31. The Difference Between Managing Your Life and Living It

Last week, a few days in Montreal reminded me of something I didn't realize I had been missing: Aliveness.

Not because anything extraordinary happened. There wasn't a huge breakthrough or dramatic life change. But somewhere between wandering the city, listening to music, having meaningful conversations, and following what felt alive, I remembered something important: There is a difference between managing a life and living one.

In this episode, I explore the subtle ways we can become so busy carrying our lives that we stop fully participating in them. We talk about responsibility, certainty, vulnerability, and why so many of us unconsciously choose the comfort of managing over the risk of truly living.

This isn't an episode about abandoning your responsibilities. It's an invitation to ask: When did responsibility become a substitute for aliveness? And what might become possible if you allowed life to meet you again?

If you've been feeling stuck, disconnected from your spark, or quietly longing for more life inside the life you already have, this episode is for you.

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These are a few places people often begin...

• Some start by discovering their design for the first time → Generate Your Free Human Design Chart 
• Others move directly into living it → Live Your Design
• And some prefer a deeper, personal exploration → Work With Me

Whether you're just getting curious or ready to go all-in – start where you are, and follow what feels most alive.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Designed for More, a podcast about what it means to live in alignment with who you really are. I'm Julie, former CEO Turned Human Design Guide and Soul-led Enpreneur. Here we explore the journey of remembering your true nature and creating a life that feels deeply good from the inside out. Because you were never meant to settle. You were designed for more. Hello, loves. I just got back from a few days in Montreal where I celebrated my 46th birthday. And I've been trying to find the words for what I came home with. And it's not because something huge happened while I was there. There wasn't like this massive breakthrough. I didn't decide to move there, which has happened quite a few times in my life. And I didn't come home with some grand plan. It was much simpler than that. I came home more with a feeling, I guess I could say. And that feeling was feeling alive. And honestly, I hadn't realized how much I missed that feeling until I felt it again. I mean, the trip itself was so beautiful. I went with my friend, my sister, Brittany. We attended a voice activation workshop and a concert from Nessie Gomez. We spent time in parks. We wandered through the city. We drank cacao on a rooftop. We ate incredible food. My body, my sacral, was humming the entire time. And mostly we just let ourselves follow whatever felt alive in the moment. And I think that's what actually struck me the most, what I enjoyed the most because we weren't trying to accomplish anything or optimize anything. We weren't trying to get anywhere. There was nowhere we needed to be. We were just meeting life as it unfolded. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I realized something. I realized how easy it is to spend a life managing it. And before I go further in terms of what I mean here, I want to be really clear. This is not an episode about abandoning your responsibilities. We all have them. I have them. I have three children and I love them. They're the loves of my life, the biggest blessing of my life, not a burden, not a responsibility. And I have a business and I love it. I love that I'm here right now in this moment on a Tuesday morning in my workout gear after just doing uh like moving my body in such a satiating way, and the sun is out, and my salt lamp is humming, and my Palo Santo is still able to be smelt in the air, and the goddess card that I pulled is sitting beside me, the candle is lit, and I'm so grateful. And I have laundry and I have bills and I have appointments and commitments and soccer games to drive people to and all kinds of things. I have all the same practical realities that most of us are navigating. So that is really not the point. The point isn't, am I responsible or how can I like shirk my responsibilities or bypass them? The question is really, when did responsibility become a substitute for aliveness? And that is not the same thing. I think that so many of us, or at least I'll speak for myself, have become so good at carrying our lives that we've stopped noticing whether we're actually participating in them. For me, this doesn't usually look dramatic. It doesn't look like lying on the couch and avoiding my life. It looks actually much more responsible than that. And I think that can be the stickiness. It looks like spending an afternoon tweaking my website when it's completely unnecessary. It looks like spending hours refining an offer, planning content, researching something, washing the floors when they could easily go another week or two before anyone else noticed that they were clean. Um, you know, doing that load of laundry to get a sense that it's done when the fact is that it is never done. Listening to another podcast, trying