Human Design, Anxiety and Overwhelm

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Before I get started on this episode with Dr. Michelle Crouse, I just want to say that I am excited to be finally hiring a Podcast Producer in the near future. So I am working on it. And what you'll notice in this episode is there is some difference in the sound quality between my voice and the voice of my guest. And that I'm hoping to be fixed in the near future, I have totally been doing all of the work myself on podcast episodes. And it's not that I hate it that much. It's just that I am not in my zone of genius here.

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So it's been fun and I can't wait to hire somebody to help me out with these sound things and to edit in a much higher quality way. So thank you for staying patient with me as I'm at the beginning of my journey. And let's get started with the interview with Dr. Michelle Crouse.

Welcome to beautifully bloomed, the podcast where we explore how to break you out of the box of rules and beliefs that are holding you back from the life you're meant to live. I'm your host, Rebecca Tervo. Join me as I share mindset tools, coaching conversations and Human Design to help you uncover your unique gifts and create the life relationships and business you desire.

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Michelle, is a physical therapist turned Holistic Health Coach. She empowers women to transform their anxiety and overwhelm through simple practical practices of breathwork movement and sleep.

Welcome, Michelle. Thanks so much for being here with me. Hi, Rebecca. I'm excited beyond Thank you for having me. Let our audience know, how do we know each other? Sure.

So we met last October when we both joined Tiffani’s program. And we probably connected because we have the same profile, we have a 1/4, which is a rare profile. So I'm always jumping on people with the 1/4. Have you found that after you?

I don't know very many ¼’s besides you and a fellow coach, I think I might know five total, including myself, right?

It's like not very popular. 2%? We're like unicorns, and Isn't that nice? I remember Tiffani saying that one time on a group call, “all the line fours are here”.

3:06
We're the “people people”: we want to connect. I love that.

Why did you want to study human design? What brought you to Human Design? Human Design found me at the end of last May, you know, we were all going through such a turbulent year. And in May, I was really drawn to work on my mindset more and listening to a podcast and somebody had a guest on who was speaking about human design.
I went and I ran my chart, fully thinking I was a projector. I was a completely burned out generator. So I was like, I'm a projector. This is great. This is going to tell me I can rest and I love it. And I was a generator and I was mad.

But I have so much line one in my chart that I put it away for like three days. And then I went back to it. And I was like, I'm gonna figure this out.

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I bought Karen Curry Parker's book, I read the whole thing. I highlighted it. And I was like, wow, this is me.

And that's what I hear a lot of people who find Human Design, it gets echoed, it's just validation of who you are. It gives you the confidence to keep experimenting with what you've already learned about yourself and moving into a better direction. So I just love it.

And with both of us being the line one which is like that researcher, person, right, like, investigator let's get to the bottom of the details. I think that's kind of was the draw for me because it was so detailed.

I was a CPA for over 25 years. “Let's figure out all the numbers and what do they all these things mean?”

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Just going down the rabbit hole of once figuring out my chart really super quick, I just wanted to figure out everybody else's. Instead of even diving in details of mine, I wanted to make sure I knew my husband and my kids and my mom and dad.

I felt so seen and heard.

And I think what you said about finding your friends and family. It's great to validate yourself. But then when you're like, Okay, well let me experiment with it on other people.

Wow, that is my mother, that is my sister, that is the person I know,

Is anybody else going to be interested in this? I did, like a lot of free readings of friends. And it was just amazing. Because all of them were like, “Oh, my gosh, that's so me.” Yeah.

And it's only based on the time you were born.

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Do you want to tell us about the work you do? Are you still a physical therapist? I am still licensed as a physical therapist. I am currently not practicing as a physical therapist and I have been practicing clinically for 12 years.
So now I've switched over to the holistic coaching industry. And through my PT practice, I found that there were a lot of emotions associated with pain.

I was drawn more to the somatic side of it. I developed a program to focus on anxiety working with the body. We go through breathing techniques, movement techniques, and sleep hygiene and habits, to make sure that you are able to get into your body, become aware of your body and stay in your body, when there are times of overwhelming stress and anxiety.

Human Design has been pretty cool, because 50% of us are going to be emotionally defined. So we're going to have waves. Yeah, kind of teaching people what your wave looks like.

It's not scary. This is normal, you're not crazy. Or the people who are undefined or even open who might even take on more that also, you're not crazy. It's not yours, like you might need to protect yourself a little bit more.

So it's just a really great tool to integrate with. Yeah, my physiology background. That year ago, I would never have thought I was doing this. But I love it all together. I'm very much drawn to this type of Human Design, just like you said, We both have an analytical mind.

So how has it helped you in your life?

You went into human design, because you were going through something? Or Right, absolutely.

2020 was just extremely challenging for all of us in different ways, but universally challenging. I made it through my PC contract in March, and I've been planning on stepping into this space, but everything just felt very different last spring.

