#2 Discovering Human Design Later in Life: Burnout, Alignment & Coming Home to Yourself with Paul Burton

In this episode of The Beauty of Knowledge, I’m joined by Human Design Analyst Paul Burton for a deep and honest conversation about self-discovery, burnout, conditioning, energy and what it truly means to live in alignment.

Paul discovered Human Design later in life after years working in the corporate and leadership world, and what started as curiosity became a complete transformation in the way he understood himself, relationships, work, emotions and purpose.

Together, we explore:

✨ What Human Design actually is
✨ Why so many people feel burnt out and disconnected
✨ The impact of conditioning and living out of alignment
✨ Emotional decision making and intuition
✨ Why Projectors burn out so easily
✨ Human Design types, strategies and “not self” behaviour
✨ Self-acceptance, deconditioning and learning to trust yourself
✨ The difference between the life we were taught to live and the life we were designed to live

This conversation is for anyone who has ever felt exhausted from trying to fit into environments, expectations or versions of themselves that never truly felt right.

Whether you’re completely new to Human Design or already exploring your own journey, this episode offers a grounded and relatable insight into how understanding yourself on a deeper level can change everything.

Connect with Paul Burton:
Website: consciousconn3ctions.co.uk
Instagram: @consciousconn3ctions

Connect with Hayley Simpson:
Website: hayleysimpson.com
Instagram: @itshayleysimpson

If this episode resonated with you, please share it, subscribe and leave a review — it really helps the podcast reach more people who need these conversations.

