[00:00:00] Welcome to Clear Signal. I'm gonna warn you up front that this episode is gonna feel like you're going in a spiral or a circle, and that's kind of the point. We finish it up at the end, but in the middle you're in a spiral, and that is kind of what this process feels like, and that is what the unscripted path feels like.
That was a prior name of the podcast, and this episode was originally dropped when the podcast was called The Unscripted Path. A little bit more of a spiritual, esoteric flavor is when we drop this in. And there are two related but different concepts in here, and then three parts. One of the concepts is this notion of spiral versus circle.
Are you going in a circle? Are you going in a spiral? In surface spirituality A spiral and a circle are the same, but they're not. The second concept of this episode, is this notion [00:01:00] of the ego center. I used a graphic that I saw on Facebook that compared intuition versus ego, spiral versus circle, to decouple those concepts to talk about spiral versus circle.
Then I jumped into this notion of the ego center versus the intuition center. Finally at the end, I tie it together with a conversation that I had with a client. The client conversation happened in the summer of '25, and I originally recorded this episode in the winter of 2025 and never dropped it in. But the conversation in the summer, and something she said to me when I mentioned the concept of spiral circle, made me wanna drop this in, and that's the full story. This is one of my foundational episodes on the centers. You're gonna see them labeled. I have emotion center episodes, head center episodes, this [00:02:00] episode, the root center.
Some of the foundational concepts related to centers as it, as it relates to entrepreneurship and the biggest areas I think it steers people awry from a generalized, not personalized point of view. Obviously, we all are a mix and match of centers, so there is no one cookie-cutter framework, but that's what this is about Let's get into it now
A graphic I saw on Facebook that had a comparison between intuition and ego, and it didn't really sit with me. I recorded an episode about it.
I put it on my hard drive. Client comes to me and mentions something and then I said, , I've recorded an episode about this. She's like, , why don't you send it to me? And I said, I'll do you better. I'll [00:03:00] put it up in the feed. That's what this is. This ties in to the last few episodes we've done, which were more esoteric and spiritual. Numerology was brought in. This notion of magnetism through nature, working with the moon, working with nature cycles, your intuition and then the episode that came right before this, was building something your way. The Heart Center is very much associated with doing it your way and what makes sense for you. The episode after this is about brand evolution and brand evolution is spiral in a different way. When you are evolving your brand, you're gonna evolve and change and pivot as you get further and further up the spiral of the journey you're on. You are going to be further on your journey in terms of what you are doing and what you're working on and who you attract, and that is going to make people in your world no longer resonate with you,
the graphic [00:04:00] showed a symbol of a circle and it showed a symbol of a spiral.
We think we're going round and round, like we think we're running a track, like a high school track and going nowhere as in a circle, but we're actually inching.
Forward. We just don't see it often in a spiral. , , the coils are so tight that you're spiraling upwards but you don't see it. And , of course in life we can spiral downwards. And that's not a good thing. This is the different version.
This is the spiraling upwards, the person had equated the circle to the ego. , The spiraling upwards to the intuition. I was gonna read both of those posts out, but , I don't know who wrote them. And I have no way to, give credit for that. And also it didn't really make sense to me
ego often gets a bad rap, but to me it's a part of being human. It's what helps us set boundaries. [00:05:00] Define ourselves in relation to others and when it's in balance, ego is what makes us feel confident and empowered. In Human Design, there is a center known as the Ego Center. It's also known as the Heart Center.
It's known as the Will Center. It is the center that is least likely to be defined in folks. I happen to have it defined. Because it is the least likely to be defined, the majority of the population, about 75% if the math is right. Has it undefined if the Ego Center has to do with worth. That includes on the money plane, but in general, an inherent self-worth, an inherent sense of boundaries, an inherent sense of I'm gonna do this my way, and an inherent sense of confidence. And I don't think that the world is built for that and so the world is used to most people, having to prove themselves to have an inherent sense of [00:06:00] confidence. If you've read my background, you'd think I came from a very, , polished, comfortable situation and I never missed a meal. but I grew up in a white community in the seventies, and for everyone who loves to talk about how liberal New England is, from a political and academic perspective, it is top 1% of the country. It's a lot of firsts actually, in terms of race, gender decriminalization of marijuana, but it also has a really conservative backbone and underbelly. When I was young, I had a lot of problems in this area. I don't really talk to a lot of people from where I'm from, but they're surprised when I say that because people are very blissfully ignorant. Unless they're subject to stuff. Those school buses, the old school buses where they had one seat that a half seat at the back. Obviously it's been a minute since I've rode a yellow school bus and that used to be my [00:07:00] seat. And I used to sit there and there was this I don't know why, but I was one of the first people that got on the bus. It might've been just where my lived relative to the route. And there was this other girl who wanted to always take that seat for me, and I don't really remember how this happened. Again, this happened I think when I was like five years old and I'm 47, the longest story short of it is I got in a physical fight with this person.
