Human Design: Defined and Undefined Centers

{I have no idea where this was copied and pasted from, but it's important info so I wanted it out there. Apologies to the author(s). }

In Human Design terms, there is an enormous difference between a Center that is defined and a Center that is undefined. When a Center is defined, it means that the function relating to that Center is turned on, reliable, and consistently available at all times. When a Center is undefined, it means that the function relating to that Center is inconsistent; it is NOT always available. The undefined Center only becomes activated when another person (who has that Center defined in their own Design) comes into the presence of the person with the undefined Center, or when a transiting planet completes a definition. When this happens, the undefined center is temporarily defined.

As we look into a body graph, we can instantly see what part of the chart is defined, and what part is undefined. This is how we see which of the person's energetics is running consistently, and what part of the being is conditioned by the environment. All of us are subjected to "healthy" and "unhealthy" environments and we each respond to those environments according to our own personal makeup. When we have an undefined center in our Design, we are prone to taking on and absorbing the energies relating to that center. Usually this happens through the presence of other people in our lives who have those centers defined in their own Design. When we are in an environment that is "unhealthy" we need to be aware of the potentially "dis-easing" effect of those around us. This is not to suggest that we should go through our lives keeping everyone at arm's length, but rather, it is to make clear that each of us has to take responsibility for our own being, our own wholeness. For instance, if we have undefined Mental Centers in our Human Design, there is absolutely no point in trying to rationalize our way through life, because we are surely processing other people's thoughts.

The Heart

The human heart is an amazing organ. It provides our very pulse, and keeps the river of life flowing through us. Thus, it is one of the saddest statements in the world that, according to medical statistics, heart disease ranks highest on the list of diseases that affect humans. It seems a tragedy that this part of us should be so prone to disease.

In Human Design, the Heart Center is the place within us from which we derive our willpower; it is the place within our makeup from which we draw the willingness to proceed and select what we 'want' to do within our lives.

The Heart by Design

If one looks at the Heart Center in the Human Design Body graph, it is apparent that there are only four channels that make an energetic connection to it.

There is the 40-37, the Community, Family channel which connects to the Emotional, Solar Plexus Center. Next, there is the 44-26, the Transmitter Channel, which connects to the Splenic, Immune Center. The third channel is the 51-25, the Initiation Channel which connects into the Self or the Liver Center. The last one is the 21-45, The Money Channel, which connects to the Throat or the Thyroid Center. Out of 36 potential channels in the Human Design Energetic makeup, only four give access to the Heart Center, our place of Willpower.

If one considers this from a statistical point of view, there is a low possibility of anyone having a definition into their Heart Center. Most people in the world do not have a defined Heart Center. Most people do not have access consistently to their own source of willpower. The results of this fact are plain:


If you have a defined Heart Center, you can access your willpower, and, hopefully, apply it successfully within the context of the rest of your Design. I say 'hopefully,' because it is vital to consider your Type, your consistent means of accessing the world around you, and your Authority, your personal decision-making process, which we have discussed in previous articles.

If you have an undefined Heart Center, you cannot consistently apply willpower into your world, and if you attempt to do so, you will doubtless end up straining your heart and the mechanisms related to it. With an undefined Heart Center, committing to something or someone becomes entirely relative to your environment. Your life presence here is one in which you do not have to prove anything to anyone, neither to yourself, to your parents, or your boss, or your family. There IS nothing to prove to anyone.

I always tease people with an undefined Heart Center, telling them that if they should ever, for any apparent reason, feel the urge to go out and prove something, they would do far better to just find some Bach Flower remedies or homeopathic remedies that reduce their sense of willfulness; or make a cup of tea, have a good laugh and sit down... for they will immediately feel much better!

The Solar Plexus, Emotional Center

Emotions rule the world. Whoever gets the most upset, has the most power, since the rest of us will immediately try anything to calm them down, knowing that if we don't do something to defuse the situation, they will either blow a fuse or else injure someone, either physically or psychically. Babies learn very early on that if they require something, they merely have to throw a tantrum to get quick results. It is inevitable that we will all suffer some degree of emotional bruising during our lifetime; that is just a normal part of being human.

