The Potential of Openness

SEASON 4: EPISODE 10

Published 02/28/2026

Amy:

In our last conversation, we discussed the ways that what is defined in us and part of our life force can become distorted and can carry its own kind of pain. We’re wanting to continue the conversation today by taking a look at the openness or the undefined areas of the design, because often there is this focus on openness being a source of pain or inadequacy or difficulty, and definition being the source of naturalness, empowerment, agency, all of those things.

Today, we wanted to go deeper into how is openness or a lack of definition in the design actually potentially a whole different kind of resource or a completely different aspect of our nature that has its own benefit.

So I wanted to start by asking you, John, you have a design that has seven open centers. What has your experience been of having that much openness, and what spoke to you in human design originally about that? And then how’s it evolved?

John:

Thinking back to when I first came into human design, I remember seeing my chart in the seven open centers with the two defined centers in the middle of the chart. And I think my first question was, what does that mean?

I ended up getting a reading. I started taking classes, and one of the first things I came to understand about the open centers is that there’s a lack of consistency there. And there’s a lot of receptivity there at the same time. It’s usually talked about as these are the areas where you can be most heavily conditioned, or these are the areas where you don’t have consistent life force. And I do relate to that.

And I remember thinking back and remembering my early life and how easy it was to get overwhelmed in certain areas of life or in certain experiences. I did seem to have a certain receptivity in terms of taking on the energy around me or being with people and feeling pretty immersed in that experience and then going into other experiences and having a different experience or realizing how immersed I had been in the previous one through contrast.

That’s a lot of what I think made sense to me in the beginning. But what happened later was that that understanding seemed to evolve in a way to where I started appreciating the openness or the lack of definition more. I started seeing it more as a kind of freedom or a flexibility. I didn’t have a fixed way of working consistently in that particular area of life.

And it evolved from being something that felt like I was lacking or I had a problem there to more about awareness. It became about understanding what was happening in that experience or in those experiences and how much I was open and susceptible to outside influence and conditioning.

Over time, I just learned. I was learning and kind of wisdom developed where I could know when I needed a break or I needed boundaries in a certain area. I knew how to handle those situations a little bit better without so quickly getting overwhelmed.

And that’s still very much in play. That’s a lifelong thing as far as I’m concerned.

To answer your question, early on, it felt like there are problems in these areas. This is where the not self theme is. This is where I get into trouble. This is where I get overwhelmed or I don’t have a capacity.

And then later it turned into something that I really appreciated and I began to enjoy more. And it opened up a different way of interacting with the world, a different way of seeing and a different ability to move through the world with a different kind of awareness.

Amy:

Sometimes when we’re looking at a chart or sometimes when people are looking at a human design chart, they might say, “Oh, you don’t have an ego or you don’t have a solar plexus.” That that kind of languaging goes straight to this lack.

And maybe initially, there is something sort of validating in that. I mean, most projectors, when somebody says you don’t have a consistent sacral motor for sustaining work, most projectors feel like, “Thank God, yes, that’s true. Thank you for acknowledging that or recognizing that.”

But I think what you’re starting to point to is that on the other side of that, there is this openness or adaptability or flexibility that’s available when there isn’t that kind of fixation in those areas. And then, like you said, there’s a lot of opportunity for learning, for being able to take in these different frequencies and these different conditioning forces in these different centers and learn about them and learn through them.

I feel like one of the things you’re pointing to when it comes to this question of freedom, like when does the experience of an open center move from feeling like a source of exhaustion and an inadequacy to a place of spaciousness and freedom and wisdom?

How do we go through that transition?

John:

Yeah, I think the open circle is a good example in this. We have this not self-theme of not knowing when enough is enough with the undefined sacral center, but I think some of that carries over into really every undefined center in our chart.

Understanding your relationship to that area of life and knowing that you are full, knowing when you’ve had enough, knowing when you need a break, knowing when there should be more of a boundary there.

