. I love that connection that you've made as well. And I think, you know with you guys, with the emotional authority, we, there is some emotional regulation that has to happen because even though we do go through periods of our lives where you know, it might be really good or really not good, you can be really high and really low, right. But just generally you shouldn't really be, you know, too high or too low too often, you know that real big switch in between the two. And I think, you know, we can also relate that to eating as well in the sense that just having this awareness that you are an emotional being and that's OK because you know, it is fine to be emotional in this world, even though we've been told that it's not, it's not good to be emotional. So even though we have these emotions, it's like having the conscious awareness of that and knowing I'm really high right now, I'm in a high wave, what do I need to be aware of right now in terms of what I wanna eat, right. And it's the same with the low wave as well. Cause, you know, like a lot of people sort of, you know, they'll get into the low wave and then they'll, you know, just go and eat all the things that are gonna actually make them a bit worse, right yeah so the that conscious awareness of your wave is gonna really help in this situation. I think to just know, right. I'm in a low wave right now. What do I love? What really comforts me in my low wave? Like would you? Would you agree with that? Yeah, absolutely yeah yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's awesome. I don't have it. You see, so I'm literally speaking from my intelligence of the human design system rather than the embodiment of it. So, yeah. And so yeah, that's kind of like the majority of people in the 50 % of the world that have the emotional authority. But there are other authorities in this world. And you know, a lot of it is to do with sort of like a gut instinct and also a like an intuition as well. And I think you know, this is where intuitive eating can really come in. Because if you can tap into your intuition and you can tap into the gut awareness, that gut instinct of. Do I want this yes or no? And your body will tell you the answer then. Actually, that is gonna help you to make decision of whether you're putting the right food in your mouth. You know, for you without the guilt, right? So. Yeah, absolutely. Without the guilt, that's absolutely key, isn't it? Because I think once you start involving things like guilt, you then change the decisions that you make, and then you're no longer being intuitive, right? You're eating. You're eating based on thoughts and feelings given to you by people again. Yeah, exactly. So you know, like in the human design system there are what we call sacral beings, so manifesting generators and generators. So obviously you're a manly Gen and you guys have this gut instinct. Ok. So for you it's really important to be asked yes or no questions because your body will be able to give you an answer. Yes, in which case you might feel a bit lit up, a bit light, a bit happy or you might have a know and it will be just heavy and maybe you might withdraw away from it. And that yes or no question there for you is going to be integral to the way that you choose your food, especially in a restaurant, right, where you've got, you know, lots of choice. But it's funny actually because when I explain how that sacral response works to people, I do use the decision making process of food, basically. So, you know, I say to people that a lot of people like their spouse or their partner might say to them, what do you want for dinner tonight? But to a sake well-being they don't know. Slight no that's the worst. Yeah, it's too much, right? Or not enough. There's not enough choice there. But if you turn around to a sequel being and you say, do you want pizza for dinner tonight, You will have a bodily reaction to that, yeah. And you'll go, umm no. Or you might say yes. If you say yes, you don't need to be feel guilty about the fact that you want pizza tonight because your body said yes to it. Yes, that's exactly that, is it. That is me to a tea yeah there's a standing joke that if I am too hungry or if I've eaten. So one of the two, I can't decide what I want to eat anymore because firstly, I don't have decisions in front of me to make, and secondly, who knows? There's a world of stuff. Just give me a couple of options. Just like you say, ask me if I want pizza, I will say yes or I will say no. Yeah, and actually that works through my whole food choices, the whole of my food choices. That is, when it comes to the textures and things that I was mentioning as well, It is a very easy Do I want something soft? Yes. No. Do I want something crunchy? Yes, it's very much at play. Yeah, i understand that completely. What about the people who don't have that response though? Do they kind of go, well, I can't do that and that's it. Done deal. So yeah, there are, There's about 30 % of the world that doesn't have that response, and I'm actually one of those included. So here we've got people who are maybe splenic authority, which is my authority, and that is intuitive. Ok, so you can be either Projector or a manifesto to have splenic authority. And this is literally like your intuition. And unfortunately, intuition is a very quiet whisper. So if you are surrounded by noise, not just noise, but