In this episode, we continue our 2 part conversation on the Reflector with diving deeper into their lived experience, themes of surprise and disappointment, and their profound role as mirrors of the collective. Reflectors are here to reveal the health of the world around them, not by doing or fixing, but by reflecting what is.
Kelsey explores what it means for Reflectors to live in detachment from outcomes, the importance of environment and community, and how awareness transforms disappointment into surprise. This episode is a meditation on neutrality, presence, and the quiet power of those who reflect life rather than generate or direct it.
What's Discussed in this Episode:
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As the reflector deconditions and comes into their strategy and their authority just like the rest of us, the reflector can expect to be moved into greater alignment with the places the correct people for them on their fractal that will bring them more and more so towards the environments where there are these opportunities for surprise through differentiated living.
Because when a reflector's in the right community, they become a part of this potential for this interdependent dance of all of us functioning in the way that's correct for them, for each of us and for us as a whole.
And so when reflectors are in the right place with the right people, which can only happen through them following their strategy and authority, they are increasingly so around the people that are going to place them at the center and utilize the reflector in order to further wake up to further decondition themselves as generators, projectors, manifestors.
Speaker A:Welcome to the Living Your Design Podcast. I'm your experimentor, Kelsey Rose Tortorice.
This podcast is an audio only release of the full length in depth Human Design Foundations course I've been teaching over the last several years.
It is a no bullshit, comprehensive, embodied introduction to the human design system that will challenge your ego mind and support you in your process of reuniting with the unique wisdom of your body.
In episode one, I speak a bit about the process that led me to releasing this course for free in podcast form, and I offer a few notes that might be useful to contextualize and clarify what you'll hear in this episode and beyond. I recommend giving that short intro episode a listen if you haven't yet.
The LYD podcast is part of a larger living body of work, a growing archive of my teachings about consciousness through the languages of astrology and human design. Hosted in an online community space where I stay in orbit with my students, mentees, alumni, peers and collaborators.
For more information about how to connect with me and tune in to my archives and ongoing live teachings, including how to access the original LYD course, complete with videos and slides. Stay tuned to the podcast or check out patreon.com/KelseyRoseTort. thank you for tuning into my transmission of Living Your Design.
It's a deeply personal and somewhat vulnerable share that I feel honored, humbled and excited to release into the world. I hope that it helps you remember and come home to yourself.
Speaker A:This episode is part two of my Lecture on the reflector type. Check out the previous episode for the first half.
Speaker A:Reflector Surprise! The signature for Reflectors is Surprise. The Not Self theme for Reflectors Is disappointment. So let's start with surprise. What does surprise feel like? What is it mechanically?
How does surprise connect to all these other aspects of the reflector and the reflector aura that we've talked about so far? The reflector, aware of, awake from, and thus unattached to the program or the outcome, is available for surprise.
Surprise is available when the reflector accesses detachment, watching their lunar cycle and sampling neutrally. This is when reflectors begin to experience life from the position that is their birthright.
A wise, aware witness whose evaluation is welcomed and honored. Ra says an aligned reflector will reflect the truth rather than the pain of others.
Essentially, when the reflector is able to stay neutral, the truth is able to surprise them. The distortion that reflectors feel might be disappointing, but it's not the truth. The truth is always surprising.
And distortion is this layer on top of that that reflectors are always relegated to, because reflectors are sampling everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Surprise for a reflector can come from being initiated, invited, and included, from watching synchronicities, from seeing how things just work out out in the field in ways that their mind couldn't have anticipated. Because their mind is always trying to tell that all think of all the narratives of the undef find centers. I have to prove this.
I have to know this, I have to hold onto this, I have to control this, I have to make this happen. I have to initiate this. I have to relieve myself of this mental or physical pressure. I have to keep going. I have to get attention.
All of the not self themes and strategies of the not self mind in each of the nine centers are online for the reflector.
And so it's really easy for the reflector, just like all the other types, to try to act on the mental narrative coming from the strategy of each undefined center.
When a reflector lets go of that conditioning, lets go of those narratives, doesn't fixate on them, but rather watches this experience they're having of reflecting their environment and sampling their environment and reflecting and sampling the transits, then they're able to just that position of surrender for the reflector gives them this opportunity to be this wise, aware witness who can just share with neutrality what is happening. Here's what I feel. This is what's happening.
