Behavior Tendencies & Challenges: Energy Centers in Human Design

Energy Centers in Your Human Design Chart

The energy centers in human design refer to the 9-Center Chakra System, where each center represents distinct behaviors and vulnerabilities.

There are three possibilities:

• Defined Centers: If the shape is colored, this means the center is defined or activated. This means the person can experience fixed and consistent traits relating to that center.
• Undefined Centers: If the shape is white but there are gates (ie. colored lines), the person may sometimes feel defined traits but will mostly feel inconsistent traits and absorb and amplify these traits from their external environments and belief systems. This is where they may be more prone to conditioning or becoming out of alignment.
• Open Centers: If the shape is completely white with no defined gates (ie. no colored lines coming out of the center), the person may experience vulnerabilities, inconsistent behaviors, or struggle with managing related behaviors. They have no filter to process the traits and can become easily ungrounded. This tends to be a life theme for them.

The Root Center (Pressure)                 

Related to: ¶ DRIVE, AMBITION, PRESSURE

UNDEFINED Root Center (no color)

• Strengths – Unhurried and calm when alone.
• Challenges – Prone to rushing, easily affected by stress, gets anxious over commitments or deadlines.
• Behaviors – Your body has no consistent way of dealing with stress and gets easily unhinged by tasks, appointments etc. Tends to rush around or complete things as quickly as possible to get rid of the pressure and feel calm again.

DEFINED Root Center (colored in)

• Strengths – Handling stress and pressure to get things into motion.
• Challenges – May feel impatient or rush others when they don’t match your timing.
• Behaviors – You can usually push through stress and deadlines to move forward and through challenges, without caving under the pressure. May feel a constant drive or ambition to start and do things. Important not to burn out on adrenaline alone.

The Sacral Center Center

Related to: ¶ ENERGY, CREATION, PLEASURE

UNDEFINED Sacral Center

• Strengths – Shows others healthy boundaries of knowing when to rest.
• Challenges – Gets tired quickly, switches between feeling energetic and having no energy.
• Behaviors – Your energy comes and goes. Your body can’t process a lot of high energy, so you tend to reach exhaustion before others. The body struggles to know when you have had enough, sometimes causing burnout or over-indulging.

DEFINED Sacral Center

• Strengths – Has energy to build, create, and get things done.
• Challenges – Can become consumed by passions and go until exhaustion.
• Behaviors – Your body has reliable energy to consistently work and complete things. Common to have several hobbies or interests and be busy doing things you are passionate about. Your gut is a barometer; if there is no response, it’s time to rest.

The Splenic Center (Instinct)

Related to: ¶ INSTINCT, FEARS, KNOWING

UNDEFINED Splenic Center

• Strengths – Can feel strong instincts from others.
• Challenges – May hold onto fears or anxieties that stop them going forward.
• Behaviors – There can be pressure to gain security by holding onto things that feel safe, even if they are not good for you. May stay in relationships, jobs, or other dynamics because you doubt your own ability for security.

DEFINED Splenic Center

• Strengths – Has a reliable survival instinct that instantly feels when something is wrong.
• Challenges – May get overwhelmed by fears and not move forward.
• Behaviors – Abilities for spontaneous reactions, instinctive hunches, and accurate first impressions. Your body is constantly scanning your environment to identify threats, know what is safe, and avoid danger, in work, family, life, and relationships.

The Solar Plexus Center (Emotional)

Related to: ¶ EMOTIONS, MOODS, MOTOR

UNDEFINED Emotional Center

• Strengths – Feels emotionally calm, stable, or neutral when alone.
• Challenges – May avoid confrontation, or not tell your side of the story or what you feel.
• Behavior – Definition of an empath. Easily absorbs and can feel anxious by the emotions and reactions of others, which may feel like emotional overwhelm, pressure, or shaking in your body. The discomfort means you may have learned not to upset others to keep the peace.

DEFINED Emotional Center

• Strengths – Incredible emotional depth and awareness.
• Challenges – Has emotional waves or moods and should wait before reacting.
• Behavior – Experiences the full spectrum of emotions and reactions, from subtle mood changes to sporadic outbursts. These emotional waves tint your view of things. When you learn to manage your emotions, you show others through healthy relationships and creative outlets.

