Human Design: How to discover the real you

The majority of people have an undefined Heart. In this case, you might yearn to be a powerhouse, but your heart’s not designed to be in it. You have nothing to prove and must live your life accordingly.

People may well ask, ‘What exactly do you want out of life?’ or ‘Where’s your willpower?’ Having this centre undefined does not mean you don’t have willpower, it simply means it is not consistent within you. If anything, it is that uncertain aspect that makes you compete with others and work harder. The danger is to compare yourself with others and over – compete, then come up short and struggle with how you value yourself.

That is why it is important to understand that you have no need to prove anything – to yourself or anyone else with expectations of you. If you do, you are likely to get caught in the tug – of – war between the universal good and the ego. You can find yourself in situations where matters of ego can be triggered, causing you to be fiercely competitive. This is a conditioning influence. To turn it into impassive wisdom, step away from the ego and allow yourself to be content to mirror back life’s intrinsic values to others without having to prove yourself through your actions. You have your own access to truth, so listen to yourself and be good to your heart.

You also have the flexibility and growing wisdom to guide others in what they want out of life. You can put an objective value on the material as well as spiritual aspects of life.

The Sacral

Life – force and Staying Power

The middle square centre, second one up from the bottom of the life chart, is the Sacral. Another motor centre, this is the engine room of the Human Design system, powered by life – force energy. As such, it generates the juice which aims trees towards the sky, empowers baby birds to crack out of their shells and enables us to endure amazing hardship in life. It is the powerhouse centre that fuels growth, expansion and life. It harnesses an energy that has no awareness – it is just raw power, like a mechanical generator humming away, ready to unleash its stored energy.

Sometimes this centre is referred to as the ‘sex centre’ because the majority of its gates have a sexual undertone. Physically, it also relates to the testes and ovaries.

The vast majority of the world’s population – about 70 per cent – has a defined Sacral with the potential to run with this unstoppable energy. Yet, paradoxically, those people rarely know how to utilize it in a way that brings about personal fulfilment. Having something powerful in your hands doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to use it, but knowing this energy resides within can be a wake – up call.

Our sexual drive and urges also stem from this centre, opening up all manner of human interaction and co – creation. It’s important to appreciate that ‘sacral’, ‘sacred’ and ‘sex’ are closely interlinked. This centre offers a commentary on the barriers you may or may not establish in your sex life and your approach to intimacy.

If your Sacral is defined

You are here in this world with the natural ability to respond to whatever life offers you. Whether you realize it or not, you have a continuous stream of life – force energy to draw on in order to sustain any endeavour which earns your commitment. But because this is a motor with no ‘off’ switch, once your Sacral energy is unleashed, there’s no turning back. Its momentum means it is has to be engaged until the experience is complete. Therefore, you must be sure about deciding what and who warrants your time and energy.

The Sacral is where the gut response resides. ‘I’m following my gut,’ you might say, and this is a natural reaction within you and a reliable guide. You’ll recognize this response emanating from within: either an upbeat ‘a – huh’ for something that feels right or a frown – inducing ‘uh – uh’ for something that feels wrong. This is your gut, which is not to be confused with your emotions. A gut response might also be experienced as a rising or contracting of energy without sound, pulling you to or from someone or something.

It is an ongoing tragedy that people with this defined centre often find themselves going through life unappreciated, slogging away as the workhorse, slave or gopher fulfilling others’ projects. There can be a self – perception that that’s all they are good for. There are scores of employees out there feeling unappreciated, and countless assistants and secretaries whose powerhouse energy and unstinting effort go relatively unrewarded and unrecognized but make their bosses shine. There is a saying that behind every successful man lies a brilliant woman. I would make it less gender – specific and say instead: ‘Behind every successful individual, look to the person supporting them and see if their Sacral is defined.’ More often than not, it will be. What would they do and where would they be without you?!

Know that you are designed to be a powerhouse. Some of you might say that you don’t feel that way, and that can be true if your energy has not been harnessed properly. What I’m pointing out is the potential reserves within, waiting to be harnessed.

When you do get motoring, you’ll find other people have trouble keeping up, and this can make you feel obliged to take on their tasks as well as your own. But what you’ll notice is that throwing your weight behind an endeavour which pleases you will give you a buzz, so it therefore must be right. Intolerance, boredom, frustration or impatience with an activity suggests you have committed to the wrong thing. Learn to heed your gut response. Wait for that upbeat ‘a – huh’ or downbeat ‘uh – uh’ as your guide.