energy, you know, big energies around you, it's very difficult to hear that whisper sometimes. So it's quite difficult occasionally to make decisions in a restaurant. I can be very good at making a decision actually, cause I will look down the menu and it will just go ping. That's what I want. So that's really amazing. yeah. Why is that? Do you do you think it it's because the noise is shut out when you're focusing on the menu what? What is it that does that, if you're so affected by the noise? Yeah, i think, yeah, I think when there's like a menu and I know, so like basically I'm a non sequel being and I'm surrounded by sacral energy, right. And what I'm doing is I'm not only taking in that sacral energy, which is beautiful by the way, but I'm also amplifying it as well. So that's what I mean about it being noisy. So if I, if I'm in a restaurant, I guess really I can use my sort of projector sort of focused aura to really focus on that menu and go through it and then it will ping, right, because of the focus. So I guess really that's the way that I can block out that noise and that energy. So maybe a focus actually would be quite good for people who are non sackful. Yeah, this is just coming up out of majors as we talk, so interesting isn't it? Yeah, So interesting. For sure there are other authorities. They are a lot rarer than the ones we talked about today. And The thing is that I would say as a human design expert is that I would probably want to look at the body graph as a whole as well as the authority. So I won't go into detail about them today because it's I think for me, I'm very passionate about making sure that the body graph as a whole is looked at. So yeah, I've gone through the main ones, about 90 % of the world I've gone through right now. So hopefully, fingers crossed, most people will be covered. They can. They can fit themselves into that well. No, not fit themselves into that. I didn't mean that they are resonating. With they're resonating. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we don't wanna fit people into boxes, do we? But it does happen and it even happens in the human design system, right? But yeah, we want to try and get away from fitting people into boxes for sure. Ok, so we've had an overview of the authority. What else in the human science system do we need to look at? So there is some stuff in deep in your human design chart that can help you with health. Ok. And the caveat to this is that ideally, and this is according to the International Human Design School, which is where I'm qualified, ideally, you do need to be using the human design system and what we call experimenting with it on a regular basis. So this isn't really something that, you know, if you came to me now and you had a reading, you know, and you haven't heard of human design before. And if I say to you, you know, do this in terms of your eating or your environment or something like that, I'm not saying that it would make a huge difference to you. It might, you don't know. So that's the little caveat to it. But basically in the human design system, there is something called the Primary Health system, OK. It's not talked about that much unless you are actually, you know, a, what we call a APHS sort of expert or a variables expert. They they're one and the same. And the Primary Health system actually comes from the arrows that are at the top of your body graph. So all it is for arrows. So they look really insignificant and it doesn't look like much data can come from them. But actually the human design system has this weird layering system where they, you know, there's a there's a top level thing and then there's another layer and another layer and there's literally like 4 layers going on here. So the Primary Health system can help you understand two things really for your health in general in terms of like your actual physical health. One is something that I really personally am really passionate about and I really love and that is the environment that you are designed to digest food in. Ok, so when we have a good digestive system, life is easier, right? I don't know if you've ever had digestive issues, but I'd certainly have. Yes. Yeah. Life is easier, right, When we have a good digestive system and this part of that of your chart, it's not just digestion of food, it's how you digest life as well. But when you're told what your environment is and you start again experimenting with whether this is going to help you or not, it can occasionally or quite often be quite transformational for people. So a lot of now is this isn't a problem that people say this, but a lot of sort of health coaches, etcetera out there do talk about how it's very good to be very calm when you're digesting right when you're eating yeah now, funnily enough, I have a, what we call a calm digestion from my human design system. So their advice is great for me. So yes, it's good for me to be calm and, you know, to, you know, not eat too fast and should just be, you know, maybe not have too much noise or music going on. That's great for me. However, you can also get the opposite of calm, which is nervous. Ok, so you can actually have a have somebody who can sit there in a bustling, busy, crowded, noisy environment, and that's actually good for their digestive system, right? And when you find out about this, it's like, Oh my gosh, all those times that the health