Interview With Kendra Current, NLP Practitioner, Human Design Guide, and Artist

SEASON 1: EPISODE 2

Published 04/14/2020

Amy: In today’s episode, we talk with Kendra Current, exploring the practice of Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and Human Design, creativity, and the emotional process. Kendra is an NLP practitioner and Human Design Guide, as well as an active and founding member of the Human Design Collective. She brings to us her unique depth, sensitivity, and perspective on being an Emotional Projector.

Amy: Hi, this is Amy Lee and John Cole, and we’re here talking today with Kendra Current.

Kendra, we thought it’d be interesting to have a conversation with you, as a fellow Human Design coach, and as someone who’s had a lot of experience with some other systems and modalities, and just get to talk about what we can see through these different systems. So, for those of you who may not know Kendra is not only a Human Design coach, but also an NLP practitioner, and someone who’s been deeply steeped in Human Design recently, among other things, and she’s also an emotional Projector, and we’re all Projectors here. So, we can look at things through that lens as well.

I thought maybe we could start with just you telling us a little bit about what your experience has been like in terms of the different systems you studied and how you came to Human Design.

Kendra: Sure, well, I started out early on in my experience in the world of healing therapies as a therapeutic bodyworker, and spent a lot of time hands-on and my cognition is touch in the Human Design framework. I found that through my experience, with hands-on work, I was really interested in getting into the psychology of what makes people’s bodies move the way they do, hold tension the way they do, and maintain their memory from life experiences. That kind of led me down this circuitous path of studying many different kinds of somatic coaching and counseling and healing work which led me into much more of a kind of talk therapy way of interacting with people. I ended up going out to California, many modalities later I ended up in the land of NLP – NLP Marin and California, training with them, and later working with them. I really got to kind of like, open the hood and peel back the curtain to see what’s going on. Unconsciously, that leads to certain kinds of behaviors or the way that we orient to life in terms of what’s possible for us or not. The NLP frame really comes from a perspective of what we would like, and why we continue exploring and experiencing the same challenges or patterns again and again throughout our life. It was really interesting for me then to enter stage left Human Design, where there’s no choice. Come to see, there’s something much bigger happening than any individual perspective, or really the perspective that the mind wants to take on, to hijack, the natural intelligence of the body. It’s been an interesting and fun dance to kind of live with those two bodies of work and appreciate both of those perspectives. Like how we deal with challenges in our life and how we come to a greater acceptance and acknowledgment of intelligence that we don’t always pay attention to that can actually be there to support us, rather than thwart what we’re trying to do in our lives.

Amy: I have heard a lot about NLP, but I’ve never actually experienced it directly myself. Can you tell us a little bit about what an NLP interaction is like or what an NLP session is like? Maybe how does it relate to this mind-body thing you’re talking about?

Kendra: I would actually imagine that a lot more people have experienced aspects of NLP than they think they have because it has really sort of infused a lot of different worlds. It comes from a modeling of different kinds of therapies that have proven to have results for people. So, just taking and synthesizing those systems and being able to utilize them to get shifts for people in a way that maybe some other modalities don’t. When I’m in an interaction with a client, it can look any number of ways, but essentially, it’s conversational. It’s also me paying attention to the sound and the tone of their voice, the language that they’re using to explain their experience. The reference experiences that they seem to keep going back to, as something that’s called a highly-valued experience that they have survived or had to grow a kind of resource to bounce back from in life. Usually, those things are early on in our life. Throughout the course of a conversation, I’m looking at their eye accesses. I’m paying attention to their physiology, and where they might be regressing to express a younger version of themselves, particularly. When it comes to the relationship with what they want; what is it that unconsciously comes up in their mind that is stopping them from having the experience that they want? We’re unpacking this as we go through the conversation, and then identifying resources that would be beneficial to those aspects of self that have kind of cut themselves off from further learning. When we re-partner those aspects of our neurological wiring with a resourced state, it provides for more freedom of choice in terms of where we put our attention and what we consider as possible for ourselves, our animal creature-self, and our higher conscious functioning. I hope that came across in a way that made sense.

