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Hello, beautiful beings. Welcome to Leadership by Design Podcast. I'm your host, Karina Apollonia Tripp, and you're about to listen to one of the few episodes that I recorded in the last two years and decided to keep on this podcast despite a slight change in my focus. And as of 2025, I am relaunching this podcast, and the focus is now all about entrepreneurship through the lens of human design and more specifically, PG5 system, which is an official business application of human design. But there are some goodies from the past from the time that I was talking more about personal awakening side, which human design actually is. And I decided to keep them, and these episodes can support you in the conditioning process while claiming more of who you are. So you're about to listen to one of them, and I hope you enjoy it. Today I have a big topic for all of you, and this is no matter what is your human design configuration, because I will tackle aspects that are universal to many, many charts. Because almost all of us have some areas of life where we procrastinate, but it is especially painful when we procrastinate on the things which would actually make our life better or it would give us more joy and meaning. And I know you know this pattern because so many of us are complaining about this, and I see it so much in the human design community. And I was going through the same pattern, and I am still having residue of the same pattern. That's why I decided to share it with you. Because the cousin of procrastination is perfectionism, and these two are conspiring together to keep you living in the world of daydreaming where everything is perfect, but your real life stays the same and nothing changes. I am not going to talk today about every area of human life where this pattern shows up. And hey, there are many, but today I was especially focused on being visible in this world, of claiming your space, bringing your uniqueness, your essence, and your total genius to others, because it is the right of every human being on this earth to show up unique, to witness uniqueness in others, no exception. I really truly believe that. That's why in today's episode I will talk about the tricks of your mind that keep you procrastinating by hiding behind perfectionism and avoiding visibility. And all of it, of course, through the lens of human design and my life experience. So let's get to it. Many people these days are so done with working 9 to 5 soulless jobs, and more and more of us are going in the direction of entrepreneurship. And if that is the direction that came to you through your strategy and authority, and yet you still don't follow through it, I have some deep realizations that came to me after a few years of being in that exact state. We would love to be our own boss, share our gifts and talents with amazing people that we can help, and be paid for service that comes from our true essence. This is like a dream come true for many of us. But somehow we procrastinate on that dream. And we are not always able to take aligned actions needed to make this happen. And as always, I have a personal story to share, but before I tell it, I want you to know that it can be a story of many people who are alive at this point in history. One of the reasons for that is that we live in a huge global change. And this change is about our background frequency that supports the global conditioning of our planet. And effects of this change are already visible the more we approach the year 2027. So the last 400 years, we had what it's according to human design called the cross of planning. And this is this frequency is basically fading. And it was about institutions, organizations, contracts, like workplaces. You work, you get money, you do this, this happens. It was governments and structures which supported us to live in communities and keep the contracts, even though it wasn't like beneficial to us. So the 9 to 5 comes from this uh frequency. So it was logical, it was detailed, and it was safe. And now we are approaching what is called the cross of sleeping phoenix, and this is an energy which is individual, and it is about abundance of spirit, and the global theme of this times are in one of the channels which make the cross, the channel of charisma 3420. So it is about being an entrepreneur who is empowered by being busy to survive of its own without the help of institutions and structures, which were so present for the last 400 years. It is gone. So we all feel it. We see the proof of so many people working from a laptop, traveling, not having a typical job, and they are setting their own time. They seem very busy but empowered, and this is the new conditioning for the people on planet Earth. So all of us may feel this pressure because in ourselves you know the program is changing, the program is changing the game, and you are conditioned by school and institutions that the old way is the way. You have a job because you have to, but your body knows that very soon humanity will go into a new direction. And you may not soon have the safety and also the drudgery of these structures. It is not necessarily a conscious realization, and yet it can really affect you deeply. That's why, before you decide that, for example, having your own business is for you, check with your inner authority that this is the correct path. And now I will tell you a story. So some of you know that I am a four-sex emotional manifestor. And as a six-line being, we live the lives which are basically three-part lives. And the first part of my life before the Saturn return, which is around the year 28 and a half, 29, I was experimenting, I was living the life, making a lot of mistakes, there