We talk about things being conditional and conditioning and human design. And in that same way, when you have an undefined center, you can develop an awareness and understanding of under what conditions do I express this in a way that’s healthy for me? Do I do it consistently on demand? Do I do it because other people want me to? Or is it something that feels natural or innate or organic to me as it’s coming up?

So I feel like the conditionality piece is really key for these undefined centers. And that in a way opens the door to a greater kind of freedom, I think.

Amy:

Yeah. I can think of times when I was really young with the openness in my design of coming in contact with different people and almost feeling like I would get captured by their definition.

I would be hanging out with someone and they had certain kind of preferences or certain way that they behaved or certain ways that they felt about things. I would feel captured by that, captured by the ride of their definition, and then sometimes almost held by it in a way that I didn’t feel like I had agency over.

So I like what you’re saying about this shift in awareness when we can recognize that there is a natural and healthy limit in those areas that can turn this feeling of almost like being used or being a constant receiver for someone else’s energy or someone else’s way to recognizing, oh, I’m going on this ride for as long as I enjoy going on this ride.

And at some point, if it’s too much for me or if I’m at the end of my road with it, I can turn away from it. I can take a break from it. And that’s a very different sense of agency, I think, to have with those open centers.

John:

Yeah, I agree. I think we get into trouble when we start insisting upon things from a mental place where we start trying to force something or we think that we should be able to do this again on demand.

This is where I feel like strategy can give us a tool to work with. If you have an undefined throat like I do, am I being asked to speak, invited to speak? Do I have anything to say? That kind of becomes the next thing.

Or do I think that I must speak? I have to speak under these conditions, and I’ve got to keep up with the people around me who have a lot more to say.

And that’s where I think we get into trouble where we start thinking of things in terms of this lack. We start thinking that we should be able to do this and then we start comparing ourselves to what’s around us, to other people, what their capacities are.

Maybe we feel insecure or inferior in some way, and then that’s where you’ll see these not self themes really start to take hold. And we start making decisions based on that and operating that way, all the while realizing that it’s still never going to be enough. It doesn’t have that same feeling; the frequency is off. It’s almost distorted in a way.

Amy:

Right. It’s not natural for us to maintain one kind of frequency in an undefined center with great consistency.

And I actually feel like one of the things that’s really liberating is that when people start to let go of that, oftentimes when we get to either certain crisis points in life or if the body gets overwhelmed or if we start to hit the midlife point when it’s really natural for us to turn away from the depth of experience we’ve learned from our conditioning and start to turn toward what is the truth of our nature and our own alignment.

And those times, it’s a relief actually to let go of trying to maintain the consistency and we can actually connect with the part of ourselves that’s longing for the space, as longing for the emptiness in those places, the break from it, and just the room to not have to maintain anything there, not have to maintain an emotional passion or need, not have to maintain an identity or a voice or a drive or any of those things.

And then we can just kind of see and relax and not worry about it. And I think that then is a huge relief.

John:

I think that’s the gift of the openness that it is conditional. And if you look at definition, one of the ways you can look at definition, we touched on this last time in the last episode, is that it is somewhat non-negotiable.

It is a consistent part of our life force that if we don’t honor it, if we don’t give it expression, it doesn’t feel very good. It can start turning in on itself. It can come out in other ways that might be more distorted or maybe out of alignment.

And so the gift, I think, of the openness is that freedom, that fluidity to not have to do those things and to take a break from those things or to play with it and try different flavors on, not to be locked into one flavor all the time.

So what about you early on? You’ve got six open centers below the throat, so you have head Ajna throat definition.

Looking back, now having human design as a framework, what can you say about your early life in terms of those open centers and how receptive they are and the inherent instability of them?

Amy:

I think the combination of all of that openness, especially in all of the motors, all of the areas having to do with identity, role, tribalism, work, emotion, showing up, performing, competition, safety, all of those themes in those open centers.

And probably as a 5’1″ as well, with my profile, my early life was just a tremendous, endless pressure to perform to the point where I think by the time I was 18, that was my first real, true burnout. I just felt completely done and not really that capable of reflecting and keeping up in all of those areas.

