The Human Design Library · The nine centers
Most people start Human Design with their type. I start with what's underneath it: the centers, the actual mechanics of what's genuinely yours versus what you've picked up from everywhere else. Click any center on the bodygraph to read how it works when it's defined and when it's undefined.
Defined Colored in on your chart. Consistent, reliable energy that broadcasts your signal and affects the people around you.
Undefined White on your chart. Variable energy that takes in what's around you, amplifies it, and reflects it back. This is where conditioning lives.
Ideas, inspiration and possibility. One of the two pressure centers, always under pressure to know and to answer questions.
You are an inspirational force, and are always radiating inspiration out into the world. The themes of the gates and channels that define your head center become the source of inspiration available to others. You have a deep seated need to understand and explain everything. You are always asking questions, can be very busy pondering all kinds of truths and possibilities, and may feel something is wrong if you don't have an answer. You are often full of ideas but may not know where they come from.
It is natural for you to feel under continual pressure to resolve your own thought processes, to understand your inspiration, and to answer your own questions. If you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by this need to resolve unanswered questions, you can turn that mental pressure inward which can result in deep anxiety, self-doubt and depression. If you then try to relieve that pressure by turning it outward into action, the result is usually an incorrect or hasty decision, or a missed opportunity.
The challenge for the defined Head Center is to accept the mental pressure without trying to act on it. To make peace with the confusion, doubt, and lack of clarity, just let it flow. It's important to reflect and ponder the questions the Head center asks, allow them to begin the creative process and use them for inspiration. To make decisions however, trust your Strategy and Authority to truly inform you.
You do not have a consistent way of receiving inspiration, so you are open to all thoughts and inspiration, which often seems to just pop into your head all the time. You are open to and looking for inspiration everywhere and may immerse yourself in inspiring environments. You like to be around inspiring people, however all this stimulation and inspiration can leave your head spinning. You are always open to new insights and you are able to discern what and who is truly inspiring. You have a gift for being able to contemplate and explore the mysteries of life, human experience and infinite possibilities.
With an undefined head, you may spend too much mental energy thinking about things that aren't important (or even yours to ponder), and can lead to unnecessary anxiety. You can easily be caught up trying to make decisions and solve problems that are not even yours, and may become lost or overwhelmed by doubt or confusion which may actually belong to someone else. There can be this pressure to resolve other people's questions as soon as possible, and it can make it difficult to empty out all the stuff in your head so that you can relax, which then of course applies more pressure.
It can be very easy for you to get lost in your own mental chatter. The key here to maintaining mental health is to refuse to act out of mental pressure. Become the observer of your thoughts. Merely observe the questions in your mind and trust your Authority to guide you to what is yours and what is not.
What we relate to as the mind. It takes the ideas and inspiration from the Head and processes them into thoughts, concepts, opinions and answers.
You tend to think and conceptualize in a consistent, specific process most of the time, and you tend to not be easily influenced by other people’s opinions. The way you think and how you prefer to conceptualize is determined by the gates and the channels that you have defined. This definition can inspire and pressure others to think in the same way as you. If your Ajna is connected to your Throat center, you are someone who IS designed to speak your mind. But you must trust your Strategy and Authority to let you know when to speak.
You are likely to be always thinking, always processing information, even when you don't need to be. You enjoy mental stimulation, but you may also have difficulty clearing your mind and finding silence. You may find it challenging to meditate because it can take real effort to stop or control all that mental activity. You may find it easier to try a more ”active” meditative practice, such as being guided, or a movement based mindfulness practice (walking, yoga, etc.) You have a strong mind, that can be more fixed in your thinking than others, but you must always remember that the mind is for thinking, conceptualizing, pondering, but NOT for decision making.
You have a tendency to want to make decisions from the mind and what you are thinking, so you should always trust your strategy and authority to make correct decisions for you.
Your undefined Ajna allows you to recognize a variety of perspectives and opinions, which could make you both adaptable and uncertain in your own beliefs. You can see all sides to a situation, and are usually fair, empathetic and open-minded. You are open to new ideas and may be considered to be an out of the box thinker - this is because you have access to other people's points of view and are not fixed in your thinking process. You're able to sift through all the different possibilities and gather what matters most, and you're often the one who can pick up the thoughts and ideas before someone in the group actually speaks them aloud.