was a lot of trial and error and a lot of trauma. Nothing worked, and I was constantly trying, and I was, you know, like being in the world as I was, but it also created a lot of pessimism that things don't work. But beneath that, there was this little hope or little knowing that the things will change, and climbing on the roof, because that's the another part of six-line profile life, starts around 26, where you start to have the effects of Saturn return already. For about seven years, till I was 33, I have disappeared, I hid, and I went into the face of a huge introspection in my life, doing the bare minimum to have my bills paid, but I could not recognize my life at all. I withdrew so much, and I knew that there is something coming in, but it felt really yeah, it felt scary, and I felt really, really lost. And exactly around the date of my Saturn return, it was in 2019, human design found me. So for the last four years, I studied, took training, I followed my authority on that. I did like a couple of hundred readings in aura for free for people because I was, yeah, I was so passionate, it was even more than passion. I just wanted to play with it, support people, and practice. So if I would meet new people in my workplace, I would always do their charts, and I started to have a little bit more impact as a manifestor, and it felt really good. Yet somehow I could not show up for a bigger audience and treat it as my business. Somehow making it a business seemed serious, but it was my dream to earn money supporting people with human design, though, doing what I really love instead of going to a soulless job and draining my precious energy basically every day. So many days I have wondered what is wrong with me. Why can't I follow through with my clarity? Because I have emotional authority, which means that I need to wait for clarity. Why am I perfecting so many things in my business and it's never enough? And when they are enough, they took me so much time that I was completely exhausted and I could not sustain it. Guys, I have like hundred pages of written content, never published, on human design. And of course, at that point, being a human design professional, I knew the intellectual explanation coming from description of my open centers, but it takes time to really get it on a cellular level. It takes time to the condition. I knew that, but it doesn't mean that it is easy. You need many ways of explaining things, pointing it through the stories of other people, and most of the time we need to go into our not-self-behavior over and over again and talk about it and contemplate it, annoy other people with it, maybe even get so bored and tired of living this life that finally we decide to change it. And I thought that how it works, and on some level it does, but I was also deeply annoyed at all the shallow advice in the human design community, like just follow your strategy and authority, and don't take me wrong, it is simple mechanical truth, but saying this to people who suffer and try to follow whatever their strategy and authority is, but the mind is stronger, so they repeat the same patterns over and over again. And some people, professional people, even sometimes pride themselves in saying these words. Just follow your strategy and authority, putting you down when you try to talk it through with them, and they are telling you it is just your mind story, and the only way is just to follow your strategy and authority. And it is your mind story, but this story brings pain. That's true, it is your mind story, but there is more to it. Sometimes it is not even a story you are aware of, and yet you act based on it. So we cannot dismiss it. We need to talk about this. So now I'm going to explain to you why I have procrastinated with showing my gifts to this world, hiding behind perfectionism, and also what might be your own mind's reason that keep you doing exactly the same. And if you are not able to change it yet and follow your body, I get you. You are not alone. Just be aware of what is happening, and by being an observer, you can get incredible wisdom to share with others who struggle to, and maybe showing your imperfection can help them feel less alone. So that's what I am going to do for you today. Around two weeks ago, or almost three weeks ago, I heard the sentence that changed my life and helped me to realize something really, really profound. The sentence was perfectionism is just a shame wearing a nice dress. And I have realized that I was living in a constant state of shame, and actually I wanted to hide it. I did not show up and serve the people who needed me because I was feeling ashamed. Do you know where the shame came from? From my openness. So in my chart, I have a split definition that can be bridged by single gates. This is where my mind will go first to make decisions. It is a priority. So if you have a split definition and not triple split, not single definition, but two areas of your body graph which are not connected, and they could, if you would have the single gate or a channel, or a gate and a channel, then according to your mind, you would feel whole. And I have two single gates like that: gate 12 and gate 37. So the story with the gate 12, it is the gate of articulation, mutating others for your voice and what you basically say. And I am not an English native speaker, so I was actually ashamed of my accent, of my grammar. I would need to write it all down to articulate things exactly how I mean it. So you would understand me. So I wanted it to be perfect, but actually I was ashamed. Can I ask you something? Do you understand me talking? I think you do. Is my English perfect? Probably not. But do you even care? I will make grammatical mistakes. I will sometimes