John: Yeah, it sounds like an appropriate, I would say therapeutic work for a Projector. That dynamic of really watching, really seeing, really paying attention. That type of one-on-one interaction that you’re describing. Has that been your experience as a Projector?

Kendra: Well, I’ve never been anything but a Projector. So, what’s it like for other people? I don’t know, but definitely, for me, I get really interested in going into the depths with people, picking things apart, and understanding what’s happening in someone’s experience. I really have a kind of respect for the level of vulnerability that it can take to go to those places. Both as a Projector and as an emotionally defined being, I think there’s just kind of an art form to being with people in a way that they can both feel safe and also have more of a bandwidth or behavioral flexibility to try on new things and to let go of some of the old conditioning.

Amy: I was going to say, there’s a way it sounds like other somatic modalities that I know of. In the way you’re describing it, it seems like you, as the practitioner, are sort of watching and listening for what’s there beyond just maybe what the person is saying or what they’re aware of. This also seems very Projector-like. You’re using your awareness to sort of see into the person and maybe see beyond or under the surface of things.

Kendra: I think so often that part of the places where we get stuck is in our blindness. It’s the things that we have safely kept in the realm of the unconscious and it can really be helpful. Human Design brings the authority back to the individual. I think that’s what’s really beautiful about strategy, authority, and the Human Design frame. It’s also helpful sometimes to have a conversation with someone who can help us recognize our own ecology- the things that are impacted by things that we don’t necessarily pay attention to in our normal waking consciousness.

Amy: If we were gonna say it in a way to relate it to Human Design, would you say it’s almost like you’re mapping and picking apart the conditioning that’s there?

Kendra: Absolutely, very directly. Because, as I mentioned, when I’m paying attention to someone’s language, their physiology, the color of their skin, or the quiver in their voice when they’re talking about something that’s very meaningful to them, that calls up some kind of deep learning, experiential learning, from their life. We can very specifically pinpoint experiences in their life where the conditioning actually started, where the imprints were made to begin with. Now, some of them are much more invisible in the sense of socialization, and certain kinds of belief structures that come through the family line, or the larger collective. However, everything’s on the table. It’s all available to identify and talk about when we start to have this kind of conversation.

John: I’m kind of curious about how the unconscious is looked at in the context of NLP versus Human Design, and how it’s approached, dealt with, or worked with.

Kendra: As you asked that question, I’m trying to think about how Human Design frames the unconscious or the subconscious.

John: Is there a distinction between the unconscious and the subconscious?

Kendra: There is in the land of NLP. The lineage through which I learned NLP really incorporated the framework of Family Constellation work, which looks at the family soul, and larger patterns of experience and behavior through the family line. That material is pretty deeply unconscious. So, the subconscious is something that we might be able to become aware of. For example, in a state of meditation, if we just slow down and pay attention, or if we start to use our strategy and authority and look at the difference between what is my authority telling me versus what my mind is telling me. Those things start to pop for us, and we go, “Oh, this thing that was unconscious to me, just kind of a rote behavior, is now becoming more conscious.” The unconscious are things that we have much less access to unless we’re using certain kinds of frameworks to go there, like through constellation work.

John: From a Human Design standpoint, the simplest way I would tend to understand the unconscious is the body itself, the form, right?

Kendra: Well, in the land of NLP, we are very much tapping into the body as well through the portal of the conscious mind. Having a conversation with the mind, in order to track into where things have been stored in the body. I’m sure we could continue down that rabbit hole.

John: It’s a juicy one.

Amy: It sounds like overall, as a practitioner, you’re really helping a person become aware of some of those forces beneath the surface that are contributing to the creation of their experience.

