In this inaugural episode of the Nine Centered podcast, Teresa Brenneman and James Alexander delve into the core principles of nine-centered consciousness, emphasizing differentiation, surrender, and embodied awareness

• How James and Teresa became friends and eventually began a professional collaboration
• The creation of the New School of Human Design and their shared vision
• Exploring nine-centered consciousness
• The concept of limitations and challenging the new-age narrative of limitless potential 
•  The importance of recognizing trauma responses and differentiating them from inner authority
• Why somatic work is a crucial tool for integrating one's design and embodied awareness and surrender to the body's intelligence are key to navigating life's challenges
• Honesty, fulfillment, and the illusion of intention

The New School of Human Design

About James

About Teresa

In this episode, Teresa and James explore the often misunderstood concept of the Not-Self in Human Design, reframing it as a necessary and valuable part of the deconditioning process.

Key Topics Covered:

This course blends Human Design and somatic work to support the deconditioning journey at a deeper, more embodied level. Check out the syllabus and get more information here

The New School of Human Design on IG // @newschoolofhumandesign

James Alexander on IG // @james_alexander_coaching

Teresa Brenneman on IG // @teresaabrenneman

In this episode, James and Teresa delve into common misunderstandings within the Human Design system. They emphasize a nuanced approach, moving beyond simplistic interpretations to offer a more practical and embodied understanding.

• Strategy & Authority: Ra Uru Hu emphasized strategy and authority, but it’s not the whole picture. The mind and nervous system also play vital roles in decision-making, especially for emotional, ego, and mental authorities.

• Misapplication of Strategy: Strategy guides major life decisions — not every little task. Projectors, for example, only need invitations in key areas like relationships and career.

• Mind’s Role in Authority: The mind can hijack the decision-making process, especially for process-based authorities. Awareness of motivations and mental narratives is crucial.

• Sacral Sounds & Responses: All types make sacral sounds, not just Generators. Emotional authority can sometimes override sacral responses, leading to silence instead of sounds.

• Nervous System Regulation: It's important to be able to have nervous system flexibility to access inner authority. A dysregulated nervous system can interfere with clarity and decision-making.

• Transference & Functional Freeze: The mind can create false narratives to avoid discomfort, leading to apathy and disengagement. Awareness helps to shift these patterns.

• Awareness as the Key: Recognizing bodily cues and sensations can deepen understanding beyond standard Human Design signposts.

  
  

  Want to go even deeper? Sign up for our upcoming course Embodying Your Design starting May 19, 2025

  
  

  Embodying Your Design is the advanced beginner’s course James and Teresa wish they had when they started. Whether you’re new to the experiment or years in, this course will reconnect you to the core mechanics of your design — not just intellectually, but somatically. You’ll learn to trust your internal GPS beyond Strategy and Authority with practical, body-based guidance that makes the keynotes come alive. Step into your design with clarity, confidence, and embodied alignment. Join us and discover how to truly live your Human Design.

  
  

  For the course syllabus and all the other details click here

  
  

  Follow NSHD on Instagram!

In this episode, Teresa and James dive into the world of psychic abilities—redefining them not as rare gifts, but as natural human capacities to tune into unseen frequencies and gather insight beyond logic. Through the lens of Human Design, they explore how our inner knowing speaks, and how we can learn to trust it.

• Rethinking the word "Psychic": Teresa and James unpack the stigma around psychic abilities, reframing them as intuitive tools accessible to everyone

• Human Design as a Map: How cognition and authority in Human Design can illuminate your unique intuitive style and help you trust those subtle hits

• The Mind vs. Inner Knowing: Teresa shares stories of splenic intuition and the mental resistance that often follows, especially for emotional authorities

• Mental Chatter as a Signal: James explains how tracking the mind’s activity reveals our emotional clarity—or lack thereof

• Intuitive Truth in a Noisy World: How discernment and inner authority can cut through misinformation and lead to deeply aligned decisions

• The Trap of Seven-Centeredness: How fear-based, strategic thinking still dominates many spiritual spaces—and how true surrender requires letting go of control

• The Evolution of Connection: With the mutation of the Solar Plexus, Teresa and James explore the shift from codependence to interdependence, and the new ways tribes form around resonance, not sameness

• Limitations as Creative Fuel: Why boundaries and challenges aren’t obstacles but portals to innovation, evolution, and personal freedom

  
  

  If you're just discovering the system or you're craving a grounded, embodied way to understand and experiment with your design, join our newest course: Embodying Your Design. This course is designed to help you move beyond the mental concepts and into real-life integration

  
  

  Click here for the details!

