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Astrology, The Planet Transits, and Human Design

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What You Need To Know About Astrology, The Planet Transits, and Your Human Design

I am not a student of Astrology. I know a little about it, my birth sign, what the planets rule and how they are part of Human Design, but I cannot do a chart or tell you what planets you have in what house. I do know, however, that over the course of a year, the sun moves through all 64 Gates of the Human Design Chart and as it does, the energy of that gate can be felt by all of us whether we have that gate highlighted in our chart or not.

So why should you care? Because you and everyone around you is affected by this energy. The Sun transits every 4-6 days and bring you creative energies that you may not always have access to. It can also bring you challenges, and in both cases, it can be profound.

On April 5th  of this year, the Sun moved into Gate 51. Gate 51 is Called the Gate of Initiation.  It is sometimes called the Gate of Shock. It is all about disruption and the unexpected, about waking people up and learning to stay the course, be steadfast in your belief and not let the unexpected cause you to lose your faith.

On April 5th this year, terrible tornadoes ripped through the Southeast. There was enormous destruction, and people lost everything. Some lost their lives. The storm that generated these tornadoes was powerful and made its way up the entire east coast causing flight delays, and airport closures, damage and power outages.

I have Gate 51 highlighted in my chart and I was keenly aware of the energy and felt it’s impact personally the entire week.  Although my disruptions were minor compared to the tornado victims, the impact was there none the less.  It woke me up as it was intended and gave me pause to pay more attention to the planet transits. Here is the story of what I experienced.

We had planned a trip to visit family in the Northeast. We were due to fly out on the 6th, but the weather was still disrupting things, so we changed our flight to the 7th.  It wasn’t any better then. Airports along the east coast had ground stops. Nothing was going in or out. Our flight was delayed 8 or 9 times that day and they finally delayed it until 1:00 the next afternoon. We were not alone. There were hundreds of cancelled and thousands of delayed flights.

The next day we returned to the airport to leave. The weather was beautiful, clear, and sunny. Yet, we were delayed again. The 1:00 departure came and went. 2:00, 3:00, 4:00, and 5:00. Finally, we gave up the idea of heading to see family and cancelled. No problem, we’d do it another time. The airline gave us a refund. It wasn’t their fault, but I sure felt that Gate 51 energy in a way that I had never felt the sun transiting before.

It helps to understand what energy influence we will be under as the Sun transits the Human Design Gates throughout the year, how that might affect us if we have that gate highlighted and how it is affecting others. There were a lot of disgruntled passengers in the airport the 2 days we spent there trying to fly out, grumbling, and yelling at ticket agents, frustrated with the airline, complaining and declaring they were never going to fly with them again.  Really?  It was weather not the airline. There were some in the Southeast that lost everything, even their lives. A few people were taking it in stride but most were not.  I saw Gate 51 in action as I watched the disruptions happen all around me. I saw that those that embraced what was going on and made the best of it were so much better off than those who were resisting, kicking and screaming about something no one had any control over.  Gate 51 is about using disruption as a catalyst for growth and development, holding on to your beliefs and staying true to who you are no matter what is going on around you.  I wished in that moment that I could stand up and yell.  Don’t worry.  It’s just Gate 51 energy and it will pass. Awareness is the first step to understanding and change. I am forever changed to a student of the transits, studying them each week and working to understand how the energy affects me and the people around me. 

Each month I publish a newsletter with a section in it that covers the Sun’s transits through the Human Design Gates for the month. If you would like to subscribe to the newsletter so you can be aware of the energies impacting you each week, download one of my free ebooks on the homepage at https://NancyOKeefeCoaching.com and you will be added to the newsletter list.

Your Self Worth Is A Key Driver For Business Success

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Your Self Worth is a Key Driver for Business Success 

Your self-worth defines many things in your life and your business success. How you see your value determines how others see your value, how much business success you have, even where you price your products and services and the type of clients you attract.  If your business isn’t where you want it to be, a good place to start looking is your self-worth.  

