We all experience physical and mental pressures in our lives. But if this is a big theme for you and these pressures challenge your holistic health & relationships, understanding Human Design can give you VERY important clues to handle these pressures better.
This information can help you
- Let go of conditioning and habitual patterns, where you take on too much pressure from others
- Avoid undue stress and making impulsive decisions you may regret
- Conserve your physical and mental energy
- Focus on creating a more joyful life
Learning my unique Human Design has made my life so much easier. There are many components to this system that come together in a way that is enlightening and gives you a solid framework to guide you.
Today I want to focus on what we call the “Pressure Centers” in Human Design because I just had a situation come up in my life that could have brought me WAY off course and caused a lot of misery. Luckily, I caught myself, because of this Pressure Center awareness. I will tell you all about it, and how reflecting on my HD brought me back.
Human Design Basics
It’s best that you understand some Human Design basics, before I start talking about the Pressure Centers (if this subject is new to you).
We use your birth location, date, and time to create a unique body graph. This combines elements from astrology, the Kabbalah, the I ching, and the yoga chakra system.
On a basic level, the most important information is your Energy Type, Strategy, and Authority that help you live more authentically. In my Human Design readings, I so also go into the energetic centers to help you understand how having defined or undefined/open centers affect you.
What Does Definition Mean In Human Design and How Does It Affect The Pressure Centers?
If a Gate from one Energy Center connects to a Gate in another Energy Center (making a channel), both are considered Defined. We are not talking about gates in this post though. All you need to know is that having a Defined center means you have a defined or fixed way of experiencing this center. It is familiar and recognizable throughout your lifetime, so you have a reliable way of dealing with the issues that come up in it.
A center that is undefined or open, and not colored in, has no solid connection to another center and therefore no solid connection within yourself. Because of this, we are more influenced by people, ideas, and things outside of us.
This is a gift in that it can expand our perception in these centers, in these areas of our lives that they represent, to include others. But it can also be challenging to deal with these open centers. We may rely on the outside world too much. It can condition and confuse us. This can make us feel disconnected from ourselves.
This is important to understand, especially with the pressure centers, because the intensity of the pressure can be much greater if one or both of these centers is undefined. There’s also a great opportunity to learn a lot from these centers because of it.
The 2 Human Design Pressure Centers
Head Center – Pressure to Think
The Head is where we experience mental pressure and also receive inspiration. The pressure moves thoughts to other centers to process and bring them into being. This mental activity makes us ask a lot of questions.
If your Head is defined, you usually have a fixed way of thinking and consistent pressure of needing inspiration. The self questioning brings inspiration from within and you can become a source of inspiration for others.
If your Head is undefined, you have constant access to inspiration from others around you, but don’t have a consistent way of thinking, of questioning in order to make sense of things. You may feel amplified pressure to think about things that don’t really matter. It’s also referred to as “false pressure”, because you may be picking up on pressure that doesn’t even belong to you (as I’ll share in my personal story below).
It’s good to know this about yourself so you know what to look for! When you start to experience your “not self theme” for your energy type, then you know you’re not living your Human Design and may be dealing with conditioning instead.
Not-self Themes For Each Energy Type:
Generators & Manifesting Generators: Frustration
Manifestors: Anger
Projectors: Bitterness
Reflectors: Disappointment
The advice is always to align with the proper strategy for your Energy Type. If you don’t know what I’m talking about but want to understand, sign up for a Human Design reading with me. It will be crystal clear after the reading and the 1 week of coaching that I offer afterwards.
Root Center – Pressure To Act
The Root Center is the other Pressure Center in our Human Design. The Root is where we experience physical pressure. This comes from our adrenals which produce cortisol, adrenaline, and other stress hormones. This is helpful pressure that gets us to adapt to change and also have the energy to move through challenging situations.
We all experience this pressure and stress! How we handle it may be different.
If the Root is defined, you have a reliable, consistent way to deal with this stress. You can be grounded in this energy once you become comfortable with it. In fact, you may be so comfortable with it, that you tend to procrastinate because you have a lot of faith in yourself to get it done eventually.
With an undefined Root center, stress can be absorbed from the environment, from people who have defined Root centers. If this describes your design, then you may be constantly trying to get rid of this stress and pressure, and it can be exhausting.
You can’t live off of cortisol! It is very unhealthy.
Are the pressures you’re succumbing to because of your own desires and evolution?
Or are you feeling pressure from other people.
If it’s the latter, then having firm boundaries in place is a must.
How I Was Schooled By My Undefined Head Center
Here’s a personal story to help you understand how the pressure centers can work for you.
Last week I gave a reading to a client who has a completely open Head and an undefined Root center. She definitely feels a lot of mental and physical pressure! I was helping her to stay aligned to her Strategy and Authority to lift out of confusion and overwhelm. Then she can see more clearly which pressures are hers and worth responding to. And she can see which ones she needs to let go of, as belonging to other people.
This was all fresh in my mind when I went to look at an office space for my practice. FYI, I let go of my old space 5 years ago when I started homeschooling my son. I stopped taking in-person acupuncture clients and focused instead on doing house calls for my existing clients. And over the last few years, I’ve moved into an online coaching role for Chinese Medicine and have been leaning more into Energy Healing, Shamanic Healing, and Human Design.
So anyway, I’ve been talking with my family about renting space again. We all seem to be ready now that my son is older.
Recently, a few people expressed interest in working with me, but only if we did in-person work. Before this, I would just let them know that they needed to find someone else. But since I made this decision to start looking for space and these people are also asking me about it, I was starting to feel like I needed to figure this out quickly, not only for me, but for them. I did not completely comprehend this though, it was in the back of my mind.
My Sacral Center Said “NO” But My Head Said “Maybe, if…”
So when I went to look at this space last week, I was really bummed that it wasn’t suitable. It was an instant “no” when I walked in. But the pressure was so great, that later on that evening I started to question.
What would need to change about the place to make it work?
Maybe I needed to loosen up and change my requirements?
I started to doubt whether I would be able to find the perfect place. When I started looking online for other spaces and couldn’t find anything I liked, I became discouraged.
Frustration was building, which is my “not self” theme as a Generator. My body became tense. And then it finally penetrated my consciousness – I was feeling a lot of unnecessary Mental Pressure to figure this out.
I did not need to be doing any of this.
I am currently very happy with my online work! I’m satisfied with the amount of people I’m seeing for outcall acupuncture. Yes, I do want to rent office space, but I feel no urgency around this. I would much rather wait to find the perfect place than to comprise on something that is not to my liking. That will definitely impact my vibration when working with clients if I’m not satisfied with the space for our healing work together.
I learned a lot from this experience, and thought it was a great teaching point to share with you too.
Do you know if you have defined or undefined Head & Root pressure centers? Does this information ring true about how you experience pressure in your life? Let me know if you have any questions about how the pressure centers work.
Consider getting a Human Design Reading with me if you haven’t had one yet. This is the best way to understand your Human Design chart. I offer both individual and relationship readings. A Human Design reading is also offered as a BONUS in my signature 6 week coaching program Pathway To Empowerment.
