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Curious about human design and how it can empower you to live your best life?
Linda is a Life Coach and Human Design Guide who helps people achieve greater self-acceptance, joy and success by embracing their unique nature, gifts and purpose. She is trained in the Martha Beck Coaching Method, Human Design, Healing Touch and Reiki. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology and a Master’s Degree in Social Work Administration. She worked for 36 years as a direct support staff, personnel administrator, trainer and executive director with people with intellectual disabilities and in mental health recovery. The thread that ran through all her experiences and her favorite part of the job was helping the people they supported and the staff who worked with them embrace their own precious potential. Her current mission is to spread the liberation of Human Design and support people to embrace their own one-of-a kind magnificence.
Cherie welcomes Linda Nicholson, who shares her journey as a coach and her transition to doing readings with human design.
Want to know how you can begin your journey to hope and healing? Visit Elevated Life Academy for classes and free resources for personal development and healing.
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Transcripts
[00:01:26] Linda Nicholson: I'm in Downeytown, Pennsylvania.
[:[00:01:54] So welcome Linda. Please start with your journey. How did you go towards becoming a coach, and then how did that lead you to human design?
[:[00:02:35] When I left, that really did feel like my purpose. I was obsessed with finding my next purpose. Our soul wants us to find that when you have an open identity center in your human design, we're actually meant to be shown like pulled along a path, and we don't actually have as crystal clear an idea as other people do, but there's a yearning, like almost a pressure to find our purpose or the right thing. So I went on the Martha Beck website to get a coach for myself. I was just in this spot. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I had some kind of purpose. So I went on the Martha Beck website. There was this little movie on the front of the website where Martha was dangling a rock.
[:[00:03:33] And she said, people that are struck by lightning: job loss, divorce, trauma, can become magnetized. And once we heal we can help other people just like this.
[:[00:03:59] I got really interested in it. At the same time, I had gotten on the website of a naturopathic doctor in Canada named Tina Christy. I don't remember how I actually got on her email list, but I used to get so excited when I'd get her emails, knowing I have a defined sacral center, my human design, so that's a big part of my GPS.
[:[00:05:03] And that's how it works. So I learned about human design and then I coached with Tina for a few months. And she gave me the courage to sign up for the Martha Beck class. I was really scared. Even though I wanted it. It's that scared sighted thing where you want it, but you're afraid.
[:[00:05:54] I was gonna do this, what is going on? But I completely dove into the human design. And something interesting happened once I finished the level four certification class for human design. My coach passion came roaring back in. It's an example of the path that my soul was guiding me, and we can really follow that.
[:[00:06:29] But so what I do is I do the human design tool and then I coach people helping them follow their own inner wisdom. I love how Martha Beck talks about coaching. It's literally just connecting that person with their own inner wisdom, not telling them what to do.
[:[00:07:00] And that's what I say to people who were terrified. What am I gonna do? I gotta find my purpose. The path really does reveal itself. Now I'm willing to keep letting it reveal itself because I believe it And I love how Abraham Pick says we learn best from our own experiences, words give us belief.
[:[00:07:29] Cherie Lindberg: Wow. What a interesting journey. So tell me a little bit about what it was like to go from being a social worker to a coach doing human design.
[:[00:07:45] The famous case of Pennhurst versus Halderman, which was in Pennsylvania, was a leader in services for people with disabilities. There was this institution called Pennhurst, and it went to the Supreme Court. And that's where that right to the least restrictive treatment. That's where that came from. So I worked with people like getting them out of the institutions, helping them move into the community when people threw rocks at us and things like that. And so that really felt important. And I loved being a part of that. And then there was a movement about positive approaches for people with disabilities, basically with the theory being rather than pathologize our behavior, like if somebody was hitting their head on the wall or something, rather than pathologize the behavior, you take a look at why, what is driving that with the basic assumption that everybody has a good reason for what they do. Really resonated with me. But the last 15 years of it, I felt things were changing. Things got more focused on rules and regulations, writing reports and things like that. And it wasn't as much about working with people anymore. And it wasn't as meaningful anymore. And so I think the universe was kind of moving me on because in this, being a coach, it's very different. We kind of make our own rules to a certain degree and we can really uplift people in the way we want to. And I love that. I never, wanted to be an entrepreneur. I love working with a team of people when we're all working together with one mission.