And I think that was probably the beginning of my sense of longing for space, which I think maybe for a long time when I was younger, I was always reaching for something to fill up those undefined centers, like chasing after identity, chasing after approval, chasing after a feeling, going after an experience.

By the time I got to the early 20s, all I wanted was space.

John:

Yeah. I think that’s a really common theme. If you have a lot of openness in a design, and especially if you’re in an environment growing up where there’s a lot of input, there’s a lot of conditioning, there’s a lot of expectation to perform at the same time, and there’s not a lot of awareness of these type of mechanics.

It’s a situation where it’s really hard to know what you’ve taken on and to be in your own frequency and to know what’s yours and not yours until you’re out of it.

That’s a very common pattern that I see out there with people who have a lot of openness in their chart. And so we’re basically walking around full all the time. We’re just full. We’ve just taken in so much.

And then, like you’re saying, it’s really not until we can remove ourselves from that environment or that situation that we can reclaim a sense of space for ourselves. It’s a kind of lightness, almost. It’s not dense.

And in that, again, is a kind of freedom, a freedom, a flexibility, a fluidity, but you’re not going to find that freedom and flexibility if you’re full all the time. Yes.

That’s something you could say as a generalization that it’s important for people with a lot of openness in their chart to take time outside of the conditioning field, the relative conditioning field, in terms of the interpersonal influences that are always around us.

Amy:

Yeah. Then you have the opportunity to enjoy that spaciousness. And for me, it often feels like just being able to breathe more fully or something. It’s like having less density to process. It’s like, ah, it just feels like a relief.

John:

We touched on the undefined Sacral before as this really important center that represents this capacity for creative, generative life force energy for work.

And having an undefined sacral center doesn’t mean that we can’t do those things. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have a sacral center. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have a capacity to work or to produce.

But what it does mean is that capacity is not designed to be consistent. It’s not something that is necessarily going to be there day in and day out and something that we’re here to orient our experience around.

Amy:

Yeah. So whether we have … I mean, you and I both have pretty open designs, only having two or three centers defined, but even if we consider a design that has a lot of definition, maybe a design that has only one or two centers open, those areas that are open still can have that same experience.

However, I do think when there’s more definition in the design, all of the rest of that definition is likely going to carry more weight. It may still feel like in the area where there’s not definition in a highly defined chart, it could still be very, very impactful, but not with as much variation and often the stability and the consistency of all of that other definition, it just carries a lot of weight.

So I always like those analogies where you think about what is it like to have a design that’s like a boulder rolling down a slope versus having a design that’s like a feather blowing in the wind. There are those kind of differences, I think, in the frequencies that we carry.

And they’re all needed. It’s not like it’s better to be a feather than a rock. They have different qualities, they have different substance, and they have different functions, but both valuable, for sure.

John:

So with the chart that has eight defined centers and then an undefined solar plexus, there’s a lot of consistency. There’s a certain amount of weight in this design. It’s a fixed design. It has its innate way of operating. It’s not designed to be that flexible, but then you’ve got this undefined solar plexus, which in the mechanics would be a real focal point of a sense of lack or a feeling of lack and inconsistency.

How do you think that would show up in an individual like that’s chart, just generally speaking?

Amy:

I think it can just make that theme a real contrast because if I think about a chart where the solar plexus is the only undefined center, then everywhere else you go in the design, there’s this fixed way of being, fixed way of thinking, fixed way of behaving, fixed way of showing up for life, fixed energy, all of that stuff.

When you get over to the solar plexus or these issues that have to do more with the realm of the complex human emotional experience, I think it could show up in a lot of ways.

It could certainly carry that theme of avoidance of not necessarily feeling like you have a strong leg to stand on if it comes to direct emotional conflict, but it could also feel like an area of some spaciousness.

And I know sometimes people who have a lot of definition will say that they too long for space. It’s that it’s nice to go into an arena where they can be receptive.

