Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Joan Crawford: The Many Faces of Fear (and Fierceness) — Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you *Joan Crawford: The Many Faces of Fear (and Fierceness)*

Our Human Design is comprised of nine centers, thirty-six channels, and sixty-four gates, all of which present as either open or closed, connected or absent, on or off, respectively. There are a lot of parts and pieces and potential combinations, so suffice it to say that how these centers, channels and gates interact all combine together to form our overall Human Design.

In these first nine posts, we're going to zoom in on each of the nine energy centers in the Human Design chart, and explore how we're impacted when they present as open/undefined in our charts and how we're impacted when they present as closed/defined in our charts, so get your chart ready! So far, we've dug into six of the nine centers:

Today we're digging into our Spleen Center. If you're new to this series and are looking for a quick primer on the principles of Human Design, follow this link for a brief explainer.

The Spleen Center is up and left of the Root Center, and is one of the oldest center in our system.

Our Spleen Center is one of the three awareness centers, and it's the oldest awareness center within our Human Design. This center is connected to our most primal, survival-driven, existential awareness, and the energy of this center is instant and instinctual. One of the tools used by this center is fear as a means of gaining intelligence about what is good for us and what is absolutely not, and through this center we learn how to survive and thrive. 🐅

Biologically, our Spleen Center is connected to our immune system, lymph nodes, spleen (duh) and t-cells. Through these body parts/organs/cells, our body battles disease and infection, eliminates waste and toxins, and fights for our physical survival.

This center operates as our internal radar and is highly sensory, taking in information and quickly determining what is right and what is dangerous. Our intuition lives here, and it’s through the Spleen Center that we feel out what rings true for us and what’s FALSE🚫, what resonates with us and what absolutely does not. These gut-feelings are short-lived, and that’s CRUCIAL for us to remember as we work with the energies of this center: these feelings of fear are fleeting. They are not meant to last or be held on to. Think of them as an alert you get from an app on your phone. Take note of the information and then move on. Don’t hold onto it! The gates that are activated in this center determine our experiences of fear, and which fears are triggered. Fears like:

Fear of death
Fear of failure
Fear of not knowing
Fear of the future/the unknown
Fear of the past
Fear of taking responsibility
Fear of death
Fear of authority

One thing to remember about working with our Human Design in general that also applies here: not all the energies that we feel are going to be logical or personal. By learning about and through our Human Design, we get the distance and insight that can free us from fear through awareness and understanding.

OPEN/UNDEFINED Spleen Center

As is the case with all open centers, those with the Spleen Center open tend to take in the fear energy of others and either mirror it back or absorb and magnify it. Folks with open Spleen Centers just aren't designed to process that level of fear energy and can get über overwhelmed if they aren't used to navigating how to work with this center. The lesson to be learned from this center? Most of the time, your fears are unfounded. Literally. They came from outside of you, so they have no home, no foundation in your body. Through this center, you learn to be wise and objective about fear: to learn to determine which fears are your own, which fears actually belong to others, and how to release any fear-based energies you may have inadvertently taken in that are not serving you. In The Definitive Book of Human Design, Ra Uru Hu talks about how important it is for those with an open Spleen center to avoid those who project this intense fear energy. Instead, to really learn the lesson of this center, you need to experience the fear, observe it, learn what you can from it, and release it since it has no foundation inside of you.

If you have this center open, you're probably really good at reading fear and anxiety in others, as well as telling when someone is ill. You also tend to have a sensitive immune system and are really susceptible to reacting to subtle changes within your body. For instance, you might be super sensitive to certain foods or not be able to drink more than a glass of wine before you're pretty tipsy.

The Spleen Center isn't just a fear energy center; it's a feel-good energy center, too, and those with this center open LOVE to be around those of us with this center closed, especially when the good vibes are flowing, because we make them feel strong, nurtured and secure. Folks with open Spleen Centers also don't have consistent access to intuitive energy that the Spleen can provide. Those of us with this center closed, if it's our Authority, can use this energy to make decisions by learning which fear energy we feel is a HELL NO! DANGER! 😨 and which is I'M SO EXCITED! 😊AND NERVOUS!😨 BUT MOSTLY EXCITED! 😊Hanging around those of us with this center defined helps those with the center open feel more confident and sure about the decisions they've made. The big takeaway around having this center open is to NEVER MAKE IMPULSE DECISIONS. Your fear/feel-good impulses are so heavily influenced by who is around you that you should ALWAYS 👏🏻 ALWAYS 👏🏻 ALWAYS 👏🏻 defer to your authority and strategy when making big decisions.

This look says "I may be freaking out, but at least my brows are filled in"

CLOSED/DEFINED Spleen Center

Those of us with a closed Spleen Center are designed to be in the moment and decide in the right now, as this center provides us with IMMEDIATE INTUITIVE INSIGHT. We have constant access to a fear/feel-good impulse to help guide us. For some, this center might be your main decision making Authority. This is another FUCK YES or HELL NO center. Something happens, we get that instantaneous ping from our Spleen Center one way or another, and then it’s gone. Our charge is to learn to recognize when we’re getting those sensory pings and LISTEN. This center tends to communicate with us using the language of fear, so these pings can manifest as a sudden feeling of unease, or a tightening or clenching internally, for example. We just need to learn how to read this energy: is it unease because something is bad for us, or unease because something is exciting but unknown? Once we learn how to read our pings, we need to say HELL NO to the things that are bad for us and walk away, and alternately ride out the fear feeling if the ping is one of nervous excitement. Our gates in this center will give us a clue as to what fears trigger a response in us, and our authority and type strategy will give us rules as to how to respond. A major key for this center is to avoid using our Mind/Ajna Center to try to deconstruct or analyze these pings as they're happening. Don’t try to rationalize the decision in the moment. Save the reflection for after you act.

We are also tend to lights up the room with our warmth. Those with this center open tend to gravitate toward us because in our presence, they feel nurtured and strong. We are designed to be intuitive, and this intuition allows us to make spontaneous decisions, so we shouldn't allow others to stop us from following our gut.

We also tend to miss the early signs of illness, or willfully ignore them, and when we do get sick, we are down for the count. We need to pay attention to those around us and what they notice about our health. If someone tells us that we look ill or asks how we're feeling, that’s our clue to slow down and check-in with ourselves.