The Ego Center (Heart)

Related to: ¶ SELF-ESTEEM, WILLPOWER, MOTIVATION

UNDEFINED Heart Center

• Strengths – Can discern what is important and worth valuing.
• Challenges – Fluctuating self-esteem and self-worth, may reject compliments.
• Behaviors – Some days you may have high self-esteem and confidence, then plunge into cycles of self-doubt and low worth. May overcompensate, try to prove more worth, or feel pressure to go above and beyond others, while accepting less. Can become sensitive to external validation or what others think of them.

DEFINED Heart Center

• Strengths – Perseverance and commitment to achieve things you believe in.
• Challenges – If unbalanced, can become egotism, arrogance, or over-promising.
• Behaviors – When something aligns with your values or beliefs, you feel motivated and energized to achieve it through your willpower and natural confidence that you can do it. When something triggers your integrity, you are reliable and committed to your promises.

G Center (Identity)                               

Related to ¶ IDENTITY, SENSE OF SELF, LIFE DIRECTION 

UNDEFINED Identity Center

• Strengths – Changing interests, flexible identity, open to many things.
• Challenges – Fixated on defining identity and feeling lost.
• Behavior – Chameleon abilities to work a room and change depending on who you are with. Usually has diverse career paths, life stages, and friends. May become obsessed with understanding who you are, where you are going, and defining your labels to feel secure. But your strength is your constant change.

DEFINED Identity Center

• Strengths – Reliable character, strong sense of who you are, certain in your likes and dislikes.
• Challenges – Difficult to accept the interests, styles, or choices of others.
• Behavior – Has a reliable sense of self, fixed personality, and particular style or taste. You have a deep sense of your core identity, morals, and life direction or purpose. May fear rejection of your truest personality, or struggle to be around people who don’t align with you.

The Throat Center (Communication)

Related to: ¶ COMMUNICATION, SELF-EXPRESSION, INFLUENCE

UNDEFINED Communication Center

• Strengths – Ability to listen to others and express what needs to be said.
• Challenges – Feels anxious and plans what to say, can struggle to find the right words.
• Behavior – Feels pressure to speak to get attention and often feels unseen, unnoticed, or unheard. This can lead to over-sharing, interrupting, or filling silences with chatter. Your strength is waiting for the right moment to speak, when words come easily and you have an impact in a few words.

DEFINED Communication Center

• Strengths – Skilled at communication, leadership, and inspiring others into action and change.
• Challenges – May force or become impatient when others can’t find the right words.
• Behavior – Has a skilled and reliable style of communicating, acting, and influencing others. Attracts attention with an authoritative voice that people listen to. Has influential self-expressions and insights to share, with skills as speakers, storytellers, leaders, and teachers.

The Ajna Center (Awareness)

Related to: ¶ OPINIONS, JUDGEMENT, PERSPECTIVE

UNDEFINED Awareness Center

• Strengths – Open-minded, changing opinions, sees all sides of an argument.
• Challenges – Pressure to find answers or feel certain, over-analyzing, feeling mentally scattered.
• Behavior – Your mind doesn’t have a specific way of thinking, processing, and retaining information. This makes it difficult to feel secure or certain about facts and what you think about things. May compensate by trying to fix your conclusions or opinions, and convince others you are smart or certain about what you know. But your power is your neutrality, open thinking, and insights from a wider view.

DEFINED Awareness Center

• Strengths – Consistently forms unique ideas, opinions, concepts, theories, and solutions.
• Challenges – Difficulty changing your mind, seeing other perspectives, or agreeing to disagree.
• Behavior – Has a reliable way of thinking, conceptualizing, and mentally processing data into insights. Your mind is like a computer, always researching, reviewing, and comparing information. May struggle to turn off your thoughts, mental worries, anxieties, or overthinking as you look for problems to solve.

The Head Center (Inspiration)        

Related to: ¶ INSPIRATION, PRESSURE

UNDEFINED Head Center

• Strengths – Externally inspired, curious, and full of ideas.
• Challenges – Overthinking, mentally anxious, or unable to focus.
• Behavior – You get externally inspired by your environment and may feel under constant pressure to make sense of things, ponder, and resolve your confusion and doubts. You may get overwhelmed by streams of thoughts and overthinking about things that don’t matter. You don’t know what to focus on and end up focusing on everything.

UNDEFINED Head Center

• Strengths – Internally or self-inspired, gets streams of ideas.
• Challenges – Feels pressure to question everything and have answers.
• Behavior – Tends to feel constant pressure to know and understand things, and resolve doubt. Your mind has a consistent way of processing streams of input and thoughts into useful insights, answers, solutions, theories, and new knowledge. Likes to ponder the unknown.