So it could be an area where I’d imagine someone like that, they might be able to enjoy or appreciate, or be able to be a kind of person that people could come to, to talk about how they feel, or to talk about their problems, or to be able to process for themselves emotionally.

And I’d imagine someone like that could bring a lot of strength and grounding and stability to someone.

But if the conflict or the emotionality becomes direct, if it becomes, “No, I’m not coming to you to talk about a problem I’m having with my mother. I’m coming to you to talk about a problem I have with you.” Now, when it starts to become directly personally confrontational, I’d imagine that could be very overwhelming for that design, even though they have all this other strength and all this other capacity.

John:

What’s the interrelational gift and potential of an undefined solar plexus? And you had started to touch on being able to hold space for someone else as long as it wasn’t personally directed at them.

And I would say as long as this is a generator, as long as they’ve got the energy for it, are they in the correct role?

Each of these undefined centers has a different kind of capacity. It’s not a capacity in terms of fixed reliability and energy or life force, but it’s almost like it’s a capacity for evaluation or for seeing something or being able to hold space for something.

Amy:

Yeah. I would almost say it’s a capacity to see beyond yourself. I think it’s harder to see beyond yourself in the areas where you have definition, but when you have an area of openness, there actually is a lot more room to be able to see beyond just your own way because you don’t have a consistent way that’s your own.

So then that opens up the potential in relationship and through transits or through different experiences to be able to appreciate, wow, there’s all these different ways.

I’m so deeply fascinated with it in relation to the G Center because it’s the center that carries so much about the things that get to the heart of who we are as human beings, and the things that seem to touch us most deeply, things that have to do with behavior and identity and culture and love. I mean, those are some of the things that are right at the heart of us.

So when that center’s undefined, it’s a very particular experience to feel like, “Wow, I don’t have a clear kind of behavior or way of being there that helps me feel like I know who I am and I know where I’m going.” That’s really a thing to work through.

But on the other side of it, there’s often a real capacity to be able to recognize different behaviors working for different people, different cultures, and why they exist in these different ways, the challenges and the light and the shadow of all of that that comes with the different flavors of the G Center, how we relate to environment and place.

John:

This theme of relating that you’re talking about is where I tend to go with it as well. And I look at it in the context of our interpersonal relationships and dynamics and mechanics with others.

And it’s pretty common that you’re going to be in significant relationships with people who do not share your definition, who don’t have the same defined centers as you do.

And one of the things that I’ve observed over the years, to your point, is how easy it is to take our own definition for granted and assume that what’s organic and innate to me, well, that’s just the way that it is.

And I think that in a way cuts us off from the seeing and the appreciation and the potential bigger picture evaluation of the full range of function within a certain area of oneself or within life.

When you have an undefined center, that becomes kind of window that you can look out in and see something to appreciate it or to say, “I don’t care for that.” Or, “I’ve had enough of that,” or, “That’s really

Amy:

Amazing.” Yeah. When there becomes room to see both things as a capacity, what an incredible capacity it is to have a defined G-center and know who you are and what you love.

And even if you’re confined by that, like, “Oh, there are certain places I can’t go and certain things I can’t deal with because it just doesn’t resonate with who I am,” that’s a gift in its own way to bring to life and to be a source of love in that particular frequency.

And then it’s also this very different kind of gift to have an openness there that can resonate with many things, with many different ways of loving, ways of being, ways of behaving, ways of exploring preferences.

They each have their own offering. And this is where I feel like part of going through these conversations the way we have, to me, it feels important to be reframing this so that we continue to open up our ability to see the whole chart as our whole nature, the definition, the openness, the dormant potentials.

All of it is part of what’s natural to us. And that adaptability, that learning, that reflective capacity, that is part of us.

I used to really feel like, oh, I don’t get to really know what it’s like to have that consistent power that a manifesting generator has, something like that. But then it’s also a thing to notice that they don’t get to experience the kind of spaciousness and adaptability that I do.

