Knowledge · Centers

The World of Feelings — the Solar Plexus Center

In Human Design, the Solar Plexus — or emotional center — stands for feelings, emotional sensitivity and a way of perceiving that shifts over time.

In Human Design, the Solar Plexus center, also called the emotional center, is both a motor and an awareness center. It covers the whole range of emotional experience: joy and sadness, excitement and disappointment, longing, closeness, desire, pain and sensitivity.

Colored in here: the Solar Plexus center. In Human Design, it describes emotional awareness and — when defined — a movement that rises and falls in waves over time.

Defined emotional center — clarity emerges over time

If your Solar Plexus is defined, you have an emotional wave of your own. Your mood and how you see a situation can change without there always being an outside reason. A high isn’t more right than a low, and a low isn’t more wrong than a high. For decisions, this matters: a defined emotional center means Emotional Authority. You don’t have to know right away what’s right for you. Clarity can come once you’ve experienced a situation from different points on your wave.

Undefined or open emotional center — feeling emotions without holding on to them

If your Solar Plexus is undefined or open, you don’t have a consistent emotional wave of your own. Instead, you can pick up other people’s moods very finely and sometimes feel them noticeably amplified. That’s exactly why someone else’s feeling can seem entirely like your own in the moment. A helpful question: Does what I’m feeling so intensely right now really belong to me? Over time, this can turn into a fine sense for emotional dynamics, without you having to take on every mood or be responsible for it.

Important: a white emotional center isn’t automatically completely open. It can be undefined and still contain activated gates of its own. And strong feelings with an undefined Solar Plexus aren’t automatically “someone else’s.” Here, Human Design invites you to observe: What changes with people, surroundings and distance — and what actually stays with you?

Free calculator

Which of your centers are defined?

Calculate your bodygraph from your date, time and place of birth — with colored and white centers, right in your browser. Your data stays with you.

Calculate your bodygraph now →

Frequently asked questions

Why do I feel other people’s moods so strongly?

With an undefined or open emotional center, the emotional atmosphere of a person or a room can come through very clearly in your own experience. That doesn’t mean you’re imagining the feelings. It’s more revealing to notice whether their intensity fades once you’re on your own again. That way, over time, you can better tell what’s just passing through your system and what really stays with you.

Are my feelings my Inner Authority?

In Human Design, a defined emotional center means Emotional Authority. Clarity in decisions then doesn’t reliably come in the first moment, but over time. With an undefined or open emotional center, emotional intensity isn’t an inner Authority of its own; for decisions, whichever other Authority your chart has is what counts.

The gates in the Solar Plexus

The Solar Plexus center contains seven gates. Each describes a different part of this emotional theme. Which of them are activated in your chart, and how they’re connected, shapes how it shows up for you personally.

All 64 gates at a glance →

Keep reading

Interactive course: Understanding the emotional wave — defined and open, both halves →Back to the overview: the nine centers →Emotional authority: clarity through the wave →The Sacral center: life force and work →Calculate your bodygraph →
Your next step

How do you experience emotions in your chart?

Whether your emotional center is defined, undefined or completely open changes how you experience emotional movement, moods and decisions. In the Basic Reading, we look at this center together with your gates, channels, Type and Authority. That makes it easier to see which emotional dynamics are truly your own.