[:[00:09:30] The focus so much on getting billable hours and making sure that you have the report for the insurance company. So many service professions are feeling this pinch. One of my doctors told me they were allowed 12 minutes per person. And so I think this is a thing that's happening in the world where we're experiencing this contrast. Of like the pitch of like traditional way of doing things and it's creating like a desire in us to find other ways to open things up a little bit more and do it more individually.
[:[00:10:08] Cherie Lindberg: I really agree with you that folks are desiring liberation, freedom and choice. They're tired of the same old way. And I also think they're desiring connection. Yes. And what's happening right now is disconnection.
[:[00:10:30] Linda Nicholson: Yes, yes. A thousand times. Yes. The connection is so important. We're hungry for it.
[:[00:10:56] Linda Nicholson: Oh, so much doubt. I have doubt in my human design. I have the gate of doubt. There's lots of gifts with it, but the challenge is self-doubt. So yes, all the time. One of the things that helps me, first of all, lots of support. I work with a lady who channels angels. She calls them the mothers. Her name is Margaret Claire Jacobs, Peggy Jacobs.
[:[00:11:28] And one day they were talking with me about what people are calling the witch wound, this fear that in previous incarnations and previous lives, we experienced a lot of difficulties, a lot of persecution from speaking our truth.
[:[00:11:58] And then she looked up and she said, this is actually applicable to every single person in this room. I need constant reassurance. I listen every morning to podcast. I either listen to my messages from Peggy, I listen to Abraham Picks all the time. I listen to uplifting podcasts like yours.
[:[00:12:32] And of course you have the ultimate gift in your human design of uplifting other people. So there's no better on uplifter than you, Cherie, but like to help each other and bolster each other. I use article cards a lot. I need constant. reassurance with that doubt. One time in one of my readings with Peggy the angels told me that I needed to deal with how I felt. Like one of the reasons why things were slower for me in the beginning was because I had to deal with how I felt every time I did the work, which was terrified. When I took my certification class in human design, I wanted to just do in-person readings. I wasn't even on Zoom.
[:[00:13:23] I wasn't comfortable. So partly for me too, since I'm very open, energetically, I always considered my being able to interface with somebody in person was like part of my superpowers. But I realize that's okay. It might be, but this is fine too. I reassure myself or I do something inspiring that gets me in a better frame of mind. Mm-Hmm. The other thing that really helped me was to totally focus on the service of it. I remind myself of all the people that I could help, I pictured them all out there, and I set the intention to draw in the people who are ready for this liberation.
[:[00:14:17] Cherie Lindberg: Having had a reading, energetically just having that reading and feeling your excitement to read the reading or to connect me with my gifts was wonderful. Being in that energy was just absolutely wonderful. So let's talk a little bit about human design. Some of the listeners, this is gonna be their first time even hearing about it. So what is human design and how can it help us?
[:[00:14:52] It's not developed by questions answered by the person. It's a self-awareness, self-empowerment tool that is a combination. of various ancient wisdoms.
[:[00:15:58] And so he wasn't like this mystical person or anything. he started all this and so it's been in the world this long, but it's been building, building and just in the last couple years it has exploded into the world. And one of the things that my teacher Chetan talked about was that our world has been preparing for years. Like other things. My husband is a marriage and family therapist, and he does what's called emotionally focused therapy. That came into the world in 1987. EMDR came into the world in 1987. I don't know when brain spotting came in. I know that's something that you're an expert in.
[:[00:16:48] In twenty-twelve, we changed to the age of Aquarius. And the age of Aquarius is the age of the individual. So all these modalities have been coming into the world to support this awakening that's happening on the planet, in the universe that is moving us more toward the age of the individual. That's one of the most important things about human design. It says we don't have to be homogenized anymore. We don't all have to be the same, that we're the vehicle that we chose for this lifetime. And we chose certain gifts to bring into the world.
[:[00:17:36] Because it's for our sole expansion. So your chart shows gifts that you have, potential challenges. It shows how to use your energy to make things happen in the world. How to make decisions, like certain things to look for within our body that are really good, solid cues that we can use to make decisions.
[:[00:18:13] It's meant to lay it out to the person and see how it resonates with them. It's for validation and freedom, not this is the way you have to do it. one size fits all does not work anymore. We're in the age of the individual now, and one of the theories is that those of us who are here now came to be people to usher in this age of awakening.
[:[00:18:52] And basically this helps to see that there isn't anything wrong with us. This is how we're designed to be and how to work with that design the best. I'll give you an example. For me, I have an open root center in my human design and people with an open root center are empaths for other people's stress.