Kendra: Yeah, and why do they keep hitting the same roadblocks in life? Obviously, we can deal with things very acutely too, in terms of trauma, Anxiety, or present-day experiences. Also, if someone is having certain kinds of relational challenges that continue to show up, or health issues or challenges with their relationship with money, and resources – all of these things that can be so disheartening over time. When we try all of the things that the so-called homogenized world puts on our lap, like, “If you just try this, you’ll be able to have this result.” Well, is that really true? If someone has tried all of those things to no avail, what’s really going on underneath the surface that is contributing to those limitations, or that aren’t necessarily theirs to whatever they’re trying to go after? It might not even be something for them to live and experience, which is part of the wisdom that Human Design brings to the table too.

Amy: That was sort of my next question. It sounds like really rich and very experiential work that you’re doing with someone. It’s like you’re going into their real-time experience creation with them in a way that I’m curious about. What did, as you encountered Human Design, bring that was new or different? What kind of shifted the way you were holding things from that NLP practice? What did Human Design bring as you encountered that?

Kendra: Initially, there was some kind of cognitive dissonance. I think it can be that way for many people. What is this? What do you mean there’s no truth in the now as an emotional being? That was one of the first things I heard, and it just created this jarring sort of ping-pong in my chest. I thought I was supposed to be mentally clear, know what I want, go after it, and all of these things. My training for many years, looking back on it now, I see it’s been an unraveling. Human Design was very much the next step in that process. I had to take a step back for a minute, on that question of, “What would I like,” and, “I create my own reality.” This kind of self-agency, to be able to lean into the surrender of, “What does it mean when my mind is no longer in the driver’s seat? When my mind is no longer in charge?” Since then, I’ve circled back around to the beauty of what it is to identify proper creational authority. It’s significant and essential, I think, that we find a way to internally orient ourselves to life in a way that’s affirming. To still allow visions to come to allow creative energy to flow, but not necessarily out of a sense of what we think we want, because of the result that it will get us. Human Design has offered a frame that can certainly be uncomfortable, particularly in the deconditioning process, which I think NLP very much helps with. The mechanisms of NLP and what it can do directly work on reimprinting and working with the deconditioning process. Understanding all of that from the perspective of someone’s design, what they’re here to live, and that they’re not bad or wrong for having certain kinds of propensities or experiences in life. There’s a unique intelligence and genius to each individual. I think everything in my training, even stepping into Human Design, has just continued to reinforce the sense of being able to love oneself. That’s really what it all comes down to.

Amy: Did you feel like having the Human Design map kind of accelerated the process a bit or did it give you a way to see your clients as you’re working with them? I come from a somatic therapeutic background as well, and I guess I’ll share my view first. I could see that once I found Human Design and then looked back on the really skillful therapeutic modalities that I had seen in practitioners at work, it seemed to me like they were getting after this teasing out of the true self and the not-self, naturally. That’s what all of those modalities are going after. They are going after a deconditioning process and a way to get access to the true self or the true nature. It seemed to me like Human Design, if those practitioners had that as a map, it could almost give them a little bit of a leg up on being able to see some of those patterns right away without having to kind of play around with it for a while to get to it. Is that what your experience has been? I’m curious about what the map does for that experience of working with someone’s deconditioning process.

Kendra: Well, it’s funny. My mind’s going back to when I was in theater. I was a theater major in college. We did dramaturgy and studied the ins and outs of the storyline and the characters. Then, we picked apart the set design and how things are crafted to create an experience, and talked about the fourth wall, and all of these things. At some point, you’re far along enough in your training, and it’s like you can’t go back to unsee what you see. You can’t go back to seeing a theatrical production and just enjoying it for what it is. With Human Design, it’s like you get to see the mechanics, and you can’t put it back in the box. There’s a little more patience in working with clients when I see their design, and I see where their mind wants to take them in their own process. I see where that’s coming from because I have their design in front of me. In getting, in a way, to use that as an opportunity for a light touch kind of guiding back to the true self. I can also hear their not-self speaking through the lens of their design, versus when we talked about them wanting to create something because they think they want it. It’s brought things deeper, it’s accelerated things, it’s brought a kind of nuance. Again, therapeutic modalities have tremendous value, and so does the authority of the one who’s living the experience. You’re getting to have that and transmit this to someone so that they can take what they experienced in a session back into their life and practice with it. I think that offers a kind of support and an orientation back to self versus always reaching for someone else to do it for them. That’s a whole other rich conversation too.

