Generators & The Sacral Response

The Defined Sacral Center

When you have the Sacral center defined, you are by definition a “Generator” in the Human Design System. The Sacral center can be compared to an engine, life’s most powerful motor and source of energy. A defined Sacral center represents the potential of consistent access to the energy needed to create, build, and sustain life. This in itself is quite a gift.

The Generator aura is open and enveloping, designed to meet life directly by taking things in moment by moment. The Sacral energy is ideally used up on a daily basis so you can go to sleep well-spent and recharge each night, but there is a catch. Access to the power of this life-force energy is available and expressed in response (or not). This is a very receptive approach to life and what the Generator Strategy of “waiting to respond” is about, letting life come to you rather than “doing” or “initiating” from the mind.

Waiting To Respond

The Generator Strategy of “waiting to respond” is a means of aligning with the flow of life. That is, not imposing your perceived sense of timing and activity on the world around you, but meeting and aligning with life directly as it happens. This allows you to move through life, reducing the resistance you encounter.

For Generators, this means reducing the frustration that comes with trying to initiate or force things. “Frustration” is the “Not-Self” theme for Generators and can be an early warning sign that one is out of sync with life and engaged with the wrong work, people or situations. Generators often find themselves in this situation as a result of impatience with waiting, mental decision making, and the influence of others. In these situations, one’s life force is not aligned or fully engaged with the actual circumstances of the situation so there can be an experience of frustration and exhaustion which ultimately leads to giving up or quitting. That said, it’s important to note that although quitting can be seen as a negative thing, it can also be the Sacral center protecting yourself from wasting your time, resources, and valuable life force energy.

On the other hand, the Sacral center provides reliable energy and staying power when the response from the gut is a “yes”. Generators are said to have an energetic Signature of “Satisfaction”. This is a feeling of energy well spent doing work that is meaningful or from a place of love. The experience can still be difficult or challenging, but even so, there is the sense that it was worthwhile. The key here is waiting to respond, and only engaging when there is an energetic gut-level “yes”, a feeling of being “turned on” as though your energy comes alive in relation to something you encounter. It can often be experienced like a natural rising up of energy inside you that wants to engage.

As tough as it can be to “wait” when it seems that nothing is happening or that there is nothing to respond to, the truth is that life is constantly happening around you all of the time. Someone asks you a question, you receive an email or something more subtle such as seeing a sign on the road. All of these are examples of experiences which could elicit a response in the Sacral center where your body feels naturally moved to engage rather than pressured to work. If you are not getting a strong sacral response at a given time, it probably means that there is nothing for you to do, but continue waiting until you feel a response.

Yet, I sometimes hear from many Generators that even after years they still struggle with their Sacral response. My sense is that they may be still operating from the mind rather than listening to/honoring their Sacral response. The mind interferes with the response by coming up with ideas about what you should do, what someone else wants you to do or what would produce a certain outcome.

What also happens is that a Generator will get tired of waiting and feel like they should do something, so they’ll accept or start something that isn’t aligned with who they are or that the circumstances do not actually support. When you try to force something based on mental reasons or justifications, there is a disconnect from the place where you could feel into your response. In other words, you become already engaged in an activity that the mind probably got you into and there’s no space to actually respond.

So what to do?  Well, you can stop and wait and you may find that that space opens up again. In that space, it becomes possible to see the mind and its thought patterns and feel into life in a more experiential way. You can feel into what is actually happening. If there is something that you can engage with, in a way that lights you up and feels alive and invigorating, you can experience the way your generative life-force wants to be expressed. Sacral energy is designed to work for the pleasure and satisfaction of it.

Sacral Authority

All Generators have a defined Sacral center and a Strategy of “waiting to respond”. However, “Sacral Authority” only applies to Generators who do not have a defined Solar Plexus center (for those with a defined Solar Plexus, also please see our recent article on Emotional Truth). Having Sacral Authority means that your inner source of truth is rooted deep in your body, in its energetic gut response to life.  That gut response is a “yes” or “no” response.

This is not instinct or intuition (both found in the Splenic center) nor the feelings or emotions (from the Solar Plexus). In fact, the Sacral center is simply a motor. This is to say that the Sacral center does not have awareness in itself (like the Spleen, Ajna and Solar Plexus) and that it responds energetically or not. The response is a rising or movement of energy toward or away from what one encounters and is your body’s way of affirming or denying that something is correct to engage in or not. In some ways, it is the most simple and direct inner authority, though often not easy because it is uncompromising and does not provide reasons for its response.

This energetic response is often rooted in what are called “Sacral Sounds”. These are guttural sounds originating from deep inside your body but have been conditioned out of most of us at an early age by our parents, peers, and educational systems, as they were thought to be inappropriate or impolite. For example, it is common to hear Generators in touch with their Sacral response murmuring or grunting “ah-hunh” for yes, “un-un” for no, and “hmmm” for “I don’t know”. This is your body’s way of telling you whether something is correct for you or not, yet the mind is quick to overrule or question it.

