Let's continue our Journey through the Centers of the Human Design Bodygraph with the heart of the Tribe - your Ego; aka Heart Center. This center is the only one with a unique circuit encompassing and named after it. With each gate having a different biological correspondence, and with more associations than any other center, this visually simple center is highly complex and quite misunderstood. The heart of the matter is that how you see yourself can be traced to your experience of your Ego.

One of the four motor Centers, yet unlike them all in that it requires periods of work and rest, the Heart Center provides the energy for willpower - the strength to prove our worth. This center gives us the will for financial support on the material plane - our family, communities, businesses, societies, cultures, civilizations. Just as your heart that beats in alternating phases of tension and relaxation, this center needs to operate with correct timing to be healthy.

When your Ego is defined, it's healthy for you to make correct promises that you keep so that you and your tribe can benefit from your willpower to support them. Your Heart is your authority for decision-making if you have it colored in but do not have the Splenic, Sacral, or Solar Plexus defined. If this is the case in your bodygraph, you need to pay attention to what you say automatically (without forethought). Observe and honor what you find yourself saying you will do, not what your mind thinks you need to, have to, or should do.

Ego authority empowers the self when defined to the G Center and supports your tribe when defined to your Throat Center. It is essential that you honor your spontaneous voice in the moment if you want to live out your truth.

When undefined or open in the bodygraph, your Ego center may produce conditioned behavior of willfulness. Trying to be competitive and prove yourself through promises you are not designed to keep is a big red flag or "signpost" of not-self behavior. The deep need of your undefined Ego to appear worthy can cause quite troublesome adaptive strategies; like over-achieving or exaggerated words and actions to create self-importance. Accepting less of something because of a deep feeling of inadequacy, self-deficiency, and worthlessness originating from continually failing to meet expectations can also be the result.

As you read about the Ego gates below, have your bodygraph handy to take special note of the ones imprinted in your Human Design. If your Heart Center is defined, those gates you have activated are the very specific ways you are designed to experience your willpower.

If your Heart Center is undefined, the gates waiting to be activated are themes you are genetically programmed to experience when the Ego is activated by transits or people in your environment. Remember, this energy is not consistent and cannot be relied upon to be there consistently. You do not need to do or say anything to prove something, to anyone.

The Gate of the Hunter/Huntress

Associated with your Heart muscle itself, Gate 21, “Biting Through” is the only gate in the bodygraph that is designed to be in control of circumstances to serve and protect the Tribe. This gate has the most powerful ego and provides the willpower to make sure that the community has what it needs. Everyone who has the 21 defined must be allowed to exercise their power to be in control when it is correct for them. No other gate has more potential to control than this one does.

Any Type with an undefined Heart Center and Gate 21 defined must wait to be offered control. Otherwise, heartbreak (metaphorical and possibly physical heart attack) could occur.

Generators: You can only take control when somebody asks and if you respond to it, or frustration is your result.

Projectors: You must be recognized by the people in your life that you need to be in control, or they are not correct for you and when you try to control them, bitterness ensues.

Manifestors: You have to ask permission before controlling others or anger is your experience.

Reflectors: You will experience disappointment when you don't wait out your lunar cycle process to know if it is correct for you to be in control when initiated.

The Gate of the Egoist

Associated with your T cells and thymus gland of the endocrine system, Gate 26, "The Taming Power of the Great" provides the willpower to be (or say you are!) the best. This Tribal gate brings the support to manipulate instinctive memory that may result in exaggeration or denial; think of the salesperson/marketer.

When you have this gate defined, your ego needs to be massaged and understood by other people to avoid conflict. This understanding has to do with the fact that you only have the power to work when it's correct for you, and that you need your rest.

The Gate of Shock

Associated with your gallbladder, Gate 51, "The Arousing" brings the great willpower of competitiveness; the energy of needing to be first - and with that, courage or foolishness. As part of Individual circuitry, it also serves the Tribe.

If you have this gate defined, "there is a way" when the pulse of that willpower is there and recognized.

The Gate of Aloneness

Associated with your stomach, Gate 40, "Deliverance" brings the a strong independence and sense of being alone even when in a group of people. If you have this gate, you want to be pumped up and appreciated for the work that you do. This is the gate of the love of work; being given loyalty when you provide for your tribe doing work you love brings satisfaction to you - provided they keep their end of the bargain.

If your Heart Center is defined, you know your strength better than someone with an undefined Ego, but you could be reluctant to use it. Or you could also become overly competitive or overdo things, which can be the cause of difficulties too. Follow your Strategy and Authority to enter into things correctly.

Undefined or Open Heart Center

A whopping 63% of our human population has no willpower consistently defined. If you don't have a red triangle in your bodygraph, you are not here to prove anything to anyone - you are inherently worthy because you are. Not designed to make and keep promises, you can be deeply conditioned to live up to expectations of yourself and others.

The depth of conditioned responses when your Heart Center is undefined packs a most powerful impact when operating as not-self. Low self-esteem can develop from your undefined heart center because of insecurity as to whether you can accomplish something. A debilitating lack of self-worth can develop from years of making promises that you didn't have the willpower to keep.

It can be devastating to carry around the belief that you are not worthy, as this colors the way you see and experience yourself and your world.

Always trying to prove that you can achieve what you say you will do, puts enormous pressure on your heart, stomach, and gall bladder. Heartburn, heart attacks, gallstones, and ulcers are examples of the physical symptoms possible when committing or over-committing to try and demonstrate your worth to yourself or others.

Questions for Inquiry: Have you noticed you can tend to make promises that you’re unable to keep? Making decisions from a place of trying to prove or improve yourself puts tremendous stress on your heart. What examples of the thoughts below, which may come up on behalf of your deeply conditioned mind, do you recognize in you?

I'm not good enough.

I have to say/do this so I can prove I'm worthy.

I have to be in control. I will be courageous.

I need to prove (or improve) myself so that others know I'm smart enough, sexy enough, hard-working enough, loving enough (etc.).

I need to prove I'm a loyal friend (or daughter, son, mother, lover, wife, husband, etc.) by promising I'll do this to show that I'm worthy.

I will fudge the truth a bit (exaggerate) to show others I'm the best, to prove my value.

No matter the configuration of your heart's definition, you are perfectly designed as you are. Definition or lack of it makes no difference in terms of better or worse, good or bad. Remember everyone has everything present in the bodygraph, that this is a circuit board, and everyone is designed differently. We were born unique. Following your Strategy and Authority is the key to deconditioning from the mind's control over what you think and over time, this transformation of your awareness transforms your physical body and your life as well.

Living your Human Design helps you to move through life with more ease and less resistance. Would you like to share any of your Heart Center epiphanies or feedback with our Human Design Community? You’re invited to ask questions as well.