John:

Yeah, that’s a real shift when we can look at things that way and shift our experience of that from a place of comparison and lack to a place of appreciation for what we do have.

Staying on this relational theme, where do we get in trouble and relationship when we’re with people who do not share definition with us and we expect that they would have a capacity in a particular area that we do?

What do you see there?

Amy:

Well, I think that goes in the category of expectations that will destroy your relationships and bring a lot of suffering.

We talk sometimes about necessary and unnecessary suffering. It’s like necessary suffering, I would think, in relationship would be the recognition of I’ve got this mind that just wants to keep going and keep going and keep going, and I have to accept that this person that I’m talking to doesn’t.

And so I’m kind of alone with it. I don’t have someone to share that with right now.

That’s probably a necessary form of suffering, but to have that turn into what’s wrong with this person, and why don’t they have that c and they should have this capacity. If they just tried harder, they would have this capacity, and I need to be met in this area.

And now I think that starts to go into the territory of adding a lot of unnecessary suffering based on kind of unrealistic expectations.

I don’t necessarily look at that as settling or even inadequacy in the relationship. It can just be a recognition capacity, of “I don’t want to be in a relationship expecting the people around me to perform in some way that’s not natural to them.”

And it’s healthier in the long run that way, I think.

John:

And that’s where having an understanding of the map and human design and these fundamental mechanics can really make a difference if we understand them on a deeper experiential level, how they actually show up in our lives, because then we can see that what’s innate to us is not necessarily innate to our partner or our family member.

And then to release those type of expectations to say, “You should, or why don’t you?” Those type of phrases can be cues that we’re in a state of expectation wanting someone to potentially be something different than they are or what is natural to them.

And it’s also where, again, I think if we go back to this tool of strategy that we have where we can ask questions in a lot of cases, you can say, “Would you like to have this conversation now? Would you like to finish this conversation another time?”

I can see that you’re pretty tired. You can see your eyes glazing over, or “Do you need a break?”

So it’s a different way of interacting that I think honors each person more with a different kind of relational awareness.

Amy:

Yeah, I love that because I don’t think we’d want to take it to the opposite extreme and say, “Oh, this person doesn’t have a defined ajna, so they can’t have an intellectual conversation. That would be silly.”

But I love what you’re saying about just asking the question, that’s just kindness, I think, and compassion and respect.

The same way that I feel like for myself, even though I have this really open design, I don’t have defined motors, I love being active in the right circumstances, and I appreciate it if somebody comes along and says, “I’m going to go do this project. Do you want to help?”

A lot of more rigid versions of human design would be like, “No, a mental projector is not here to work. You’re not here to do anything physical or something silly like that.”

But I know a lot of mental projectors that can be very productive, very physical, can really enjoy being part of an energy experience, not as a mandate day in and day out, not as an expectation and a requirement, but as an invitation from time to time, that’s great.

John:

Yeah. I think for me, one of the main hopeful concepts that I lay around with and work with when it comes to the undefined centers is this idea of conditionality. It depends.

I think we need to get beyond this. I don’t have that. I can’t do it. This is not self to under what conditions is this healthy, sustainable and correct for me to operate in this area of life, to have this conversation, to be in a deep emotional process, to get some stuff done, to take a break or to let go of something.

There’s a conditionality that I think runs through all the undefined centers, and that puts it back in this right relationship.

Amy:

Yeah. I really think what you’re saying drives home the point that it’s not openness or definition that is a problem necessarily. There’s no problem with either of those things.

I think when we’re looking at the undefined centers, it’s when it’s compulsory, and we’ve lost a sense of our own evaluation of the situation.

It’s not about trying to escape conditioning. I was just listening to this raw lecture on outer authority, and he said, “You don’t want to escape conditioning, you’ll be dead.”

You don’t ever escape conditioning until you’re done until your ride’s completely over. And it seems like a big part of our journey here is about navigating. It’s just about navigating it.

John:

Yeah, I could say generally it’s about getting straight with ourselves.