to figure something out, thinking about what I should create next, helping someone else, it looks like being useful, it looks like being productive, it looks like doing things that on the surface seem completely reasonable and maybe even in some cases necessary. Often they're necessary and often they're not. And what I've been noticing is that when life feels uncertain, when I don't know what's next, or I don't know where to put my energy, or there's an emotion that I don't really feel like feeling, or life is, I know it, I can feel it, asking me to expand. I'm starting to get restless. There's starting to be frustration. My not self is coming online to show me that my energy is wanting to move in another direction. And so what do I do? I tend to reach for a false kind of certainty, a kind of sense of safety and the certainty of my work, of productivity, of helping, of planning, of doing laundry, of washing the floors, of reorganizing a drawer or a closet or weeding the garden. You know, sometimes it's trying to figure out everything before taking the next step or any step. And it's so seductive because certainty, that kind of certainty, feels safe. And what I mean by certainty is that I know how to answer an email. I'm good at it, right? I know how to update a web page, I know how to reorganize something, I know how to stay busy. I'm very good at being useful. I am very good at being productive. What I don't know is what happens if I follow the nudge. I don't know what happens if I reach out. I don't know what happens if I say yes. I don't know what happens if I admit that I want more. I don't know what happens if I let life meet me. And that is so vulnerable. It's so much more vulnerable than managing my life, living my life, allowing it to meet me, taking the risk is much more vulnerable than managing my life, managing my energy, doing the things that I know how to do that may or may not need to be done at some point in time. Which is why I think we do it, right? It's not because we're lazy, it's not because we're avoiding life, it's because managing often allows us to avoid the uncertainty that actually living requires. And what makes this so tricky is that managing doesn't feel like hiding, does it? At least not for most of us, at least not for me. When I think of hiding, I think of avoidance. I think of procrastination, of numbing out, of checking out, which is why I would say I do I don't avoid. That's not me. But what I've been noticing is that some of the most sophisticated forms of hiding don't look like hiding at all. They look like being incredibly responsible. They look like carrying everything, being the person everyone can count on, being productive and useful and needed. And because those things are rewarded, it's so easy to miss what's happening underneath them. Because nobody is going to pull you aside and say, hey, I think you're being a little too responsible. I don't think those floors really need to be cleaned. I don't think you really need to go into the office today, into your, you know, business if you're an entrepreneur today. I don't think that you really need to um help me out with this today. I don't really think you need to say yes to be available to, you know, meet me for coffee. Nobody says that. If anything, you'll be praised for it, and you may even be admired for it. People will tell you how much they appreciate everything you do. And yet, there's a difference between carrying a life and experiencing one. There's a difference between supporting everyone around you and feeling connected to yourself. There's a difference between being needed and being alive. And I think many of us have accidentally confused those things. Especi women, especially mothers, especially leaders of all genders, and especially the people who have learned to derive a sense of identity from being capable. Because capability is beautiful, but alone it doesn't create fulfillment. Alone it doesn't create aliveness. Alone it doesn't create joy. And if we're not careful, then we can spend years becoming exceptionally good at carrying a life that no longer truly feeds us. Because eventually something begins to happen. And it may not happen all at once, it quite probably happens slowly and quietly, but it does happen. You stop expecting life to surprise you. You stop following your curiosity, you stop making space for wonder. You stop taking yourself seriously when a desire appears, or maybe you just take yourself too seriously, period. You stop trusting the things that light you up. And it's not something you've probably consciously decided to do, but you might have become just so practiced at managing what already exists that you forget to create room for what wants to emerge. And then one day you wake up and your life is full, but you don't particularly feel full inside of it. And that I know from experience is a painful realization. Because from the outside, everything may look fine, maybe even more than fine. Your life may actually be so beautiful. Mine is, and yet there can still be a longing, not for a different life, but for a deeper relationship with the life you already have. A longing maybe to feel more present, more connected, more engaged, more alive. And the more that I've sat with this, the more that I've realized that for