And was like, not gonna give up my seat. I just came out that way and I could give you astrological reasons for that. I could give you Human Design reasons for that. It's not in my upbringing 'cause , a family of immigrants and first generation immigrants usually just put their head down to get the job done. They're not really here to make waves, at least back then, because there weren't very many of them around, so you didn't really wanna stand out I think that's the defined ego. When I look back at my life in certain situations I've been in, where I just stood up for myself and had no real reason to have that level of confidence. To me, that's the Defined Ego, and I say that because I think the ego is a good [00:08:00] thing. It's boundaries. It's how we relate to the world, and I only think when it's out of balance is when it gets in a negative way. A lot of people use ego as the reason that they stay stuck. And that relates to that diagram of the circle. Is your ego keeping you trapped in a circle? And that could be, you are too proud to ask for help if you feel like you're spiraling downward and you don't wanna ask for help. Or is it that it's keeping you trapped in a situation that, you're afraid to leave. I've heard people, , describe ego as they were afraid to give up a title or give up a job, fear of what other people are gonna think or fear of what's gonna happen when they quit that job or fear what's gonna happen. Ego as identity is your identity. Attached to that title. Ego is part of the human experience. It's part of your it, it's just part of your brain. Only a bad thing when it prevents you from leaving the [00:09:00] circle. The diagram had showed intuition as being the other side of the coin where it's this spiral and you're taking a step forward and you're spiraling. And you're not going in a circle. You're going in the right direction, but you're taking a step forward each step. I would agree with that.
I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Intuition is one part of your brain and your body and your human being, and the ego is another part of your being. And in balance, they're great and out of balance. Not so good there is a reason why they are two completely different centers in the Human Design system. There's the Ego Center known as the will center, and there's the splenic center. And the splenic center is the seed of intuition and fear. High side intuition, low side fear, when we take a step forward with intuition, we take a step forward. We inch towards our goal, and [00:10:00] depending on who we are, depending on our pace, depending on our level of expectation, we're gonna look like we're going in a circle, because I've gone on so many twists and turns in my life. I couldn't even tell you if I stayed on this podcast for two hours. There are times that I've just been meandering. And there are times where I have been getting towards something, but it looks like I'm going in a circle, but I'm actually spiraling upwards.
The message here is both ego and intuition are useful. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. They work together. There are a lot of psychedelics that will cause ego death, and I've done a lot of them and there are people that have taken them and have gone nuts for a year. And it's not because it affected part of their brain chemistry or anything like that, it's that we as humans without an ego, we don't have an identity.
And I don't mean identity like head of fucking operations or whatever the hell title you wanna call yourself. Identity is like a human. Like where do we fit in the cosmos? [00:11:00] Where do we fit on earth? Without that it can be very destabilizing. The ego is there to keep boundaries in a good way and works against you when it prevents you from listening to people or taking advice that you know you should take or it causes you to dismiss people that you might benefit from. Getting information from the circle versus spiral is not gonna be obvious to other people. It has to be something that you feel, it has to be something that you recognize. And you also have to be willing to recognize at some point, am I going in a circle? Am I spiraling downwards they're spiraling up at whatever pace you want that's gonna be unique to you and your goals and what you want for your life, your objectives, your desires. Then there's your going round and round in a circle, and then there's your spiraling downward. Spiraling downward means you need [00:12:00] help. Spiraling in a circle means at some point. You stay or stuck or you bypass the ego to get advice, to get help, to figure out a way to get out of that. I originally recorded this and then I. Removed this part from the episode and I never do well when I remove things. 'cause the first round is always what people need to hear. Are you buying into the solutions and are you making choices in your business in line with what's best for you? And ego can be like, oh, I wanna be in this mastermind because it means I've made it.
That's another way with ego can work against you, just bring it back to business. To summarize it for you, ego is this notion of you're going round and round in a circle to going back to the inspiration for this episode, which was the graphic.