And through that process of detachment and full on surrender and watching and just being this vessel, then the reflector is able to watch the flow of life happen and be surprised by it, Be surprised at the intelligence of the program, at the intelligence of life and its ability to create this unfolding story without the reflector themselves having to force fixate on any of it the way that their mind, just like all of our minds will try to, will want to. Surprise. For the reflector can also come from sampling authenticity and differentiation.
So the reflector notices the blip in the homogeneity and especially the aware awake reflector is going to feel delighted and surprised by that. Oh, that person's different. Like here's homogenization, here's the way that everybody is succumbing to this homogenized norm. That is the program.
Boring, boring, disappointed, boring. And then, ah, the program is moving through that one differently. That's autonomy, that's differentiation, that's uniqueness.
So summing up surprise, coming back up to this top statement up here, the reflector aware of awake from and thus unattached to the program or outcome is available for surprise.
The unaware unawake reflector is disappointed in the outcome because the outcome never matches up to what their mind sees and thinks that it could be or thinks that it thinks that it should be. AKA is attached to the disappointed.
Reflector is disappointed because they were attached to a specific outcome based on what they're taking in that is meant to be transitory and they are seeing that the reality isn't matching up to that attach that attachment that their mind had created. Disappointment stems from feeling let down by the homogenized not self world.
And here's a few different ways that we can think about reflectors experiencing disappointment.
Reflectors will be disappointed in their experience of life when that experience is primarily amplifying and being dominated by not self people in their environment.
So in the not self world, like coming back to this list of surprise for a moment, in the not self world, reflectors are not being initiated, invited and included.
Instead they're being pressured to conform to the rest of us because the reflectors as these sovereign beings that show with neutrality what's happening, that's not a role that is valued in the not self world. The not self world is not interested in the lunar being.
The not self world is saying produce, produce, produce solar energy, energy, energy, make happen, make happen, make happen. Control nature right rather than allow nature to flow through us, which is the reflector way.
How does a reflector experience their life in the not self world? Well, in many cases in an unhealthy environment, reflectors are not getting this opportunity to experience being initiated, invited and included.
Similarly, so in the not self world, reflectors don't really get to watch synchronicities and things Just work out when everyone in their environment is fighting, resisting passenger consciousness, not allowing that flow to just take place. Instead, then the reflectors are amplifying frustration, anger and bitterness. And that's hella disappointing.
That would be a disappointing life experience, right? In the not self world, the reflector doesn't so much get to sample authenticity and differentiation.
Reflector disappointment can come from a reflector tapping into the potential for differentiation, but still feeling then disappointed at the homogenized world with its distorted not self interactions and relationships.
So on one hand, like the most basic disappointment for reflectors, it's just like how disappointing to just live in this open aura that has the potentiality to experience literally anything and everything. And yet I'm surrounded by this distorted frequency. I'm surrounded by the not self.
I'm surrounded by the narratives of the nine undefined centers that are distorting the defined centers and the environment around me and the solar beings around me from emitting their frequency in this differentiated way. And instead it's this pent up distorted energy that's full of frustration, it's full of anger and full of bitterness.
Then when a reflector begins to wake up, begins to come aware and or just has experiences of actually coming into contact with people who are living as themselves, they get a taste of peace, they get a taste of satisfaction, they get a taste of success. They start to see this potentiality for differentiated living, and then they can get attached to that outcome.
And now having to come into contact again with the not self world feels deeply, deeply disappointing.
So there's this again, the neutrality, the unattachment is so important for the reflector because even with the potentiality of spotting differentiation and authenticity and the self, the true self, there's still going to be the sampling of not self in the reflector's experience.
For the unaware reflector, who is functioning as an enforcer of the program, there is disappointment at people not meeting their own homogenized understanding of what is correct via the program they're amplifying.
So again, this is the reflector police, the reflectors whose, whose entire being is so taken over by their reflection of the transit field that that's what they depend on. The mind, just like the rest of us, grasps on what's coming in through the conditioning field, wants to fixate on that.
For the rest of us, it's more personal, right? Because it's our own life force trying to fixate where we're undefined.