With this centre defined, sex, for you, is a driving force. This does not mean that you are naturally a lady killer or a seductress, but that you have the potential for a sustained and satisfying sex life, provided you make the right connections. This means exercising discipline and discernment rather than just unleashing the energy at every given opportunity. If you’re in tune with your gut over sexual partners, you’ll find harmony. If you indulge in reckless abandon, then frustration and depression are likely to arise. You may sometimes find yourself overburdened and unsatisfied with partners and projects, and you may ask what you have done to deserve this. The answer is simple: you have committed to people and projects indiscriminately. You have taken on too much. You have promised too much. It is therefore vital to take your needs into account – first! No one is indispensable, not even someone with a defined Sacral.

If you happen to have both the Sacral and Heart defined, you are a positive whirlwind of energy, a non – stop go – getter. Your level of achievement can defy comprehension, but you truly have to find the things you love to do – and find time to rest up, because otherwise your huge efforts and sustainable energy can leave you flat on your back.

If your Sacral is undefined

You will eventually find out that you are not designed to maintain a life in the fast lane. You are not, by nature, driven. You were not born with staying power and don’t have consistent access to life – force energy. This doesn’t mean you are work – shy, but your best input tends to come in spurts or as part of a team. The danger of failing to recognize this nature is that you’ll try to keep up with the powerhouses and burn out.

As an example, one woman I know worked in the high – pressured field of sales, in an environment which was relentless in its pursuit of targets, goals and profit margins. She was not designed to be immersed in such a high – powered environment, yet her job demanded it. She ended up collapsing at work, wiped out by the conditioning influence of the designs around her. Basically, her Human Design couldn’t cope. She would have been far better placed being given a team to manage and seeing how that collective energy was best utilized – a situation she has now happily incorporated.

The key understanding here is to adopt a more objective view which mirrors the energy of others, thereby turning a conditioning influence into impassive wisdom which strengthens, not depletes. You need to learn to pace yourself – to outsource and delegate instead of getting caught up in the dust storm.

When it comes to sexual energy, there is an innocence to your make – up. Your drive and urges will not be as great as those of people with a defined Sacral, and sex won’t be such a relentless driving force within you – unless, of course, you tap into a partner with the Sacral defined. Then, you will mirror their energy, and that can magnify matters! Ordinarily, the partner with the defined centre will provide the energy for what takes place in the bedroom and you will often guide that energy. Your impassive wisdom is to know when to connect to the energies of others and when to honour your nature and retreat.

The Emotions

Feelings

To the right of the Sacral is the Emotions centre, which stirs our feelings. It is where life swings between happiness and sadness, pain and passion, guilt and forgiveness. Of all the nine centres, it is the most intense because of what it arouses. It is unique because it is both one of the three ‘awareness centres’ and one of the four ‘motor centres’, meaning there is a perpetual balancing act between awareness and the drive to act and accomplish.

Anatomically, this centre greatly affects our pancreas, kidneys, stomach, lungs and nervous system. This is perhaps why countless people will associate heightened emotional problems with a visit to the doctor’s surgery. It is why emotional situations can turn us off our food or make us binge, and why pain can lead to problems within the nervous system. It is also the centre associated with addictions, be they to sex, alcohol, food or drugs.

Although this is the most complex centre it is perhaps the easiest to understand, because emotions are at the core of human nature. But this centre is about emotional awareness. It is about addressing which emotional experiences are good for you and which ones are not. Of course, it all depends on whether your Emotions are defined or undefined.

If your Emotions are defined

You’re a feeling person and yet I’d guess you have little idea about the true scope of your emotions. The chances are that you’re the life and soul of the party one minute, down in the dumps the next. Welcome to your erratic emotional wave! You are in this life to fly high and sample the cloud nines and then dive deep and find your nose in the mud. Emotionally, it is your nature to experience the full spectrum of feelings, which, from time to time, may feel like chaos to you and everyone around you. Emotions never sit still for long. They are like the restless ocean, rolling like waves, rising and falling, peaking and dipping. When you feel happy, you want to capture that moment. When you feel sad, you wonder when the blues will end. But there is never a state of permanence to emotion; recognizing these emotional waves and allowing them to pass through you instead of owning you is all part of your evolution.

One lesson to heed is to not get attached to any particular feeling or the expectation of how something might turn out. Emotional decisions made in the heat of the moment are your enemy. So it’s all about allowing emotions to pass through you, disengaging from them and awaiting the calm – like a storm – tossed ship emerging from tumultuous seas spotting the steady beam of a lighthouse which guides the way home.

But here’s the main revelation about having this centre defined: you are responsible for not only your own moods but also for influencing the moods of those people around you. Your Human Design affects people within your aura and triggers their emotions. As daft as it sounds, your emotions are contagious! The moods you experience will be mirrored by the people around you. If you’re feeling bummed out, watch others gradually join the despondency. If you’re exultant, watch others’ exuberance rise. Your lifetime is all about learning to handle, appreciate and embrace your feelings and how they affect others.