Why We Struggle With Self-Worth

Human Design can provide us with awareness and clarity around how we are wired to operate in the world.  In your Human Design Chart, self-worth lives in the Will center.  If you are one of the 80% of people with an open or undefined Will center in your Human Design Chart, it is highly likely that you struggle with your self-worth and may expend a lot of energy trying to prove yourself.  If this sounds like you, the first thing to do is to stop feeling like there is something in you that needs to be “fixed” or compensated for.

Sometimes, struggling with your self-worth can look like overachievement.  You do more to achieve more than is expected.  This often looks like success on the surface, but if overachievement is grounded in low self-worth it sets up a no win scenario.  You will likely employ strategies that go against your energy type and are not aligned with your strategy.  This may result in expending a lot of effort for little return other than the achievement.  And keeping up that pace and feeling pressurized to constantly perform at extra high levels is a recipe for early burnout. When you get to the point where you can no longer keep up the pace, you begin to feel worse about yourself.

Struggling with self-worth can impact how much money you make.  People who struggle to prove themselves often discount their prices unnecessarily or give too much away for free.  If you have ever struggled with what to charge for your offerings and settled on a price that was less that what you really wanted, self-worth might be the reason.

Looking At Self-Worth Through Human Design

Here is the thing to remember about your self-worth.  You are divinely designed to be perfect just as you are.  You are just as you are supposed to be because you are here to fulfill a unique purpose in the world. This is true for each of us. There is no one else on the planet that is exactly like you.  That alone makes you valuable.  There should be no comparing because we are all unique and all have a unique role to play.  Each of us is one piece of the puzzle we call the Human Story and without your piece the story is not complete.

The real question is are you living out the highest expression of your energy not a question of self-worth?  Every energy in every Gate in Human Design has a high expression and a low expression so you might not be living your full potential if you are living out the low expression of your energies.

For example, people that expend a lot of energy trying to prove their worth can become frustrated, bitter, even angry. Sometimes feelings of jealousy arise or thoughts of sabotaging other people’s success.  Thoughts like these can bring us down, make us feel like we are not good enough and we can use that energy to feel bad or beat ourselves up over what we perceive as shortcomings.  Or we can use that energy in a higher expression to create possibilities that motivate us to achieve something.  It all depends on how you value yourself and use your energies.

Sounds simple so it should be easy to increase your self-worth, right?  No. There is a complication we live with every day. Society places more value on some energies and less value on others. There is a lot of pressure to conform to societal and work norms to be accepted. This can cause us to hide some of our valuable energies for fear of not fitting in. Over time, not being free to express who you truly are can take a big toll on you and leave you questioning your self-worth.

Here are 3 Keys to help you own your worth and elevate your feelings about your value and your self-worth.

  1. Look inside.
  2. Don’t compare yourself to others.
  3. Make a list of all your accomplishments.

Look Inside

To own your value is to become aware of all your energies and the gifts and talents they create in you. Often, we don’t see our gifts and talents as important because we use them so naturally everyday that we take them for granted. Awareness is the first step to owning your value and the best way I know of to gain that awareness is to look inside yourself through the lens of Human Design and rediscover the amazing human being you are.

As you increase your awareness of the energies that make up how you are wired to operate in the world and the gifts and talents you have that support you in fulfilling your purpose, explore how you are using your energies.  Are you on expressing the highest potential of the energies, creating the highest possibilities for yourself or are you living in the low expression, hiding your gifts, limiting your potential, and decreasing your worth?

Don’t Compare Yourself to Others

The pressure in our society and in the world of work is so strong to conform, we constantly compare ourselves to others to see how we measure up.  Stop!  Remember, there is no one who is exactly like you.  We are all a unique and valuable puzzle piece in the Human Story. The story cannot be completed without your puzzle piece.  Comparing yourself to others is like comparing the taste and juiciness of an orange to that of a banana. They have been created completely differently, each having its own purpose and characteristics.  There is no good and bad, no better or worse, no right or wrong. There are simply differences.

Being unique is a gift.  Embrace it.  Express it, don’t hide it.  That will take a little courage as we have been taught all our lives to conform and fit in.  We are taught how to dress, act, even think. There are more ways than one to do things. There are many ways to be in the world. As a society, we don’t honor differences. As a matter of fact, we look down on them, even use them as the basis to hate.  Hate comes from fear.  Being different is rich, not something to be feared.