I got drawn to work on my mindset. That’s something that I need to continue to work on. I just happened to come across a podcast where they talked about human design.

I ran my char. I did not like my chart, which is not an uncommon thing that you hear. But something deep down intrigued me. So a few days later, I went back and ran it again and was like, I'm gonna figure this out.

So I started to figure it out. And you just start to see yourself. And then you start to run other people's charts and you see them and I was like, oh, wow, this is really, really, really cool. And it's been fundamentally healing to me through some family relationships.

You know, there's been some challenging family relationships, that I can see the energetics at play now. And so I don't want the overwhelming emotions to be there. And I'm not going to say that I don't feel them. But it's not this personal attack that I might have once upon a time felt.

And I can just look at the chart and be like that's where it's coming from.

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Unfortunately, my family's not super open to it right now. But that's okay. Because even just me being open to it has allowed me to grow and develop.

10:12
I calmed my anxiety enough down last year that I had really, really bad driving anxiety. And I had gotten to the point where like little 20 minute drives around the city were about all I could tolerate.

And my hometown is about a 10 hour drive away from where I currently live, and my sister was pregnant last year.

So at the end of the year, I made 2 - 10 hour drives in two weeks, and I couldn’t have done that last year, I just couldn't have.

It’s just really powerful when you have experiences like that.

So you've kind of healed or worked through your anxiety? Yep, absolutely. So I feel like it has allowed me to manage my emotions, because emotions are always going to be coming in and coming out.

I just am more aware of them and more comfortable with them. And then, again, using my physiology background, I'm like, Okay, well, I need to go do a breathing technique, or I haven't moved in a while and I need to move. This is what my body needs.

Then emotional energy is not getting stuck in my body. Yeah, kind of cool synthesis.

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That was an amazing view we're able to work through and I find that with a lot of my clients, too, like they come up with realizations about, oh, that's where that it's almost like an allowance for what I'm Nothing's wrong with me. You know, I'm designed this way, right? It's so amazing to be able to just breathe and be like,

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it's okay. I'm okay. Nothing's wrong. There might be some of these patterns that we need to look at. But it's okay. I'm good.

And then, as you keep going on in life, you're always going to get trials. I personally have an undefined root, and undefined spleen, and they like to play a little nasty. So now I'm just curious. Now, I really just am fully integrated in my experiment and my design.

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I feel like I'm outside of my body sometimes. And I'll watch myself racing around, and I'm going, “Michelle What are you doing? Why? Why are you doing this? This is your root, this is your conditioning for your root, you need to calm down, and know that this energy is not yours to take on.”

I let it go. Some days, I'm really good at that. And some days I'm not, but there's a comfort in knowing where the energy is coming from, if that makes sense.

Yes, because I also have an undefined root. And I like the way that you explain that. Because every time I'm having company, or visitors my husband, my daughter get really annoyed with me.

“Mom, what are you doing running around? There's this immense pressure to get this whole list of stuff done, which is stuff you could never get done in the amount of time you have.

That root shows up a lot in my life. Sometimes I'm remembering that I don't need to get all this stuff done. Remember, I have this pressure, it's okay. I don't need to, like, succumb to the pressure. I don't need to do all the things I think I need to do. Sometimes I remember that. And I'm aware of it. And other times, I just keep going.

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It's like a learning process. You know,

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they call it an experiment, you know,

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becoming more and more aware, but the more you practice, the more that you come back into that realization over time. Yeah, cuz we are so close. Like, the conditioning is so deep right of a lot you need to so it's like, there's the conditioning, but there's also that outside energy that you're taking on. Yep.

And, and it's like, if I didn't know this, I'm just like, yeah, I'm just like, in a, what would be an OCD type of person or something? Yeah. Yeah. OCD are all the things and like, but really, no, I don't think that at all. Now, I'm like, No, no, it's just my design. And, and also, there's this wisdom about having that if you could really right learn to use those energies properly and in a healthy way. It could be great.

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So yeah, I mean, so I'd love the intricacies of the chart. And the other thing I'd want to say is because it's an experiment, it's not like this box of rules. I tell this to my clients too, because I came from rules, right? I don't know if you've noticed this, like, okay, there's these rules we have to follow in order to be successful or to, you know, make these things happen. There's these, this is what you got to do. Like, there's the list. There's the structure, the rules.

And what human design did for me freed me from those rules. I'm designed this way.

That's why those rules don't work. And that's okay. When you think something's wrong with you, because the rules don't work for you. What if we're all super unique? And we all have our unique rules to follow?

It's not like another manual of rules. It's an experiment.

It's more like, how does it feel to you, when you hear what your incarnation cross is? Or what your sun says about you?

Let's just do an experiment. You know, you don't have to take anything on. Right, right. Exactly. You know, and I mean, especially for us finding Human Design later in life, you know, I love the generation that's trying to raise their children with human design more aware, like setting their nervous system up at a very young age to just be in tune with this.

