What is fixed in you, and what you are only borrowing

In Human Design, each of the nine centres in a chart is either defined or undefined. A defined centre is described as consistent: it works the same way every day, and other people feel it coming off you. An undefined centre is described as open, with no fixed way of working, so what you feel there is usually picked up from the room. Almost nobody has all nine defined, and that is the point rather than a flaw.

This is the part of the system I find most useful in an ordinary week, and the part explained worst.

What a defined centre actually means

A centre becomes defined when at least one channel running into it is consistently activated in your chart. In the teaching, that makes it reliable: available on a Tuesday morning in a bad mood, with nobody else in the room. A defined centre is something you broadcast, and people near you will feel it and think it is theirs.

An undefined centre is the reverse. Nothing is fixed, so it takes its cue from whoever is nearby and amplifies it. The feeling arrives with force, which is why it is hard to tell it is not yours.

The nine centres, in the language of what they feel like

Charts label the centres anatomically. The blueprint I work from names them by experience, which I find more usable. Here is each one, with what an open version feels like.

• Head. Inspiration. Open: ideas from everywhere, and you lose which one mattered.
• Ajna. Certainty. Open: pressure to sound sure about things you have not settled.
• Throat. Speaking and doing. Open: talking to be noticed rather than to say something.
• G, or identity. Love and direction. Open: a self that shifts with the company, and the question of where you are headed never closing.
• Heart, or ego. Willpower and worth. Open: promising more than is sensible, then measuring yourself against whoever is there.
• Solar plexus. Emotions. Open: the mood of the room amplified inside you and read as your own weather.
• Sacral. Life force. Open: pushing past the point where the energy has gone.
• Spleen. Survival and instinct. Open: holding on to habits long after they stopped being good for you.
• Root. Pressure. Open: rushing to be free of it, so things get finished badly.

Reflectors prove the mechanic: the only type with no defined centres at all, which is why a Reflector samples the environment rather than carrying a fixed signal into it.

Two charts in one house, and where they differ

My husband and I run this business together, and we share two open centres. Both our blueprints list the head centre as open, which in our house means two people generating ideas faster than either can process, and both needing a written list to remember which one was worth anything. Both list the heart centre as open too, the one about worth and willpower, which is why we have each overcommitted and then had to be honest about it.

Where we split matters more. My solar plexus is defined, which is why my authority is emotional and why I cannot make a real decision on the day it arrives. His is open, and he is described as taking in the emotions around him and amplifying them. In a marriage that means when I am in a wave he feels it before I have said anything, and sometimes carries it as though it started with him. That one sentence changed how we work more than anything else in the system.

His G centre is open and mine is not. Identity and direction are the open question in his chart, and his blueprint names the pattern plainly: a self that shifts depending on who he is with, and a long search for the right role. Mine does not list it, which in that system means defined. I have never been unsure what I am for, only whether it would work.

So the division of the company wrote itself. I hold the direction, because that is the fixed centre. He builds the systems that carry it, and decides fast on a gut response where I wait for the wave to settle. More in how we run a business on two different types.

The honest part

There is no peer-reviewed evidence that Human Design describes anything real about personality, and I will not imply otherwise to make this more persuasive. Everything above is what the system teaches, not a finding. The full position is in what Human Design actually is, including why the often repeated claim that a 2015 Nobel Prize validated it is wrong.

The risk with open centres is that they hand you a well worded excuse. An open root becomes a reason you rush, an open heart a reason you did not follow through. That is the system used backwards. The value is in the pause: this feeling has arrived, and it may not have started with me. For the rest of the chart, your decision-making Authority turns the centres into a usable instruction, and the two profile numbers describe the character wearing all of it.

Frequently asked questions about defined and undefined centres

What does defined mean in Human Design?

A defined centre has at least one complete channel consistently activated in your chart. It is described as working the same way every day without anyone else present, and as something you put out into a room rather than take in. It is shown coloured in.

What is an undefined centre in Human Design?

An undefined centre has no complete channel activated, so it has no fixed way of operating. The teaching is that it takes its cue from the people around you and amplifies what it finds, which is why feelings arriving through an open centre can feel intense and still not be yours. It is shown white.

What is the difference between undefined and open centres?

An undefined centre has some gates activated but no complete channel, so it has a few recurring themes. A fully open centre has no gates at all and takes in everything unfiltered. Most sources use the terms interchangeably, but the distinction exists.

Is it better to have more defined centres?

No, and the system is explicit about it. More definition means more consistency and fixed energy, and also less flexibility and sensitivity. Fewer defined centres means more openness and more influence to manage. Neither is an advantage.

What is a split definition in Human Design?

A split definition means your defined centres form two separate groups that do not connect. Around half of charts are split. The teaching is that the gap looks to be bridged, often through other people, which is offered as one explanation for feeling settled in particular company.

Take the defined centres as the part of you still there on a bad day, and the open ones as where to ask one question before acting on a feeling: is this mine, or did I walk into it.

With love from Bali,
Myrah