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome back to The Beauty of Knowledge Podcast. Today's episode is one I've really been looking forward to because not only are we talking about human design we're talking about human design with somebody who's a very close friend of mine who has actually changed my life from talking to me about human design. And I know human design can sometimes sound quite complicated or a bit out there, or a bit woo woo when people first hear about it. But for me personally, it really has changed how I understand myself around how my energy works around burnout, relationships, and work and why I felt quite different in like certain environments. And I now, I know so many people at the moment feel quite disconnected from themselves and burnout overwhelmed and they're trying to force to keep up and all of these different things that go on in our life where we are trying to fit in. So I really wanted to have this conversation today with someone who discovered human design later in life in his late fifties and has had a huge transformation through it. So today I'm joined by Paul Burton, who is a human design analyst, and we are basically just going to have an open conversation around discovering human design and what it has helped Paul with, but also why this work can be so powerful for people. So firstly, Paul, welcome to the podcast. Hi. Thank you. Nice to be here. thank you so much for agreeing to have a chat on this. I'm sure it won't be the last time you are here on my podcast, Paul because we have such fascinating conversations. So tell me, how did you discover human design? Because I actually had never really heard of it until you started studying it. Yeah, so it's interesting. I have a cousin who talked to me about this 20 odd years ago when I was in my early forties. And at the time I was a leadership using Insights, discovery, Myers Briggs, those kinds of tools. And I looked at it and thought, I'm not really sure this is for me. And then, fast forward, as you say, 15, 18 years time, I'm having a conversation with somebody about human design again. And I thought, oh, I haven't looked at that for a while. And I looked into it again and started to figure out that I could study it. And actually I could do it in my own time. And it was just something that fascinated me. And once I started looking at it, I was hooked. And I've not looked back since. Really, it knocks all of the other tools I've worked with into a cocked hat. Really, it's incredibly powerful, very insightful, and the level of depth is just incredible. And so what was going on in your life at that time? Would you say that kind of made you wanna dive deeper into this? I think like many people, COVID and lockdown had a huge impact on me. As I said I was a leadership facilitator bouncing all over the planet, delivering transformational leadership programmes to multimillionaires. just all seemed a little bit empty. So when COVID stopped all of the travel, and I got off the merry-go-round, it gave me a chance to sit and start to make sense of where I was in my life and where I was feeling fulfilled and where I wasn't. And it really, I recognised that it was important for me to shift what I was doing. So I was looking for tools that would stop me being so reliant on the corporate world and actually get more into the working individual one-to-one with people. So personal transformation really. Okay. So really it was more of a tool you were looking to add to your business to help other people. Yes. but it, And to give me another string to my bow, really, that was much deeper than anything I'd experienced before. yeah. And obviously I know you very well, so I know that not only have you helped so many other people, it's has huge impact on your own life as well, because I've seen a huge change over the years. You've been working with human design. So yeah. How would you say you were living before understanding your design? Myself, I'm sure like many people I was living the life that I believed I was supposed to live, and, it was as good as it was gonna get. And what I recognise, the way human design works, it looks at the openness in your chart, because open centres in your human design chart are where you are influenced and conditioned by the people around you. And out of the nine centres in my charts, seven of them are open. So I've actually been living most of my life being influenced and conditioned by the people around me. And as I said, as soon as COVID hit and I was able to sit down and take stock of what I Paul Burton actually wanted to do, was when I realised how far out of alignment I was. So for 50 odd years I've been living somebody else's bloody life. And once I saw my design, I understood. The life that I was designed to live and lead. And I've started doing the work to bring me back into alignment with that. So I'm now to live the life I was born to live and not the life I was told to live. So it has a huge impact on everything, my relationships, my work, the way I approach, opportunities, everything has shifted massively as a result of it. That's amazing. And you mentioned relationships work and how you make decisions and that type of thing. And obviously I know how you have changed the way you go about those decisions and in, and you've taught me as well to listen to my intuition. And as a projector it only speaks once and working with you, I understand now that speaks very quietly and I have to listen the first time. And so yeah, that's that's something that I've really learned from you from understanding my design. So what would you say has changed, like practically in your life? What would you say is like the biggest thing that's changed for you to live in alignment? I think it very much it, it links to what you said. My my authority, my decision making process is my emotions. It's my solar plexus, which is to see my emotions. And I've grown up as a man in a world where I am an emotional man, and the world looks at emotional men somehow as less than. And, I've been told so many times to man up, not be so soft, to make decisions based around logic. And that doesn't work for me. And it never has worked for me. And so I've ended up making decisions that on paper logically looked right emotionally for me, were just the wrong decisions. And then that made me deeply uncomfortable living with the consequences of those decisions. now I'm able to follow my emotions sit with my emotions and allow time for my emotions to be clear before I make decisions. a result of that, I'm making better decisions that are more aligned with what's right for me, rather than what I feel other people expect me to do. And that was quite a big shift. It's hard, it's been hard for me to do what's right for me. Rather than what I thought other people wanted me to do. So it's been a big almost an unlearning of how I operated before to come into alignment with the way I'm supposed to operate now. And it is simply somebody would ask me if I wanted to do something and I would say yes, and then spend the next three days trying to work out how to weasel my way out of it. Whereas now what happens is when people ask me something, the first thing I say is, when do you need to know? And if they say they need to know straight away, my answer's no. If they