The Emotional, Solar Plexus Center registers the highs and lows of life. It is where we get to experience the pleasures and disasters of life through food, relationships, sex and all kinds of thrills and spills. Life would be dull indeed without these experiences, but we know that, in the end, none of these experiences bring lasting satisfaction, and yet, we still tend to pursue them! These days, we humans seem to be getting crazier than ever in our thirst to witness and indulge in extreme experiences.


A defined Emotional Center generates a wave pattern, touching between the highs and lows of life: the highs are the hopes, expectations and delights, and the lows are the pains, disasters and depressions. If you go up, you also go down. If you are 'attached' to going up, inevitably you are 'attached' to going down. If you go up without any attachment and expectation, you can be unattached on the downturn. This gives you the possibility of finding a place of clarity in your emotions, and emotional clarity opens a gateway to Spirit.

An undefined Emotional Center picks up and amplifies the waves generated by people with defined Emotional Centers. If the emotional atmosphere created by people with defined Emotional Centers is high, up and excited, the person with an undefined Emotional Center will be ecstatic. However, when the emotional atmosphere falls, the person with the undefined Emotional Center crashes emotionally. If you have an undefined Emotional Center, it is essential to comprehend something: Yes, you can express emotions, but, no, you cannot necessarily stabilize and control them.

If you have a defined Emotional Center, it is essential for you to understand that you are continually generating emotional waves, setting the tone of the emotional atmosphere around you. That is your nature. So, if you are in a good mood, you will see that everyone around you is in a good mood, but if you are feeling grumpy and upset, you will tend to emanate that wave of emotion around you. Sometimes you are excellent company to be around, and other times, you are not such good company. In the latter case, it does not imply that you need to go around shaking a little bell, calling out: "Unclean!" as lepers did in the dark ages. But it does imply that sometimes it is far healthier for everyone, and especially for you, if you take some space to yourself until the mood shifts, the wave rises and you feel like "joining in" again. People with defined Emotional Centers are here to process the highs and lows of life. This process requires time for reflection, and when given that time, it yields the most profound view of life as a human. Clarity from an emotional perspective can lead to profound wisdom.

However you live your life, if you try to ignore your emotions, you will end up getting sick. Some of the diseases related to the emotional center include: breathing and lung problems, stomach upsets, eating and digestive disorders, diabetes, bladder and sexual problems.

Sooner rather than later, everyone will see how essential it is to relate intelligently to our wonderful emotional nature as humans. It is through our touch to the emotions that we can access Spirit. If we shut down our emotions or allow the center of our emotions to become diseased, we can become immune to Spirit and lose access to our highest potentials.

The Root Center

The Root Center in Human Design relates specifically to the Adrenal glands, which, among other things, supply the pressure that gets us into motion to provide for ourselves in this world. The adrenals connect us particularly to the deep underlying fear of whether we are going to "make it" in life or not. Does Existence remember us, or do we have to make a particular effort to be included in the scheme of things? The Root Center is the center of Stress! In the 21st century, particularly in America, and perhaps most places, stress seems to thrive! So, understanding the place of stress in the Human Design chart can be a valuable study.


If you have a defined Root Center, it implies that you are someone who is not only equipped to handle stress but who also can promote stress in people who have their Root Center undefined! This is neither a good nor a bad thing, because all of us from time to time need to access adrenaline energy, otherwise nothing would ever get started! It is just that a defined Root Center exerts the impetus for something to get launched, and if you have an undefined Root Center, you may well get set into motion unwittingly, living on someone else's deadline! I always tease people with an undefined Root Center, telling them that they are 'born procrastinators!' Within their own makeup they do not have consistent pressure to get things started and they need to be particularly careful about what deadlines they agree to meet. Committing to unrealistic deadlines causes uncalled-for stress that the person with an undefined Root Center is not equipped to handle.

Depending on which channel defines the Root Center, there will be a particular drive, either through the Emotional Center, where the emotions get stirred up, or through the Spleen Center, where physical energy is exerted, or through the Sacral, Sex Center, where the Life Force Energy is engaged. It is through the Sacral Center connections (the three channels called Format Channels in Design) that the shape of whatever we set in motion in our life is determined. These Format Channels determine the outcome of everything in our lives, from source. The way in which disease takes its course in our bodies is determined from the way in which it starts out in the Format Channels. All of us know perfectly well that if we succumb to stress we will most likely soon find ourselves getting sick!