You are here to become wise about the intricate workings of the mind. You do not hold on to concepts, ideas or opinions as your own personal truth, nor do you become overly attached with any one of them. If you learn to not over identify with one school of thought, your mind can become a sort of mental playground, a delightful source of free and creative thinking and a treasure trove of wisdom for others. Think of the intellectuals and deep thinkers such as Freud, Jung, and Einstein. You are able to discern which concepts have value and to recognize who's capable of providing answers to questions on your consideration.
Your mind is flexible and changeable. Learn to appreciate this strength. Give yourself the freedom to follow your own thought process and recognize that it's okay not to always have a clear answer or opinion.
Communication, expression and language. The hub where energy from the whole bodygraph turns into words and action.
This is the energy hub for messages coming from all parts of the bodygraph. It transmits and directs how this information manifests in the world as communication and action. The defined throat is designed to speak, and how you speak and what you speak about is determined by what the throat is connected to. Most people think that when they speak, they are talking about what they are thinking. However, this is not always true. If the Throat is connected to your Ajna center, then yes, you are designed to speak what is on your mind, how you see things, what you know, and what your understanding is.
If the Throat is connected to the G-center, then it is your identity, who you are, that is going to speak. This can feel especially vulnerable when sharing, and makes you highly sensitive to criticism. If the Throat is connected to the Will center, then it is the ego that is going to speak. You may speak about yourself quite a bit, and generally start with I, Me, or Mine. If the Throat is connected to the Spleen Center your words come from your intuition, and what is best for your personal well-being. It is an articulate voice that speaks to how you are feeling in the now.
If the Throat is connected to the Solar Plexus Center, your words will express your feelings and emotions. You speak from your emotional wave which is sometimes up, sometimes down. It’s important to remember to speak only when you feel like it. If your Throat is connected to the Sacral center - it is your life force that speaks but it only speaks naturally in response.
This is the energy hub for messages coming from all parts of the bodygraph. It transmits and directs how this information manifests in the world as communication and action. The undefined Throat needs to be recognized and invited to speak in order to be truly heard. Your communication and self-expression is strongly influenced by the energies of your environment. Your undefined throat makes you particularly receptive to the communication styles of others, but it can also tempt you to either speak too much to be heard, or hold back for fear of being misunderstood.
It's essential for you to learn to trust your own voice. Take time to reflect before you speak. Your true strength lies in the ability to listen and to say exactly the right thing at the right moment. You may feel like no one will ever recognize you or ask, so you may tend to feel pressure to speak up, interrupt, or try some way to gain attention. If you succumb to this pressure, what you say may not be heard, or may be received poorly. You will naturally attract the attention you desire if you wait to be invited.
Trust your Strategy and Authority to direct when to speak, and when not to. You also have the potential to be a gifted speaker, possibly even speak for a living, because your openness here gives you the ability to connect with people in whatever way they need in order to hear what it is you have to say.
Seat of the Magnetic Monopole. The center of love, identity and direction.
You have a more fixed or consistent sense of self, of who you are, and where you want to go. You may feel you have a mission in life you need to fulfill and are always taking actions that align with that mission, or may struggle if you haven’t figured out what you think your mission may be. It can be challenging to know who you are and where you’re going, but not know exactly how you will get there. Don’t worry, that’s what the magnetic monopole, located in the G-Center, is for!
Relax into feeling good, and the monopole will magnetize all that you need. With a defined G, it’s difficult for you to bow to the expectations imposed on you by others, and can lead to a lot of heartache for you if you abandon who you are in order to please someone else. The defined G cannot change who it is, and so you may have a deep underlying fear that you may not be loved as you are, because you cannot change who you are.
You can be very sensitive to criticism, especially if you have connection to the Throat, as your expression comes from the heart of who you are. You are meant to stay true to what’s best for you, love yourself as you are, and then you can in turn love others as they are, without becoming dependent on them for your own sense of self.
You are a true social chameleon. Your open G-Center allows you to tap into and experience others as they see themselves, which in turn makes you wise to the myriad of ways of simply “being”. You do not have a fixed sense of identity or self, however this is not a flaw, as you may have experienced it in yourself before. You also do not have a fixed direction in life. You are designed to try many different paths and have many different experiences- this is what helps you discern which is the right path for you. With this openness in your center for direction, being in the correct environment at the right time is very important for you.