can give me some time to ponder it, that answer may shift. just by buying myself some time, making better decisions for myself. And it doesn't mean I'm still saying no to stuff. I'm now saying yes to more stuff. importantly though, I'm saying yes to the right stuff. The stuff that actually really enjoy, the stuff that lights me up, the stuff that makes me feel better about myself brings more enjoyment and fulfilment into my life. Oh, thank you for sharing that, Paul. That's amazing. And I'm sure there's so many people that also feel the same and. Say yes when they wanna say no and have this internal conflict of what's the right thing. And sometimes we don't even always know what we want because we don't take that time to sit and really think about it or listen to our intuition. And I guess as well I guess that's why so many people are burnt out really because they're doing things that aren't aligned with their type and their chart. Absolutely. E every type in the human design has a signature, which is what they're looking for in life. some of us are looking for peace. Some of us are looking for satisfaction. Some of us are looking for success and some of us are looking for surprise in our life. And that's how we know when we're experiencing more of that. That's how we know we're in alignment. When you talk about burnout, people experience that either as anger, and that's what causes the burnout or frustration or bitterness and resentment or disappointment. And any time any of us are feeling any of those things, and experience all of those, but one will probably be more prevalent than others, depending on your type, that's body's way of telling you that you are living out of alignment with your design. So it's quite simple. If you want more of the things that was talking about in the first place, which is the signature, then you need to reduce the not self behaviour, which is what produces feelings that I've just talked about of frustration and anger and bitterness and all of those kind of things. So we all instinctively know when we're out of alignment. We, as I did, I just didn't actually understand why. Once I'd had my human design analysed, I then started to understand why those things made me feel that way. And from there, that awareness gave me the opportunity to pick things that made for me feel more satisfied because satisfaction is my signature. Okay. That's amazing. And so what what are you, obviously I know what you are, but for people listening, what's your human design profile? So I, I'm a generator and generators are the engine room of the world and we are here to bring things into being. So we drive everything and we create things. And if things are going our way, the end of the day I look back and I'm going, wow, that was amazing. I'm so satisfied with what I've achieved today. When I'm out of alignment and I'm doing things and I can't get them to go the way they want to, or I'm doing something that I'm not really enjoying, I just experience frustration. And for me, then that means that I'm laying in bed at night like I've not had a good day, I've not really fulfilled my purpose, and just not going to sleep feeling that satisfaction and that's not going to sleep. Frustrated. Anyone who goes to sleep frustrated, knows that there's a strong chance you'll wake up frustrated in the morning as well. And that was my life for a long while. Wow. Yeah, that's makes so much sense. And for me as well as a projector, mine is bitterness. So as I look back to my life working in the corporate world and I realise now why I was burn out. I was ill all the time. I was, yeah, I was just not designed to work in that way, to work from early in the morning till late at night and be constantly in a high pressured environment. As much as I thrived off that at the time, it actually made me very poorly. And I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition and I was constantly had colds and my body was, Yeah. me that I was so out of alignment. And even I look back and I remember certain conversations and feeling quite bitter about certain situations that had gone on and it's wow, that is because I was so far out of alignment and I just shouldn't have been there. So it is, it's, it is really powerful and once you have that knowledge, you can understand yourself so much better. So yeah. So that's amazing. Paul. Thank you for sharing. Can I ask you a question actually? Why do you think, like us projectors tend to burn out so easily? It because you are, we live in a society that tells us that we have to be busy and we have to be doing things and we, we should have a plan and we should be moving forward through life constantly. And we live in an always on world. When I was a kid, you went out with taps in your pocket in case you had to phone home 'cause you had to find a phone box. Now everybody's reachable buying their mobile phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And for projectors that's really hard because any projector will have an open sacral centre. the sacral centre is what gives generators their power. That's our generator. And because roughly 70% of the population are generators or manifesting generators, projectors often find themselves standing next to people that are generating this energy. And when a projector is near sorry. Yes. When a projector is near somebody whose sacral is defined, very easy for them to feel like they should be doing something. They should be doing more, they should be busier. And the conditioning that comes out of that is that I'm not doing enough, so I have to do more. And what a good knows is when enough is enough. When you have a decide defined sacral, you know when it's time to stop. If you're projector, you don't have that knowledge, you don't have that in built into your system. So spending a lot of time around generators will keep you feeling as if you should be doing something and pushing when you don't have access to the energy to allow you to keep doing that. And that's where the burnout comes. Back to what you were talking about in the corporate world, it's not really surprising that was your experience. Once you understand that, you can begin to inoculate yourself against that and recognise that not self behaviour and start to learn to put boundaries in and to balance your work and your life to say yes to less things so that you preserve your energy when you don't know. And most of us don't know our human design is. We're open to what's around us and we have no way of protecting ourselves it. And therefore we are living in not self, which is what causes the burnout. That makes so much sense. Yeah, and I think I feel like as well, it is knowing that you're out of alignment is the information. And that's what's so great with human design. 