If your Emotions are undefined

You will probably consider yourself an emotional person when, in fact, you are actually riding the emotions transmitted by others. You laugh their laughs and cry their tears. So what you must realize is that your emotions are triggered by the emotional impact of others. Your natural state, when alone, is to be cool, calm and collected.

What tends to happen when you step outside that personal space is that you get caught in other people’s emotional waves. This is a conditioning influence because your design isn’t made to cope with such intensity of feeling. People with this centre undefined have the greatest trouble in allowing themselves to feel emotions. If you’re not comfortable in your own skin at certain moments it messes with your nature, inducing confusion, temper or frustration. On the plus side, if you’re in the middle of a football stadium being swept away by an air of triumph, you’ll feel that glory and celebration. If you’re attending a religious ceremony, you’ll share the blessed uprising. But you are potentially subject to the emotions of those around you, whether healthy or toxic, so you must remain aware and watchful.

To transform this conditioning influence into impassive wisdom, learn to not react to emotions which are not part of you. Instead, reflect back your clear perception of what is going on, observed from the objective sidelines. Be a witness, not a player.

Put another way, if those with the defined centre are flailing in the sea of their emotions, you are someone on the shoreline, observing. This is where you have a choice: you can either dive in and magnify those emotions or stay out of the sea and reflect back to those people what is transpiring and how to be responsible about it.

The Spleen

Survival and Senses

To the left of the Sacral is the Spleen, another of the three awareness centres, which comes primed with an in – built survival mechanism, plus a feel – good factor which radiates from within. This centre is highly sensory, like an inner radar, scanning the environment moment by moment and responding spontaneously based on instinct, intuition and ‘taste’. There is no applied intelligence here – it is all about pure survival. This is where the red lights start to flash and the klaxons sound, providing instantaneous warnings of what is right and what might be hazardous in people or situations.

It’s also where our deep – seated fears can be found – and triggered. There is the fear of not knowing enough, the fear of the future, the fear of the past, the fear of taking responsibility, the fear of failing, the fear of death and the fear of authority. Recognizing fear, for both its alerts and limitations, provides the ability to survive and feel good about life in the moment.

So this is the centre of spontaneity and intuition. There is also an acoustic quality, a sense of whether something you’re hearing rings true or not. The centre literally scans the sound quality of someone’s voice or vibe to find out whether something resonates or not. Its theme is all about using its senses to assure survival.

Anatomically, this centre relates to the immune system, tackling any foreign bodies, viruses and potential illnesses. The Battle of Waterloo was nothing compared to what goes on within the body’s defence mechanisms. The immune system is fighting on your behalf – it’s all about your physical survival.

If your Spleen is defined

You are spontaneous and highly intuitive, designed to react to life on the spur of the moment, always on your toes. You also glow, lighting up a room with your presence because of a radiating feel – good factor.

A spontaneous sensibility scans your environment for any sense of threat or discord, always sensing what’s good or bad, but exuding warmth with your touch and manner. You are a curious mix of the alert and ever – watchful bodyguard and the well – being healer. There is a brightness to your presence, supported by a sense of humour which is often sharp and dry. Laughter is, after all, the best form of medicine.

But behind the smiles, you are designed to pay attention to your senses, to disengage the moment your intuition, instinct or taste warns you. Enter a party where the DJ is playing discordant music or where the atmosphere smells unpleasant, and you’ll be alerted. Don’t be afraid to turn on your heel and get out of there. These warning signals apply to any environment: someone’s home, the workplace, restaurants and shopping malls. They don’t necessarily denote danger; they merely mean there is something there that doesn’t fit with your nature. But heed them, however illogical they may seem to others, for they are your true guide. Otherwise, wrong environments can lead to you becoming sick because they put your immune system out of synch.

Your natural – and best – reflexes will come as rapidly as a click of the fingers. Your whole life is best lived in the moment because of this spontaneity. Yet it also means your antennae are always twitching and this can lead you to behave like a nervous Nellie. You’re liable to be watchful for any conceivable threat and to weigh up the risk around every corner. In fact, it is a wonder that you ever step out of the house in the morning! There is a tendency to fear this and fear that, because your survival mechanism is constantly on. This is the mother who is petrified of letting her child go out to play, or the insurance company’s dream – the person determined to cover every risk.

The specific fears that can be aroused within you depend on the gates that are turned on within your centre, and all this will be examined later in the book. But in order to calm this characteristic, you need to be aware of when this over – protectiveness kicks in and then adopt a more realistic attitude. The Spleen is fearful by nature, so stay alert, but don’t allow this to stop your life from happening. Also, a defined Spleen tends to mean a strong immune system, helping you battle illness. If you are constantly sick, it might well be the case that you’re ignoring your intuitive senses.

If your Spleen is undefined