me, this wasn't about Montreal at all. It was just that Montreal gave me a contrast. It reminded me what it feels like when life is meeting me, when I'm meeting life. And once I felt that contrast, I couldn't unsee it or unfeel it. I started noticing all the places where I had unconsciously accepted a smaller experience of my own life. Not because I'm unhappy or that I'm doing anything wrong, just that I slowly have become devoted to managing my life in sneaky ways more than participating in it. And I wonder if you've experienced some version of that too, and not necessarily in the same way where we all have different contexts. So it's probably also not necessarily for the same reasons, but just maybe in your own life. Maybe, for example, you're listening to this while driving your kids somewhere, or you're folding laundry, you're cleaning house, you're heading to another meeting, you're out for a walk. Maybe you're building a business or contemplating a change. Maybe you're sitting in a life that from the outside looks completely fine. Some people might even envy it. And yet there's a part of you that feels like something is missing. Again, not because your life is bad. This isn't about that. It's about your life spark feeling a little further away than it used to. And I think that's the thing I've been noticing lately, not just in myself, but in so many women I speak with. Women who are deeply capable, deeply responsible, deeply caring. Women who also carry a lot and beautifully. But somewhere along the way, they stop asking themselves a very important question. What's making me feel alive? Not productive or useful or needed or successful, but alive. Because those things are not the same thing. And one of the things that struck me in Montreal was how little it actually took. I wasn't in some grand transformation or zipliding through Costa Rica or launching a new business or standing on a mountaintop having an epiphany. I was just walking, listening to music, having meaningful conversations, being in a beautiful city in gorgeous weather, and letting myself be surprised. Following what felt alive from one moment to the next, and it reminded me that aliveness is often much simpler than we think it is. The challenge is that aliveness is difficult to schedule, right? It's difficult to control or to optimize because it asks us to participate. And that participation is where the vulnerability is. Because when we begin participating, we're no longer guaranteed an outcome. The moment we reach out, the other person might not respond. The moment we create something, people might not like it. It might not quote unquote work. Or the moment we admit that we want something and what we want, then we risk not getting it. The moment we say yes to a possibility, then we also say yes to uncertainty. And that's why I think so many of us unconsciously choose management instead, managing our lives, doing the things that we know how to do, that feel safe, that we tell ourselves need to get done, because you know we are responsible for all of these things and all of these people and who's going to carry it if we don't. And what we do there is choose a safer life. One that feels less alive. Because if I spend my day doing what I already know how to do, then I don't have to face the vulnerability of what I don't know. I don't have to face the possibility of disappointment or rejection or failure or even success or fear or someone else not doing it as well as me. And yet the irony is that the very things we protect ourselves from are often the things that make us feel most alive. Giving ourselves independent space away from our families, saying yes to a conversation, an invitation, a trip, saying yes to a creative project, reaching out, a collaboration, expression, desire, things we can't fully guarantee, things we can't fully control, things that ask us to participate before we know exactly how it's all going to unfold. And maybe that's why sitting in Montreal on my birthday, the phrase that kept coming through wasn't about a goal. It wasn't a strategy for my 46th year around the sun. It wasn't some like lightning bolt of clarity. It was simply that this is my year of yes. And the more I sat with that, the more I realized that I wasn't talking about saying yes to everything. I wasn't talking about becoming busier or overcommitting or abandoning discernment. It was that I was saying yes to participation, yes to the things that make me feel alive, yes to the conversations and the collaborations and the invitations and the adventures and the creative risks, and yes to letting life surprise me and the life knowing that when it does, I will say yes to it so that life can experience the joy of moving through me. And with that, knowing that I'm also saying yes to uncertainty, yes to not knowing, yes to the vulnerability that comes with wanting something before you know how it arrives. Because I think that for a long time I believed that I needed more certainty before I could fully participate. More clarity, more proof, more guarantees. And what this trip reminded me is that life doesn't usually work that way. Actually, I've spoken plenty of times on this podcast about it not working that way. And that's why this is so sneaky. I think in some ways, when you're in a chapter of