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 eight of the nine centers:

Today we're digging into our Sacral 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 Sacral Center is red the square directly above the Root Center. 66-70% of the population have this center defined.

*cues Boyz II Men* Although we've come...to the END OF THE ROAD...still I CAN'T LET GO...at least as far as centers are concerned! The Sacral Center is the last of the nine centers, and we saved the best & one of the most important for last, as it serves as the engine room for our chart. Within the Sacral Center we find the vital life force energy that empowers us to endure hardships and challenges and fuels our growth and expansion.

Biologically, the Sacral Center is associated with the ovaries and testes, and our energy for work, labor, movement, persistence, sex and reproduction all originate here. If you have Sacral Authority in your chart, pay attention, because the section on the closed/defined Sacral Center has some crucial insight into your ideal decision-making process.

OPEN/UNDEFINED Sacral Center

Those folks with the Sacral Center open/undefined have unlimited capacity to take in and experience this life-force/sexual/work-fueling Sacral energy. Your goal, through this center, is to become wise about your workload and your sexuality. As with all open centers, you don't have consistent access to your own life-force energy, but you are specifically designed to absorb and amplify this energy from those who have the center defined. You're only designed to do this in short bursts, however. BUT within that short burst of time, you can actually outwork a Generator or Manifesting Generator, as they're engineered for stamina. Be careful of the contact high: while you're taking in this energy, you can feel INVINCIBLE and inadvertently overcommit. Remember: once the person with the closed center is gone, this energy isn't as readily available to you for much longer...be realistic about what you can accomplish, delegate, outsource, and if possible, look for careers that allow for a flexibility in your schedule. Healthy boundaries and realistic expectations are the name of the game for you. You have SO MANY GIFTS to offer the collective, but being a workhorse isn't one of them.

PERK ALERT: having an open Sacral Center means that you need naps and plenty of alone time to discharge this acquired Sacral energy from your system. A healthy bedtime practice for you involves plenty of time to release unwind and relax before you expect to fall asleep. Think lighting a candle, meditating, reading a book, all about an hour or so before you plan on turning off the light...otherwise, you might not be able to completely shut down and rest. In fact, you might even want to carve out time to sleep alone a few times a week, ESPECIALLY if your partner is a Generator or a Manifesting Generator so you can truly unwind and reset...otherwise, you're just constantly taking in their Sacral energy, while your poor body just wants to rest!

CLOSED/DEFINED Sacral Center

Fact: if you have this center defined in your chart, you are either a Generator or a Manifesting Generator, and according to Human Design, you were designed to do two things:

work, devoting your energy to something you're passionate about AND/OR
"to have and raise children."

#2 comes courtesy of Karen Curry in her book Understanding Human Design, and if it feels a bit reductive (I think it does!), take that up with her. The part I think she leaves off in her statement is "if that's something you're called to do and feel passionately about." THAT'S the thing that's crucial to understanding and working with this center, if you're like me and have it defined: if we give our energy to something that we don't feel turned on by, we burn out. And fast. So whether it's our careers or baby-making/raising, it's über important that we really tune in to our Authority and the ah-HUH 😃 or UHN-uh😭 messages this center provides. Here's the GIANT KICKER of having this center defined and it is TOTALLY COUNTERINTUITIVE: those of us who have this center defined are supposed to wait until something light us up and then respond to that. We are absolutely not supposed to initiate (*potentially* unless you're a Manifesting Generator, than it depends on the breakdown of your chart...more on that to come). To know which opportunities to devote our energy to, and which are a hard pass, we need to listen to the language of our sacral center as it tells us what turns us on, and what definitely does not.

It's important to note that the Sacral Center is NOT an awareness center, so the intuition and insight we receive from this center isn't rational...it's a split second YES or NO, with the simplicity and ease of how babies and toddlers communicate. Think about the last time you tried to give a baby a toy it didn't want. Remember the sound they made? UHN-uuunnnnnnnnn...probably accompanied by the adorable tiny face of anger and maybe even some tears. Now think about what happened when you gave them the toy they wanted and the joyous, gleeful, giggly sound of ah-HUH they made. That's language of our Sacral Center, but as adults, many of us have long been conditioned to rationalize and think through every option presented to us and have lost touch with the simple language of UHN-un😭 and ah-HUH😃 we used to know. This center's function as our inner guide actually evolved before speech did, hence the guttural noises.

For those of us with this center defined, our charge is to figure out a way to ignore our conditioned habit of deferring to our logic and reason and shift our habit back to listening to the UHN-un😭/ah-HUH😃 from our Sacral Center to guide our decision-making. We're able to tap into the POWERHOUSE of energy of this center, but only if we're choosing to take on a task that truly lights us up, that elicits the ah-HUH😃. If we commit ourselves to an UHN-uh😭, we'll overextend our Sacral energy and burn out.

If you're having a hard time hearing the guttural UHN-un😭 or ah-HUH😃, try feeling for either a contraction in your gut, or a rising of energy. Contraction is usually the NO and the rising is usually the YES. You might even feel a physical pull toward a YES or a contracting away from a NO. For me, I feel the pull and the contraction, and I know I've hit the YES jackpot when I can feel a whole body vibration of energy waiting to be released. Since my work is primarily writing and not physical, when I'm really in the zone, sometimes I notice my legs vibrating slightly or feel the urge to get up and walk around to burn off some of the energy otherwise it doesn't really have a physical outlet. That buzz, though, let's me know I've hit my ah-HUH 😃. Since's there's no energetic "off" switch, once you commit your energy, it surges until the task is completed, so it is CRUCIAL to our long-term health that we mostly commit ourselves to the ah-HUHs 😃or we start to experience our not-self emotions like frustration, anger and impatience.

Sleep is super crucial to those who have this center defined, as we're intended to commit our energy to what lights us up during the day and then sleep when that energy is exhausted. If you find yourself having a hard time sleeping, chances are you didn't burn off enough of this energy during the day, as we're supposed to empty out this center on the daily and recharge it overnight. Most of the texts say that physical exercise can help with this.

We are the custodians of an enormous reservoir of power, and our goal is to, through this center, find personal expression and satisfaction doing work we love, whether in the traditional workplace, by creating and raising children, or both.

You know what gets a ah-HUH from me? Rewatching the 90s-tasticness that is the End of the Road music video. I mean, I AM HERE FOR ALL THE COLOR COORDINATED MATCHING OUTFITS! Feeling nostalgic! It pairs well with Motown Philly, while we're on this journey. I wonder where my acid-washed denim jacket is...