Without differences there would be no innovation, no creativity, nothing original.  We might not have music, art, or new technology. We enhance the world by bringing something new and different to it.  You bring something new and different to the world too when you are you. Often what you bring to the world is the differentiator that makes your business stand out from the competition.  Stop comparing yourself to others and trying to be like everyone else. Embrace the real you and spend your time bringing the real you into view in your business and everywhere in your life.

Make A List of Your Accomplishments

You are magnificent!  If you don’t believe me, try this exercise. Make a list of your accomplishments at the end of every week, personally and in business. Every achievement is an accomplishment.  It doesn’t have to be monumental like curing Cancer. Accomplishments come in all sizes.  Unfortunately, often we only honor the big ones like finishing your graduate degree. All accomplishments are valuable.  A small or medium accomplishment, like putting a smile on the face of a stranger, sticking to your exercising routine for a whole week, making a difference in a customer’s life, finishing a book all count, and should be celebrated too.  Be generous with yourself as you create your lists. It is one of the best ways I know to remind yourself of and own your value.

At the end of every month review your weekly lists.  See how accomplished you are? See the value you bring to the world every day in every area of your life?  Now claim your value and own it.  Don’t hide. Don’t settle. Be the amazing person you came here to be.  Charge what you are worth to others and build an abundant business based on the value you bring in all of your business activities.

The Hidden Skills in Your Human Design

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Do you have hidden skills or secret talents you hide from the world?  Most of us do.  We only show people what we believe they will value and discount the rest. What are your hidden skills and secret talents and how can you embrace them to enhance your business or career?

We all come into the world with a set of skills and special “know-how” that makes us unique.  Unfortunately, we don’t always use these gifts to build our businesses or advance our careers.  Sometimes we hide the things we can do out of fear, not wanting to be seen, or because we don’t believe these gifts are valuable to anyone.  We can even miss the fact that they are skills at all because they come so natural to us that we don’t realize we have an ability that others don’t. 

One of the best ways to enhance your business or excel in your career is to bring these hidden skills into the forefront.  Someone needs the natural ability you have and take for granted.  You bring a unique perspective to every situation. You have a valuable piece of the puzzle and when you increase your awareness around your special “know-how” and share your valuable wisdom, everyone benefits, and your business or career will soar.

So, what is a hidden skill?  Let’s look at a few.  Perhaps you have an innate talent for seeing possibilities others don’t see or perhaps you can gather exactly the right people needed on a team to make a project a success.  You may possess a natural ability to translate ideas into clear action, to change the way people think about things, or to be a wealth of ideas or inspiration.  All these things are skills, even talents, but they may be so ingrained in who you are that you don’t see them as special and unique. 

What if you are the one in the room that has the next brilliant idea or exactly the solution that is needed to solve a problem?  Bringing your special skills and talents forward can help you become visible, respected and in demand which will quickly serve to enhance your business or your career. 

What Are YOUR Natural Skills?

Can you identify your natural skills and talents? One of the best ways I know to uncover this hidden information is through a reading of your Human Design Chart.  Human Design is a system that supports you in cultivating a deep understanding of the most authentic, aligned, and high performing expression of who you are.  It empowers you to connect with your unique purpose and to recognize your natural skills and talents.

From these readings, I have witnessed people develop more trust and confidence in themselves, understand how they are designed to operate at their highest level, and recognize characteristics and skills in themselves that are unique and valued in the world.

Are You Using or Hiding Your Natural Skills?

Once you get reacquainted with your natural skills and talents, ask yourself how are you using or not using them?  I like to think of this is terms of a 3 position light switch:  On/Light, Dim or Off/Dark.  We want your skills to be in the “on” position, where you are naturally and effortlessly using your talents everywhere in the world, easily being seen by people, utilized, and appreciated. 

But you may have your switch set to “dim”, so your talents aren’t visible by those that need them the most or only visible to a select few people.  Finally, you may have gone “dark”, flipping your switch to the “off” position where your skills and talents aren’t visible at all.  This can occur when you lack confidence in your abilities, don’t see your skills as special and valuable, or fear you won’t be accepted if you share them openly.