Amy: It makes me curious about what it would be like, and I don’t know if you do this, or if this is how you use Human Design, to know someone’s design and be able to use it. To interact with them without even having to go through it and show it to them.

Kendra: I love that question. Sometimes I do that. There are those that come directly looking for an explanation of what this crazy map is. There are people who are willing to share their birth information, but they’re not necessarily coming for Human Design. When I have an opportunity to sort of digest that, sit with that map, and then talk with them, it definitely brings the conversation to another level. I’m curious too, about the way that you work with people in that regard. How much do we actually have to teach them their design versus just giving them something to work with? Not everybody wants to learn the ins and outs of all the minute details.

John: That’s actually one of the things that was taught in the analyst training that Amy and I did, that we’re not educating the client on Human Design. We’re not teaching Human Design. That’s been an interesting thing to work with for me because I tend to go into explanation mode and I want to break it down and share my understanding of this amazing map. However, I don’t feel like that’s always what’s needed or what they’re coming in for. It’s often not.

Kendra: Yeah, they don’t come to design just because of an interest in design. Usually, shit is hitting the fan, or they’re wanting something more for themselves, or the people they love.

John: Not to change the subject too much from NLP, but you’re also an artist, a musician, a singer, a painter, and probably other things I’m not aware of. What I’m interested in is as an emotionally defined person, what has been your relationship with creativity and art through the emotional process?

Kendra: My mind wants to relate it back immediately to what we’ve already been talking about. I’ve always kind of considered myself a creative person, but at different points in my life, I’ve thought, “This is the thing I need to do with my life. This is the way that I’m going to make money.” or “This is the way that I’m here to change the world.” When I can let off of that a bit, it helps to move the process of emotionality and that emotional wave through my being in a way that I can give into the timeless quality. I have the tribal wave, it’s timeless. I can get into the timelessness of just being in the creative process, and letting myself feel without knowing what the result is going to be without having to craft the perfect lyric or the perfect song, or without the painting having to come out a certain way. It’s just letting myself emote. The result of that is some kind of beauty, color, sound, and matrix of something that didn’t exist before. I think it helps me maintain some sense of sanity, and to also get in touch with some kind of sense of self that’s beyond definition. I also have an undefined G Center. Not having a consistent and clear way that I can self-identify, keeps things moving in a way that I think brings joy to my life and also gives me permission to feel the depths. The result of that is actually people responding to it in a way far beyond what I could contrive in trying to sell them something. Even though I have the Gate of the Saleswoman, it’s like it comes naturally.

Amy: I just wanted to say I love the way you’re saying that because thinking about working with people with emotional definition, and in Human Design, having this process where it’s about wading through that emotional wave, and in that emotional chemistry and experience to get to a place of clarity. I think sometimes there can be so much focus on, “When am I going to get the clarity,” or, “When am I going to land on what my truth is and then I’m gonna know what I’m going to do.” Sometimes it feels like there can be so much focus on that the actual experience of the emotional movement kind of gets missed. I can really feel that through what you’re saying where it’s like, “If you’re not too focused on the result, you can actually enjoy all these different points on the wave.” I can feel it just in talking to you, the emotionality, the sensuality, the richness of it, and the depth of it. You could actually just enjoy the process, and then trust that it’s going to land when it’s going to land. In the meantime, you might just enjoy your life. It also makes me think of the kind of tortured artist archetype, you know, and how much just richness, depth, and beauty the rest of us get to experience from what comes out of that. I almost feel in this moment a kind of gratitude to those who are emotional and willing to actually explore it, experience it, and express it so that the rest of us can be part of it or get to feel it too.