When you are in the right place, the right people for you to meet, connect with, and enter into relationships with will also be there. If your physical environment feels in any way “off” to you, pay attention. This feeling is trying to guide you to the right place where opportunities and people await you. How you express yourself can change from moment to moment, depending on who you are around. With this shifting sense of self and direction, you can be vulnerable to the sense of always feeling different, not really fitting in anywhere. But remember, you are not here to “find” yourself, you are here to be wise about experiencing others.
Knowing this, make sure to surround yourself with people who feel good to you. How you feel about yourself is always changing. As the center for love, particularly self-love, you may always be questioning “Who will love me?” or “Am I lovable?” This could leave you vulnerable to unhealthy relationships. By following your Strategy and Authority, it will lead you to the correct environments at the right time to find those right people for you.
Also known as the Will or Ego center. A motor that governs willpower, ego and the material world.
You are someone who is designed to be willful, and you have consistent access to willpower. You are able to set goals and stick to them, make promises and keep them. With your defined Will, your presence can empower others and make them feel as if they can do anything they set their mind to, and they may, as long as they are borrowing your defined Will energy. Be gentle with those around you who may disappoint you when they don’t follow through or can’t “make it happen” like you do. They just don’t have that consistent access to Will center energy, and once out of your aura, they lose that internal willpower.
The Will center is a motor center, meaning it helps move and direct energy in the chart. It is a motor that acts more like a gas engine - it needs fuel in order to operate, and if it does not have a reserve of fuel, it will stop working. If you ignore the signs that you are approaching “empty”, and push past your capacity, you run the risk of burning out. Therefore it is essential that you take great care of your personal energy. You must find a healthy balance between work and rest. When you do, your defined Will center can maintain a healthy state and be ready, when asked, if it has the energy to engage.
If you find that you are in a “stuck” state, or don’t feel like opportunities or invitations are coming your way, your Will center may be depleted. This is energy that demands regular cycles of rest after expending energy. This motor works to rest. It is important for you, in order to keep commitments and provide resources for your tribe/community/family, to have plenty of downtime and retreat. This will also probably be one of your biggest challenges! However, if you don’t regularly restore your energy, it will be of no use to anyone, as you can eventually burn out.
The most important thing you need to understand about your undefined Will is this - you do not have consistent access to willpower - and that is not a flaw. This idea that we need to just push through, hustle, commit and make it happen is a myth for the majority of the planet, as 63% of us have this center undefined. People with undefined Wills often make promises in an effort to prove their worthiness or to feel valuable. You may have been conditioned to believe that your commitment, hard work, and effort are what people will value you for. You may give away too much of your time and energy in order to feel worthy to receive from others.
It is imperative to learn to use your Strategy to make commitments and agreements. If you don’t, you run the risk of burning out from trying to push through to keep your promise, even to yourself. Your undefined Will center is here to learn about what is truly valuable, in the world. You are here to learn when to work, when to rest, and how to manage resources and power. The Will center’s theme deals with the material realm, and you may find it difficult to ask for what you are worth, and may tend to undervalue your work or services. Before setting fees for your services, make sure you are charging enough.
If you work for someone else, make sure you are being paid enough, you are worth it! When you follow your Strategy and Authority, you will be led at the right time to enter into commitments that benefit both you and others. You never have to prove anything to anyone by committing to things you don’t want to do, or don’t have the energy for. So make your promises deliberately and in line with your design.
Body consciousness. Health and well-being, instinct, intuition, fear and survival.
You have an inner awareness of what is healthy, or not healthy, for you. You instinctively know what is correct for your well-being and your survival. Defined spleens tend to have powerful immune systems, however this can also cause you to ignore signs and symptoms of illness. You may not realize you are sick until you are very sick, and may ignore the signs of illness, causing you to push through, causing undue stress on your body. Quite often, those around you may notice before you do that you may not be feeling well, so pay attention if others are showing concern for your health. As a primal awareness center, Splenic awareness is felt as a knowing, and is often not clearly rational.
Its ancient wisdom speaks in the NOW and only speaks once. This isn’t emotional or logical, it is pure body awareness. Quite often the guidance that your defined Spleen gives you doesn’t make sense to you, yet you have to learn to attune to it, and heed its advice. This awareness is what kept your ancestors from being eaten by a lion, so it knows how to guide you to safety, security, and what will make you feel good! This survival instinct also carries with it inherent fears within the Spleen gates. These fears include fear of inadequacy, fear of imperfection, fear of failing your responsibilities, fear of the future, fear of the past repeating itself, fear that life is meaningless, and fear of death.