The Sacral Powerhouse

The Sacral Center gives us access to Life Force energy. It provides us with the power to fertilize, impregnate, and nurture others and ourselves, and also to forge our way through life. It is the center in Design we call the "Generator" Center because of its apparently ceaseless supply of living energy. People who have this center defined in their chart can "keep on keeping on" when the rest of us tire. They can appear to be one-paced and do not appreciate, on any level, being interrupted while "in the middle of something." Many of the world's great athletes who involve themselves in "repetitive movements" in their sport, for example tennis players, have a defined Sacral Center.


In general, the great thing that people with defined Sacral Centers must establish for themselves is to what activities and to which people, they are going to give their "Life Force" energy. The recognition comes through responding from their Sacral Center, allowing the affirmation of Life Force energy to present its own wisdom in relation to any commitments, rather than, for example, trying to rationalize a situation from the mind, or feel forced through the pressures of stress to commit.

In physical terms, if the access to or supply of Life Force energy is interrupted or misdirected there can be a breakdown in that person's health and well-being, leading to exhaustion and depletion.

The Spleen, "Feel-good" Center

The Spleen Center relates to our Immune System and is always looking out for our physical health and well-being. It embodies the senses of Taste, Smell and Intuition, senses that, moment by moment, guide us into situations that are healthy for us, and away from situations which are hazardous for us. There are many expressions in language which emphasize the Spleen's capacity to engage with our environment and alert us to our circumstances: "It leaves a strange taste!" "I smell a rat!" "Something tells me.....!"

People with a defined Spleen Center in their Design usually feel good about themselves and often have the capacity to make everyone else feel good about themselves as well.

However, there are limits for people with defined Spleen Centers. If the person with a defined Spleen Center takes on too much in their life, disregarding their Intuition, taste or Instinct, their Spleen Center may become overloaded and fail, causing them to become very, very sick.

People with undefined Spleen Centers characteristically get sick often as children, but, provided they rest and recover completely from an illness, their immune system adjusts. As the person gets older, they become stronger and stronger in health.

Typically, in times of sickness, a defined Spleen Center can process drugs, particularly Allopathic Chemical remedies, whereas, undefined Spleens cannot consistently process drugs. Undefined Spleen Centers, being highly sensitive, can adjust and heal through lightweight dosages of lightweight medicines, for example, homeopathic and "gentle" herbal remedies.

The Self, Liver Center, G-Center

In Human Design, the Self Center gives us access to our sense of direction, purpose, and love in life. The eight gates which make up the Self Center in the body graph connect into the twelve signs of the zodiac and, when the sun passes through them, align with the eight seasonal high points of the year, including the solstices, equinoxes and other festivals marking the middles of the seasons.

People who have defined Self Centers typically know where they are going and how they fit into the scheme of events in their life, more obviously so than those with undefined Self Centers. Defined Self Centers are consistently connected into the ways of the world. They appear to routinely fulfill a sense of purpose, either through their life direction or through their sense of belonging and love connections with others.

People with undefined Self Centers constantly push the boundaries of life as though they have no limits at all. It appears sometimes that there is no consistency in what they do, where they go, or with whom they are affiliated. When someone with an undefined Self Center brings all their friends together, those friends will be really puzzled in trying to see common ground among everyone present. There can be an experience for someone with an undefined Self Center that occasionally they are "lost in space," and disconnected from the run of life around them. The most important key for them is to connect with the "right" people; people who recognize and appreciate them, so that they connect into a healthy personal direction in life.

The Crown Center and Its Connections to Solutions at the Ajna Center

Unlike any of the other centers in the Human Design chart, the Crown Center, (the Pineal Gland), the in-spiration center, connects only to one other center, the Ajna Center, (the Pituitary Glands) the place of cognition, mental awareness and analysis. The Crown Center has only three gates within it which interpret the pressure to explain our presence here in living form. These gates operate through the dimensions of doubts, confusions and an inner sense of balance.

Doubts relate almost exclusively to our projecting into the future, confusions relate to our connections with the past, and "balance" or "imbalance" relates to our perception of knowing our place in the scheme of life.

If any one of these gates becomes overly energized, it is easy for the person to get distracted and unbalanced in their life, trying to resolve or equate something which cannot be explained. Many of us walk around with a dense furrow on our brow because we think we think we can think our way through life. In essence, what we are indicating with these furrows is that we are over-energizing our doubt that Existence still remembers us, and has a perfect plan for us... if only we can stop thinking about our concerns long enough to regain our access to the plan.

