Ayla Verheijen
When I look back, it’s astounding to see how many times I looked for answers, love and truth outside of myself.
Cultish spiritual groups, hyped-up business coaches and guru-like boyfriends gave me the illusion of security and confidence. But inside, I kept feeling fragile, not really knowing where to stand in myself.
Working with my Human Design changed that big time, but it didn’t happen overnight.
I met Human Design in 2017 and adored it.
I drank in the knowledge with insatiably big gulps.
Learning HD came easy to me, but living it was hard.
As someone with a defined emotional center, I started by allowing myself to be slow in a fast world.
As a Manifesting Generator, I started listening to my gut. I let go of some of the mental pushing, the ‘shoulds’ and my ideas about what a perfect life had to look like. It was hard. It was challenging to realize how much of my life was reigned by my mind – even though I thought I was a fairly free being.
The deconditioning happened in layers, and one of the hardest places to decondition was in my business.
My social media feed was bursting with people who were ready to tell me how I should do my business, and many of those ideas had nestled themselves in my undefined Head.
Also, I unconsciously thought that business success could salvage my low self-worth.
But the tide has turned. Over the past 6 years of experimenting with my human design, almost all of my ideas about what a business (and marketing! and life!) should look like have collapsed.
And the result is much more beautiful than my mind could have ever thought.
The pushing has gone. I’m much more relaxed in my business and life
I don’t have big plans or strategies anymore, neither do I have any to-do lists.
I’ve turned from a “helicopter business parent” into someone who is simply curious what will happen next, and what I will respond to. And the same goes for the rest of my life.
It’s definitely scary for the mind, but oh so freeing!
There’s so much talk about knowing yourself, but I feel there’s too little talk about feeling yourself.
The practical tools of Human Design allowed me to come into contact with my frequency, with my inner song. And that’s what marketing is all about – sharing our inner songs with the world.
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5/2 Emotional Manifesting Generator
My experience & journey in a nutshell
Human Design
Living it – this has been by far the most impactful part. With deep gratitude to my mentor and friend Mary Ann Winiger, who has been living her design for 25+ years. She showed me what it means to truly listen to yourself.
Understanding it – studied every (practical) topic under the sun for seven years, 90% coming from source material. Parts of HD that I deeply love and have devoted more intense studies to: Circuitry (the way to ‘hack’ a chart), the Sun gate (where your light shines), Profile & the Hexagram (very supportive in your marketing), and Variable (shows the unique way in which your brain works and in which you are designed to conceptualize).
Life & business
2003-2012
❍ took the full ‘spiritual tour’
❍ studied Communication & Anthropology
❍ worked as a freelance copywriter for coaches & healers
2013 | start of my business: website-building + copywriting (after stepping out of my first big depression)
2014-2015 | an ‘official job’ – became a marketing consultant for the government & businesses (kept working for myself)
2016 | crashed into my second deep depression after months of a ‘spiritual high’
2017
❍ a new business focus: coaching + marketing / also: found Human Design!
❍ did a 6-month online marketing study. result: was underwhelmed & became motivated to offer an alternative to all the ‘generic marketing blah’ that’s out there
2019 | added Human Design to my offerings
2020 | started to live my design full-on, inspired by Mary Ann Winiger’s book
2022-2024
❍ a deep surrender
❍ another business rebirth (and not just business)
❍ a focus switch from external → internal success
❍ ending up with a business that feels true to me, a quiet confidence, and a much simpler life than before