Amy:

Yeah, getting straight with ourselves, getting straight with our place, getting straight with our frequency, not having to control other people to maintain some sort of environment or space that we want.

John:

For myself, with my definition, I’ve got the 25-51 defined heart center connected to the defined G center. I’ve got seven open centers. I’m pulling conditioning all over the chart, and yet it’s that little island of definition in the middle that is the controller in a way.

It’s not my Ajna, it’s not my head. It’s right in the center of me. It’s not just the ego, it’s the ego and the G center.

What comes up for me in the face of a lot of conditioning coming in through the open centers is, do I like this? Is it according to the frequency that I want to interact with? Can I be myself in this situation? Can I be true to myself? Is this something that I have the will for?

Is this something important enough or is it worth it for me to continue putting my energy and engaging with this?

That’s the constant. That’s the piece that I’ve had to really develop a relationship as I get straight with myself is to recognize that in my process, to honor what it says, and then to notice what happens when I don’t. And I’ve learned a lot, but it’s a critical point of reference for me in that sea of openness in my design.

Amy:

I think that question for a defined G center is so important. It seems like everything kind of can get distilled down to that one question of, can I be myself here?

And that could be in whatever environment you’re entering into or in what relational dynamic. I think that’s a really central question for the defined G Center. Can I be myself here?

And if you can’t, you’re probably not going to be able to stay in that role or in that place or in that relationship for very long without it starting to cost you something that is hard.

For me, with an undefined G center, it’s reminding me of how many times I have judged people around me who have definition there for their lack of adaptability.

I can remember going to social gatherings or going into different situations and me with my undefined G center just sort of getting a sense of, okay, what’s the vibe of this or what’s the culture of this place we’re going to? Okay, let me take that on.

And then looking at some other people and being like, “Why are you behaving? Don’t you know where you are? What’s wrong with you? Can’t you adapt, or you have to be so rigid about like, you have to dress this way, or you have to talk this way, or you have to do these kinds of things, and you can’t do those.”

So it was very illuminating for me to learn about the G Center. And so when you’re talking about your design, to me, that’s a kind of design that feels like you got an eye in a hurricane situation, but this deep centering that’s so important.

And so, for me as a mental projector, I don’t feel like I really have that. I really don’t.

So oftentimes when I’m entering into something, especially if it’s something new that I haven’t experienced before, it’s an adventure. It’s a thing to try on. It’s a thing for me to get lost in a bit and find out who do I become in this dynamic.

So my question’s not, can I be myself here, not exactly like that. For me, it’s more like, who do I become with this person in this relationship or in this group or in this setting?

And then it often is a process for me. Once I experience it, I got to often digest it, process it, talk about it, reflect on it afterwards, and also feel the residue that it leaves with me to get a sense of whether or not that’s something I’d want to repeat.

In the midst of that, I think I’ve had a lot of experiences of being judged. Why do you take things on so much in these different settings?

And I have gate 15 there is my only definition. It’s extreme. I think it’s actually pretty natural for me to take something on full-on and then find out where my limits are with it after.

So, is there anything you could say about what you see in terms of, or what you’ve experienced in terms of the difference between a defined center that has some dormant potentials versus an undefined center that’s just completely open?

John:

When we’re talking about dormant potentials, we’re talking about gate activations in an undefined center that are obviously not forming a channel. And as I see it, these are part of our imprint. They’re characteristics that we carry. They’re planetary activations. They’re very much a part of us.

And yet they are parts of us that aren’t designed to be on all the time, that aren’t designed to be an expression or consistent. So they’re, again, conditional, but they’re parts of us that can be very important to develop a relationship with and understand, again, under what conditions and when do I express this part of me.

There’s a lot of awareness that I think has to be developed around the dormant potentials.

It’s also pretty common to see gates of the incarnation cross showing up as dormant potentials in an undefined center. These would be characteristics or themes that would be associated with your role or purpose in life and greater themes in terms of this life story.