In this episode, Teresa and James dive deep into the world of the 5th line. As a 5/1 with eight 5th line activations, James shares his personal experience of living in the projection field, while Teresa offers reflections from her perspective as someone close to that frequency.

Together, they unpack the psychology, challenges, and potential of this powerful and often misunderstood archetype.

What's discussed in this episode:

• The Nature of the Projection Field: 5th lines carry a natural aura of expectation. Teresa and James explore how this projection distorts identity, creates inner tension, and often leads to feelings of misunderstanding and loneliness.
• The Heretic and the Savior Complex: Why the 5th line is called “The Heretic,” and how projections can lead to disconnection, ego entanglement, and even public shaming when expectations aren’t met.
• 2nd Line vs. 5th Line Projections: Teresa compares her 2nd line experience to James’s 5th line reality, revealing how both lines face different kinds of interference — especially in childhood — and how it impacts their sense of self and purpose.
• Living with the 5th line: James shares how being perceived as someone who “has it all together” makes it hard to receive support. He opens up about over-communication, reputational pressure, and what it means to manage expectations with strategy and authority.
• Work, Dating, and Autonomy: Why 5th lines thrive in roles that offer space and sovereignty — and why contracting or consulting may be ideal. In relationships, James reflects on how slow, intentional connections help cut through the fog of projection.
• Finding the 5th Line Family: What it's like to find "5th line family" in people who you build trust with and get close to
  

Follow us on Instagram

The New School of Human Design // ⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠

James Alexander // ⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠

Teresa Brenneman // ⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠

In this episode, we dive into the intricacies of Human Design composite charts—what happens when two charts merge to form a unique relational dynamic.

What we explore:

• Composite “rhymes” like 9-0: Nowhere to Go and 8-1: Have Some Fun, and how different numbers of open centers shape relationship dynamics.

• The composite as a third entity—how new channels, authorities, and defined centers influence a partnership.

• The four types of channel connections (companionship, dominance, electromagnetics, and compromise) and how they create attraction, friction, or challenges.

• Navigating inner authority and communication in relationships, especially when partners process decisions and express themselves differently.
• Personal reflections and what we've learned from various relationships
• The future of relationships as society shifts from the Cross of Planning to the Cross of the Sleeping Phoenix—toward sovereignty, individuality, and spirit-lifting love

Interested in Analyst Training? The next cohort begins September 29, 2025. Apply here!

Book sessions:

Teresa

James

Check out our team of Analysts

Follow us on Instagram:

The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠⁠

James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠⁠

Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠⁠

Mercury retrograde may have thrown delays, mishaps, and communication snags, yet we're finally back with another episode!

In this episode, we continue our conversation from the previous episode to dive into our personal deconditioning stories. We explore the subtle yet powerful ways the mind pulls us off track—whether through distraction in view, transference in motivation, or the conditioned patterns stored in open centers.

Teresa shares how her Desire motivation and Personal view can focus her like a “heat-seeking missile” when aligned, but lead to apathy or political overdrive when in distraction. James unpacks how his Guilt motivation and Survival view serve him when correct, but can also keep him stuck in “shoulds,” overgiving, or false hope.

We also dig into the lived experience of our open centers—Teresa’s completely open Ego and Head, James’s undefined Spleen and Root—and how these areas have shaped self-worth, information processing, sense of safety, and relationship patterns. Our stories illuminate how deconditioning is not about erasing these patterns, but revisiting them with greater awareness each time they resurface.

The next cohort of Analyst Training begins September 29, 2025.

We will begin with Semester 1: Building the Story of the Conditioned Self, where students will learn how to excavate conditioning patterns with objectivity and compassion—preparing to spot them in themselves and others.

To check out the full syllabus, click here.

Follow us on Instagram:

The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠⁠

James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠⁠

Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠⁠

In this episode of Nine Centered, Teresa and James explore the deeply personal terrain of deconditioning through the lens of Primary Health System (PHS), Cognition, and Embodiment in Human Design.