pronounce funny. I realize that actually you would rather have me help you and show you more of how I care about you by providing the content than doing it with perfect words in a perfect way, and for example, show up once per quarter instead of doing it more often because I need to write everything down. And I knew it was my conditioning. I was aware of it for a few years now. I knew it was my not-self, but after realizing that the shame was behind it, that actually the shame is thriving through our not-self, something clicked. I looked through all of my openness and I saw the shame lurking and creeping from all of it. So the next gate, which I have a split definition, and this gate would bridge my split, is the gate 37. It's about affection, family, friendship, and belonging to a community full of connection and also food on the table. And I have gate 40 on the other side, so by design, I will work hard for you. I have the willpower to deliver to my people, to my clients, but my conditioning says that I need affection for doing so. I need you to love me for my work. My conditioning says that if I don't deliver goodies, I won't be loved. I won't have food on the table. That I need to deserve your affection through hard work. So showing up imperfect, showing up without putting in a lot of work meant that I wouldn't get your affection. And in online community, it means that I won't get any response whatsoever from what I'm giving you. No comments, nothing. And this conditioning kept me away from showing up and delivering those goodies to you because they needed to be perfect, to get this affection in return. And I asked myself, can I show up imperfect and expose my nervous system to being also ignored? Even if I worked hard? Can I play with that? Am I willing to live my design regardless of your reaction to me? And when I asked myself these questions, I was ready to take a risk. No attachment to outcome. I show up because I really want to creatively express myself, period. So these were my main reasons as to why I would hide. And after these reasons, open centers are coming in, building up more layers to these stories. So if you have a single definition or triple split definition, your primary conditioning comes from open center first. And if you have a split definition, then the those gates or channel and gates are primer, and then the open centers are also coming after words. But they are all kind of playing together and creating a story of your not-self-mind. So let's look at all of them, all of the centers, through the lens of perfectionism and shame. So if you have an undefined G center like me, do you try to have a consistent personality that has a certain consistent habits because it will create your consistent identity? So for me, online entrepreneur means creating content and having routines and schedules that build my identity as a person who owns a solo business. If I do not have that, my nuts feels so lost. So it is looking for direction in other people's lives. So how they do business, what it means to have that and sustain this business, performing those habits. So I did not act because I needed the perfect direction and habits that created this fixed identity. Sounds familiar to any of you? And there is just a shame wearing a nice dress. If you have an undefined G, you will change identities, the habits that create those identities. And it is okay. Can you show up messy and lost anyway? You will find your unique direction that can change a lot during your life. And I actually find it now very interesting. I would even say it can be a great adventure to be able to play with many identities without being attached to any of them. If you have an undefined planning center like me, can you let go of the things, people, and places that do not serve you? Well, I have a trouble with that one. Actually, I have a trouble with all of them, but in the context of perfectionism. So you need to realize that you amplify the fears of others, and your conditioning will make you stay with the things that are known to you. It made you feel good at some point, even if they are not serving you anymore. So being hidden is a safe place, even if by staying hidden you do not grow and actually feel unhappy on some level. So the saying familiar hell is better than unfamiliar heaven fits perfectly here. And I would be afraid that people would abandon me if I'm not perfect. If my content is not perfect, people would not love me, people would abandon me, I wouldn't feel safe. So staying hidden was safe, and it was more important for my mind than living my nature. Nature and risking the unsafety of being rejected. So here I want you to know that this idea of familiar hell is better than unfamiliar heaven can translate to how your nervous system protects you from danger. If you heard my previous episode, I said how important is the regulation and expansion of your nervous system to be able to slowly show your body that it is safe to take steps that bring change, that change is safe. And I guess that was the biggest step I could possibly take to start my deconditioning and eventually showing up in my business. And with each small step, more bravery comes, and it is a slow but very nurturing dance. And for me now is slow is okay, slow is safe. That is my mantra now. And I will talk about this nervous system approach a little bit later in this episode. So stay tuned because it's really important part. But coming back to the centers, if you have an undefined sacral center like me, you may have an attitude of all or nothing. And this is a perfectionism tendency in a nutshell. And it comes from cycles of burning myself up by being overzealous, working way too hard on my business, and then being so exhausted that