coaches told me that I had to do this and I'm actually doing it incorrectly. Yeah, that is a little bit crazy, isn't it? Yeah. Because I know what my preferred place and kind of setting is to eat. I know how I like it to be OK. I want it to be silent. I don't. I want a little bit of something going on. But I also don't want to feel like everybody's on top of me and it's all very busy and noisy yeah so to think that actually can affect your actual digestion as well is it's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. And I actually have problems eating in big, crowded, noisy areas. I can actually feel my body tents up. It's like part of, like the anxiety that I have in my body with these, you know, the all the noise that's going on. And it takes my nervous system a while. Last time I did it, I was in London a couple of weeks ago for a conference and it was 500 people there and it took me 45 minutes to come out of that room to calm down, enough to eat and to digest properly. And the best thing about it is that every single time that I have been to a conference in London, I have had the worst digestive issues ever, right? And then this time, the time that I took myself out and it took me 45 minutes to calm down, I didn't have any digestive issues because I was calm when I was eating. Wow. Yeah. And it's only through knowing yourself and knowing your child that you would know that was, you know, a valid thing, yeah, that you need to pay attention to. Yeah, cause otherwise I would be sitting there going, well, I'm missing out. I'm, you know, not being social by eating. You know, with other people in there, you know, there's all these things going through your hair. They're the reason why you should stay in the conference and eat. But actually, life is a lot easier when you follow your Primary Health system, for sure. Yeah, yeah. And what you need for yourself is self-care That's it. Yeah, that's what it is. It's self-care So can you tell by looking? You can tell just by looking at the chart which kind of which way this works for you. Or is this something that you really need somebody to interpret for you? So most charts systems like if you're you know you're listening right now and you've gone on to I don't know my body graph or Jovian archive or something, most of them they won't tell you have to have either like you know like a paid subscription so that you can see the bigger details or yes you need like a reader like me to interpret it and tell you what you are. It's not just calm and nervous there's actually some other ones phone in the mix as well. And yeah, it's really interesting because like with anything with human design, it's about you going away and experimenting with it and improving your life based on the information that you receive. So I'm not telling you you know, you need to be nervous and you need to have the TV on and all this sort of stuff. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. But it's can be life changing for sure, yeah. Yeah, that's blown my mind a little bit I did not know about. Them so also within the Primary Health system is actually an awareness of the correct environment for you. And this is not just food. This is just for you in general to enjoy life. And I actually really love telling the story of a friend of mine who was born in Yorkshire. So a little bit of a Yorkshire lad not near the sea or anywhere like that. And he found himself living most of his life in Exeter down by the sea and he does a lot of walking along the coast. Ok And I pulled his human design chart and it shows that he wants to like his environment essentially is shores, natural shores and he doesn't know why he ended up down here and that wow yeah. And actually it's not just him that's done that I've I know like lots of other people that have done that and they've just naturally gravitated towards their natural environment. So and I think really where environment comes in your human design is when you're in your correct environment, you have a happier life because you feel better and even you can breathe better sometimes as well. So one of the environments is mountains. And actually if you have a mountains environment and you are up high in the mountains, like literally on the hills, you can breathe better. And I've heard many, many, many people tell me that they can breathe a lot better when they're up at high. That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. And that's so interesting because i know that I prefer to be very grounded. Very kind of. I'm not an outdoorsy person, but I do like to be outdoors yeah and I I'm not somebody who likes to go, you know, hiking and rambling and nature hunting in whatever way that looks like. But I do get something special from being outside, So I do. I do really kind of buy into that, Yeah, that there's an environment for everybody. For everyone, yeah. Do you know your environment? I do not. I'm just wondering just yes, I. Did up. I've just looked yeah i do not ask me again, Charlie. Do you know what your environment is? I do. Mine is valleys. There we go yeah so with valleys, So if you think about like what a valley is, it's like something that's, you know, going through either like a road or river or something going through something that then has, you know, high bits on either side and you like being down in the valley, in the depth of the valley. So yeah, I completely see where that's coming from compared to what you said about mountains. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah you probably also feel very secure when you've got boundaries around you potentially as well that can kind of come in with valleys and the an urban makeup might be quite good for you as well. I mean, I think that nature is good for everyone, right? No matter you know who you are, that urban makeup might be quite suited to you, yeah. Definitely more of a city girl than a town than a than a country bumpkin, for sure yeah for sure i don't get the enjoyment of living out of town that I get living in town. And it's not even that I want to be in the thick of anything in particular, it's just this is where I prefer to be so. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, that's how can that also relate to actual your actual living space and how you how you feel physically within your living space? Just to explain that a little bit further, not everybody is going to move from one end of the country to the other yeah or, you know, not everybody can move physically to another space or have the access to another space, but how can we use that to make sure that our living spaces are a much more aligned place to be? Yeah And yeah, I agree with you can't we can't all just like live on a Hut on the top of the hill, right. But we can go up there. So I have a friend who has mountains environment and she's here in Exeter and she has a variety of places that she can go that will get her up High Dartmoor, you know Holden which you know if you're around here then you'll know Holden Forest is like really high up above Exeter. And so yeah that's where she goes and that's how she how she lives. But the other thing with mountains specifically and I've heard this from a lot of people is that if you live and work on the second floor of your building, then you will also feel absolutely good as like really good as well. So I mean I'm actually in a second floor bedroom in my in my house. So this would be perfect for somebody who had mountains environments as well. And I think really it's about interpreting all of those different environments and what that actually translates to in your day-to-day life, right. So like one of them is markets, for example. And you know, that is basically being in a little bit of an area where it's got a little bit hustle and bustle and there's things going on. There's like movement, there's money being exchanged. So a cafe essentially would be great. And we can't all go and work in a cafe 8 hours a day every single day. That's just not feasible. But occasionally you can say to yourself, right, I'm going to get out and put myself into my perfect environment and I'm gonna do about a day's worth of work in one hour, which is, by the way, what I do. And then, you know, you all, you all set cause you feel great. So yeah, it's about kind of interpreting it and what's good for you when you hear about your human design environment. Yeah, yeah. When you when you put it in terms of work and things, it is without a doubt, when you're in a place that you feel better, you're going to be more productive, you're going to make different choices, you're going to just going to go about your day differently, aren't you? Yeah. I feel like I'm echoing everything you said, but I'm trying to kind of agree with it and process it as you're talking. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. That makes. Sense yeah, that's fine. Then we can also talk a little bit about movement as well if you want to, if that's where you want to go. Yeah, go. For it? Yeah OK so with the human design body graph specifically so you know when you run your chart you get this kind of like weird looking like body, so you know the heads at the top with the what we call definition within that chart. So this is the coloured in bits you can actually start to piece together what is good for you, movement wise, right? And people who have some strong definition at the bottom of the chart that is potentially either connected to the splenic centre, which is the intuition, or connected to some of the what we call the motor centres, which are centres that create energy. This is actually where it's quite important for movement to happen. If you have that in your chart, so especially if you've got the very bottom one coloured in the root centre, it's very important for you to be able to move right. And the movement doesn't have to be like I do, going to the gym and lifting weights, it can simply be walking. So those of us who have jobs or businesses that require us to be sitting in front of a screen most of the day, actually, when you have a look at your chart, what we need to do is we need to add in some light exercise throughout the day. So for example, with me, I have a very small treadmill behind me and I also have a little trampoline. They're called like rebounders or something like that yeah so for me to get that physical energy sort of moving in my body and for me to feel really good because I can get quite tired if I stay stagnant, just literally getting up and walking on the treadmill for 5 minutes is the key to my success. And you know, movement is really good for your body, for anybody's regardless of what they have in the human design chart. But when you look at it, sometimes I can see where that slight misalignment will come in because I know