These fears can feel paralyzing at times. You will need to discern if the fear you are feeling is truly life threatening and your survival is at stake, or if you are simply experiencing the energy of your defined spleen. Quite often you just need to feel the fear and do it anyway! Learn to trust this intuitive guidance, do what it says, and do not let others distract you from following your own reliable instincts.
How you access your instinct and intuition is influenced by those around you, and may make you more susceptible to external fears and worries. You have a very sensitive immune system. You are sensitive to subtle changes in your body, and may tend to experience illnesses sooner or more frequently than others. Your system may also be sensitive to common medical remedies, and you could find more success with lower doses of medications or more holistic remedies. You are very sensitive to your environment and the people you spend time with, so surround yourself with those who have healthy habits and make you feel worthy.
Those with defined Spleen centers tend to give off the energy of safety and security, as they are more tapped in to their own instinctual, survival instincts. This can make those with undefined Spleens feel very safe, secure and protected, which feels really good to you! You tend to be attracted to people who give you access to this "feel good", safe energy, so you may have a hard time letting go when this person is no longer healthy for you. This is not a conscious awareness, mind you, it’s just energetics. If you find yourself in such a relationship, where you are not feeling valued, but can’t seem to let go, this may be a dynamic that is at play.
The Spleen center is all about timing, and your inconsistent experience of these energies may cause you to struggle with the concept of time; you may have a more "flowy" rather than structured sense of time, and may run chronically late, or may be compulsively early. Plan accordingly!
Emotional and social awareness. Feelings, moods and sensitivity, moving in a wave.
The Solar Plexus is a motor center, and its wavelike patterns help move energy through the chart. With a defined Solar Plexus, you have an emotion wave, or a fluctuating emotional state. This means that you are in a constant dance between the highs and lows, the hope and pain, of the human experience. You could be seen as moody, someone who has down days for no foreseeable reason. You can have a great day/week, then wake up the next day in a funk and feeling down. This is just the mechanics of your emotional wave. You are here to learn that emotions come and go, that life is full of ups and downs, and to not let yourself be swept away or feel out of control by these fluctuations. The type of emotional wave you experience will be determined by what centers your Solar Plexus is connected to.
You may have one connection, or several. Your wave may be barely noticeable and only felt if you are experiencing difficulty in your relationships (59/6). Your wave may be mainly on an even keel, but have smaller intense up and down moodiness, (22-12, 39-55), and you may need periods of being alone when feeling particularly moody. You may have a wave that “ratchets up” and builds until it “bursts” and then the climb starts all over again (37/40, 19/49). This kind of wave responds well to touch, a gentle hand on the shoulder or squeezed hand can help lessen the intensity. Or your wave may build slowly through desire and feeling, moving from peaks to valleys, (41/30, 36-35). It is a building desire from expectation, that can all come crashing down if that desire or expectation isn’t met.
It's a good idea to keep a journal and pay attention to your emotions, making notes on how you're feeling each day. You may soon notice a pattern that can help you navigate your wave. Our emotional awareness is becoming our primary source of awareness as we evolve collectively, and with your emotional definition you are being called to live as an example of a healthy, emotionally aware being. You are to honor how you feel at any moment and allow it to be the source of your infinite creative potential.
Your emotional perception is strongly influenced by the feelings and moods of the people in your environment. It can be incredibly overwhelming to experience people's emotions in this way. You can experience emotions, big and small through others, however it's important to learn what are truly your emotions and what belongs to someone else. You natural emotional state, when away from the presence of others, is usually quite balanced and even. You can struggle with emotional wellness, especially if you are living with, or spend time with others who don’t handle emotions well.
To mitigate these big feelings and uncomfortable encounters, you run the risk of people pleasing, or the opposite, of withdrawing completely. It’s important to realize that you are NOT the emotions you are experiencing, and to continually ask yourself, “Is this even mine?” You must learn to allow the emotions to move through you, as wind moves through a window screen, and not attach to them. Your personal mantra should be “I am a screen, not a sponge.” You have an immense gift of being able to experience every emotion available, good or bad, and become very wise about feelings.