I could not sustain it. And to show you an example, I had this plan of having this YouTube channel and posting frequently, like weekly, on my YouTube to you know bring human design knowledge. But some of you may have YouTube or know about this that editing videos and basically, you know, making this YouTube machine happen, it takes a lot of work, a lot of work. So I wanted my videos to be perfect and the perfect light, perfect everything. I bought so much equipment, and I knew people were saying, just start with your phone, blah blah blah. But my nervous system was responding to this, and that was my way of feeling safe from my perfectionism, and that was the cause of me not showing up because it was just too many things to do. And now this podcast is much easier. I just sit and record, then I use voice to text program, and I have a written version of the podcast for you. And in the future, I will hire someone to do the video editing for this podcast, and I will use it on YouTube, for example. So it is less work for me, more fun, less perfection, more action, and it doesn't have to be perfect, it just needs to be there. And this time I truly mean it. But it took me the bravery to say, you know, I'm letting go. If you have an undefined head center like me, you may research and look for inspiration instead of showing up. So I did a research on human design for four years. It was very inspiring research of esoterics and mechanics. And I do have a gate 61 line 4 in my open head center, and this is literally called the line of research. And it was great, I loved it, but I was stuck, I was chasing more and more inspiration that I could empower myself with and the people who would listen to what I am here to empower them with. And you know, instead of showing up and actually being inspired by those people who contact me and who comment and who are just taking part in this equation, I was hiding and I wanted it to be perfect. So, you know, the research on human design was fun, it wasn't painful. I have enjoyed it so much, and I still do, but it is time to share what I have discovered. I have enough for now. So, going further, when you have an undefined Ajna center like me, you may struggle with anxiety. Your mind is loud and messy, and if you are lucky enough to have gate 47 in undefined Ajna Center like me, the gate which is called oppression, how nice, then you try to make sense out of your anxiety, creating even more anxiety. So I have this oppressive mental activity, which I am aware of, and it is like 70% of who I am because it is my personality son. So a lot of my energy was going towards resolving my world in my head, and it was hard to show up and be so messy and imperfect. I was just exhausted by thinking, and then I noticed how this so-called oppression, oppressive energy, is actually incredibly helpful for the people I talk with, for other people. So making sense, connecting dots, when I share my realizations with others, I feel amazing. The anxiety is gone. I mean, it is obvious that gate 47 is in the collective circuit, which is about sharing, but to realize that actually to relieve myself of this anxiety, just a little bit, I can share. So I am. So welcome to my AHA Kingdom. And I hope I didn't lose you with this, Fred, and that helped me to kick perfectionism in a butt because my mind is for others, not for me, and they need these messy realizations. So instead of sounding smart, I just share. And if you have an undefined ajna, you may not want to show up because you are trying to get a perfect education, you need to know more and understand more, a never-ending story of more and more. Now, I just show up and I'm not certain if any of it even makes sense to you. I show up with this imperfection and I am able to maybe reach one person who can relate to my experience to let them know that they are not alone in this journey. Then it's all worth it because it is all about sharing when I am in connection with others. And maybe you do too. If you have an undefined throat center, I cannot grasp what that really feels like because mine is defined. But if I feel into it, hiding behind perfectionism can be a way to get attention because your mind will try to convince you that without this perfect shield, you will be ignored. You may not believe that you can get attention. So, for example, in your business, it can show up as having a resistance to market yourself. So then you do nothing or you try things that are not aligned with your authority. You're making decisions to try to get attention, but it won't work anyway because it comes from your not self. You won't get the attention you really desire. Attention to your beautiful uniqueness. Perfectionism, in that case, has its roots in the mind's belief that you need to get better at getting attention. So you perfect the way you speak, the way you dress, and the way your social media look, and it can be an overwhelming task. So you burn yourself up or procrastinate or both in a cycle. If you have an undefined emotional center, you may hide behind perfectionism as a way to avoid confrontation of any kind, which could actually cause you to feel the intensity of emotional waves of other people and emotional waves connected to this whole experience. So, for example, if you would like to become a coach or have a business that involves connecting with other human beings, dealing with people's emotional reactions to what you are saying may seem so overwhelming that you start to avoid the emotional world altogether. Hiding in your perfect procrastination bubble, convincing yourself that you need to get more skills, better education, knowledge, how to market, all of those other open centers as well, which are in your chart, or learn how to write in