Episode 329: The Signs You Ignore — And What They’re Actually Telling You
We’re taught to make decisions from our mind — research, logic, pros and cons — and then wonder why everything feels harder than it should.
But the truth is: your body gives you information long before your mind starts analyzing anything.
In this episode, we’re breaking down the early signals your body sends — the physical cues, energetic shifts, and subtle patterns – the ones that are usually overlooked — and how Human Design gives language and structure to those early signals so you can stop pushing through them, stop misreading them, and stop treating them like flaws.
You’ll learn how your body responds before your thoughts do, why you’re so used to overriding those responses, and how noticing them can make decisions easier and reduce stress.
If you’ve ever pushed past your limits, said yes when you knew you shouldn’t, or talked yourself out of what you felt immediately — this episode will help you understand why.
Listen to the Episode:
“Human Design doesn’t ask you to believe anything; it just shows you the mechanics behind why you feel what you feel.”
Read the Transcript:
Hello, my friend! Welcome back to The Live FAB Life Podcast.
I’m Naomi Nakamura, and before we get into today’s conversation, I just want to take a minute to thank you for all the birthday wishes from last week’s episode - they were much appreciated!
I can’t believe the end of the year is upon us already. I don’t know about you, but this year has flown by. In fact, sometimes I can hardly believe that this show is 8+ years old!
After this episode, there’ll be two episodes left for the year. I want you to stay tuned to them, as well as for the first episode of 2026 because I have some important news to share – it’s all good, I promise!
Now, today, we’re talking about something that shows up in every woman that I’ve worked with as a colleague, every woman who’s been a client, and definitely in my own life — and that’s the early signs that your body sends you long before your mind forms an opinion.
We’ve been taught that clarity comes from thinking harder, from researching more, gathering more information, weighing every possible option.
But the truth is much simpler: your body physically reacts first. It sends you signals – it tightens, softens, hesitates, or settles – long before you’ve had a chance to explain anything, especially to yourself.
So, let’s talk about those early signals so you can recognize them and stop overriding them, and ultimately, stop treating confusion like it’s your personal flaws.
To level-set, when I talk about “early signals,” I’m not talking about your intuition in a vague, spiritual sense. I’m talking about the “early signals” that are very clear physical responses that happen automatically.
For example, you might feel a tightening in your chest or stomach. You might feel a knot in your belly, or a lump in your throat. You might feel a wash of heat come over you. You may notice your energy suddenly drop, or, you might feel relief or let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding the moment a certain option comes off the table.
These physical reactions aren’t dramatic, nor are they mysterious. They’re sensory cues — contractions, expansions, hesitations, shifts — your body’s built-in way of letting you know whether something is right or not; whether something is off, whether something smells fishy, you know what I mean.
The issue with this is that we’ve stopped paying attention to these signals – these cues – because we’ve been taught to trust our thoughts more than our physical experiences.
We’ve been conditioned to ignore them and push them aside until we just stopped noticing them anymore.
One cue that I ignored for years was the first wave of sleepiness that I’d push through in favor of finishing responding to emails, or reading one more chapter, or catching the end of that show or flick, only to then catch a second wave of energy, and that second wave always kept me – keeps me, still does – awake long past my bedtime.
And then I wondered why sleep was so elusive. Why I struggled with insomnia, why I was tired, low on energy and irritated all the time.
Growing up, we were taught to be logical, to be reasonable, to be agreeable, and above all, be productive.
We were rewarded for pushing through discomfort — “Just do it,” “go beastmode,” “you can sleep when you die,” “no pain, no gain!” Sound familiar? These are catchphrases that have been ingrained into our culture.
We were rewarded for sticking to commitments, and being consistent, even when something inside of us knew it wasn’t the right thing to do.
Anything less would be considered quitting or a failure.
So, its no wonder that after years and years of overriding our cues, we find ourselves suffering from fatigue, exhaustion, burnout – things that we could have avoided if we had just learned to notice the signals and not override them.
Sometimes those cues were loud – our gut, our instincts, our conscious, screaming at us to slow down, stop doing things, start doing things, make changes, but instead, we convinced ourselves to stop “being dramatic” or that we were being overly emotional, that we didn’t want to make a big thing out of nothing, when really, our bodies simply acted faster than our minds but instead of allowing our minds to catch up, we pushed the thoughts away.
Human Design helps explain this without making it mystical.
Listen, I have nothing against mystic things, in fact, I embrace them. But I’m also pragmatic and a realist and Human Design gives us grounding language and a framework to work with.
Your Authority – your unique way of making decisions – gives you the kind of signals that matter most for you.
Your Strategy gives you your correct timing – when to move and when to wait.
Your energy centers – all nine of them – help you understand why some cues feel loud and others feel subtle.
Human Design doesn’t ask you to believe anything; it just shows you the mechanics behind why you feel what you feel.
I’m a Projector, which means that my Strategy is to Wait for Invitations, and I have a Splenic Authority – which is pure primal instincts, quiet knowings that aren’t often logical or explainable. Over the course of my life, I can think of countless instances and situations where I inserted myself, giving unsolicited advice, without being asked or even invited to the conversation.
And every time I did that, I was dismissed, excluded, expelled which left me feeling confused, disappointed, frustrated, angry – unseen – which physically felt like a blow, like heat crawling up my neck, knots in my belly, lumps in my throat, tears in my eyes.
But now that I know my Strategy, Authority, the definition – and undefinition of my energy centers – and what not following them feels like, I’m now able to notice the early cues – the signals – and it’s made understanding correct timing and decision-making much less stressful.
I always think back to my years of endurance training - all the times my body showed me that it needed more time to recover, more time to rest, that it needed a break – that I didn’t / couldn’t be on a training schedule all the time. That I should take months long breaks from prepping for a race, that I needed more than once rest day a week, that doing yoga does not equate to a rest day.
Perhaps if I had listened to those early quiet cues, or even the later loud ones, I could have avoided overtraining, avoided the adrenal depletion, the gut issues, the aches and pains and injuries.
Looking back, if only I understood my Projector energy, my Undefined Sacral Center, the fact that I don’t have the gift of knowing when enough is enough – I’d have had more awareness around my limitations.
My body was sending the signals but my mind didn’t catch up at first, and then when it did, I couldn’t accept it because I’d been conditioned to “push through” no matter the cost.
Now I know, that when you stop saying yes to things your body warned you were wrong, or wrong – right now, and you stop debating choices that were clear from the start – you stop pushing yourself. And when you stop pushing yourself, there’s a really good chance that you still get the outcome you’ve been pushing for because you avoided setbacks.
When you follow your Strategy and Authority, and understand how your energy centers operate and how to work with them, you can recognize when moments call for rest versus effort.
And you naturally reduce the amount of overthinking you do because you’re no longer trying to talk yourself into or out of doing something your body has already responded to.
Isn’t that what we all want? To stop overthinking?! It’d be my dream!
And the best part is that you do not have to make any major life changes. All you have to do is to start noticing what’s happening before you explain it. Notice the signals, notice the cues. Self-observation, always with non-judgement.
So here’s what I’d like for you to take away: your body always speaks first. Your mind follows. And when you recognize those early signals, you stop treating clarity like it’s something you have to work hard for - that you have to earn through effort. It becomes something you notice.
If you want help understanding the specific signals your design gives you — and how to use them — the Designed to Thrive: The Gentle Guide to Human Design walks you through understanding your Type, Strategy, and Authority in plain, practical language.
You can find it at the link in the show notes at www.livefablife.com/329
Thanks for listening, as always, I appreciate your time, energy and attention and I’ll see you right back here next time! Bye for now!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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