Kendra: That’s so much. I’ve spent a long time really judging the emotional process, and feeling so uncomfortable for feeling. That’s been a part of my deconditioning, to appreciate it in the way that you’re reflecting now. There’s something in that for humanity, and it’s not to be pushed aside but to be fully welcomed. It’s actually healthy to go there and not rush the process. Thank you.

Amy: It’s pretty beautiful. I can have a completely open emotional center for myself. When I sense someone else just fully being in their emotional experience, and not having that judgment about it, but almost being surrendered to it, and seeing what comes out of them- I can almost start to feel hungry for it. It’s like, ” I don’t have that. I want to eat that.” Even when it’s a little tortured or crazy, or whatever it is. When it’s pure like that. When it’s not sort of convoluted or distorted by some kind of judgment or mental interference, or something like that. There’s something about it that feels actually pretty nourishing.

John: It tastes better. It does taste better and cleaner. It’s something to both experience and behold. From my perspective, when you see an emotional being just owning it, and going with it, as opposed to, like we’re discussing, suppressing it, or turning it into some sort of blame situation. For me, there’s a palpable difference. The thing I was going to say, which you already touched on, is the way you were describing working with music and your art in the creative process is such a good metaphor for the emotional process of it being more of an exploration and staying with each moment of the process, rather than getting focused on the outcome or the destination. The energy seems like it would move more in that case. It would just flow, and just express, and then you can kind of go on a ride and watch and witness, “Oh, this is what’s coming up now.” There’s beauty in that. Like we’re saying, there’s a qualitative frequency to it as well.

Kendra: In this time of the Roanoke Queen coming through, affectionately call her and all of the medicine she’s bringing to the world right now. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, we’re all going a little crazy.” We all have the opportunity to experience things in a new way. Everyone’s off the rails in a way and life is on pause. That has brought through something new in my creative process too that has amplified this experience that you’re reflecting to me right now. Just being able to be with it. Everyone is slowed down right now. There’s still a frenetic newness in the field, and there’s also slowness, a pause, and looking at how we’re doing things in the world. I think a lot of artists are getting a lot of mileage out of this shift in the collective frequency and what it’s doing for our art. That also comes up in this conversation.

John: What you’re saying kind of reminds me of how the mutative process in Human Design is talked about. For the channel mutation, the 360, how that mutation is actually happening in between the pulses, in the spaces in between. When we look at individual melancholy, for example, melancholia in between periods is a kind of fertile space for the creative process, in a way. When I think about what’s happening in the world, everything being on pause, shut down, we’ve seemingly got more time on our hands just like you’re saying. What’s being birthed right now? What is coming into form? Seems like nothing’s happening, but I don’t believe that.

Amy: There’s also something that’s coming to me for me saying that about what gets birthed from limitation. Almost like if there’s no limitation, nothing gets created. You can see if you look at the root center in Human Design and how many of those gates have themes that have something to do with some kind of constriction, or contraction or limitation, you can almost feel the squeezing that’s happening, and a certain kind of pressure. The way that contraction or limitation is there, that it almost pushes something out of us. When we meet that, then that’s where something gets born. That’s where something new arises, or something gets creative, or some impulse comes to life. If we resist or deny those limitations, we don’t have that opportunity. In the same way. Thank you, Kendra, do you have more to say?

Kendra: I was just gonna say that I’m enjoying the way that the wave has moved in this conversation, in this stillness that we’ve come to. I can’t help but also contemplate, a little bit, the nature of where the emotional system is headed and the mutation that’s happening right now in the emotional system, but we’ll leave that for another conversation. Thank you, it’s been very yummy.

Amy: I can almost feel the dynamic of a clear emotional process. The amplification of it through the open emotion, that’s a pretty beautiful thing.

Kendra: It’s like, “If I smoked, give me a cigarette.”

Amy: All right, well, thank you so much. Definitely more to come.

Kendra: Sounds good to me.

John: Thank you.

Kendra: Have a good one.