no, where you where you're just your life force is so suppressed to the point of burnout, and you're on the path of saying no to something in order to create space. In some ways, not that that's any less hard, been there, done that twice, had to go through that spiral a few times. It's so in your face as to not be able to, like, you know, universe is throwing a brick at you so that you can't not see what's happening. What I'm talking about here is the subtle, more sneaky ways that we deny ourselves our aliveness. And it reminds me that the things that have most shaped my life didn't come with certainty. To this day, they still don't come with certainty. My friendships, love, motherhood, my career, business opportunities, travel. None of these things are certain. None of them are guaranteed. And the most meaningful chapters of my life began with a yes. A yes before I knew exactly where it would lead, before I could see the whole path, before there were guarantees. And that's why this feels so important to me. It feels more like a willingness to step into relationship with life again. Because life can only meet the parts of us that are willing to show up. And for me, this season feels less like a year of figuring things out or of saying no, and more like a year of saying yes to being in relationship with my life. The whole thing, the beautiful parts and the uncertain parts, the exciting parts and the vulnerable parts, all of it. And that's maybe why this feels so connected actually to human design for me, because underneath all of the charts and the authorities, the strategies, the energy types, and more, what I've always loved about human design is that it invites us back into relationship with life itself. It's an experiment. It's not about control, it's not about certainty, it's about relationship, it's about participation, it's about a willingness to be met, to meet yourself and let life meet you through the energetic mechanics that human design offers for you to respond to, to decide through the experiment if it resonates with you or not, if it expands you and supports you or not, if it feels like flow or not, if it feels abundant or not, and different types experience that differently, different authorities experience that differently, but underneath all of it, the invitation is the same. Can you stop trying to manage life long enough to actually meet it? And so I'd like to ask you a question not something to answer quickly and not to answer from your mind, but to sit with. So if you happen to be sitting right now. I invite you to just adopt a soft gaze. And if you're driving or walking, just maybe to the extent that feels safe to do so. Moving your awareness into your body, into your heart, into your sacral, to your chest, to your throat. If you know your authority, perhaps to the energy center that carries your authority. Taking a deep breath in through the nose. Where have you become so busy managing your life that you've stopped participating in it? As you hear that, notice what comes up. And then notice if your mind wants to explain it away. Or justify it or defend it. Mind does that too. It'll tell you all the reasons why things are the way they are and need even to be the way they are. Why you're busy, why you're tired, why now isn't the time, why you're doing the best you can. And maybe, maybe all of those things are true. This is not about blame. It's not about shame. It's not about adding another thing to your already full plate. It's about honesty. Because I think many of us, if we're really honest with ourselves, have become so accustomed to carrying our lives, to managing them, to managing our energy that we've stopped noticing whether we're actually inside it. We've become managers of our days, managers of our life, managers of our energy, managers of our households, managers of our careers and of everyone else's needs and our emotions and our responsibilities. And somewhere along the way, life then becomes something we're maintaining rather than fully experiencing. And that might be the most confronting part that nobody else can answer this question for you. No one else knows where you've gone numb. No one else can know where you've stopped dreaming. No one else can know where you've convinced yourself that fine is good enough. No one else can know where you've quietly stopped asking for more. Only you do. Your body knows. Your heart knows. Your life knows. The question is just whether or not we're available to hear it. And sometimes it speaks as a whisper, as a longing, as a curiosity or a desire that won't quite leave us alone, like a place we want to visit, a conversation we want to have, a project we want to begin, a song we want to sing, a class we want to take, a version of ourselves we want to meet, or simply an emotional desire like freedom or peace, sitting at a cafe all by ourselves, reading a book at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday. And sometimes those whispers seem completely irrational. They don't fit neatly into some kind of plan. We rationalize it doesn't always or usually make sense to the mind. It doesn't come with any guarantee, which is exactly why they're so easy to dismiss. So we tell ourselves, well, we'll do it later, when the kids are older, when work settles down, when we have more