that person is sitting in front of the computer screen all day. And I'm like, you need to move the energy because the energy needs to, you know, get out of your body. So yeah, another really important factor of. Feel so seen. I feel so seen right now. Yeah, yeah. You have a lot of definition like in your motor centres for sure. So yeah, how does that work for you? Do you move? Do you get up and move? I do not, and I know it when I finally do move because yeah i am really bad for sitting and working and just power on throwing, get stuff done and I get into it and I get deep into it and then hours passed by. I haven't been to the loo. I haven't even got a drink and I have not moved. And as I stand up, my whole body goes whoa, yeah, for a while, yeah, It's terrible. I do not move enough. And it's. Yes charlie, I agree with you. I know what you mean. I I've definitely been there with you know, being a bit stagnant and like really hyper focusing on work and everything like that. And all it is conscious awareness. And you know, you might have that conscious awareness today because of the podcast you've just listened to, but actually it's gonna take you a lot of time to actually bring those new habits into your life again. When I found out my human design type, which is a projector, I found out that I needed to be aware of when enough was enough, right? So work wise, when is enough enough? When, you know, after like 6 hours of work. Have I done enough work? Yes, probably charlie so stand up, you know, get yourself a drink, go to the loo right and so this conscious awareness will come in. It will take you a long time. It took me a year to learn it. And when you finally, you know, sort of learn it, life just gets easier because you start to put in these habits that you start to think, OK, I feel better. I need to do this more. I feel better. I feel better. And every single little micro decision comes, you know, comes into alignment for you. So yeah. Yeah, it this is, this is the key, isn't it? It's unwavering, all the old stuff and dropping these new thoughts and habits and behaviours in and that's what makes the difference. I know that a lot of people, when they come to my place, they've got a bad relationship with the movement because it's been so intrinsically linked to the food that they eat for such a long time. So for a lot of people, it means that exercise is exercise and it has a purpose. It either means you burn more calories, you can eat more food, you know it has a purpose and it doesn't matter if it's enjoyable or not. But I think this, the whole human design way of looking at it, means that actually it's right for you don't have to attach it to food or you know, earning anything or making up for anything. You can do what is good for your body because your body needs it. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's so important that we understand that as well. And we understand, you know, what works for us because, you know, like I've got some you know, good definition down at the bottom of my chart, but I only have one motor centre defined, whereas you've got four. And you know, for me, I walk 10000 thousand steps a day and if I don't, I can't get to sleep at night. So the movement part of things is really important because it does affect everything. It affects your decision making. It affects your focus, it affects your sleep. So yeah, the movement is key and it doesn't have to be exercise that you don't like. So I love lifting weights in the gym, right? But I hate yoga, so I don't do yoga. Simple as that. I'm a spiritual person that doesn't like yoga, but that's OK. Yeah, but you do. You isn't it just? Yeah what is the point in pushing yourself? I went to I have told this story on the podcast before but I don't think I've told you. I went to a spin class once and I went once because it was at

something silly like 6: 47:18

00 in the morning. I got there and literally within two minutes of it starting I was like, i hate this. Can I leave? Can I actually leave? Is it OK to leave? Of course it's OK to leave But I didn't leave. Stayed there and it was horrible. And yet my sister, in contrast, she absolutely loves spin. And i know Charlie either. She's a little bit on the crazy side, no? No, me. But it just goes to show it's horses for courses, right? It's umm, if you enjoy it and you love it, go do it. Because you're going to get the benefit from it. If you don't love it and it's not movement that feels good to you and to your body, you're not gonna get the benefits out of it. And by benefits, I mean, you know we all wanna grow with fit, strong, healthy bodies into old age, right? Yeah and you're not gonna do that if you're doing stuff you don't enjoy doing. Yeah, exactly. And I think I'm with you on the spin. I even at the height of my fitness, just before lockdown I was, you know, lifting incredible amounts of weight off the floor of the gym. But if you try and get me on a spin bike I am like out the door because for me I don't like feeling out of breath. So anything, any exercise that has me like panting and like you know trying to trying to get my breath back, I can't stand it. Which is why weights is great because you don't really have the out of breath feeling when you lift weights. So that that's where like that. I'm a white girl. I'm with you. I understand that one yeah yeah, there's a there's a real sense of anyway, it