Drawing from their own lived experiences, they unpack how these elements have shaped their growth, health, and relationships, offering real-life examples and gentle guidance for those navigating their deconditioning process.

What We Cover:

PHS as a Portal to Somatic Healing

• Nervous Touch (Teresa): How her need for stimulation shows up in meals, relationships, and learning—and how background café sounds became a surprising support for digestion and well-being.

• Low Sound (James): His journey from misidentifying his determination to understanding the relief of quieter environments and warm, full-bodied sounds.

• PHS & Trauma: Why PHS work often brings up childhood conditioning and how to meet it with patience and compassion.

• Observing Children: James reflects on how children naturally honor their determination when allowed the space to do so.

Cognition as a Subtle Inner Guide

• Feeling Cognition (Teresa): Becoming more attuned to emotional undercurrents and how it supports intuitive perception.

• Touch Cognition (James): Exploring the layers of connection—from food to energetic boundaries—and the pain of disconnection.

• The Solar Plexus Connection: Both hosts tie their cognitions to the evolving role of the Solar Plexus in relationship, emotional awareness, and nervous system attunement.

Embodiment & the Feminine Principle in Deconditioning

• Why Embodiment Matters: Moving beyond mental understanding to felt experience: why deconditioning requires slowness, softness, and body awareness.

• Transference & Compassion: Naming the pull toward conditioned behaviors and how to discern between a mental loop and an embodied truth.

• The Feminine Lens: Surrender, flow, and receptivity as essential ingredients in this work, especially in a culture conditioned toward force and control.

This episode brings awareness to the questions...Are you listening to your body—or trying to control the process?
Can you trust your system to show you the way—without force?

Analyst Training begins August 2025! ⁠Click here⁠ to find out more information and access the course syllabus

________________________________________________

Follow us on Instagram:

The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠⁠

James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠⁠

Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠⁠

Are you over-intellectualizing the Human Design System and approaching it with dogma? In this new podcast episode, we explore our relationship with the mind: how it shapes our sense of self, how we orient to the Human Design system, and how we connect with others. We discuss the pitfalls of mental over-intellectualization in the Human Design field and why embodiment is essential for real transformation. 

What you'll hear about in this episode: 

♦️The Mind and Human Design

The mind can distort truth when it leads our experiment.Dogmatic or black-and-white thinking can turn anything—even Human Design—into a cult-like experience. Embodiment is non-negotiable: without it, the system stays theoretical. 

♦️ Returning to the Body

We share personal experiences of becoming disembodied through spiritual overreach and finding their way back through Human Design and inner authority.True understanding arises from felt experience, not belief systems or external validation. 

♦️ Practicing with Integrity

Observe first, then apply Human Design to what you’ve lived.Avoid mental witch hunts for mechanics; let truth reveal itself.Follow what your inner authority draws you to learn—nothing more.Transits and complex teachings should support awareness, not feed anxiety. 

♦️Relationships Through a Nine-Centered Lens

Relate to others beyond their chart; avoid “guru” or superiority traps."Rules" (like sleeping separately) are experiments, not mandates—follow what actually works for your body and relationship. Love is not something conceptual or even mechanical. Embodiment builds honesty, empathy, and trust. 

♦️Deconditioning, Truth, and Embodiment

The system can either pull you deeper into your mind or anchor you in your body.Real growth comes through grounded awareness—being with your experiences, not bypassing them. Cults keep you mental; embodiment brings you home to yourself. 

♦️Announcements

Teresa will be taking a few months off for maternity leave, but don’t worry—James will be hosting some incredible guests in her absence! You can look forward to hearing from some former NSHD students, offering a range of perspectives and insights. 

Analyst Training Enrollment — Enrollment is still open for the 2025–2026 Analyst Training cohort!

Semester 1 has already begun, but if you’re ready to dive in and can catch up with the recordings, there’s still time to join us on this journey. Enrollment will officially close when Semester 2 begins in March 2026, so there's plenty of time to catch up and still get the live experience.

⁠⁠Apply here!⁠⁠

Book sessions:

⁠Teresa⁠

⁠James⁠

⁠Check out our team of Analysts⁠

Follow us on Instagram:

The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠⁠⁠

James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠⁠⁠

Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠⁠⁠

Human Design, Deconditioning, Embodiment, Mindfulness, Somatics, Self-Trust, Relationships, Personal Growth, Nine-Centered Being, Inner Authority, Human Design Analyst

Caroline Dijckmeester-Bins joins James and Teresa to get into what it means to live life as a Manifestor. The anger, the loneliness, the beached whale conditioning, and what it's taken to stop hiding behind other people's words.