And so I think it’s really important to develop relationships with those parts of ourselves within the field of conditioning, whether it’s interpersonal or planetary through the planetary influences.

When we have a dormant potential, this is something that is ours that gets flipped on in the field of conditioning that we have to learn how to work with. And it’s not something that’s just always there in a given.

Like for me, the biggest one I have would be gate six. I’ve got it four times in undefined Solar Plexus.

So early on in life, I really had to work out this confrontation, truth, avoidance, thematic, especially around conflict, which unfortunately would result in me getting overwhelmed or overreactionary in times, ending up in a fistfight.

So then what do I do? I ended up going, and I started studying martial arts. I spent 20 years studying martial arts predominantly for that reason.

Amy:

There’s your healthy ego, right? Being like, let’s get this under control.

John:

True.

Amy:

Let’s find a way to work with this.

John:

Yeah. And then the funny thing is that I never got in another fight again after that out in the world that wasn’t sparring or something.

I just throw that out as just kind of an example of how we could potentially work with these themes.

But if you look at that situation compared to a completely open center, completely open solar plexus, which is what you have, let me say first that I wouldn’t say that you don’t have a solar plexus. I wouldn’t say that you don’t have emotions or feel emotions.

But I would suspect that, and this does carry over to an undefined solar plexus as well, but I would suspect that it’s always in reference to something that’s happening outside you, whether it’s a planetary transit or it’s interpersonal conditioning.

I don’t think that a completely open center has a hardwired thematic in it that’s always going to be there. It has the greatest range.

So you could theoretically experience every line of every gate in the Solar Plexus where when my solar plexus gets activated, I’ve got gate six and I have gate 22. Those are going to be the two most consistent themes that show up when I’m dealing with emotional conditioning.

And in a way, that kind of limits me. I’m going to be filtering for that where you don’t have that same limitation, right?

Amy:

Yeah, it really is a wide-open space. And I like what you said about it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings or that I don’t have emotions. I just don’t have a consistent thing that I can attach to in terms of how those things show up.

And I can certainly relate to what’s often said about completely open centers that those are areas where on a personal level, it can get overwhelming, can feel like if I’m in a room where four different people are in a heated exchange about how they feel about everything, that would be a hard ring for me to throw my part into.

But I’m fascinated by the emotional process and I find it to be a huge source of learning and reflection and mirroring capacity. It’s not necessarily a way that I get to know myself.

John:

I would imagine that the overwhelming feeling associated with being in a high-intensity emotional field for a completely open solar plexus is because, without dormant potentials, without gait activations, there’s nothing in there that’s yours to really reference or to hang off of.

The dormant potentials when they’re activated, that can become an area of relative stability or consistency in your experience energetically or mechanically.

Amy:

Yeah.

John:

You’re in a room where there’s a lot of emotional energy and the dynamic, and where are you in all of that? What’s your experience and all that? Does it have anything to do with you, or are you just receiving and taking it all in?

Amy:

Yeah, I think those are spaces I’m not inclined to participate in very often. I learn a lot about it in certain personal dynamics where I have to deal with it.

For some reason, I’m having a memory of the first time my daughter, as a one-and-a-half-year-old, had a really outrageous temper tantrum, like just a full-blown emotional blowout.

And I just remember being kind of frozen by it. I just really didn’t know how to deal with that energy.

And there was another mom who was near me, and she looked at me, she said, “Are you going to do something about this?”

I mean, as a brand new mother, I was like, “I have no idea what to do about this. This is so intense. This is such a massive amount of sound and energy coming through this little being’s body.”

And it took me a while to find my sea legs with it, but then it became something really beautiful to get to study the nature of her particular emotional wave.

And now I find that really fascinating with emotional definition to get to learn about, “Oh, this chemistry seems to work in this way.”

So if I can sit back a bit and have some space to be able to study it, to come to my own insight about it, that’s where my mind can start to come in and I can process and digest the emotion that’s there.

If it’s constant, if it’s a lot of emotional energy all the time, it is really overwhelming. It’s not my zone.