For the reflector, it's not so personal, it's their being is this reflection, this reception and reflection of the transit field. And so that's what they want to enforce. They want to enforce how the program is being rolled out.
The unaware reflector is going to notice who's different and who's differentiated, but their mind is going to be grasping at this homogenized version of the program that they're going to dislike that.
And so the, the disappointment for this unaware reflector can be in seeing who's different and being disappointed in that because they are acting as an enforcer, a police of the homogenized program. A very basic mechanical level.
Something that reflectors have in common with the other types is disappointment from resistance that they meet in trying to be like the other types. You know, everybody who's not a manifestor experiences their not self signature when they try to initiate.
Everyone who's not a generator experiences their not self signature when they try to be consistently available for life in the way that sacral beings can.
Everybody who's not a projector is going to experience their not self signature when they're doing things from a place of waiting for recognition instead of moving according to their own bodies mechanics for the reflector. All of this you can put under the umbrella of trying to conform to or keep up with the solar types.
It will be disappointing because there will be resistance, because that is not what they're designed for.
A reflector will chase satisfaction or peace or success, and they're not designed to experience those things except through the experience of surprise, through correct mechanical functioning of the reflector. Reflectors are designed to be the hub of the community, to be at the center. Picture a wheel.
Reflectors are designed to be right at the center of that wheel, the hub of the community. And we'll feel disappointed when they are instead left out. So kind of similar in that way to like projector bitterness.
I'm designed to be recognized and welcomed for the way that I can facilitate the flow of energy with what I see. For reflectors, I'm designed to be right at the center of everything.
I'm designed to get to experience it all and neutrally share what I feel and what I'm sampling and what I see. And instead that reflector evaluation to the not self world, again, is not welcomed. It's not valued.
And so instead the reflector ends up disappointed on the sidelines because they can't keep up in the way that their mind and society and homogeneity says they should, because we're not honoring the truth of the reflector role. How disappointing. Here's a Little more on surprise for reflectors from ra, every day is different for a reflector.
So the questions uppermost in their mind are who am I today? And will I be surprised, included or invisible?
If they live as themselves, theirs is truly a carefree and joy filled nature designed to live in the wonder of the moment. The real magic of reflectors is expressed best in the newness, freshness and surprise that they experience every day.
And their sense that there is always something more, always something else. Right? It's that tendency towards variety that's correct for the reflector.
Unfortunately, most reflectors live a homogenized life trying to be something that they are simply not because they haven't been understood or encouraged to embrace their difference. Too often finding the world unreceptive, cold and disappointing, they give in to the expectations just to survive.
When they begin to appreciate their uniqueness and practice detachment from or not identifying with what they are mirroring, they will be less apt to become lost, confused and caught up in the turmoil around them. They will accept their place in the center rather than be left feeling invisible and on the outside looking in.
So this idea of reflectors being the hub of community, the reflectors being at the center, and also this idea of. I read another RA quote earlier that said reflectors don't have a personal not self. They have a community not self.
I want to dig into that a bit more here. Reflector disappointment is a reflection of the distortion around them as well as their awareness as a barometer of such disappointment.
So reflector is always going to be, as I've said a couple of times, taking in and sampling the good, the bad and the ugly.
So they're the experience they're having in their own body, kind of similar to the projector here is so dependent on the quality of the energy and definition around them. This is true for all of us.
But as the two types who are specifically designed to take in the other the projectors in a solar way, the reflectors in a lunar way. Of course their well being is going to be extremely dependent on what it is they're taking in.
So in the projector lecture we talked so much about, there's no type that it's for whom it's more important to be boundaried around. Who are the right people for me? Who are the people allowed into my life?
For reflectors it's similar, but it's not so much the one on one connections as it is my entire environment. What's the right environment for me? What's the right community for me? Sphere for me, world for me.
I might have been a little hard on projectors, but I felt I just yeah, needed to deliver some fifth line heresy around. Yes, there is this dependency of projectors on the other.
And therefore their wellbeing is based on the wellbeing of in the correct or not nature, the healthy or not exchange, the symbiotic or not nature of the connection one on one for projectors.
But projectors are the only ones who can, you know, take back their power and take back their sovereignty and decide to trust their own body around who is healthy for them or not. So we projector can. The not self projector can get really stuck in the blame game when ultimately personal responsibility falls to the projector.