a way that it's correct for your design, even, but actually, you just want to avoid the confrontation of being in the world, sensitive and open as you are, feeling so deeply as you do. Yes, you will feel, but it is your gift. I mean, the beautiful gift of holding a space that is filled with understanding of what people are going through, what they are feeling, and you are their witness that is something precious and need to be cherished. If you have an undefined heart center, while here, perfectionism is at home. Your mind is constantly trying to convince you that you need to improve yourself, that you are not good enough as you are comparing yourself with other people and trying to be better in order to feel worthy. So if you have cycles of procrastination and perfectionism, they are coming from the same space of not feeling good enough. And this one hurts so much, and it is especially triggering in the world of social media where you have constant access to stories and visuals of people living their best lives. So you won't show up because you are not good enough, you are not perfect, and you cannot keep up anymore with trying to force your inconsistent willpower to become better and better, and then procrastination comes in. Perfectionism and procrastination. If you have an undefined root center, you feel the stress and pressure in your body because you are so open and so sensitive to the stress levels of other people. So your mind will tell you that in order to get rid of yourself of this pressure, you need to complete everything fast, as soon as possible. If you have anything to do, you will feel this pressure to finish and get rid of it. So the pressure would go away. But it never does. There is always something new to complete. So your perfectionism can manifest as being a task machine. You make your life a to-do list. This is a bottomless list because each day there is more. So when you show up and do your things, for example, in your business or on the way to having one, establishing your presence comes from this pressured energy. And you are riding on adrenaline. So at one point your perfectionism can easily change to procrastination. And then after procrastinating, you feel so much pressure that you start the cycle over and over again. When you look at all of these undefined centers, you may notice that actually the procrastination is saving you. Procrastination is a symptom of perfectionism. You may be stuck in this pattern for a very long time because your mind doesn't allow you to let go of the shame. This shame is not yours. It comes from the conditioning. It doesn't mean it is not real. It is, and you feel it. It is painful, I know. But when you truly grasp it, even if you would satisfy your mind with trying to become perfect, it won't work anyway because openness never closes. So you will meet another human being and you will feel another layer of conditioning and chasing perfection will never end. Do you want to feel this shame all your life? And I realized I did not want that. So what is the solution? Firstly, please do not be ashamed of talking about it. But instead of saying I do not feel good enough, so I need to get better, or I am afraid that if I don't look perfect, people won't notice me. You can start by changing these sentences to my mind says that I do not feel good enough, so I need to get better. Or my mind says I am afraid that if I don't look perfect, people won't notice me. And you can do it like this with any center. Can you feel a difference here? You stop shaming yourself, you acknowledge that it is your mind shaming you. You create a distance between what you think you think you are and what you actually are. It doesn't bypass what you are going through and force you to have only positive thoughts. Like this shit ever works in a long run. Like I'm I've tried it, I hated it. Your thoughts impact your emotional state as well and your nervous system. So we cannot dismiss this reality, but we take away the notion that what you think about yourself and that of itself is a huge relief. Secondly, if you are in a pattern of perfectionism and procrastination that impacts your visibility, it just means that your nervous system is trying to protect you. You have been in a loop of shame for a long time. And here I'm going to come back to what I said before about me being annoyed at people in the human design community saying, just follow your strategy and authority and it will be all good. Well, my personality moon placement is in the gate 52, line 5. It is the line called explanation, and because it is fifth line, I will be practical but heretical here. I was actually sitting on it for a long time, and I have realized that because since you were born, you are conditioned to have this shame that comes from your openness, the shame of wanting to be what you are not. Actually, your nervous system is forming based on what it thinks will keep you safe. So, for example, let's say in any area of your body graph where you have third lines, it can be your profile, it can be any gate. And for example, you have an undefined heart center, but it can be any center, it works exactly the same way. So by design, in this gate or even your profile, you are here to try many things, have a trial and error process, that things won't work, you break something, you just experiment as a child. And because your parents do not understand this, they will tell you that you made a mistake, that this is wrong. And because you have an undefined heart center, you feel like you are not worthy. So you need to improve yourself. Not having approval from your parents means literally death, especially for young children. So your nervous system learns that in order to keep you safe, you need to