​These tools, each have strengths of their own. They can illuminate the shadows and show the way for new perspectives and ways of being. They can give us insights into how we operate, communicate, and our needs and capacities. And they give us ways to come together as a team or in interpersonal relationships, so we can relate to each other in ways that support each other and the relationship. We could use the results of these assessments to help us achieve our goals and hone our vision and determine how best to take action.

In my work and experience, if not used with care, these tools can be wielded like weapons and cause further harm. Like in many other things, context matters here too. If we’re using these tools in the hopes of liberation without a great understanding of context, we’re bound to hurt ourselves and others with these tools.

As with all tools and systems and dynamics, the wider context and biases seep in here too. For instance, the origins of the Myers-Briggs assessment is steeped in misogyny and capitalism (You can read more about this here).

If we’re not actively dismantling the various ‘isms’ in our life, work, and relationships, we will inadvertently bring that baggage with us into this space as well. The creators of these systems, mostly, white men from the Global North, who brought their own biases and ways of being and ‘bootstrap’ mentalities with them into the personal growth space.

And it barely matters what assessment we are talking about, it is the basis and the underlying bias of the test. And access to taking, interpreting, and implementing the results.

Here are a few for your purview:

• The Kolbe A is a $50 (49.95 USD at the time of writing) investment. It helps determine our action styles, however, it does not take into account disability, capacity, and issues of accessibility and access. Knowing our action taking tendencies helps us align with those energies, yet fifty dollars is not in everyone’s budget.
• Scientific Hand Analysis has elements of the ancient art of palmistry and most definitely appropriates from these practices. Yes, it’s a new way to look at the dermatoglyphs and that contribution of translating these glyphs into and life’s lessons and themes. Yet, it can easily bypassour realities of trauma, layers of personal truth and experience, and the biases of the readers canalso impact the efficacy of the ways our hands are read.
• Human Design mixes from several traditions including astrology, the chakras, and Kabbalah (the tree of life). There are accessibility issues with many of Ra Uru Hu’s original teachings being put behind paywalls now (for many years much of his body of work was available widely online) and even finding your chart can be difficult if you’re unsure of birth times due to adoption or birth in places where birthtime was not noted. Yet the test is fairly common and accessible widely.
• How the World Sees You is amazing in finding ways you stand out to other brands but ignores the other implications of how the world really sees us, with our rose-tinted glasses of implicit biases in place. Without this crucial distinction, this test can easily be warped to upholding things like ‘you’re being too loud (or powerful)’ to women of color or ‘silencing or ignoring’ marginalized peoples in the marketing and branding process.
• Myers-Briggs designed to understand leadership qualities and specifically upholds patriarchy and capitalism, however, it’s a useful tool in understanding personality and ways of being.

Most of these tools are marketed and designed for white people in power and influenced positions or those in the middle classes. We must consider that those in poverty, those with disabilities and the marginalized in making this safe and accessible to them, where we can. The tropes of society can easily be mirrored in how the results are interpreted and put into practice.

Many of these tests are embedded with and uphold misogyny, gender binary, cultural appropriation, racism, ableism/saneism, capitalism/neoliberalism, alternate ways of being, and so on.

On top of that, we live in a world where the assumption is not autonomy and sovereignty, but projection, assumption, judgements, biases, and filters to how we connect and make meaning. Inherently, we’re meaning making machines and have been hard-wired to be that way since birth. And in the first seven years of life, we’re essentially making sense of the world and how to interact in it. That’s the process of indoctrination. ​

The underlying truth is we do know ourselves and what is right for us. Or at the very least, we have the potential to at any given moment. ​

What's right for me right now, might not be what's right for me next week or even in 10 minutes. The same for you. ​

In my practice, I show people how to use their human design and hand analysis to integrate those ways of being into their life, work, and relationships. But instead of a prescriptive approach, we find patterns in tendencies and ways of being and then translate them into real, tangible ways to enhance who they are and align their daily actions with their hardwiring and design. ​

But the essence of my work and those whose work I trust ask the most potent question of all: ​

‘What would it be like if you trusted yourself again?’ ​

But it's not always easy to listen or rediscover who we are underneath the layers of experience, expectations, and conditioning.

I no longer want to be ok with limiting my own voice, make do with situations that don't serve me, lower myself just to fit in. I'm reclaiming my right to exist, to be 'difficult', to ask for what I want and need, and allow myself to be seen and heard and take up space.

I urge you to seek your own answers and find your own dharma and life path. A simple sentiment yet often times more difficult than not, to live it. Underneath our programming, the expectations of others, the stress and pressure, is your essence. Align with that version of right.

Doing what’s best for you and your situation is always RIGHT.

​

​Safety is not created in one moment. 

It is an intention set. It is action and follow through. It is commitment. It is awareness. 

It happens in dialogue. It happens in motion.
​

It is created by the dance of interactions, communications, nuances, subtitles and subtlety. It is created in the moment of sharing, listening and connecting.

To get clarity, definite boundaries, seek consent, check in, listen for feedback, misstep and course correct, apologize, are all messy and uncomfortable at times.

In seeking safety, borderline offense or awkwardness may happen at times. But when we meet fears and concerns with the power of listening, witnessing, communion, humility, acceptance and love, that transmutes the hurt, the fears, the pain, the anger, the rage, the sadness, the trauma into power and galvanizes action.

People often cause harm inadvertently. Yes, impact is more important than intent. And depending on our boundaries, priorities, resources, as well as inequalities, inequities, and injustice, safety is not something that is the norm in our world—but it needs to be the norm.
​

It's the willingness to listen.

​It’s the willingness to be vulnerable.

It’s a willingness to be daring. ​

To be daring. ​

To be alive. ​

All other considerations must stem from this. ​