So it's kind of the sentiment that I'm getting at here as well. On the reflector level. Reflector disappointment is always going to be a reflection of the distortion around them. Again, it's not a personal not self.
It is a community not self. So what I something I've witnessed in the human design space quite a bit is reflectors are sharing what they see and getting shut down.
You're not self reflector, I don't want your input. I'm sure that this happens in other situations as well. Without people saying you're a non self reflector. Right.
Reflectors are going to tell you what's happening. And if your mind doesn't want to accept the level of distortion that is happening that the reflector sees, you're going to shut them down.
You don't want to value or honor that neutral evaluation because you're not self. Mind is trying to tell you has a different agenda essentially than the truth.
There's a level of like the reflectors in your world, their well being is on all of us. It's not just on them, it's on all of us. Because they can only reflect what's happening around them.
And reflector disappointment is also a reflection of their awareness as the spirometer of such disappointment.
So similar to the projector, the reflector has to access this ability to wait through their process to remain neutral, to not try to conform to the solar types in order to ex process this disappointment process.
The distortion that they take in through their nine undefined centers with an awareness that doesn't trap them in it as the only potential of their reality. So here's a RA quote kind of digging into this. This is the least personal aura.
The reflector not self is a community, not self, not a personal not self. Just like all individual beings, there is a Personal agency available to reflectors and a personal responsibility that is theirs first and foremost.
But understand that reflectors are literally reflecting the health of their environment. Surprise for them requires that they are sampling differentiated energies.
If generators, manifestors and projectors are not living as themselves, the reflectors in their spheres have no sources for surprise. Again, this is the least personal aura. They literally reflect the well being of the rest of us.
So, in my own words, reflector detachment, neutrality and deconditioning is one crucial ingredient in their arriving to their potential.
But another is having healthy, differentiated individuals and communities around them that place them at the center and do not take their evaluations personally or pressure them to conform. Reflectors are the aura that is the barometer for the conditions of healthy versus not self in the dynamics amongst all of us.
And the place where these two things intersect is in the reflector strategy. Reflectors do need to be initiated from the outside world to begin their lunar cycle.
So that they can connect to their differentiation, which is their authority through lunar authority. The lunar authority is how they connect to their differentiated self as something that contrasts with their environment and with the transit field.
And so the reflector has to be aware enough, surrendered enough, trusting enough in passenger consciousness enough to wait for to be initiated and then to ride out their lunar cycle.
But as the reflector does this, as the reflector deconditions and comes into their strategy and their authority, just like the rest of us, the reflector can expect to be moved into greater alignment with the places, the correct people for them on their fractal, as we say in human design, the right people for them that will bring them more and more so towards the environments where there are these opportunities for surprise through differentiated living.
Because when reflectors in the right community, they become a part of this potential for this interdependent dance of all of us functioning in the way that's correct for them, for each of us and for us as a whole.
And so, when reflectors are in the right place with the right people, which can only happen through them following their strategy and authority, they are increasingly so around the people that are going to place them at the center and utilize the reflector in order to further wake up to further decondition themselves as generators, projectors, manifestors.
When reflectors know their design clearly and avoid yielding to the pressures of society to conform, their auras will protect them from identifying with anything that they take in. Through their openness, they can become wise about the process and and simply remain wide open to what is passing through them.
The vehicle's fundamental prerogative for the reflector. Few ways we can think about reflectors and the prerogative, the. The functionality of their aura. Ra says, I think I have this on a quote to come.
Reflectors are the eyes of the world. They're the. The ones that are just seeing it for what it is, right? Because there's no personal solar agenda. There's no personal solar offering.
There's this potentiality for the neutral, objective witnessing of what's happening.
Ra talks about reflectors as being the canary in the coal mine, which is a phrase that is referencing an early indicator of potential danger or failure. But where it comes from was miners.
Coal miners would put a canary in a cage and send that into a coal mine first, then bring the cage out to see if the canary survived or not. So this surveyor of the health of the environment, is it safe for the rest of us?
And if you listen to the reflector lecture, the signature reflector lecture from Ra, you'll hear him refer a lot to this idea that reflectors are the radar. I like to use the word surveyor as well. That scans for the blip in the homogeneity.