You are here to learn that you get to choose how you want to feel at any given moment. Being aware of how others feel gives you the gift of empathy, but it also gives you the challenge of choosing your own emotional well-being over what others expect or want from you.
Vitality, life force, work force and sexual energy. The energy that fosters all life on the planet.
You are designed to work, but it’s crucial to your well-being to find work that you love. You have the sustainable life force energy available to you and often it feels like a buzz inside you waiting to be used. There is a need to burn this energy by being active. Remember this is the energy that builds worlds, and creates communities. It is the energy that drives all the physical activity that is responsible for the world around us. It is important for you to be doing things that you absolutely love, or find a lot of satisfaction in, to use and burn that sacral energy.
This energy is most powerful in response, and will guide you through clear gut feelings of "yes" or "no" when presented with opportunities. If the response is affirmative, you have the full sacral power within you to use effectively and efficiently. If it's a no, and you commit anyhow, you run the risk of depleting the energy more quickly and eventually burning out. Each negative sacral response is a clear and healthy boundary that protects you from potential harm, or from merely overextending your energy.
The mantra for your defined Sacral is “Do not initiate”. You should never take the first step or move towards something without being asked, so that your sacral can respond yes or no. The secret is to wait and allow the sacral to be asked so It can respond to exactly what is right for you. Always trust your gut!
The undefined Sacral center is always vulnerable to the very intense conditioning field created by the majority of the people on the planet with defined Sacrals. You take in that Sacral energy, amplify it, and reflect it back. You are subject to elevated levels of energy pumping through your body, but your energy system is not really equipped to handle it. This can make you work harder than those around you, but once the person with the defined Sacral leaves your area, so does the energy.
Since you do not have consistent, sustainable access to Sacral energy, it's important to rest when rest is needed. You are not meant to work like those with defined Sacrals, or really in a typical 9-5 fashion. If you’re truly honest with yourself, you know that you really don’t want to work like others, and would prefer to relax and let others do the hard work! It’s healthier for you to work in spurts, taking plenty of time for rest and respecting your inconsistent energy flow.
You can enjoy taking advantage of the abundance of life force energy of others to get your projects and tasks done, but learn to also realize it’s borrowed and to not push too hard. You're here to balance work with rest, to become wise about the creative and powerful energy of the sacral, to learn about healthy boundaries around your own personal energy, and to know when enough is enough.
Adrenalized energy, the fuel to act and move. It operates in pulses.
With your defined Root center, you have a fixed way of dealing with stress and processing adrenalized energy. This energy gives you a sense of stability and grounding, even when everything around you is moving fast or is chaotic. You are capable of working effectively under pressure while keeping a cool head. Your ability to stay stable and focused is a strength that supports you in many areas of life.
This energy is experienced in pulses, and is unpredictable when it may be “on” or “off”. When it is on and available to you, you know it is the right time to get things done so to speak. As much as you possibly can, it’s important for you to recognize when you have this energy pulse, to work accordingly, and to not push through when it isn’t available. Pay attention to a healthy balance between tension and relaxation.
Simply put, with your defined root, you know things will get done when they get done, and don’t tend to stress over the "when" and "how" too much. Learn to tune into this pulse, and trust your Strategy and Authority to help guide you to the right use of your energy.
Your undefined Root center is always feeling under pressure to Do. You are constantly taking in and amplifying the adrenalized energy of defined Root centers around you, so you may always feel that you need to “get things done” so that you can be free of the uncomfortable pressure you are constantly feeling. You may find it hard to relax or build in free time to play, because you have a never ending list of tasks that need to be done before you are “allowed” to stop and enjoy yourself.
You need to learn to discern what tasks actually need completed, and where you are just feeling pressure from outside yourself. You may be known as someone who always “gets the job done” at work, and as such, more assignments come your way, and you work yourself ragged to complete them all. It’s a dangerous hamster wheel to find yourself on. The truth is, the work will never be completely done, as you will always find more “to do” because you are so sensitive to all the adrenalized energy around you.
Without this awareness you run the risk of never taking time to rest and recharge, and may physically exhaust yourself to the point where you become virtually ineffective in your work. You may never feel free of the pressure, but with awareness of this pressure and where it comes from, you can choose to be comfortable with it, not always act on it, and choose to feel free anyhow.
Full gate and channel descriptions are coming to their own pages in this library.
Get your free chart and see which of these centers are colored in on yours.
Written by Dana · Human Design Hive