Who are you, really? How can you live your life as authentically as possible? Umhlanga mother Lauren Smith is helping families and children understand their uniqueness and improving family dynamics through a fascinating system called human design.
Wouldn’t it be nice to understand your children, your partner and yourself a little better? Why do they do the things they do and behave in certain ways? Why do you? Imagine the impact this knowledge could have on your relationships and family dynamics.
Human design is a system that – using different modalities like the chakras, astrology and quantum physics – helps you figure out your energetic map or ‘blueprint’ and discover who you are meant to be and how you should live your life. Pretty amazing, right?
A chartered accountant and a mother of two (Mackenzie age 5 and Harvey aged 1), Lauren recently left the corporate world to pursue her passion for helping families understand each other better. Her company, My Design Family, sees her reading people’s human design charts and helping parents understand their children’s personality types better.
So how does it work? All Lauren needs is your (or your child’s) date, time and place of birth to read a chart. “Human design allows us to see what energy we have available to us all the time and what energy we draw from the world and people around us. It shows us where our strengths and natural talents and gifts lie, as well as the areas where we may have vulnerabilities and challenges. This information allows us to put strategies in place to leverage off of the strengths and minimise the impact of the challenges by being more aware of them and how to overcome them.”
It was after she went through a particularly rough time in her own life, Lauren says, that she first discovered human design. “I lost my dad, had two miscarriages and wasn’t loving my career. I was in a really bad place and needed a change. I worked with a mindset coach for a few months, which was the most remarkable experience. One of the modules we did was human design and it really resonated with me. The more I researched, the more I was drawn to it. It helped me understand so much about myself and why I always felt so different growing up.”
Lauren’s five-year-old daughter was also struggling with anxiety and, after reading and then implementing what she discovered in her chart, she saw massive changes and improvements in both their lives.
Deciding to follow her bliss, Lauren became a certified human design reader and started her business four months ago. “Human design is incredible for our younger generation. As adults, we are often already so conditioned to live and act in certain ways that we end up bitter, angry and frustrated, often feeling stuck and unhappy in our careers and relationships. Giving our kids the knowledge and freedom to live as they were meant to – and not how society wants them to – can have a huge impact on the generation that we are raising, making them aware and confident in themselves and their uniqueness.”
Lauren has already seen massive improvements for families she’s worked with and says she can see the value this information could add particularly to the lives of teenagers, who are experiencing peer pressure and struggling to understand themselves.
“I’m very aware that there is already a lot of ‘mom guilt’ out there and I don’t want to tell parents what they are doing wrong. My goal is simply to give them more tools to understand their kids and then they can do the best they can with what they have. Most parenting guides are very general but human design looks at the individual first, allowing you to parent them accordingly.”
Lauren stresses that this is not a ‘quick fix’ but rather a process to follow and be aware of daily. A reading with Lauren includes a full one-hour video explaining each element of the chart as well as a detailed document, including a list of parenting strategies for your child’s specific personality type. She also has a short parent course option available for those not ready to go too in-depth just yet. “Human design is not about becoming someone else, it’s more about unbecoming what we’ve learnt and been conditioned to be by society. It’s about learning to celebrate our individual uniqueness and live in energetic alignment and to live a life with more ease, grace and flow and better health. I’m so passionate about sharing this information. I created My Design Family because I believe we can have a huge impact, particularly in the family and parenting space in a world that is trying to make us all the same.”
Lauren’s short parenting course is R250 and full chart readings start from R1650 for an individual reading. She is offering Get It readers a 15% discount if you book online using the coupon code GetIt15.
Details: lauren@my design, www.mydesign.family, IG: My Design Family, FB: My Design Family.
Text: Leah Shone | Photos: Olivia Rebecca Photography