Caroline is a 4/6 Splenic Ego Manifester, certified Human Design analyst with The New School of Human Design, and a journalist based in Amsterdam. She works with people through what she calls "In Your Own Words" sessions — a process of helping people find their own language for who they are and what they do, drawing on her journalism background and HD knowledge.

In this episode:

• [00:31] Caroline's origin story — a 6-year documentary, a big fallout, and stumbling onto Human Design
• [07:07] The Manifestor feeling of being removed — loneliness and what reframed it
• [09:18] The urge as superpower — what it feels like when Caroline gets out of her own way
• [13:00] Mental initiation vs. a true urge — how to tell the difference
• [21:20] The two Manifestor archetypes: the rebel and the beached whale
• [24:49] Informing — why doing it as a question defeats the whole purpose
• [44:30] Manifestor impact — and why Manifestors often can't see their own
• [01:01:07] Caroline's offering: helping people find their own words
• [01:17:42] One thing you don't often hear about Manifestors — they love being impacted too

Resources mentioned:

• The New School of Human Design Analyst Training Program https://newschoolofhumandesign.com/analyst-training-2025-2026/
• Rave Mandala course with James — https://newschoolofhumandesign.com/product/rave-mandala-360-pre-recorded/
• Caroline's website — https://www.carolinebinsmedia.com/human-design-sessions

Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/newschoolofhumandesign

In this episode, James sits down with Human Design analyst Mike Litvin for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to live your design as a somatic, embodied practice.

Mike is a 6/2 emotional Projector with power view. He's on the Left Angle Cross of Alpha. In addition to his Human Design work, he is a writer, cartoonist, publisher, and mystic. He lives in Santa Fe, NM.

He and James met at the first High Desert Human Design Conference in 2021 and spent years as neighbors in Santa Fe, logging countless hours of conversation that probably should have been recorded. This is their first time doing exactly that.

Topics covered:

• Mike's origin story with Human Design and the role of aura in deepening the experiment
• What projector recognition actually feels like from the inside — and why it has nothing to do with the words someone is saying
• The not-self trap of trying to make things happen as a projector
• What waiting really means — and what it definitely isn't
• Attention hygiene and why doom-scrolling hits Projectors differently
• Triple split mechanics: why variety, movement, and different locations matter
• The Generator's experience of Projector recognition — James tracks the mechanics from his own side
• Sacral response beyond the grunt: how to read genuine generator alignment
• Why Human Design stays an intellectual system for so many people and what it takes to move past that
• The somatic piece of the experiment
• HD-informed therapy and where Mike's practice is heading
• Living the experiment long enough that the system just comes with you

Connect with Mike:https://www.attunement.info

James and Teresa take a break from the guest series to dig into one of their favorite topics: emotional authority. Both are emotional, both have lived it for years, and this episode reflects that depth.

They cover what it actually means to wait through your wave, what clarity feels like in the body, and why the way emotional authority has been taught in the field leaves a lot out. The conversation moves through the three wave phenomena Ra identified, why none of them are actually part of the decision-making process, what emotional intensity has to do with clarity, and how the mind gets emotionally defined people stuck in ways they often don't recognize.

They also get into what it's like to navigate the world as an emotional person alongside splenic people, what non-emotionals get wrong about emotional maturity, and how somatic awareness changes the whole experience of living with a defined solar plexus.

TOPICS COVERED

Teresa's first introduction to Human Design and why emotional authority landed immediatelyWhat Ra got right and where his teaching stopped shortThe difference between wave phenomena and the actual clarity processWhat emotional clarity feels like somaticallyThe three wave types: spike and lock, crash wave, and ratchet wave, and why none of them are decision-making toolsHow the mind amplifies and distorts the emotional processRaw emotional data vs. feeling as interpretationThe splenic/emotional divide and different relationships to time, depth, and informationCo-regulation, emotional empathy, and when you need a splenic person to cut through the fogIntegrating splenic awareness and emotional authority when you have bothWhat non-emotionals misunderstand about emotional maturity

FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM

The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/newschoolofhumandesign

James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/james_alexander_coaching

Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/teresaabrenneman

For the next episode of our series focusing on Type, James sits down with Nils Kunisch, a 3/5 Self-Projected Projector, certified NSHD analyst, and seven-year Human Design experimenter based in Germany. Nils works alongside his partner — a trauma therapist with over 15 years of experience — combining Human Design with somatic practice.