doesn't matter what there's a sense of. It's irrelevant right now. It's strength, isn't it? Yeah and I'm really competitive with myself. With yourself? Good i'm glad you're competitive with yourself. Well, with everybody I'm competitive, but I'm really competitive, even with myself. So every time I go, when I lift weights, I want to lift more than I lifted last time. So yeah, I get a lot out of something like weights, whereas some people might hate it because they're like, why have I got a lift this? It's all I'd rather go and do something gentle and lovely. Yeah, yeah. And I get that. And I think also women kind of fear that they will look like they're mostly if they look the weight off the floor. And I'm here to tell you won't, you won't, you won't. Look, mostly so, yeah. No, even at the height of my fitness and my gym going time, i was going to a full on bodybuilders gym and being trained by somebody who trained pro bodybuilders and even under that, even under those conditions and with that trainer, that was never my goal. I wanted to be strong and I wanted to be healthy. My goal was never to competitively bodybuilder or anything, but I did not look muscular. So, you know, it takes an awful lot to get to that point. It's you're not going to get there by accident that's. For sure, yeah, yeah. And, you know, like it will take, unfortunately, a restrictive diet to do it, which is kind of not what we're here for. No, absolutely not. No. You mentioned sleep as well, so yeah, I had the pleasure of being at your sleep workshop the other day. It was brilliant. I really enjoyed it. I've got so much out of it. Do you want to touch on that a little bit? Because sleep does affect the way we approach life. It affects how we get up in the morning, It affects the food we eat. Because if you're very tired, naturally you're going to sway towards types of foods like carbs because your body's going to say I need energy, get it in. So a good night's sleep affects an awful lot of stuff. So do you wanna touch on that and human design? Yeah, of course, by the way. You don't. You don't have to if you don't want to, because I know that this is your workshop. Stuff No, it's fine. No, I'd love to talk about sleep. I think, you know, i spoke for over an hour on the subjects and the other day, didn't I? And you know, I have, I have a lot to say on it in terms of the energetics of see. And I did say right at the beginning of my master class, I said, look, I'm not touching on the science of sleep in this cause I'm not a health coach. I'm not a qualified professional in any way shape or form. I'm literally just telling you about the energetics of it. And it's really interesting from the human design system to sort of look at a chart and understand what sleep is gonna be like for someone. And, you know, there's a lot of elements that you can take a look at. I think maybe for the purpose of the podcast, I could probably go through the different sleep strategies or like evening routine strategies for each different human design type. Because obviously the rest of it's, yeah, an hour long. We don't want to be here for another hour. So each human design type actually comes with its own unique sleep strategy or like evening routine strategy. And the first thing I want to say about this is that it's yet another area of your life where the experts come in and they say you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't do that and you should do this and you should do that. And actually, whilst they might be right and whilst there might be some science behind that proves it for each individual unique person, some of those things might be incorrect, right? So this is where I'm going to invite you again to think about if you're doing something that's right for you and it goes against that societal norm and it goes against even the science, don't worry you, do you. So let's start with the generator type. So this is generators not manifesting generators as well. This is just generators by themselves. So you guys have got this kind of really amazing motor energy that just sort of runs and runs and runs and goes and goes and goes. So you guys will want to try and use up your energy before you go to sleep at night. So kind of sounds sounds a little bit normal, right? I think, you know some people in society kind of say that anyway. The only thing is though is that with generators it's not, it's not necessarily working right. So in the human design system or just in life in general, we have different types of work, I guess really. Or different kinds of energy, there's physical energy, of course, emotional, the actual work. So maybe like, you know, mental. And we've also got spiritual energy as well. So it doesn't mean I'm not sitting here telling you that as a generator you need to work 12 hours a day and then fall into bed, right? Because I do not want anybody take that from this, you are. So you still need to rest, you still need to do self-care but just make sure that you're mixing and matching the different types of work and the different types of energy. So if you're feeling drained from your work, your mental, you know, expenditure, go and use you go and like expend some of your physical energy instead and kind of mix and match it throughout the day. So that's generators. Now manifesting generators are kind of similar to you guys because you also have that ability to go