'cause once you can go, oh, I'm feeling this. Even if it's slightly, you can go, okay, what's the not self behaviour and bringing yourself back in alignment. But what would you say that actually looks like in real life for people that aren't quite sure what that looks like for them? Your body is always telling you that your signature is what you are always looking for. And anytime you're feeling that you're doing it right, anytime you are feeling the not self, you are doing it wrong. So it's very gentle. It's about awareness. There's a guy called Vitor Frankl talked about stimulus and response, and he said that, between stimulus and response, is a gap where you get to choose how you react. So for me, I was sleepwalking through life, not realising where I was being triggered into this not self behaviour. Once I became aware of it, I just made it a game. And every time I caught myself just about to go into some not self behaviour, I would just catch myself giggle choose to do something else that was more in alignment with me. it, so it's it's not a massive shift. It's a gentle shift over time happens by noticing and gradually changing the way you operate until in the end, your awareness that becomes your new automatic way of operating that is in alignment with you. And then obviously, it's a bit like a tipping point. Once you begin, the more you begin to come into alignment, the easier it is for you to stay aligned and the more aligned you then become because it's easier until in the end you just become your design. To me that sounds a lot like accepting yourself as you are, because you understand yourself better. You can accept yourself better. Would you agree? most definitely. And there, there's two parts of that say for me, certainly it gave me permission to be an emotional man. And now my emotions are my superpower. They're no longer something that I was trying to suppress or avoid. The other thing really with it is that just now feel like I can be who I am fully without having to change myself to suit anybody else. So I feel like I grew into myself almost. That's amazing. Do you think that a lot of people are craving like a permission to be just be themselves? Certainly the people I've experienced that I've taken through a human design analysis reached a point where they realise they can't stay where they are anymore. either because of a change in their circumstances, a loss of a job, a loss of a partner, a breakup of a relationship, birth of children, all those big changes. That's when it suddenly comes into their awareness that the way they're currently living is no longer sustainable. And something has to shift. And, what's nice about it is, as I said, it's quite a gentle shift. It's not like you've gotta completely change who you are. What you're actually doing is you're becoming who you were supposed to be. You are remembering who you were and coming back to that, Yeah, that makes so much sense. What would you say has been your biggest transformation throughout this journey? Like, how long have you been living your design? So for me, it's, they talk about deconditioning, the deconditioning process. And coming back to self takes seven years. And from a biological standpoint, that's because this operates at a cellular level in your body, and in every seven years, every single cell in your body has been replaced. So that's where that comes from. A and for me, I'm now three, three and a half years into that, and I'm just starting to notice more. For me, I guess the biggest piece, as I said, was whilst I've talked about my definition, which is my sacral, my solar plexus, openness is my G centre and my ego centre, which is my sense of self and my sense of self-worth and self love. And so for most of my life, I've been a human pretzel where I've twisted myself what everybody else expected me to be, and then wondered why I was so frustrated all the time. And what I've started to do now is recognise how important it is for me to spend time just accepting who I actually am and not fighting it. Because as soon as I stopped fighting myself, my life got a lot easier. The self, the self-talk that goes on for many of us where I'm telling myself, I'm not good enough. I've done this wrong. If I know I was more this, if only I was less that. If only I could do this, if only I was better at that. If only this stopped all the could or would shoulds stops. It doesn't stop completely. What happens is those thoughts could take me up into my head and I could spend hours ruminating on that. Whereas now I catch it, just come back into my body and stop that process. And that's where I think that the juice comes in. And the other side of it is that what I really liked about human design is that it tells you who you are, what your personality is, which is you, consciously you on a good day. And it also talks about your design. And your design is your unconscious side. It's the side of you that's unpredictable, the side of you that you don't have any control over the side of you. That's not always available to you. And for many of us, for myself included, it's the side of myself that I didn't really like or acknowledge. so the other part of coming into alignment with your design beginning to accept the bits of yourself that you don't really like. And all of us have got that, whether it's a body part or whether it's the way we behave or way that certain people can make us feel, whatever that is it's actually acknowledging that's a part of who you are. And it's okay sometimes to feel that way. It's okay to not be okay. It's just that now that I understand what drives that, it's easier for me to go. And now I'm gonna move on from that and not get stuck in it. That's where the power isn't it? It is it is going okay, I get it. I understand it. And moving forward and moving through those feelings and not saying, 'cause I think a lot of people see feelings negative and positive, whereas actually I feel like human design's really taught me to just even understand the feelings in my body, what feels good, what doesn't. It's really about energy, isn't it? And it's, I feel like what you are saying is really helped me along my journey as well. And it is so powerful and what you are saying about being able to catch it quickly and move through things. I think that's what where the power lies. Because you can go and have a reading and it's very top line, or you can put your details in online, but it's not gonna give you the depth what someone could get if they came to you and had a full analysis of really getting deep and understanding emotions and behaviours and that shadow of the things we don't like. But also having that self-acceptance to say, yes, I see that, but I love, still love myself fully, and that's okay. And I work with that. It's that understanding and it's that knowledge of ourselves where we can then go okay, and move forward. Absolutely for me, every single one of us is doing the best we can and we can all do better and we are all perfect, even if we are imperfect. That imperfection is what gives us that perfection. Spending my life trying to be what everybody else wanted me to be instead of who I was supposed to be, was exhausting. So I have more energy now because I'm able to be who I'm supposed to be, I want that for everybody. My mission is to give people the awareness, whether it's a passing awareness that just gives them some top level stuff, which is what we've really talked about. Or if we go into the really deep stuff to look at a route out, what the triggers the not self behaviour are going back to childhood for many of us, and start to release those that, the external influences will always be there. The impact the trigger has to pull us out of alignment can be reduced until in the end it just, we don't even notice them. And then allow people to become aligned