[:[00:19:29] And that's how we gather the wisdom because my soul knew I needed that. So I was drawn to learn about it. It's such validation. It helps you see that some of these things that you thought were a problem about yourself, that some of it is a challenge we came to overcome, but a lot of it, the flip side of it are some of our biggest gifts that we came to bring to the earth.
[:[00:20:10] Linda Nicholson: This happens a lot now doing readings. I will say first for myself, for many years, I thought there was something wrong with me. I saw that I had gifts, but I always had this ongoing feeling that there was a lot wrong with me.
[:[00:20:56] Linda Nicholson: So many people that I do readings with now, I'm noticing that I keep setting the intention for the universe just to bring in the people who are ready. I could just see it. It's not news to people. It almost feels too good to be true. Like I did a reading with somebody a couple weeks ago, a gentleman who is making a life change for a new career. He's moving into it over the next few months, and came at just the right time.
[:[00:21:45] But he literally kept smiling and saying, I can't believe this. He said, I knew I had these gifts, but it's almost like felt too good to be true. we have so much conditioning in our society about that. But that's what I'm seeing over and over again that people who are coming, have an inkling that these are their gifts, but it awakens it even more in that person, because it's such validation. And then they have more courage to move forward and step into the gifts. Which during this really important time for our planet, I mean, it's happening again and again.
[:[00:22:38] Like it's somebody who is meant to have lots of different experiences and be a trial and error learner. So they're meant to learn in that way or to have these experiences, and not everybody has that. It's almost like a permission. We shouldn't need permission, but because of our life conditioning, it feels like a permission to actually step into that. I'm being drawn to that because it actually is me and it's something that's in my soul blueprint, and it's something that my soul wanted to experience. I'm, seeing it over and over again.
[:[00:23:17] To connect people with their light, with their agenda. Zoe, one of the human design teachers says that these are the gems that we told the light. I'll bring this to the earth. And the idea that we are all connected. We're one thread in this tapestry of humanity. If I don't live my thread and you don't live your thread, then that thread is missing.
[:[00:23:53] And so that's what I'm finding too. More people are willing to actually step into this is who I came to be. And, it's getting rid of this conditioning that the way we are, there's something wrong with that.
[:[00:24:14] Cherie Lindberg: I just love hearing what you're saying I mean. I was so surprised at how accurate the reading was. We had just met and you were saying the things that I was actually doing. And there's no way for you to know. So it was really like, wow. And the impact of validation. Growing up as a kid, having some of these gifts, using them and people looking at me like I was strange, I was weird, dissing me, and then having to grow up squashing that so I could belong, so I could connect. And now here I am doing the exact opposite like I'm opening 'em all back up again. What a journey. And then for you to be able to read that in this human design chart. My jaw was just dropping the entire time you were doing the reading.
[:[00:25:14] Cherie Lindberg: It was like a beautiful anchor to say, yes, you are doing what you're supposed to do. And to have an anchor, to have validation. I can't even express how important that is, because it felt like I was flying blind for a long time. And then to have this validation from someone. You're reading my chart and you don't even know who I am. And everything that you're saying is validating. It's just like what you were saying about some of the other people you're reading. I can't believe this. And then when you did my husband's reading, boy, he was flying high after that. He was just like here are my gifts. This is why I'm like that. And now when we get into anything where we're arguing, he's like, well this is one of my gifts. And I'm just like, he's right. So we're gonna do another reading where my husband and I come to you. I'll be very interested to hear about how our charts mingle and how they might bump up against each other as well. And how we can show up more compassionately or understandingly about why we're together and what we're here to do together in the world.
[:[00:26:38] And so we tend to try things, we tend to make more mistakes, we sort of have a life, like a clinical trial. But the older we get, we can shut that experimentation down outta fear of making a mistake. And that was so me. Like I could not stand making a mistake. So afraid, like perfectionism.
[:[00:27:24] And two, there's a higher and a lower expression to everything in our chart. We came to be in a world of contrast into a human body. So we are going to be in our lower expression sometimes. And just knowing that, I'll realize and I'll say, how can I soothe myself into a better vibration here?
[:[00:27:55] Cherie Lindberg: Yeah. Him sharing his validation and talking about his gifts, we started to see some of these things. I look forward to going deeper with it.
[:[00:28:18] Linda Nicholson: That sounds wonderful. And Cherie, I wanna say thank you for what you are doing in the world. I feel so safe with you and inspired and enlivened when I talk to you. You're so authentic.
[:[00:28:47] It supports the journey. So thank you again for coming today.
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