So that's normal and natural. And we do all have all sorts of different conditioning and continued experiences that are going to retrigger. us. And I think that's Yeah, where you have to get once you learn Human Design, you think it's the greatest thing in the world, you have to step into the experiment, right?

You have to start filtering through your daily life and seeing what you can do with that. Right? Because sometimes it takes a bit of time to integrate it. Right? It's the difference between learning at all.

And this is kind of what I'm experimenting with my clients with right now. It's like, how long do we need to really have? You know, how many sessions Do we need or right? It's all the things like they want to know so many things. And so I can teach them for a full 60 minutes straight, or we can have a conversation about where they are and what, you know, what are they looking for help with?

And we can go into your chart with this perspective of, well, this is what you're struggling with right now. And what can we help with that? Because I can go right, you might be able to do this too. Like we can get talking and teaching about all these things. And what I found after I did that at the beginning, I was like, that's not even helpful, right?

It's like too much information. It's like information overload. I used to give, like, I used to give the people I was reading for like at the beginning, like a real thick, like 20 page report. Now, I don't do that anymore. It's like no, actually, let's talk about actually how to integrate this into your life because that's what's helpful. And I can always do, you know, more sessions.

And you know, I sell some packages now. And yeah, some people are loving those. And I am to write as a researcher, teacher type. I mean, I just love when you get on the call, and you tell me what your work is and we just go and deep dive in.

We dive into some things, and it's just super fun.

I think that it's amazing and fascinating. I'm glad so many people are finding out about it. And our children. If I would have known that my 28 year old son was a mental projector when he was born. I mean, that is so different from us. So different.

We have five generator types in our family, and then we had a mental projector. And here you are wondering, why do you want to stay in your room instead of come? He was overwhelmed by the sounds of a parade or a basketball game, even like there was a lot of overwhelm for him.

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Quickly, that's going to turn into some pretty strong and scary medical diagnoses problem. Awesome. You know, it's interesting that if I would have known this about him, when he was growing up, it would have, I felt like it might have answered a lot of questions for me, right? He's just Sure. His own design is unique. And why was that hard? It's hard for me as a manifesting generator to understand people who just don't want to go, go go like I do, like, I'm just going all the time.

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And I'm doing all these things at the same time and what's wrong with you? Come on. Right. Exactly. Yes. And so human design has really helped me understand that. Well, no, you know what, not everybody wants to be like me. And not everybody's me anyways. So that would be fun.

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Can we accept everybody for how they're designed? Exactly. Fascinating. Yeah. So I like to talk about that, too, when your clients come to you to ask how do you use it? You don't really necessarily go through a Human Design session with them? Are you using it more in a different way?

Yeah, it's more the background for me as to exactly what you're saying there's energetics. So I completely understand and relate to your struggle with wanting to tell everybody everything at once, because I've done the same thing with friends. And I just see the glassy eyes, and I'm like, Okay, well, we've hit overload. And I'm working with overwhelmed women, right. So yeah, my whole goal is to keep their nervous system feeling safe and engaged.

And if I just dump a data dump on them, gonna be the worst thing I can do. So we just sort of experiment with, like, here's your interview type. And let's lean into the way that you know, when you're feeling aligned, you know, so for the generators and the main engines, when you're frustrated, when you feel that resistance, that's your body's warning system to your natural warning system, that you need to check in and change what you're doing, you know, and then when you feel that nice, deep satisfaction, that's good, whatever you've just done is good. We need to get more of that.

Yeah. And so just that all the different types of designs. I that's where I start at the first program, you know, eventually I see myself maybe going in a little deeper, just because like, we were talking about what the root I do see where anxiety can hide in the chart. As far as defined centers, undefined centers, open centers, everything like that.

I use that more for me personally, to steer the program versus data overwhelming the client? Totally. Yeah, so totally, like, this is such an amazing tool for coaches. Even if you're not actually teaching or doing Human Design sessions, but just to know your clients and the way they're designed is super helpful in it doesn't matter what area you're coaching in, to be honest.

Exactly. You know, I mean, with generators to ask the yes or no questions. You know, it's not like how are you feeling today? Are you feeling sad? Are you feeling that, you know, start to just simplify it and just, it makes the communication better?

I think Human Design, I would like everybody to know it and be able to apply it doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, it's going to help us all communicate better, which is what we need. Yeah, we need so much communication.

Michelle, tell our audience, how could they find you if they're interested in the kind of work you're doing? Sure. Absolutely. So I am most active on Instagram at doctor because my PT background is Doctor physical therapy. So Dr. Michelle Crouse. I like to play on stories there and post. You can find me on LinkedIn as well, just with Michelle Crouse.

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I started Tick Tock under Dr. Michelle Crouse.

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Instagram is where I hang out the most.

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Awesome. Well, I'll put that information in the show notes so people can find you. And thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much for your time, Rebecca. I really appreciate it. You too. Bye. Bye.

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