Frameworks ยท Human Systems Design
The cornerstone frameworks of Human Systems Design for the Inner Life.
Six named cornerstone frameworks, plus the umbrella Human Systems Design itself. Each one isolates a single inner system, names it, and treats it as a design problem rather than a willpower problem.
Donna Sunario BSc is an Author, Behaviour Strategist and Educator whose work explores the hidden systems shaping how people work, cope, relate, recover and live.
Framework
The Sunario System
The operating framework of Human Systems Design.
The umbrella framework that organises the inner life as a system of systems, nervous system, identity, beliefs, behaviour, relationships and environment, and treats change as a design problem rather than a willpower problem.
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The Enough Effect
The quiet system of feeling not enough that drives high-functioning people.
Names the inner system that quietly tells capable people they are not enough, and shows how that single system distorts work, relationships, ambition, recovery and self-worth.
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The Nervous System Tax
The hidden cost of running a regulated life on an unregulated body.
Names the cost an unregulated nervous system silently extracts from energy, decisions, relationships, sleep and ambition, even when nothing visible is wrong.
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The Self-Reliance Trap
When the strength that built you starts to cost you.
Maps the inner system that turned independence into identity and now blocks support, intimacy, delegation and recovery in adulthood.
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The Guarding Map
The architecture of what you protect, and what it protects you from.
Maps the layers of guarding, presentational, relational, emotional and structural, that capable people maintain and the cost of running each one.
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The Hidden Systems Lens
See the systems running the room, and the ones running you.
A way of reading any situation, family, team, organisation, relationship, as a set of interacting systems with rules, payoffs and predictable outputs.
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Human Systems Design
The cornerstone framework. The body of work.
The cornerstone framework that organises every other Sunario framework. See the full long-form definition on the Human Systems Design page.
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What are the Sunario frameworks?
The Sunario frameworks are the named cornerstone frameworks within Human Systems Design for the Inner Life by Donna Sunario BSc. Each one isolates a single inner system, the Enough Effect, the Nervous System Tax, the Self-Reliance Trap, the Guarding Map, the Hidden Systems Lens and the umbrella Sunario System, and treats it as a design problem.
Where should I start?
Start with the framework that most accurately names your current situation. If you want the underlying philosophy first, read Human Systems Design. If you want a specific change, pick the framework that matches the inner system you are working with.
Are these academic models?
No. They are practical frameworks for capable adults. They draw on behavioural psychology, nervous system science, NLP, organisational systems thinking and practical philosophy, but they are written to be used, not studied.
Do the frameworks correspond to the books?
Yes. Each cornerstone framework has a companion book in the Human Systems Design Library, the book is where the framework is treated in depth and applied across daily life.
New to the body of work?