The three awareness functions help us learn, understand, and interact with the world through our instinctual or intuitive intelligence, mind, and feeling. They shape how we see and experience our environment, and are also where we experience fear, anxiety, worry, and nervousness. The Survival Instinct houses our deepest, most primal physical fears, and is the first of a three-part self-study analysis of how awareness can be our most precious currency.
Survival Instinct (Somatic Awareness)
Profit Potential: Helping Others Let Go of What Doesn’t Serve Them to Feel Good
This is our primordial awareness system, which expresses itself through the senses of the physical form. It can therefore be overlooked, even go unnoticed, as it whispers quietly and existentially in the moment—and we can miss it completely if we are distracted or not actively attuned to the information it is attempting to deliver in protection of our health, to ensure our survivability.
Fear of the future is indicated by the deeply acoustic intuitive faculty in Trait 57. This is overcome by finding ways of remaining consistently present, or actively conscious in the moment, harmonizing and resonating existentially with the body’s innate intelligence, listening to how it is communicating; learning how to utilize power and behavior to act in ways that are expressive and indicative of self-love; and noticing how this all manifests in the now in diverse ways dependent on context and circumstance.
Fear of inadequacy is inherent in Trait 48, in determining which patterns of collective human interaction are functional, and which are actually detrimental to fundamental human rights and dignities. It is also the ability to determine collective, systemic pattern functionality in relationship and/or partnership, particularly when assessing the capacity for talent to emerge.
Fear of the past is imprinted in the instinctive faculty of Trait 44. It taps into millions of years of genetically imprinted experience through the sense of smell, detecting who and what isn’t safe, and utilizing this information to make decisions as to how to succeed with others materially by connecting and collaborating in ways that involve equitable reciprocity. It is also the love for material success—utilizing present-moment sensory awareness to overcome millions of years of memory and conditioning of things going wrong.
Part of the overall prosperity potential, therefore, is achieved through overcoming all of these fears through correct engagement with and active service to others.
Biologically, our Survival Instinct is the seat of the immune system, including lymphatics, spleen, and killer T-cells. When it is undefined, it can be particularly sensitive and even overly receptive to environments, as well as what is taken physically into the body through air, water, and food. For prosperity to emerge, therefore, the nature of physical health, protection, and vulnerability need to be recognized, to develop the wisdom to help others protect themselves as well.
Otherwise the shadow state can lack flexibility and adaptive capability, holding onto things that are no longer healthy, being fixated and fearful much of the time, ignoring messages the body is attempting to convey in the moment, and taking in the fears and physical issues of the world as if they are one’s own—increasing suffering from deep dependency on person and place that can be destructive to one’s health and well-being.
The three specific Trait activations here will be what provide the material potential in interaction with others. This is where this design can capitalize on precisely how it is intended to attract others through these receptors—effectively turning the shadow to the light—for mutual benefit, attracting clients with particular problems for which there can be provided unique solutions. And all of this is filtered through hearing, taste, and smell—an acoustic intuitive clarity, a logical depth and eye for recognizing patterns, and a primal core instinct of smell—the three key biological factors that guide this particular prosperity process.
Since these are individual, collective, and tribal Traits, it is about empowering others through a deep understanding of what works and what does not, to support them in becoming materially successful. Those who are attracted to these three receptive indicators as roots of intelligence, are wanting or needing to know from them what to let go of in their lives to feel better in their bodies. It is therefore about working with others instinctively from a depth of collective pattern recognition in support of their own empowerment.
Trait 57
Serving directly through word of mouth to help others let go of their fear of the future.
Trait 57 incorporates individual knowing through inspiration, intuition, moodiness, and acute acoustic clarity. This is a knack for leading others in the right direction through frequency, by sensing and harmonizing to what is distorted and how to create a harmonious resolution. This is the gentle clarity to help others find their own power and direction toward knowing what to do next. It is also the awareness to struggle for knowing that can lead to more security and stability in the present. As attunement increases lucidity, fear of the future fades.
Intuitive insight provides penetration to the core of what is taking place in the environment, attuning to and empowering another to be healthy in the moment, thus existentially alleviating their fear of the future, recognizing that they have the power and activity to be exactly where they need to be to survive, individuate, and thrive.