To be sure, the Sacral center as an Inner Authority for decision-making is a little different than waiting to see what life puts in front of you. The Sacral Authority often requires a “yes” or “no” question coming in from outside one’s aura and is specific to a particular circumstance or set of conditions. It’s common to have different responses (or no response) coming from the Sacral to a general question of “where do you want to work,” while a more specific question of “do you want to accept a job as a Project Manager at Company XYZ?” might elicit a more specific and noticeable response.

When you are able to engage with life directly and move when and where your Sacral Authority takes you, there’s no longer a need for an intermediary or outside authority (like a guru, priest, teacher or set of rules) when it comes to what is correct for you. It may be helpful at times to receive guidance from others who are in tune with you, but you have a direct relationship with life as it is and everything you need in that.

It comes back to listening to and trusting your body, and responding to what life is putting in front of you rather than what you think you need to do or should happen. The mind is constantly telling us that we should be something that we’re not, as opposed to what we actually are.  Truly following a Sacral response requires a kind of surrender to the body’s intelligence which challenges the mind’s sense of being able to control the outcome.

Sacral Authority vs. The Mind

While the Sacral center is designed to be a perfect navigation system, ready to handle any situation or challenge, it does not provide reasons or rationale for why it engages or not. It is simply the intelligence of the form protecting itself and providing direction for the next step forward.

As a result, it’s not uncommon to hear of Generators struggling to distinguish the Sacral response from the workings of the mind. So how do you know what is a true Sacral response and what is not? Here’s an overview of some of the distinguishing factors between responding from the Sacral Authority and initiating from the mind.

The mind doesn’t know how to give us the life we’re here for, but the Generator body does and is built for it. When the mind engages in decision making, you can find yourself saying “yes” or committing to things that your energy can’t sustain, leading to frustration and quitting. And if the Sacral response is constantly ignored, even Generators can find themselves exhausted and lifeless, with all sorts of physical problems cropping up.

The Challenge and the Experiment

The Sacral response is an embodied energetic movement towards or away from whatever life puts in front of you. It is not intellectual, logical or even negotiable. It is your body’s way of meeting “what is”. Therefore it can be quite challenging for the mind to accept why you may or may not want to engage in something.

It can also be difficult for others to understand when your response does not align with their expectations for you or the relationship. It can seem stubborn or uncompromising when your energy does not respond in these situations, but it is your body’s way of protecting you from the experiences that are not correct for you and your purpose for being here.

When the Sacral response is honored, it will guide you into the relationships and situations which will allow your true creative power to be expressed. However, following one’s Strategy of “waiting to respond” and making decisions based on the Sacral response can be a huge leap of faith for many.

The 7-Centered strategic-minded way of navigating the world is still deeply embedded in our culture. We do not have to look very far to find countless examples of Generators being conditioned to be Manifestors and have been told most of our lives that if we want something to happen then we need to form a plan, execute on it, and go do it. We’ve been conditioned to believe that thinking results in action and is a viable means of controlling what happens in our lives or not.

While some of the scripts and formulas that we’ve been given about how to be happy or successful have value, they are based on how something worked for another person and may not always be appropriate for the next person. These scripts and narratives also seem to keep us in our heads and out of our lived experience ultimately resulting in a high level of frustration and dissatisfaction on this planet.

It can be an experience of deep relief when the Sacral Generator realizes that they already have everything inside that they need. The open and enveloping Generator aura is designed to draw life to you, and by following your Strategy of “waiting to respond” you may find that you have many more opportunities to respond than what the mind thinks is possible. When the mind can finally begin to relax its grip over your life and take a backseat to the innate intelligence of the body, you can receive life as it is moment by moment, where the correct experiences arise effortlessly. It’s a process of giving up what you think is best for you, in order to let life provide you with its own guidance.

It’s not about waiting to be led or controlled, rather, it’s waiting for inspiration. The inspiration of what to respond to; something that is truly aligned with who you are and your purpose within the totality. In the old world, the Generators were said to be the slaves whose energy was used to benefit those in positions of authority. However, you now have the possibility to honor the life force within you and lead a deeply engaged and satisfying life that is unique to you.

The fundamental Generator question is “Who am I for myself?” or better yet “How am I using my energy for myself?” This may sound selfish to some but it is grounded in a place of deep self-love and acceptance, and ultimately benefits everyone when that kind of love and awareness is what is being radiated out into the world through the Generator aura. It is the question which can take the Generator deeper into their unique experiment of awakening, and ultimately be guided through life by the body’s wisdom without the need to think to make decisions.