This is a rare and honest look at what the Projector experiment actually feels like from the inside. Nils and James cover self-projected authority and how to somatically tell the difference between the mind speaking and the G-Center, the sternum sensation as an Inner Authority marker, and what recognition really feels like versus being projected onto. Nils shares about Desire motivation and its transference to Innocence, Projector energy and what success actually looks like without motors, the Generator-Projector dynamic from both sides of the aura, and why presence is a Projector's most underestimated gift.

They also get into the no-choice conversation, nervous system work as the real foundation of deconditioning, and the traps that even experienced HD students fall into — including forcing Human Design as an explanatory lens onto everything.

Nils is a certified analyst with the New School of Human Design. To learn more about his work or book a session, visit

his site https://paths.to/nils.kunisch

Follow Nils on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nils.humandesign/

In this episode of the Type series, we explore what actually shifts when you live as a Sacral Generator, moving from mental understanding into embodied response, capacity, and trust in the body.

In this conversation, we're joined by Tegan Parkinson and Carina Dusseldorp and we explore lived changes that emerge when Generators stop forcing, stop future-tripping, and begin honoring their sacral energy in daily life, relationships, work, and parenting.

• The shift from over-analyzing Human Design to living strategy and authority

• What sacral response actually feels like (and why it’s not always loud or dramatic)

• Navigating fear, money pressure, and survival energy as a Generator

• Capacity, boundaries, and giving from overflow instead of people-pleasing

• Trusting the body over the mind, especially in high-stakes moments

• Why simplicity, presence, and patience create sustainable satisfaction

Tegan Parkinson
2/4 Sacral Generator | Cross of the Maya
Tegan shares her grounded, embodied approach to Human Design, shaped by years of self-work around anxiety, presence, and nervous system awareness. Human Design became a validation, not a rulebook, helping her trust not knowing and live in deeper alignment with her sacral response. She also does Akashic Records readings.
🔗 Book with Tegan: https://teganparkinson.com/
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teganparky

Carina Dusseldorp
5/2 Sacral Manifesting Generator | Cross of Industry
Carina brings a deeply somatic and holistic lens, reflecting on growing up misunderstood, learning to trust her defined spleen and ego, and creating freedom through honoring her body’s needs. Her work bridges Human Design, embodiment, and parenting through differentiation.
🔗 Book with Carina: https://newschoolofhumandesign.com/profiles/carina-dusseldorp/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carinadusseldorp/

Follow us on Instagram:

The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠⁠

James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠⁠

Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠⁠

We're back for Season 2 of Nine Centered to explore how life actually changes through the Human Design experiment and what it's like to live it.

This episode kicks off a four-part series on living your design beyond conceptual Human Design, starting with Generators and Manifesting Generators. In the following episodes, we'll hear from all types and a mix of unique perspectives and voices.

• Living your design beyond theory and legacy narratives: what does it tangibly look like?

• Observing Human Design from birth as Teresa welcomes her baby boy into the world

• Emotional authority before and after Human Design and the reality of the wave

• Confidence, the 2/4 profile, and responding to callouts

• Letting go of optics and external validation, how relational dynamics have shifted

• Fear, the body, and deconditioning the spleen

• Chronic health issues as communication from the body

• Expansion of the NSHD analyst community and featuring more voices on the podcast

  
  

  Interested in Analyst Training? Semester 2 begins early March and you can still join. ⁠Apply here!⁠

  Book sessions:

  ⁠Teresa⁠

  ⁠James⁠

  ⁠Check out our team of Analysts⁠

  Follow us on Instagram:

  The New School of Human Design on IG // ⁠⁠⁠@newschoolofhumandesign⁠⁠⁠

  James Alexander on IG // ⁠⁠⁠@james_alexander_coaching⁠⁠⁠

  Teresa Brenneman on IG // ⁠⁠⁠@teresaabrenneman⁠⁠⁠