Last week, we explored Hexagram 61, which asked us to go inside and watch the ways in which we relate to our own inner truth. Now, we’re heading into Gate 60 in the Human Design System, which we call “Limitation.” This is one of the Hexagrams where we move out of one Sun sign into another, from Capricorn into Aquarius, and we do it halfway through the Hexagram. So, we’ll notice as we go through the lines that there’s a huge shift in the perspective between the first three lines and the fourth, fifth, and six lines.

The 60th Gateway connects with the 3rd on the other end, making up a very powerful channel. We might say the 60th Hexagram is the Gateway of the old, while the 3rd gateway is all about the new. So, this channel takes us out of the old into the new, in a single and sometimes dramatic jump. And the 60 is all about recognizing those things in life that we tend to hang onto. What are the things that block us? What are the roadblocks in our life, and what are the limitations that we insist on having, consciously or unconsciously?

When it comes to these limitations, the key is acceptance. When you recognize that you are restricted or limited, that there’s no way forward for you in your current situation, you have to come to a place of acceptance until some mutation happens, some big jump takes place. Allow life to direct you through exercising your own Design’s Type and Authority.

In fact, accepting restrictions allows for the possibility of flow and transcendence. Boundaries and limits provide a foundation from which growth and evolution can take place. When we take care of the needful, accept our real (check our Type and Authority) responsibilities, pay our bills, make sure we nourish ourselves, dedicate to our works and creativity, remember our sense of humor, and celebrate even the small things of life, then we are in a place in which transformation can happen. We have to remember again and again: life is not something that happens to us, life is something that happens for us! Gate 60 highlights any inclinations we have to hold ourselves back.

If our approach is simply to be contrary, if we just push against our limitations, nothing much can move. But if we’re accepting of the restrictions, we can draw back from it all, figure out what these restrictions are really all about, and find new ways to resolve these old issues.

The 60th Gateway essentially reminds us to look closely at where we limit ourselves. Where are the boundaries? Are they real or are they self-imposed?

So, with that in mind, let’s look at Gate 60 in the Human Design System line by line:

First Line: Accommodating

The first line always lays out the foundation of the Hexagram. And here, the line is called, “Accommodating: Trusting in your own dignity when under pressure.” The root center where Gate 60 sits is a pressure center. It’s a pressure to get out and perform in life, to move past our limitations.

When you find yourself up against it in life, you’ve got to trust yourself. You conserve your strength and options when confronted by restraints, or you become unsettled. We can all get rattled when something pops up and disrupts our flow. It’s just a matter of recognizing that these things happen in life, and that the whole point of life is to transcend these issues. Do we react or do we allow for a creative solution?

Your inner harmony recognizes the advantages of staying within self-imposed boundaries. When you recognize your limitations, where your self-imposed horizons are, you can realize that it’s ok, and actually beneficial for you in the long run to stay within your limits until the weather changes, until the mutation takes place, and you can move into something different. But be ready!

Second Line: Finding Advantage

The second line is called “Finding advantage: Knowing when restraints are unnecessarily limiting.” The second line has this natural approach to finding a way through limitations and knowing when restraints are unnecessarily limiting. And there’s always a way through. It doesn’t matter what the roadblocks are, the 60th Gateway is mutative, it can find a way.

You either seize the moment to act or feel hopelessly held back and unable to move. But your disciplined nature means that you can adapt to restraints and still be ready to act. You can recognize that you’re held up for the time being, but you’re waiting to see the chink in the armor, and then you’re going to go for it.

On the other hand, there’s the potential here for you to identify with the restraints to the point that you become indecisive and immobilized. You just take on the bombardment of limitations and restrictions and give up. You feel like you can’t do anything. It’s hopeless. When this happens, you have to take another look. You have to recognize whether this is reality that you’re being challenged with, or if it’s just other people’s input and an overload of information from the outside.

Third Line: Being Self-Indulgent

The third line is always seeking to be the first one in. It’ll try anything. And it will quickly learn from its successes and, more importantly, its failures. Here the line is called, “Being self-indulgent: Learning through exceeding your own sensible limits.”

There’s a lot of experimentation that takes place with the third line. It’ll sometimes blunder through things just to come out the other side. It’s always pushing the envelope to see what the limitations are really all about.

Recognizing your limits, you either restrain yourself or you proceed rashly and pay the price. The price can sometimes be painful. Alternatively, the price can sometimes lead to a massive acceleration in learning. You never know. But the third line has to trust itself to commit to something, to commit to dealing with any limitation, to either play along with it or find a way through.

Fourth Line: Extending

The fourth line here is called “Extending: Using limitations as a natural springboard for growth.” This is where, halfway through the fourth line, we move out of the sign of Capricorn into the sign of Aquarius—both very different energies. 

The fourth line can be very influential. It looks at the situation, it sees the limitations and says, “I don’t really have to hold myself back because of this potential constraint. If I just deal with these roadblocks, they’re not limitations for me anymore.” And once you’ve dealt with these roadblocks, it becomes a springboard for you to evolve and go into different things altogether.

You apply yourself to make the best of any situation by dealing with it directly. When you encounter a limitation, you put your attention and focus on it and see where the evolution is possible. Otherwise, if you try to continually harmonize with everyone and everything that appears to be going on around you, rather than surpass life’s limitations, you can easily become dejected.

Fifth Line: Finding Inner Independence

The fifth line is called “Finding Inner Independence: Accepting any restrictions agreeably has great effect.” You’ll find that when you put a smile on something, it will change the whole dynamic of the situation. Even it looks like it’s just a complete obstruction, a smile can work wonders. You get stopped with a traffic ticket, you pay the ticket, no big deal, life can now move on. You don’t have to feel restricted. Or you can contest the fine and remain in limbo until everything “outside you” finds some kind of resolution.

You live openly with acceptable restraints for yourself and others, or else become hypocritical and give in to “it’s all against me” type thinking.

Fifth lines have the ability to resolve other people’s issues, to help other people get past potential limitations and restrictions. Everybody’s got these expectations of you. They expect you to do this and fix that. And the most important thing for all of us when it comes to the Human Design System, is to be sovereign in our nature. To trust our own Type and Authority to engage or not, to be involved or not. And this line really accentuates that. The bottom line for the fifth line is to find your inner independence.

Sixth Line: Being Idealistic

The sixth line here is called “Being idealistic: Balancing between indulgence and unreasonable restraint.” So, we see two ends of the spectrum here. You’re either hedging your bets, covering all the bases so limitation is just not part of your life, or you put all your energy into defending yourself and keeping things away.

You know that any excessive restraints imposed on you and others will meet with resentment. In the world we see hardline policies imposed by despots and dictators, and in all of us, when we feel unnecessarily limited, unreasonably restrained, there can be this massive resentment that takes place and who knows what comes from that? Revolt? Revolution? Or perhaps creative reinvention?

You have the potential to become overwhelmed by any imposed limitations and find yourself depressed. Sixth lines always have that potential to see everybody else’s problems and feel a responsibility to resolve these problems.

It’s part of the melancholic potential in Human Design, the individual circuitry. It is quite possible to get stuck in melancholy with this channel, as you wait for the change, wait for something to be different, while more and more problems keep building up.

So again, this always comes back to one’s own Type and Authority in the Human Design System. It’s about checking in and really seeing what’s true for you. Do you really need to sit in this puddle of despair? Or is the whole nature of the 60th Gateway just holding the space and intention until the jump takes place?

So, there we are, that’s the 60th Gateway. We’ll check in again soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about the Human Design System and discover how your own Design informs and shapes your life, get your Free Human Design Report today.