all the time, right? So similar, similar sort of situation. However, you have this very unique part of you that because you've got that definition for motor centre to throat, which makes you a manifesting generator. Manifesting means someone that is able to really manifest out loud, you know, what they want and really express their true selves as well. That part of you needs to be almost kind of like shut down before bed. Ok, so you've got this hybrid thing of right, OK, I need to calm down. But I'm also working and you know the boats are still going over here, right? And this is a very strange thing, and I feel very strange saying this all the time, but I know that you're going to say that this works for you. So it's all good. It's actually really good for you to work in bed. It is true. It is the most bizarre thing because I completely resonate with what you're saying. You're getting to bed. I'm like, I'm really tired, but I've got things to think about and I've got things to do and I want to get this done and so yes, the way that I settle down at night more often than not is to get into bed. Yeah, and sit there and cozy up and then do a bit of work. So I might have a look at my emails. I might do a bit of planning for a podcast. I might whatever it is I might do a little something or even if it's learning quite often cause trying to learn Spanish but quite often I'll do I'll do some of that and it seems to be the thing that finally makes me settle down and go to sleep. It is. You're right. It's the strangest thing. Yeah, it's but if you think about like, you know, the way that society sort of dictates how we are supposed to be, it's like, you know, put down your phone, stop doing work. I've even heard phrases like, you know, like sleep hygiene or bed hygiene and how your bed is supposed to be the only place that you that you sleep. You're not supposed to be working bed. You're not supposed to, you know, do anything else in bed and it's just like, no like manifesting generators. You guys need to calm the manifests a bit down, but then still have that motor running with the work. So yeah, it's very unusual, but I. Can't imagine. I can't. No, I don't want to try it. I hope you don't mind me because i hope you're talking to the other manifesting. Generators of the world generators. Yeah, because I thought you were trying then to tell me to get into bed in a very kind of clinical space with no devices, nothing to do, Just sit there. I know exactly. Just doesn't work. Does it? Does not work? No so those are the those are the sequel things that we've got in human design. So the other three are what we call non sacral. So these are projectors, manifestos and reflectors. And essentially because we're non sacral, it means that throughout our day we are coming into contact with that Sacral energy all the time. And I mentioned earlier that when we're in or with Sacral energy, we do amplify it. So sometimes we might even appear like the most buzzy, you know, on the go people ever because we're amplifying it basically. Now it's very difficult for us to sleep when we're like surrounded by that sacral energy. So for the three types that are non sacral, it's very important that we essentially these sacral ourselves for from sacral energy before we sleep. So take yourself off and be alone an hour before bed and just calm yourself down. Do whatever it is that you want to do. Doesn't matter whether it's, you know something like meditation you're supposed to do because all the sleep experts say that you're supposed to meditate. Or you know, you can do you know anything really like watch Netflix or read a book or play games and this can kind of really help you. So us non sequels, we are supposed to go to bed before we're tired, OK And that is the key if what if we go to bed when we're tired, we will wake up feeling like we haven't slept. Ok. So always go to bed before you're tired. Another little trick to the projector as well, Just because this is like part of my story, because we have the focus and penetrating aura really hones in and focuses. It's actually very good for us to focus on something whilst we're trying to get to sleep. And you know, for me that looks like having my iPad 3 inches in front of my face, right? So I'm lying there with my iPad on my arm. And then when I when I know that I'm kind of like drifting off to sleep, I know that it just sort of like goes down the bed and sort of ends up, you know, half on the floor, half on something else down there. And yeah, it just it like I just fall asleep that way. And I've done that ever since I was 10 years old and I've literally had to focus on something to then be able to fall asleep. Now, if I focused on something that I have never seen before, I can't sleep. Because i'm wanting to know what the outcome is of, you know, whatever it is that's happening. But if I, if I'm just having a look at something like friends or scrubs or anything that's kind of like been on repeat in my life for a long time, then I can fall asleep within the first episode basically. And yeah, it's a great sleep tip, but not if you're a health coach. Cause health coaches would never say to have an iPad in front of your face. What with all that bright light and all this stuff that's hitting your brain. It's another example, isn't it, of where the whole one size fits all gets rolled out. You must go to sleep like this. You must