So reflectors are just scanning their environment and measuring, evaluating the transit field against what it is they're actually experiencing in their environment through the sampling of the different auras around them, which allows them to notice who is different. Where is there a difference in the version of the program coming down? Because the program itself is this potentially homogenizing force.
But for solar beings, when we filter it through our definition, which is what strategy and authority aligns us to doing, we show up in the differentiated way that we are meant to engage with and filter the program.
And reflectors, because they don't have that fixed life force, because they don't have that solar definition, are able to notice when that's happening and potentially be surprised by it. Reflector auras are a tell all.
They amplify and reflect the story of the program, the health of the environment, including the distortions of individuals and communities, and how the program and the individuals are intersecting. They're the canary in the coal mine, the barometer.
They bring the program to their communities and with awareness, are able to discern the capacity for those in their spheres to live their lives uniquely as themselves, with the program as the backdrop versus to be homogenized by the program. Reflectors see who is different, and that can go either way towards disappointment or surprise, depending on their awareness.
Ra says reflectors are the eyes of the world. They are the ones that can see the whole thing.
They're not good at trees, they're great at forests, and they can tell right away when something is wrong in the forest. This is what they are. Place, environment and community are crucial to the reflector's well being.
We've talked about this, I think enough at length already. Crucial to the reflector's well being, auric functionality and purpose.
Just consider for a moment I mentioned at one point, what would it be like to have all nine of these undefined center strategies of not self mind playing. This is what the reflectors experience.
Let me point out here something that one of my early human design teachers, Amy Lee, who's a 5:1 mental projector, pointed out when talking about how generators and projectors are designed for interpersonal Auric conditioning versus reflectors and manifestors are designed more for transit field conditioning. One thing she said was on an energetic level, reflectors and manifestors are not as susceptible to conditioning.
But on a psychological level, we absolutely are.
Reflectors and manifestors are just as susceptible to the not self strategies, even though we are not taking in the energetic conditioning to the same extent that generators and especially projectors are. Manifestors and reflectors both have this, have auras that are somewhat protective to the interpersonal transit field to other auras.
But reflectors and manifestors are also so distinctly different in Auric functionality than the majority of the world, the 90% of the world that are generators and projectors. And remember, we live in a generator projector world.
And so it's much more normal to have an aura that opens and envelops or focuses and absorbs these pushing closed auras and these resilient sampling auras feel different for the 90% of projectors and generators to bump into.
And so that contributes to the potentially excessive psychological impact of conditioning that these weird auras, the weird aura club reflector and manifestors experience. Projectors, you have a weird aura too. It's just a bit more of a personal weird aura.
A much more personal weird aura versus like projector or reflectors and manifestors have kind of feel alien compared to generators and projectors.
So I just want to take a moment to consider this, this sensitivity to place, environment and community and how much that affects the reflector's well being, their ability to perform their auric functionality, and thus their purpose. So just consider, you know, the open centers and not self themes.
As I've mentioned a couple times, of all the centers that center psychological obsession fixation is online for the reflectors in all nine ways, right?
Without the island of any center definition to land on, to hold to, to filter through the way that all other 98 and a half, 99% of the planet is able to, to hold. But particularly thinking about the G and the spleen, right? The. The who am I? I need to know who I am and where I'm going. And the panic of that.
And then the spleen that I have to hold on to something in order to feel alive. And, you know, that's just me. Those are the two that really stick out to me as what would it be like to not know who you are?
And to have the mind's narrative of the G and then to not have any fixed sense of security and comfort and have.
Have the mind's narrative of the undefined spleen in this reflector body that literally has no life force or sense of self to hold onto when it's in a not self state. All reflectors are still people, right? They still have a sense of self. They have their profile, the character they play.
They have their incarnation cross. They have their defined gates, they have their motivation, their view.
They have all these things underneath the surface of the centers that make them differentiated beings. But on a center functionality level, on an Auric level, which is such a huge part, the base octave of our experience, there's nothing to hold on to.
So again, the importance of detachment, both on an awareness level and on an actual physical, energetic level, is so important for reflectors. And just another note that I wanted to include here for, for reflectors to consider. Reflectors often love having children around.
Children are this innocent expression typically freer of distortion from the conditioned. Adults and children have a wonder for life. And this is the vibe that feels good for reflectors to sample and amplify when this piece is missing.