Bringing the whole package that is you to every situation in your life. business, and career feels good.  It makes you feel energized, vibrant, and sparks your creativity.  This is how you are your best self.  Being your best self is how you enhance your life including your business and your career. 

Being your true self, your authentic self, is also a key factor in establishing trust with others. People can feel your energy and if your actions don’t match the energy they feel, they may feel they have to be cautious in their dealings with you whether business or personal.  You know that people do business with people they know, like and trust.  How can you achieve that level of trust in a relationship if you hide the real you?

It takes a lot less energy to be yourself, than it does trying to be something you’re not or hiding who you truly are.  Hiding can lead to exhaustion and burnout which ultimately makes you feel like you want to hide more. And the worst part is that people see through you anyway.

Break The Cycle of Hiding Your Talents

To break the cycle of hiding, to find and express who you are, to find all your hidden skills and talents, and to feel confident putting yourself out in the world, I encourage you to explore your Human Design with a trained Human Design Specialist who can not only read your chart but can coach you around how to put your new knowledge into action in your life, business, or career.  Exploring this information, embracing it, and living it can empower you to find greater business success. advance your career, and live a life filled with satisfaction and joy.

Nancy OKeefe is a Certified Quantum Human Design Specialist, intuitive coach, and compassionate transformer, who helps women peel back the layers of who they have been taught to be to reveal who they truly are so they can live their inner truth, go after their deepest desires, and create a life filled with success, satisfaction, and joy.  Nancy has been developing and coaching people for over 25 years, helping them bring out their best qualities, build confidence, and feel empowered to go after what they want in life. 

Book Your Human Design Reading Here

Does Running Your Business Feel More Like the Daily Grind?

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Does Running Your Business Feel More Like the Daily Grind?

You started your business because you love what you do, but somehow it has turned into the daily grind. It seems like the longer you run your business, the more things there are to do that take you away from doing what you love.

It’s a Daily Grind keeping up with your website, social media, technology, marketing, managing, bookkeeping, all the necessities of owning and running a business. There are a lot of moving parts to keep track of and all of them take energy and time away from delivering the services you love to deliver.

The Daily Grind leads you to overwhelm and burnout. None of us have unlimited energy, but some of us have the type of energy that is more likely to burn out than others. It is important to know how to manage your energy, so you have enough to do the things you must do and the things you want to do.

That brings me to the things you must do. Looking at what requires your attention and direct involvement versus what can be done in other ways is an important piece of managing your energy and avoiding getting stuck in the daily grind.

As you are honest with yourself about what you must be involved in, think about which activities help you stay in the ease, flow, and enjoyment of your business. Simply, if you don’t enjoy doing it, even if you are good at it, don’t do it yourself.

There are several ways to get things handled without your direct involvement.  Having good, documented procedures helps you delegate things to others or automate them. Many administrative activities lend themselves to automation and there are many great, inexpensive software solutions available to help. Activities that do not lend themselves to automation can be delegated to others. It is possible to hire a Virtual Assistant for as little as a few hours a week so you can offload things like answering inquiries, doing your newsletter, or making follow-up appointments.

If you are a service provider and you are the one who needs to provide the service, i.e. Healers, Coaches, Teachers, Therapists, etc., then your primary activities should be providing the service and generating revenue.  Anything else you do is taking the earning potential away from your business and putting in a position to burn out as the daily grind increases.

Here are 3 steps to stop the Daily Grind from creeping into your business.

  1. The first step is to gain a clear understanding of your energy type and how you are wired to work. This helps in understanding the best structure for your business and mix of activities you do versus finding another method to get them done.
  2. Next it is important to look at your natural skills and talents. We often overlook what we do naturally and don’t think of these as skills at all. This helps us get at your gifts, your genius. These are the skills you want to use in your business because it feels good to do so.
  3. Finally, make a list of what you enjoy doing and are proficient at. Just because you can do something well, doesn’t mean you should. How much time and energy are you spending doing it? Is it detracting from your energy and revenue or adding to it? Look to offload all the things that take up too much of your time and energy.

