Human Design Manifestors in Relationships
Are you a Manifestor or a Manifesting Generator? Do you know anyone who is?
FYI, Manifesting Generators are a hybrid Generator type with identifiable Manifestor features.
The odds of meeting a Manifestor versus a Manifesting Generator are rare to highly unlikely because they are respectively eight and thirty-five percent of the population.
If you don’t know any Manifestors, you won’t be familiar with their incredibly independent and strongly felt energy. Or you may be familiar with it and not know what it’s all about.
You may have come to a wrong conclusion about the person.
If you’re a Manifestor of Manifesting Generator and new to Human Design, you may not understand how valuable understanding and relating to the other three HD types is to your health and success.
If you are not a Manifestor, how do you get to know them if they are so rare?
In your Manifesting Generator relationships, how do you recognize and relate to their Manifestor characteristics?
What are your Manifestor and Manifesting Generator relationships like? Peaceful or challenging?
Ra Uru Hu describes the Manifestor energy as “repelling.” That’s harsh if you are new to Human Design or don’t understand the context of its use. It is a word we shy away from because we don’t want to be hurtful. It is often used incorrectly as a dismissive label or a protective shield or bludgeon. Either way, everyone is missing out on beautiful relationships with tremendous mutual benefits.
I've had the opportunity to meet many Manifestors and have access to their birth dates. Once I had their Human Design charts, I could reflect on my experiences with them and learn. I have worked with them as a nurse, coach, and therapist, but relatively speaking they are few and far between.
With that said, I find it tricky to write and speak eloquently about Manifestors.
Generators, Manifesting Generators, and Projectors are easy to write about because they are plentiful. They thrive in coaching and counseling containers because their strategy for success depends on interaction with the outside world.
When they understand and use their strategy correctly, they remind me of a field of marigolds on a sunny day. They shimmer with delight because they have found the secret to freedom, opportunity, health, and success.
For context: Generators, Projectors, and Reflectors respond to external stimuli or invitations.
Manifestors decide, inform, and initiate action.
Their strategy for success does not rely on collaboration with the outside world.
They initiate themselves. They invite and respond to themselves. It is independent and private.
This private process means they don't speak much about their inner world. They don’t feel the need to.
As a result, the rest of us who have them as friends, partners, children, and colleagues may struggle to understand, relate and get along with them. Their experience is outside our knowledge base, and they are not inclined to explain themselves or verbally explore their decisions and actions.
I observe Manifestors in couples therapy. As they relate and communicate with their Projector or Generator partners and children, I am learning what is easy or difficult for them in relationships.
two reasons Manifestors have sought relationship help from me
1. Difficulty relating to themselves
This happens when trust in their internal process and connection to self is offline. If they seek help to understand themselves, they go against what is natural for them. They are asking for help to be a Manifestor. A person who is supposed to be an independent decision-maker, informer, and action-taker.
To illustrate being offline: A Manifestor pleaded with me to tell them what to do for work. They had become very ill from stress and the physicality of their job. We had a coaching session, and I gave them many suggestions and referrals to this blog, this blog, the HD Job Change Workbook, and our Facebook group.
They concluded that I had not helped them at all.
An aside: All Human Design types can use their strategy and deductive reasoning to suss out whether a career or job is right for them. You can discuss it, but no one can tell you what to do. That’s what your strategy and authority are for. They clarify your decisions. It is the same for Manifestors.
This leads me to the second reason Manifestors seek help.
2. Difficulty relating to others
Manifestors most often ask for help with relationship conflicts and finding and maintaining friendships and intimate partnerships.
They state they don't understand why they "push" people away. They recognize that they have lost out on people and things that mattered to them and wonder what they are missing.
Their non-Manifestor partners ask for help "getting close to" and being heard by their Manifestor partner.
What it takes for a Manifestor to ask for help
You may not know this about Human Design Manifestors, but they are not designed to need or ask for help.
If they can get themselves to ask for help, they can remain stuck because of their natural resistance to asking, needing, accepting, and using the direction they receive.
Asking for help when you are not inclined to do so is emotionally uncomfortable, frustrating, angering, and mind-bending.
Here are a few examples of Manifestors asking for help and informing at the same time:
In their written application, a Manifestor wanted me to know that they "didn't take direction well and don't like being told what to do."
After downloading a free resource for Manifestors, another informed me they were "triggered" because the word "don't" appeared in the copy.
And another said they loved their Manifesting Generator partner very much, but "I don't really need [them]."
Manifestor Relationship Challenges
Manifestors do not tolerate well having their internal decision-making process investigated, questioned, challenged, or intruded upon whether it's well-meant or vital to someone else's process. This makes counseling and coaching containers tricky to navigate for both the Manifestor and the advisor.
Collaboration, teamwork, consensus, informing, and understanding the external process of others do not naturally occur to Manifestors, nor are they inclined to be curious or interested in it.
For the rest of us, understanding the expression of the Manifestor personality can be equally challenging. It can bring out defensive, insistent, and pursuit-like behaviors that confuse and anger Manifestors. Frustration, anger, and communication breakdown quickly follow.
Reflecting on my experience with Manifestors has brought me to a place of compassion. They are easily misunderstood and rejected. It's a solitary experience or theme. It can be lonely. They have a very independent "I don't need anyone" energy, but like most people, they yearn for connection.
My interactions with them make me curious and thoughtful about my responsibilities to the relationship as well as the effectiveness of my communication.
learning and sharing experiences about Manifestors
Because of the rarity of Manifestors, I extended an invitation to the members of Human Design In Action so everyone could learn and share their Manifestor experiences. Well, the post took on a life of its own.
It became an opportunity to learn from Manifestors who were willing to let people into the experience of their inner and outer world.
What I most loved about the thread was the chance to see the contrast in their emotional states of peace and anger. Because of the main reasons Manifestors enter my world, I rarely see their peaceful state.
It was also interesting to observe the reactions of enthusiasm, resistance, and anger to the content and comments in the thread. One person stated they would only read the post and not the comments. It was unexpected but educational.
It illustrates the need for examining our Human Design practice. Is it in motion or not? We can either be satisfied with surface HD ear-candy, or look at ourselves honestly, no matter how uncomfortable.
A Mother and Her Manifestor Son
One poignant contribution came from the mother of a young Manifestor boy. She wrote passionately about growing closer to him because she took deliberate action to learn about his Manifestor worldview and experience.
Her application of Human Design became a lifeline to understanding, relating, and preparing her son for life in a primarily Generator world. That is an experience I could never write about. She did it inside our group. It's a must-read.
If your curiosity is peaked, join us at Human Design in Action. Get a deeper understanding of Manifestors and the other types relating to each other and the world around them.
If you have feedback, questions, or notes for me, drop me a line and let me know.
Brigitte Knight is a Human Design educator and mentor as well as a Human Design informed counselor. She loves teaching people to use their Designs to improve their relationships.
She helps ex-Mormons, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others who have left high mind control environments to manage their anxiety, guilt, loneliness, and depression.
Her life’s experience as a Registered Nurse, therapist, ex-Jehovah’s Witness, and Human Design practitioner since 2006 can help you start living your best life.