When are you going round and round in a circle, repeating the same patterns and not getting any further? Is it your ego? Is it your fear of asking [00:13:00] for help? And spiraling is actually your intuition of play, but it's a step-by-step process. You're just not seeing the progress yet, but it's there. Think about where are you bypassing your intuition out of ego, this whole podcast was inspired by that graphic. So let's go with that are you spiraling downward? Are you spiraling upward? Are you in a circle? Do you have a way of knowing what's what?
It was recorded in February, and I thought I'd bring it back based on my client. I was sharing with her because she has a lot of undefined centers that she's gonna feel sometimes a lot of waffling in. Her choices and a Human Design answer is it's your [00:14:00] centers. And then I said, and I'm gonna play generic business coach now and say, oh, it's because you wanna stay stuck, right? Because that's what everyone's answer is to everything. You wanna stay stuck, you don't wanna move forward. I don't like blanket stuff because it diminishes the nuances of a situation. She said, oh, I think it's my ego. I said, I don't think it's your ego. And that triggered this whole conversation. And to elaborate further on this, because this podcast episode was recorded a long time ago. The Ego Center is different than the Intuition Center in Human Design, they're actually on opposite sides of the body graph. They are related, they are polarities. The high side of intuition is intuition and the low side of intuition is fear. Fear of what other people will think. Fear of failure. Fear of the past, fear of the future. Fear that [00:15:00] we don't know enough fear of what's gonna happen financially. Big thing with entrepreneurs makes it different from other walks of life. Why the stakes are higher you can see how that is related to the ego, but it's not because in Human Design, the ego is boundaries, sense of worthiness, validation, external validation. This was inspired not only from that graphic I saw on Facebook, but it was inspired by a Oracle deck that I have. They pick one card as the main card, and they use that card as the cover for all of the cards. In this particular deck, there is this image of a shell which is a spiral or it's a [00:16:00] circle those two graphics got imprinted into my mind. It was this notion of ego versus intuition, which we talked about, but it was also this notion of when are we going in a circle and when are we going in a spiral that could be for any area of life that we're in. When are we stuck and when does it look like we stuck?
But just. Need to get a bigger perspective because when you take a step back from a spiral and you look at it from the side, there's actually progress being made. If you look at it from the top, it looks like you're going in a circle and the shape of shells. And of snails and of that spiral is known as the Fibonacci sequence which is related to the Fibonacci sequence that I talked about in the Venus episode. Whole episode has this very spiraly circle element to it. It's not lost on me. It's almost like we're demonstrating it in an episode, which is cool to go full circle back to what my client was talking about when she brought [00:17:00] it up, there's this notion of ego versus intuition, which is the graphic and there's notion of circle versus spiral and the notion of the Ego Center in Human Design, which is all well and good, but what my client was used to hearing, it is something you guys probably are used to hearing a lot, which is this notion of ego in the spiritual space. I come from the business world and I come from Eastern philosophy I don't care if you are a spiritual business owner or you are just in it to maximize through funnels you're here to make money. And so this big thing in the spiritual community as well, you want to be detached and not attached to the. Money and you don't wanna be attached to material possessions and wanna be in service and you wanna serve humanity. And I'm just like, whatever. That shit isn't paying anybody's bills. No one owes anybody anything. [00:18:00] And this whole notion of spiritualists are martyrs to serve isn't the game I play. It's not the world I live in. It's not what I recommend to other people. It is a philosophy that is taking a lot of belief systems and warping them and serving their own purposes it's very Undefined Heart it's performative. It keeps people small, it keeps people broke, and I don't think it has anything to do with real life. The ego is boundaries, self-worth, self validation versus external validation. And yes. Things can go awry with material possessions and, [00:19:00] everything is how you look to, other people that's messed up. Sometimes spirit comes through you and you have to surrender, but is the part of you that is like holding on and it's like, no, I'm not gonna surrender. I wanna have control. Is that ego or is that just you as a human wanting to control? It's the label that I have problems with humans want to control because we want to be able to predict the outcome of things we don't like change. That is based in the subconscious mind and that's spiral versus circle versus ego versus intuition versus ego in the Human Design community versus ego in the generic spiritual community. I don't think you'll ever look at those terms the same way again, and people never look at anything the same way again, after entering my world now we're gonna get into brand evolution [00:20:00] and we think about what brand evolution is. It is a desire to stay stuck in an old identity, out of fear of losing what you built or losing the people who have embraced what you've already done.
And that is a way to stay stagnant, and that's what we're gonna talk about in brand evolution Next.
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