John:

Yeah, that’s where I think the boundary thing comes back up, to know our limits in those areas, which is what I was saying earlier with knowing when enough is enough, knowing our limits in these areas, what is our capacity? When are we full? When do we need to take a break? I think that becomes critical.

The metaphor that I’ll often reference is take a glass of water, a 12-ounce glass of water that may be your emotional capacity with your open solar plexus.

So someone starts, they’ve got a big picture of water, and they start filling it up. Okay, now it’s about half full. Okay, still good, still good. They fill up more, three-quarters full, then eventually they keep pouring. It’s going to come out everywhere. Now there’s a mess.

Unfortunately, what happens a lot of times is people will look at the person who’s holding the glass of water and say, “Hey, you’re spilling water everywhere.” Okay, yes, I am. I am spilling water everywhere, but this person keeps pouring it in there.

And that’s not about blame, it’s about awareness of knowing when that glass is full and then like, “All right, I’m good. I’m taking a break. I’m done here.”

Amy:

Yes. Yeah. So that’s where I think the responsibility piece comes in with what you’re saying there, that ideally we have an understanding of our own definition and potentially the effect that might have on the field around us.

And we also take responsibility for what we can handle and what’s healthy for us to be exposed to and for how long in the areas where we have openness, and that’s our responsibility to manage as well.

John:

So, wrapping up, what have you really learned about working with these undefined centers in yourself, seeing them in others, and working with other people?

What do you think is most important to understand about openness in the chart?

Amy:

One of the most important things to recognize in your own experience is if you’ve got some kind of compulsion, or I would even maybe call it an addiction, in any of your undefined areas of the chart.

If you observe yourself, look at yourself, look at your life, look at your experiences, look at how you operate and function. And if there are areas where you are compulsively overworking or you’re addicted to proving yourself for the praise and approval of other people or any of those areas where you might find you have a compulsion, I think this is why Raw was harping on going radical was to sort of break those habits and sometimes that might require a pretty intense disengagement, like you just got to stop.

If there’s an intensity of compulsion, then yes, go through that process of stopping, but that’s not the end of the process.

After the breaking of the compulsive habit opens up the potential of being able to have wisdom about when to engage in that arena and when not to.

So I guess I think about it a lot in terms of projectors. It doesn’t mean you have an undefined Sacral, you’re never supposed to work. No.

If you’re a projector who is addicted to overworking and in a compulsive way where it’s hard for you to stop, then you might have to stop; you might need a full stop as much as you can get away with, so that you can really start to recover and find out what that sacromotor is about for you.

And then at some point, it will likely be appropriate for you to re-engage, but to do it with greater wisdom. And I think that’s really the point of the undefined centers.

John:

It makes a lot of sense. And one of the ways that I’ve come to notice that in my own experience is when the mind comes in with languaging around should or should or any of its variations like, I should be doing X.

The mind comes in and says, “I should be doing this because.” I want to know what that “because” is.

I want to know, am I doing it to prove myself? Am I doing it to avoid something? Am I doing it to feel loved? Am I doing it to keep the peace? Am I doing it so I don’t feel lazy?

There’s usually a really interesting “because”. And I think that’s up for each of us individually to work out for ourselves.

We have to be honest with ourselves and we have to be able to see where that motivation is coming from and then to recognize is it something that is true to us that is an expression of who and what we are, or is it because of conditioning? Is it because of outside pressure, expectation, or performance?

Amy:

Yep. I agree totally with what you’re saying. Just pausing enough to examine what is driving this, what is driving what I’m doing?

And especially if it feels like you said like a should or have to. If I feel like I have to or I’m not going to survive without this, or if I don’t do this, something terrible’s going to happen.

What’s the driver behind that? And that’s where we’ll usually find the not self theme.

John:

Yeah. Follow it out.

Amy:

Yep. Yeah. But once we get through that, there’s a lot of space on the other side, and space is beautiful. Definition is beautiful, space is beautiful. They both have their function. Yeah. Yeah.