Resources: Wide-Open Centers
What is a ‘Wide-Open Center’?
In the Human Design System, centers are nine energetic nodes within an individual’s bodygraph that partly determine their Design. Wide-Open Centers have no gate activation and are not defined in any way. The terms ‘wide-open’ and ‘undefined’ are occasionally used interchangeably, but there is a difference between them: Undefined Centers have some gate activation, whereas Wide-Open Centers have no gate activation. Both Undefined and Wide-Open Centers receive external energetic information, in the form of conditioning; they are not like a Defined Center that emits energy and cannot receive any external energetic conditioning. However, this conditioning is the source of an open center’s risk as well as its reward.
The Pitfalls of a Wide-Open Center
When conducting a reading, many Human Design Analysts will emphasize the need for a greater level of awareness in individuals with wide-open centers; this is due to the person’s higher vulnerability to conditioning via these centers. Conditioning can lead one toward Not-Self actions or perspectives, interfere in one’s deconditioning process, and potentially confuse individuals when they attempt to align themselves to their unique form of authenticity. Wide-Open Centers lack any means to either reject conditioning (Defined Center) or partially filter the incoming conditioning energy (Undefined Center) — instead they absorb and amplify the conditioning energy. This effect can quickly become unmanageable for someone depending on the center, kind of conditioning, and the individual’s awareness.
In the above illustration, this individual's Design has a Wide-Open Solar Plexus which leaves them vulnerable to emotional conditioning from those with a Defined Solar Plexus. Unlike the defined person, these people are not meant to vacillate between emotional waves or moods and, outside any conditioning, are typically mellow individuals. When in the presence of others with a Defined Solar Plexus, they will absorb and amplify within themselves their conditioner’s emotional energy (e.g. feeling a greater level of anger or distress when around an emotionally turbulent conditioner). Essentially, these Wide-Open Centers are where we have the greatest risk of being externally influenced to act or think in manners unbecoming of our true authentic selves.
Although this may imply that a person with a Wide-Open Solar Plexus is meant to be unemotional, in actuality the opposite is true. These individuals are still human beings capable of emotion, but their ‘natural state’ is being a generally less emotionally-influenced person. Individuals that are in the process of deconditioning must often resist their mind’s tendency to interject in their awareness. In fact, wide-open centers are particularly liable to being the avenues by which our minds attempt to fool us. Our minds get confused by the external conditioning energy and in turn influence us to also internalize the conditioning energy as if it were genuine to our authentic sense of self when it really belongs to the conditioning individual(s).
The Gifts of a Wide-Open Center
The overall benefit to having a Wide-Open Center is a person’s ability to ‘sample’ the full spectrum of that center’s energies. Those with a Wide-Open Solar Plexus are not fixed into particular patterns of emotional waves like Defined Solar Plexus individuals are. Conversely, they are able to experience a broader array of emotion as they go about their lives entering and exiting conditioning auras; this ultimately bestows upon them a deeper understanding of emotion compared to defined individuals. They are able to better read the emotions of others and this creates an empath-like modality to their being. This receptivity liberates them to take in the energies of others and allows them to learn from the rich, fascinating influx of emotional information.
A reductive, yet helpful way of understanding this dynamic is by comparing it to ice cream. Defined individuals have a strong preference for a particular ice cream flavor. They announce their preference by telling everyone that strawberry is their flavor of choice and they always gravitate toward that flavor, eschewing the possibility of trying other flavors. Wide-Open individuals have no particular ice cream preference and are free to try any flavor — similar to them being free to experience the full spectrum of a center’s energies. However, when a wide-open person is near this strawberry conditioner, the conditioner exerts upon them a pressure to also orient themselves toward the strawberry ice cream regardless of the wide-open person’s genuine flavor interests.
A Wide-Open Center is as integral to your Design as any of your Defined Centers. They compose you and you are perfect as you are. These open centers hold a great potential to empower you by allowing you to take in the world and all of its experiences free of any activation filter; they give you a ‘purer’ way of experiencing life’s wonders, but also an unmitigated experience of its more melancholic aspects — their hidden power is proportional to their overt risk of being a heavy source of conditioning. Overtime as you learn more about your Design and learn to better apply your Strategy + Authority, these sources of conditioning will become sources of experience that will enrich your life journey. Be aware of yourself, practice your Strategy + Authority, and experiment with Human Design’s teachings as you go about your deconditioning process to ultimately discover your true self.
For those looking to learn and experiment with any Wide-Open Centers, download our Wide-Open Center resource here.