with who they are and just live better, more fulfilled lives, doing what really lights them up and being who they were born to be when they came here rather than how the world has made them. Yeah. That's so powerful because we are conditioned by so many things growing up. So it does take that time of unlearning. What would you say to someone that's discovering human design for the first time? I guess the, for me it's that there's two things. The first thing is there's this, oh my goodness moment where I suddenly saw everything that, that was making me unhappy clearly. And it's very easy in that moment to decide that it's all your fault and blame yourself and give yourself a hard time. And, I used to pick up a stick with a nail in the end of it and beat myself over the head with it. The real shift is that your human design is simply there to provide you with information. It's simply holding up a mirror. And once you can look in that mirror and accept what's there and work with that instead of trying to be what you are not that's where you really start to see the benefits of understanding your design. Yeah, that makes so much sense. Yeah, for sure. I remember at a talk recently that I was at with you. Someone asked me, what's human design? I said, you've gotta come to the talk. 'cause it changed my life. And all three of them came in and it really has changed my life. And what's the one thing, Paul, that you would say that you wish more people understood about themselves from doing the work you do? I think if you understand how you are meant to enter into anything that you choose to do in your life based on your design, then you are never gonna go far wrong. For example as a generator for me, my strategy is to enter into things in response to something from outside of myself or in response to something that I've seen. And if I enter into things in that way, I'll always end up doing things that I enjoy. When I was doing things because I thought I should, or other people had told me, or I'd woken up one day and thought I'm gonna do this, would rapidly run out of energy and quit. So that for me, being able to understand what your strategy is and start to employ that you meet less resistance in your life the first place, and therefore you spend less time in the not self behaviour. Because you are following your strategy. So if you did nothing other than follow your strategy, you wouldn't go far wrong with human design. Thank you for sharing that. That's so true for me as well, because as a projector, I have to wait for the invitation and I can remember so many situations in my life where I've initiated things or chase things and they've never worked out and they've never been aligned. And that's why. So I actually had a conversation with a client of mine this week who's also a projector. And she was talking to me about something and I said, remember as a projector, you have to wait to be invited. Because she was like, oh, I wanna send a message and I wanna do this and I wanna do that. And I said, you're not supposed to initiate. You have to wait to be recognised. And she was like no, you are right. And it's really helped me, Paul, because even in the work I do, it's and how I market my business and how I do things, it's all changed and everything is just so much easier Now I've surrendered and I share from a place of. Just because I wanna share my wisdom, I share and then the right people come to me. Whereas before I just didn't see it that way. I just thought I had to, constantly be creating content and be showing up like the generators that are in my life. 'cause there's lots of those. So yeah, now ILI have so learned to wait for the invitation and take guided action when I feel inspired. So it's really helped me in every area of my life actually. Not just work, but every area of my life has improved since I followed my strategy. So thank you so much. I'm so pleased you went on this journey because you've helped me and in turn you've helped my clients and I know you're working with lots of people as well. So Yeah, I just feel I, I definitely would love you to come back on the podcast and talk more about human design because I've seen your transformation and I'm sure you've seen mine as well since I've started to learn more about it. So yeah, it's really exciting and there's lots of exciting things coming up for you, Paul. Is there anything you wanna add to the conversation before we wrap up? I guess I just want to talk to your last comment really, because is a tough gig being a projector because projectors are the people who spot what everybody else is doing wrong. And as I see the biggest challenge for them is that if they give unsolicited advice, they're always gonna make meet with resistance. and you are somebody who gives really good advice and you notice things that I don't notice. And some of the advice you've given me has helped me so much. I'm just glad that I have always asked you for your advice, and I've never had the experience of you giving it to me unsolicited. had that experience with other projectors in my life there advice has been unsolicited. And even though they are telling me the right things, it just makes me very frustrated that they're telling me that. Whereas when I get advice from you because I've invited it and I then follow through on it, then I get that feeling of satisfaction when I get the result that I want as a result of your advice. So thank you for being a part of my journey. It's much appreciated. Oh, thank you Paul. That means a lot. And you know what? That's so true because I, you feel satisfied because, you've asked me and I've given advice and then I feel like it was received and I feel seen and heard. I must say though, there has been many opportunity, not opportunities, many situations in my past, especially with my family when I've given advice or thing, when there's a crisis and I'm like 'cause you love people. We love people so much that I've given advice 'cause I can see what someone needs to do, but it hasn't landed very well and I've come away feeling hurt and upset and oh, okay. But now obviously now I understand. I've realised that it just was never asked for and now I just keep quiet until I'm actually asked. And it does happen. Yeah. does happen eventually. 'cause people go Haley seems to be doing all right. She looks well. Hold on. What's that? She mentioned ages ago. So yeah, it's yeah, it definitely works and it definitely makes my life easier as a projector. Yeah. Thank you so much Paul. I'm truly grateful for all the knowledge that you shared share with me on it. It's really helped my journey and it's helped me grow. So thank you to you as well. You're very welcome. Thank you Paul. And yeah, I will definitely have you back on the podcast. If you would like to be, Most and perhaps next time we could talk about we could talk a bit more about human design, but also maybe some individual case studies would be quite interesting to go a bit deeper into it. Absolutely. We've barely scratched the surface of what human design really does. We are just talking about the top level stuff, so there's, yeah, there's so much more to talk about. love to do that. Thank you, Paul. Alright, so for now I will say goodbye. Thank you so much and we'll speak to you again soon. Thank you. Bye-Bye.