This innocent expression free from distortion, free from the effects of the homogenized conditioning field that has this wonder for life, this thirst for newness and freshness and surprise, when all that's missing and all that's being amplified is this sticky frustration, anger and bitterness of the not self world. All that's really available for the reflector is disappointment. And so again, the reflector is a barometer.
They're reflecting the not self of everyone around them. So to an extent, they are dependent on their environment in the other.
And the switch that gets flipped for the reflector is this ability to detach and watch, to process things through their lunar cycle in order to realign to the correct environment and timeline and people and circumstances that create the potential for them to experience surprise rather than disappointment through Them playing their role in those in their community, also flipping the switch to their satisfaction from frustration, success from bitterness, and peace from anger. All of this strategy is for the perfect alignment of their movement in space. Oh, what that means to be in the right place.
This is what correctness is all about.
When you honor your strategy and authority, what you get is that your vehicle being guided by the vehicular intelligence, the vehicle aligns you to your geometry. It just does. Your personality may not see where you've been taken, but you are in the right place. You are in the right movement.
And it's only in that movement, in that correctness, that you end up where you belong. So this is an excerpt from the reflector lecture.
And he goes on to specify about reflectors, but this idea, the importance of being in alignment with your movement through space, this is what correctness is about. And strategy and authority are simply your way of surrendering to the vehicular intelligence. This is true for all of us.
That aligns us with the exact right place, people, circumstances and time.
And for a reflector, because reflectors are such a tiny slice of the population and need to be distributed throughout the planet, for a reflector to be in the right place is everything.
And they can only get there through that lunar decision making process, placing reflectors back in their context as the center of the hub, what Ra often calls the hierarchy of type, which personally I just don't really love the baggage of the word hierarchy. He means something different than a hierarchy of type that has to do with power over.
But here's some stuff that Ra has to say about reflectors fitting into their rightful place at the center.
Many of the characteristics that differentiate reflectors today resonate from a time when our earliest human ancestors lived in harmony with the cosmos, in flow with nature, and in community with each other.
Over the aeons, their ways of surviving within the natural flow were systemically replaced by the aggressive strategic ways of evolving mental awareness. Once mental superiority was in place, hierarchies arose based on dominance and imposing gentle reflectors were not among them.
A new natural hierarchy is beginning to emerge, however, in which reflectors will play an exquisite role as they stand for ultimate justice.
With their quiet, unobtrusive aura, they will fill their rightful place at the center of the type hierarchy by reflecting back into the world the not self injustices that they see humanity perpetuating on itself. Powerful. Coming back to these questions, generators are here to know themselves. Their question is, who am I? Projectors are here to know the other.
And through knowing the other. They know themselves. Who are they? Manifestors are here to know their impact. What is my impact? Reflectors are here to know differentiation.
Who is different? And here's my closing address to reflectors. Reflectors, you are a living contradiction.
You are inherently a non conformist and yet your aura naturally samples takes in reflects exactly whatever is around you. You are special. You are amongst the minority of the world that is here to see and experience it all.
This gives you an extremely unique perspective which is a gift to your communities when offered in alignment. Like the moon, you get to experience it all. And like the moon, you are always in flow.
You are not designed to hold on to any of the everything that you see in sample. You are not designed to identify with any of it or to be permanently changed by it. The purity of your reflection is dependent on its impermanence.
When your mind gets stuck to anything that is passing through you, your capacity for surprise is diminished. Instead, you amplify the not self weight of the world. All of that is yours to see, to host, not to hold or to own.
An orientation towards detachment and neutrality offers you the chance to remain open to everything passing through your aura, the good, the bad, the ugly, such that there is potential for a truly clear assessment to offer the world and room for wonder and surprise along the way.
Speaker A:Thanks for listening to the Living Your Design podcast. Stay tuned for the rest of the curriculum. New batches of episodes are released every Tuesday.
For immediate complete access to the full course and to explore other perks like learning and community, extracurricular, astrology and human design workshops, and meeting with me face to face, go to patreon.com/KelseyRoseTort. You can also listen to me on my other podcasts, the Maia Games and Conversations with the Zodiac and find me on Instagram @kelseyrosetort.