If you need help Taming Your Time and Reclaiming Your Week, check out our mini-course to help you pump up your performance, prioritize your projects, organize yourself and your time for less stress and overwhelm.

Check out the tame your time mini-course here

If you are interested in have a Human Design Reading around your business alignment, visit my website at https://nancyokeefecoaching.com/your-true-life-path/

Differences: Flaws or Superpower?

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Differences: Flaws or Superpower?

Face It. You are different. You were divinely created as one of a kind. You are hardwired to bring something special to the world and it is your secret weapon for living a life of success, satisfaction, and joy. Differences are juicy. Differences make life interesting, richer, and open possibilities. Why then do we work so hard to hide our differences? Why do we fear them in others?

The overarching reason is that we want to be loved and accepted, we want to be included and, we want to fit in. This is a strong need in most of us. Often, we will go to great lengths to be like everyone else. We wear certain clothes, we listen to certain music, use certain language, even agree with things we don’t believe in all in the name of being accepted.

We are conditioned by our parents, teachers, our peers, our workplace, even social media, and the advertising we see on TV. Whether this conditioning to conform is well meaning or not, sometimes it forces us to hide our true nature or do and be things we are not. In the world of fashion, as an example, how many time did you wear something that was uncomfortable or restricted your movement in the name of fitting in with the latest fashion trends?

It seems harmless enough to want to fit in. We all need love and support, and we all deserve it. So why do we have to jump through hoops to get it? It should be more than enough to be yourself. But somehow it is not.  We compromise our comfort, our desires, our creative freedom, and our beliefs all in the name of fitting in.  We often see our differences as flaws that need to be corrected or fixed. There are entire industries built around our “flaws”, the diet industry as an example. Millions and Millions of dollars are spent annually fixing our bodies to look a certain way through diet, diet food, diet drinks, Paleo, Keto, Weight Watchers, etc.  Guess what?  You are not broken.

We have been taught that differences are bad and conforming at any cost is improvement.  Yes, we should strive to stay healthy, but healthy does not mean being a certain size or weighing a certain amount. Everyone is different. A one size fits all approach to anything does not work. If you have ever been on a diet and gained all the weight and more back the minute you stopped dieting, you know what I mean. All you accomplished was making yourself feel bad or broken because you couldn’t conform to someone else’s idea of success.

Not only have we have been taught that differences are bad, but we have also been taught to fear differences. We have been taught to ostracize even ridicule people that are different. Groups of people have been mistreated because they are different. To condemn others for a physical characteristic they can’t control such as their coloring is an expression of fear and come from a place of low self-worth.

Each one of us was divinely created to be different.  Each one of us is a piece of the overall puzzle we call Humanity, and the puzzle cannot be completed without your puzzle piece. We need to stop hiding who we are and be free to creatively express all of who we are. No one has the right to say which characteristics are valued and which should be hidden. We value extraversion in this country, an outwardly focused energy; but introversion or looking inward is necessary to contemplate and do the inner work necessary to grow and evolve. One is not right and the other wrong. One is not better than the other. They are just different, and both needed. That is the way we should look at differences.

Sometimes conforming is necessary and beneficial. We need to conform to traffic laws. If we don’t there can be accidents and personal injury, but we can’t take conformity to the level we have taken it to because it robs individuals of their creative freedom and love of self. It robs humanity of the richness and possibilities that can exist when we embrace our differences.  Your differences are a superpower, and you are here to contribute them to the world. The best thing we can do for ourselves and for our world is to be who we truly are, live in the highest expression of our energies, trust rather than fear, and share our differences with the world.

Nancy OKeefe is a consultant, intuitive coach, and compassionate transformer, who helps people peel back the layers of who they have been taught to be to reveal who they truly are so they can live their inner truth, go after their deepest desires, and create a life filled with success, satisfaction, and joy.

Nancy has been developing and coaching people for over 25 years, helping them bring out their best qualities, build confidence, and feel empowered to go after what they want in life. She helps CEO’s create cultures where people can share their unique gifts, workplaces where the best talent wants to work.