In a Design chart, if the Crown Center is colored in yellow, it is defined, implying that there is always a pressure available to be thinking. If the Crown Center is colored in white, it implies that the pressure to think only happens when someone else energizes that pressure because they themselves have the Crown Center defined in their own Design.

It can be seen in the Designs of Pablo Picasso and Walt Disney, two of the great recognized creative geniuses of the twentieth century, that they both have completely different ways of accessing their creativity. The common ground for their expression is not the Crown Center and the place of inspiration, but rather, their defined Self Centers, their personal sense of "connectedness" in life and the appreciation given to them, from the world around the, for who they are and what they relate.

The Ajna Center, the "solution" center

Has it ever been said that women generally don't look for solutions, but rather, would like an opportunity to express their concerns? Somehow they know that life itself is a mystery and not a problem, and any good mystery is only really good when even its outcome baffles us. I am not deriding the power of the mind and the incredible "solutions" for which it must, in part, take credit, but I am saying it is a greatly over-rated bio-computer. Instead of the mind being allowed to operate on auto-pilot, running the many functions which our lives require of it, it has become the focal point of our attentions, the boss. It has taken over.

In the past 10 years, most people in the world have been exposed to the computer, which in simple terms is a machine reflecting our mind, the binary flip-flop process between left hemisphere and right hemisphere. And most of us have a certain dread of this apparatus which is quietly overtaking our lives, whether it be through the 2.4 million surveillance cameras located throughout the UK, many of which can scan any person walking down the street and, through particular software, identify them, or the computerized box which sits under our desk, essential, expensive and apparently capable of wonders, but remaining unbelievably frustrating in its stupidity and inability to please us. Mind never satisfies.

The Ajna Center operates through the senses of sight through light, and inner knowing, coming through the dimension of sound. It attunes from the Pituitary glands, the Doors of Perception, through the eyes and the inner ear to the inspirations, which enter through the Pineal gland. It rationalizes, cogitates, ruminates and projects its findings to the Throat Center where we exchange our perceptions with those around us through speech. Constantly the Ajna is trying to get things to "fit" within the realm of what it perceives around it, because when things seem to "fit," there is a good chance someone else will be able to relate to it, somehow. The collective enjoys having things fit. Here in America, for instance, we see the good sense in everyone driving on the right, an apparently perfect two-dimensional solution to a three-dimensional situation.

Does having a defined (continuously active ) Ajna Center imply one is clever? Well, in some ways it is possible, but being really clever involves being able to master your mind and relegate it again to the information-handling device it so perfectly is. If you have an undefined mind, it gives you the possibility of a lifetime in which you can watch the machinations of the mind.

The Throat Center, Expression
In Design, the Throat Center relates to the Thyroid and Parathyroid glands, which control the making of thyroid hormones, which in turn regulate the body's metabolism. In the first few days after conception, the Throat Center is the energetic foundation for the fetus, and ultimately affects the formation and operation of all the other centers, throughout the body's lifetime.

The Throat Center is our place of articulation, expression and manifestation. It is the most complex of all the centers in the body graph and, particularly in these days, it handles intense pressures. We use it to describe our world; to explain who we are, what we do, how we live and, beyond that, it is the center from which we create in the world through manifestation.

There are at least 11 different voices in the Throat Center which we use to express ourselves; our great challenge in life is to identify the voices which most closely represent our truth and use them in a right way. Having one of the voice gates activated in a Design gives you access to that particular form of expression, but in order to use that voice on your terms, you need to wait your turn, until you get your cue. For instance, if you are a Generator in Design, you can only speak or engage your energy in response. A Projector needs to wait for invitation. Using the voice, or attempting to manifest in any circumstances, ultimately leads to the thyroid gland being strained energetically, which in turn leads to the whole metabolism being affected.


One has to realize that the age old adage of "putting your money where your mouth is," or "walking your talk," may not be possible for many people in terms of their Design. To engage in something just because you hear yourself talking about it might not be in your best interests at all. Certain words are bandied about which have a very deleterious effect on our lives: words like, "should," "could," "would," "must," "might," constrain us into actions which have nothing to do with our makeup.