Steadily yours, or picked up
A colored shape is called defined. It works the same way most of the time, and others can feel it from you. A white shape is called open or undefined. There you take in what other people carry and often amplify it, so it can feel like your own: a pressure to hurry that isn't yours, or a mood that came from someone else in the room. Open centers are where people tend to be most perceptive, and where most of what they've picked up over the years has landed.
What each one is about
- Head: inspiration, and the pressure of questions.
- Ajna: thinking, working things out, forming opinions.
- Throat: speaking and doing, where things become real.
- G: who you are, where you're headed, and love.
- Heart: willpower, promises and self-worth. Also called the Ego or the Will.
- Sacral: life force and the energy to keep working.
- Spleen: instinct, and knowing something in the moment.
- Solar Plexus: emotion, moving in waves.
- Root: pressure and drive, the urge to get things moving.
Between two people
When one person's center is colored and the other's is white, the second takes in the first person's way of working there, which is part of why you can feel different around different people. A relationship can also color in a center neither of you has alone.
The detail, if you want it
The Sacral, Root, Heart and Solar Plexus are the motors, and your type depends on them. The Head and Root are pressure centers. The Ajna, Spleen and Solar Plexus are awareness centers. A center is defined when a complete channel connects it to another.
Written with AI and reviewed by a person at Stellar Ally AB. Published November 3, 2026.
Human Design and its terminology originate with their respective authors and rights holders. Stellar Ally AB is independent and unaffiliated, and claims no trademark rights in the Human Design System. Ally uses these systems as one lens for self-reflection, nothing more. Nothing in Ally is medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.