Nancy is a Certified Executive Coach from the College of Executive Coaching, holds an MBA from Babson College in Entrepreneurship and a MS in Process Improvement from Anna Maria College.  She is a Certified Quantum Human Design Specialist, Certified Career Transition Coach, Fascination Advantage® Adviser, and Certified in Conversational Intelligence®

Is Your Relationship Going To Last?

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Is your relationship going to last?  Unfortunately 50% of first marriages don’t last and 70% of second marriages end up in divorce.  These are staggering numbers.  So what happens? You fall in love and everything is wonderful.  Life is exciting, fun, and new at the beginning of a relationship.  It seems like this person is perfect.  You enjoy doing things together.  You spend as much time as possible together and you can’t keep your hands off each other.  But over time as the newness and excitement wears thin, other dynamics enter the relationship.  Differences in values show up.  Communication issues surface.  Sometimes one partner begins to take the other for granted.  Minor bickering can creep in and frustration or anger can build leading to arguments and hurt feeling.  Some relationships can withstand arguments, after all, no two people can agree all of the time, right?  But at this point, many relationships begin to fall apart and as they slip further and further into anger, frustration, and resentment it becomes harder to get it back on track.  You find yourself wondering if your relationship is going to last?

 So let’s take a look at why this happens and to do that we need to understand what makes a relationship healthy.  A relationship has three phases

  1. Initial Attraction
  2. Establishing Relationship Patterns and Themes
  3. Real Love

Sadly, many couples never get to experience the third phase, real love, because the relationship can fall apart after the initial attraction.  So let’s look at each of the three phases a little closer.

Attraction

What attracts us?  Good looks?  A great personality?  Actually, we are attracted to people that bring energies into our energy field that match up with our energies and compliment them.  It feels good to be in the presence of the energies that compliment what we have. It adds energy, vitality, excitement, even sexual energy.   It feels like this person is the perfect match and in some ways they are.  But just because you are attracted to each other’s energy, it doesn’t mean the relationship will be a good one.   The attraction becomes less exciting over time, even though it still feels good and this is because the relationship is moving to the second phase where other factors become more prominent.

Establishing Relationship Patterns and Themes

As we begin to establish patterns and themes in our relationships, differences in values will surface.   If these differences are around important and nonnegotiable core values and there is not a good match between the partners, this can be a big source of dissatisfaction in a relationship.  Some of the larger values issues come from values like integrity, money, faith, equality, contribution to name a few.

Secondly, we are attracted to energy that is similar to the energy our parents have.  There may be lingering issues, even trauma from our childhood around these energies that get carried into the new relationship.  Sometime we expect the other person to fix the hurts we endured in the past from these childhood or teenage patterns.  But no one can fix these hurts but you.  When you set the expectation that your partner will be able to make all the hurt better, you set your relationship up to fail.  What is necessary is that you do the inner work to love yourself despite the hurt from the past and you have open and honest communication about this issue with your partner rather than expecting them to fix it and blaming them for your hurt when they can’t. 

Doing the inner work is about shedding the layers of conditioning you are living under and getting to the authentic you.   It’s about overcoming feelings of low self-worth or not being enough that you may be projecting into the relationship in the hopes of getting rid of those feelings.  It is about living in the highest expression of your energies and not living out the shadow side of the energies you carry.  This phase is phase where even the most compatible people can bring baggage into a relationship that causes it to fail.

Achieving Real Love

Real love is the third phase of a relationship and it occurs when there is appreciation for the other, self-love, and honest communication.  It is about acceptance of self and the other, releasing the conditioning and old patterns that interfere with being who you and your partner truly are.  Each of us is divinely designed the way we are when we live in the highest expression our energy and liberate ourselves from the conditioning we have experienced from well-meaning parents, teachers, and society.

No one is perfect, but if you know people for who they truly are and cut through the conditioning you both have experienced, then the question to ask is are they perfect for you? It is the honest acceptance of self and the other that makes a lasting relationship.

If you would like to learn more about the potential red flags in your relationship, sign up for a Red Flag Relationship Reading under services on my website   https://www.nancyokeefecoaching.com/red-flag-relationship-reading