With an absence of consistent definition here, it is also about serving through word of mouth, acoustically, without a hidden agenda or motivation.
The profit potential is about giving clear directives ensuring that what is being offered can truly be heard by others; followed by the transformational experiences the testimonials of these same others convey to further increase one’s opportunities for success.
Trait 48
Serving through simplicity to help others let go of their fear of inadequacy.
Trait 48 is focused on sharing in the patterns and experiences that are a part of the collective, identifying the social obligation to tell others what works and what doesn’t. It can be quick to share opinions and solutions, as well as potential problem points, as a means of establishing greater collective harmony and justly uniform shared experiences.
This is the awareness resource of vital information as a pattern or not, as well as the possibility for functional patterns to be expressed as talent through practice and repetition. Dysfunctional ones need corrective reconstruction prior to implementation. There is a need here ultimately to express and share depth to help others recognize, correct, and perfect our collective world. And it is a deep well of knowledge that can bring forth logical and workable solutions to society’s worst problems. When invited, it can emerge naturally as a foundation for evaluating, perfecting, and mentoring the skills of others, teaching them how to be healthy through overcoming their fears of logical inadequacy through correct judgment, practice, and experimentation.
With an absence of consistent definition, this is about serving through simplicity, helping others let go of their fears of inadequacy in order to feel good in their form.
It reminds us that financial fulfillment is not about intelligence, but simplicity. Being simple and on the surface is what material success is all about, and making money correctly ensures the public good and well-being of all. The pattern is simply about fulfilling the desire, passion, or need, which being overly intelligent or intellectual complicates and interferes with. Since there is no end to the depth here, it can be an endless font for simplification and basic application toward providing the qualitative foundation that is a necessary prerequisite to establishing the common good.
Trait 44
Serving through running interference to help others let go of their fear of the past by bringing out the best in them.
Trait 44 is instinctual alertness. This is the potential to transform material conditions and enhance success by remembering and recognizing patterns that have been influenced by fear, and yet also successfully provide for material needs. This is the capability to remain existentially alert for the correct or successful interaction that can move this potential into its possibility. It is also an incredibly nuanced and accurate lie detector, instinctually conveying how propaganda works, that can shape and strengthen the material orientation of an organization’s presence and power through memory—as long as one is refraining from exaggeration or over-representation.
This is effectively selling or serving through steering or correctively influencing—bringing out the absolute best in others. And this is done through managing, massaging, and validating their egoic strength—interfering in a constructive sense to get the very best out of people by teaching them to adapt by also adapting oneself to different egoic presentations. It demands alertness to correctly elevate people, with the ever-present possibility that this will not be possible with all egos, or under all circumstances. There is a good degree of constructive framing or reframing necessary to steer people to the right path with an intrinsic sense of self-worth, helping them become the best they can be, feeling good in their bodies and letting go of what interferes with their process of exercising willpower under the right conditions in a powerfully effective way.
This is also helping others to feel truly special for the gifts they have been given, in order to let go of what they depend on to “feel good” about themselves in an incorrect or self-deprecating way. It eliminates the wrong messages from the not-self mental identifications, and consistently encourages clients to replace these with true messages indicative of their own agency, strength, and utility in the world. In correct collaboration, this is becoming an instinctive “handler,” helping others find health through remembering, recognizing, and altering patterns learned through fear of the past.
With an absence of consistent definition, others are attracted to being served through correctly coaxing the best in them to come forth so they can let go of their fears of the past to feel good about themselves, taking full advantage of their unique competencies and proficiencies.
This concludes the Profit Potential of the Awareness Functions Part 1: the Survival Instinct. Part 2 will focus on the Conceptualization Function.
Sean Michael is an IHDS Certified Human Design Analyst, as well as a Certified BG5 Consultant, Foundations Instructor, and Profit Potential Coach. If you want to work with your unique prosperity potential through following and understanding the mechanics of your Design, feel free to contact him at innerblueprintconsulting@gmail.com.
He is also a CAMFT Certified Clinical Supervisor at the Center for Psychotherapy and Integrative Health in Santa Barbara, CA, USA, where he offers training to Associates using BG5 and Human Design for personal and professional development.