be on a self-improvement path all your life. This is called phone response. To get there, you are also in a fight and flight response state, getting better, improving, and making yourself more worthy by doing all of those things. And here we have perfectionism. By being in these states, you are burning yourself up with too much adrenaline and cortisol in your body. Humans are living in a constant fight, flight, phone responses, and then their nervous system shuts down and there is a freeze response. So basically playing dead. Here you procrastinate. Your nervous system wants to keep you safe. That is what it thinks you need based on years of conditioning. And you feel shame that you do it. So when you feel shame, there is a trigger emotion and your nervous system is programmed to keep you alive. Shame was associated with danger in your childhood. It is associated with the lack of parental approval in this case. So once again, to keep you safe, your nervous system responds, sends you on a self-improvement path, but you have less and less juice to sustain it, so you procrastinate more, or you experience burnout or even depression. But why don't I say the mind is causing it but your nervous system? You see, when your mind, through your openness, is telling you things that are not true when you are a child, and maybe your caregivers do the same. If you believe it for a long time, these become habituated thought patterns coming from your mind that imprint your nervous system, pathways and strategies to keep you safe. So with enough repetition, your mind programs your body responses. As a child, when your parents told you that you made a mistake, maybe they were angry, even screamed at you, or punished you by forcing you to go to your room, and you have an undefined spelling center like me, then you can literally think you are going to die without them. Your nervous system learns that in order to keep you safe in this environment, you need to be perfect and not make any mistakes. It is your mind, but it influences your unconscious. As you see, advice just to follow your strategy and authority is not enough. This conditioning is so deep that it prevents you from doing so. Not because you are broken, but because the first and most important task of your nervous system, which governs almost all of your other systems, is to keep you safe. Following the excitement of your sacral, even if correct, may require some steps that your nervous system flux is dangerous and it will prevent you from doing this activity. Period. That's why the deconditioning process in human design should involve nervous system work as well. So when I hear some people, this is your mind, just follow your strategy and authority, I want to slap them in the face for real. I get angry. I was trained as a professional by amazing human design teachers to whom I am so grateful for all the education and knowledge. But not even once when I bragged about my not-self problems, someone told me maybe it would be helpful to look into regulating your nervous system. Well, maybe they're not trained, you know I understand it, that you don't say it. I'm thinking now that maybe it was obvious to them and they thought I was aware of it, who knows? But if not, then we have to unpack many things that were told by Ra Uruhu and make it even more practical. This is what he wanted for this body of knowledge, that it will evolve. So please, if that's correct for you, learn about nervous system regulation. It is going to save your life. And then following your strategy and authority will be an amazing adventure and not another task to do on your becoming perfect to-do list. And I hope you can understand now that your perfectionism and procrastination are just symptoms of your nervous system doing everything it can to keep you safe. It is a blessing that we have this mechanism. There is nothing wrong with you. But when you know it, it is your responsibility to show your nervous system new pathways. Show it that it is safe to do the things that in the past were flagged as dangerous. You can do it through regulation and expansion work of your nervous system. There is a lot of free content online on the internet that will help you to do that. So you can just Google it. The somatic work with the human design approach is one of the most effective combinations to live the life that is your life. Shining your essence and being visible to everyone who needs this light. My friend, let me invite you into a little fun experiment. This podcast is still a wee one, and I so deeply desire to spread my work as far as I can. If you love this show, please rate it and review it on Apple Podcasts. Or if you are listening on Spotify, simply rate it and leave a comment under your favorite episode. As a thank you, I will send you my living your design self-study program. All you need to do is email me a screenshot at contact at Karinaapolloniatrip.com with the subject line podcast. You will find the email in the show notes. And once you do, you will get access to Google Drive with 10 modules covering the foundations of the human design system. About 15 hours of content to support your deconditioning and awakening journey. Inside, I cover all the types, strategies, authorities, and also the nine centers in depth. As you know, I work with business owners through the BG5 system, but I'm also officially certified as a living your design guide. And this program is the most important step if you truly desire to make decisions from your authentic truth. This gift may shift or change in the future, but for now, I want to make this work available to as many of you as possible and to support my community. So if you want to support me as well and you truly enjoy this show, let's do it.