not do this in bed. You must eat like this. You must have 8 hours sleep a night. And you know. And so it goes on. Yeah, exactly. And I think that it's really important for you to find what works for you because, you know, I might die of cancer in 20 years time because of all the electronic waves and whatnot going through my body because of that. But at least right now I've I have 8 hours sleep every single night and I just. I love my life because of it so. Well actually when you say it like that you think, hang on, now would I trade, you know, X amount of years of my life. But actually if you if you look at it the other way round, if you are not doing those things and not getting good sleep, then we also know that the health impacts of not sleeping well are many and varied and can be quite debilitating. So yeah, surely it just makes sense to find a way to go to sleep and get a good night's sleep that suits you, rather than thinking about what it might or might not look like twenty thirty forty years down the line. Yeah, exactly. That's a really good point. And you're right. Like, if I wasn't getting very good sleep right now, what other health concerns would I have? So yeah, sometimes it's going to have to be a toss up, doesn't it? But yeah, I love my sleep. I get 8 hours a night. Ok, good. Spread him. There's not a lot in the world more satisfying than a good night's sleep. Is there anything else you would like to touch on? Gosh, I think I've touched on a lot today. We've been talking for a while, haven't we? Yeah, I'm honestly like, you know, the human design system, especially the chart, it should be looked at as a whole, like as a as a holistic view. So even though we touched on like the main points, I think really when it comes to health, intuitive eating, you know, that kind of thing, you know, that would just have to be looked at as a, you know, as a as a whole. So I haven't got anything else right now to add, because we've had the most amazing conversation, haven't we? We really have covered a lot. I can't believe I'm just looking at the time and I can't believe how quickly it's gone and how much is flown by and how much we've squeezed into the conversation. Yeah, OK Tell people where they can find you and what you can help them with. Cool OK, so I do like hanging out on Instagram more than anything else. So you can find me at the Charlie Garnham and yeah, I any questions, I'm more than happy to answer or you know, have a chat with you. I absolutely love talking about human design. Everybody always says to me, charlie, you light up when you talk about human design and I'm like, yeah, why do you think united yeah. And so, yes, come and come and have a chat with me. I do. I do hang out on Facebook as well. So yeah, please find me on Facebook if you want me to, if you want, you know, to have a chat on there instead. And I also have my website, which is Charlie garnham.com And at the time of publishing, I will have a new website. So it's very exciting. I actually do a lot of work around leadership with human design as well. And really that kind of stems from helping women to understand where they've had that good girl conditioning and how they can start to deconditioning to really step into that leadership, you know, sort of like embodiment of their leadership that they're destined to do. So I do help quite a lot of business owners to come out of that nitty gritty sort of you know do in their business slow down to speed up and to get out there as impactful leaders. So that's the area of human design that I love to focus on. You can come and have a reading with me now. If you have a reading with me based on the conversation we've talked about today, that's absolutely fine. I can talk about anything in the reading you want. We can talk about leadership. We can talk about health and talk about food. We can talk about this. Doesn't matter. I don't mind. We can talk about anything in your reading. So just let me know. And yeah, we can do a reading together. And I can tell you all about the amazing magic in your chart and yeah, what's holding you back as well, which is I think one of the key things sometimes is human design. Yeah, it's so interesting. It's very addictive. You won't want to stop when you start and also I will just say Charlie's Instagram. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. I love the stories, I love your stories because it is little snippets. I'm always learning new stuff about human design from your from your stories, and you've got a really nice way of explaining things and putting things across. So yeah, definitely one to follow. For sexual yay thank you so much, Terri . It's been lovely collecting with you. Like you and I have been having little chats and everything for quite a few months now, haven't we? Yeah so it's been great to connect with a beautiful manifesting generator like yourself. And yeah, the sake well-being and the projector, they go quite well together. They always make really good collaboration, partnerships, etcetera. So yeah, it's good to have some money gems in my life. Yes. And when you were talking about the leadership, I was thinking, there's future conversations to be had here. There we go. Charlie, thank you. I've had such a great time talking to you. Yeah, I know that. Everybody's gonna get such a lot out of it, and so thank you very much. Yay thank you, Terri . See you soon.