money, when the baby's sleeping, when we have more certainty, when we feel more ready. And maybe sometimes that's true. I'm not denying it or asking you to either. And I think that sometimes later is another form of hiding. Because living asks something of us now. Not reckless and not abandoning our responsibilities, but participation, a willingness to take one step to answer one invitation, to say one yes. And that's what I keep coming back to. What I keep coming back to is the realization that aliveness rarely arrives after certainty. It usually arrives after participation, after the ticket is booked, after the message is sent, after the invitation is accepted, after the conversation is started, after a step is taken. And I wonder how much of our lives we are waiting within, waiting to feel alive before we're willing to participate, when in reality, participation is often what creates the aliveness. So if you've been listening to this episode and nodding all along, or at any part of it, if you are recognizing, even just in small ways, parts of yourself within this. If you've been thinking, yeah, that's true, then I want to lovingly interrupt you for a minute. Because the recognition is beautiful, but recognition alone doesn't change anything. Insight alone, intellectually understanding something or relating to something doesn't change your life. Participation does, action does, embodiment does. The conversation, the reach out, the class, the walk, the boundary, the invitation, the yes. That's where life begins to move again. So before I close, I don't want to leave you with just an insight. I want, I don't want this to become another podcast episode that you agree with. I mean, I really like if you do, but a truth that resonates isn't enough. A moment where you think, wow, that's exactly what I needed to hear, and then return to life exactly as it was before is incomplete. If there's one thing that seasoned of my own life has been teaching me, it's that recognition and participation are not the same thing. We can recognize what's true, we can recognize what we want, we can recognize where we've been hiding, we can recognize where life is inviting us forward and still never move. And I don't say that with judgment. I say it because I've lived it. I say it from my experience. I've spent months talking and wanting more aliveness, more adventure, more connection, more life. And what I realize is that life wasn't withholding those things from me. Life was waiting for my participation, waiting for me to leave the house, waiting for me to reach out, waiting for me to become available for the very things I say I want. Not to force them, but to create the conditions for life to meet me. And maybe that's the invitation I want to leave you with today. Not an invitation to completely reinvent your life, or no expectation to take a dramatic leap, or certainly not a five-year plan. You know, I don't believe in those, but just one honest question. What could participation look like right now? Not six months from now, or next year, or when you're more certain, or when you're less busy, or when the kids get older, or when you figured it all out, or when your business reaches a certain milestone. No, now. What would participation look like now? Is it sending a message or booking a trip or communicating something or signing up for a class or having a conversation that needs to be had or starting the thing you've been circling for months, just maybe simply admitting what you want or what you don't. Maybe it's taking a walk without your phone, without a podcast even, and asking yourself what feels alive here. I don't know what it is for you, but I know that you know, or at least a part of you does, the part that lights up when something's true, the part that knows, the part that keeps whispering beneath all the noise that surrounds us. And that's where I'm going to leave you. I'm going to leave you with an invitation to be a little less devoted to managing your life and a little more devoted to meeting it, to become a little less devoted to certainty and a little more willing to live. Living will always be vulnerable. It will always ask things of you. It will always ask you to step before you know exactly what the path is or where it leads. It will ask you to risk disappointment and be disappointed at times. It'll ask you to risk being seen, truly seen, so that you can feel the intimacy that exists in being seen. It's going to ask you to want more and to risk wanting more. But it will also give you something that managing your life never can. Aliveness. Aliveness. Aliveness in imperfection. Aliveness because questions disappeared. Because there's no master plan, because you remembered something, because you remembered that life isn't here to be managed, that you're not here to manage life. You're here to experience it, to meet it, to feel alive within it, not to become someone else, not to create a different life, but simply to meet the one that's already here, waiting for you. Thanks for listening to Designed for More. If you felt sparked or seen in today's episode, I'd love for you to leave a review, share it with a friend, or come find me on Instagram at Julie by Design. And remember, your clarity is sacred and your joy is a signal. You are designed for more.