I’m feeling infuriated. No matter how much I try to communicate with another person that she is not hearing me and responding to me, she is struggling to get it. For the most part, this is a person who has actually been quite closely in tune with my communication, both on the verbal and nonverbal realms for many years. This time, however, I have a clarity that I’ve never experienced before and this clarity is growing…about me.  

When you are a 5th line profile in Human Design, that means that people have a tendency to project onto you. Those projections can be negative ones or positive ones. Neither actually will keep you feeling “safe” since positive projections are shifted as people experience something outside of their projection of you and suddenly that positive projection turns into a negative one.

I imagine on a certain level anyone who is a 5th line profile in Human Design has taken on projections from those around them in a way that has impacted self-identity either in small or big ways. Can you imagine a child continuously trying to communicate their truth and continuously being responded to in a mismatched, off the mark way? Empathy flows within me as I imagine the experience.

I’ve had many strong figures surrounding me, particularly as a child. It became a very hard challenge to differentiate myself from the projections I experienced, including some consistent and negative ones. I started to form an identity around those projections, since that is what had been reflected back to me about who I was so consistently. Mostly, I experienced it as a reducing of my radiant, yummy self, the loss of which meant that I formed an identity that was felt like a victim, powerless, and small.

As I mentioned earlier though, there is a strength and clarity growing within me. I’m struck by the difference in this interaction than it has been in the past. I am clearly not taking on this present projection, and I am clearly able to witness the trance this other person is under. I am also struck by how thick this trance is, that my communication is consistently being taken in from the filter of the trance.

It is as I see this pattern playing out so clearly that I’m struck with empathy for other 5th line profiles. Many 5th line profiles choose to go into hiding, particularly when the projections turn negative. The power of projection is incredibly strong. It also makes us feel very vulnerable, since projections can reflect and mirror us back in wildly inaccurate, and locked ways. If our identity is formed around those projections, we end up not being able to see ourselves. That makes our own relationship with ourselves mere projections rather than the truth of who we are, which is a painful state to live in.

Here are some tips for a 5th line survival guide:

• Start by seeing yourself. The greatest protection against outer projections is to dissolve and let go of inner projections.
• Know who your people are. Your people are people who see you for who you are, rather than their projections of you, at least most of the time. They aren’t going to be perfect, but they are the ones willing in the long run to inquire within to their projections and assumptions about you.
• Let your feelings of powerless and/or fury guide you. It is letting you know that the other is under the projection trance.
• Be clear when there are positive projections on you. Those projections may feel good, but they are still projections. And, positive projections can easily turn into negative ones.
• Don’t get attached to any projections. They’re a facade, not a mirror.
• Be kind to yourself. It is hard being a 5th line profile. Sometimes you are ready to face the world and other times you may just want to free yourself from the world of negative projections and enjoy the company of yourself, in keeping in line with who you know yourself to be.