Episode 295: Optimizing Emotional Well-being with the Emotional Solar Plexus Center
Ready to take control of your emotional wellbeing?
In this episode, we’re diving deep into the Emotional Solar Plexus—the powerhouse of emotional energy in Human Design. Discover how this center influences your mood, your stress levels, and ultimately, your health.
We’ll break down how you can ride your emotional waves with more ease and less overwhelm, giving you the tools to master emotional regulation and optimize your mental and physical health.
If you’re tired of feeling overwhelmed by your emotions, this episode is your roadmap to balance and clarity.
Listen to the Episode:
“Without emotional awareness, grounding practices and boundaries, the stress from emotional tension and volatility can be intense and chronic. And chronic stress leads to chronic health issues. Remember, stress is the root cause of all root causes, and this is why the emotions + body connection is essential.”
Read the Transcript:
When it comes to health, much of what is focused on is physical health, and mental and emotional health is a whole separate conversation. The fact that we still separate it is entirely shortsighted. You’re a whole person and to segment your health this way is a disservice to you. Taking a complete approach is what it means to practice “whole-istic” health.
Your emotional well-being is just as essential, if not more so than your physical health because how you manage and regulate your emotions is a critical factor in how your physical body functions.
When experiencing chronic health conditions and searching for root causes, if you peel back the layers far enough, stress is the root cause of all root causes. Whether it be physical stress, mental stress, and/or emotional stress – and it's usually a combination – at the end of the day stress is stress.
And your body doesn’t differentiate what kind of stress it is – the stress response is the same.
Today’s episode will be on emotional stress, specifically, how to work with the Solar Plexus Center – the center of emotions.
As a society, we tend to assign labels to emotions – “good emotions” and “bad emotions”, but I think of emotions simply as “energy in motion.” There are no “good feelings” or “bad feelings” , they're just feelings. Assigning labels to them is how we subject ourselves to conditioning by how other people contextualize what we’re feeling.
The Solar Plexus Center, the center of emotional energy, is the first energy center in the order of the nine Human Design energy centers. That’s how important it is.
If you have this center defined, you generate emotional energy and experience what we call “emotional waves” which makes you feel your emotions intensely.
With this energy you’re able to influence the emotions of others. In the last episode, Episode 294, discussed this influence in the context of relationships. Think about this – your ability to influence the emotions of those who spend the most time with you. It’s powerful stuff.
On the other side, as with all undefined centers, if you have the Solar Plexus center undefined, you’re one of those people whose vulnerable to having your emotions influenced, which is why you may not understand why you’re feeling the emotions that you’re feeling or where they may be coming from. Because, in fact, they may not be your emotions – they may be feelings you’re picking up from someone else!
Let’s back up for a bit and talk about emotional waves. Not only do they have you feeling emotions more intensely, they’re also a consideration when making decisions.
If your Solar Plexus Center is defined, this means that you have an Emotional Authority, and your Authority is how you’re meant to correctly make decisions.
How you’re meant to do so is “riding out” your emotional waves, meaning, waiting for the intense feelings to subside – the highest of highs and lowest of lows – and THEN making decisions when you’re in between waves – when you’re in a calm and collected state.
When you’re riding your emotional waves, you have a heightened sensitivity to your feelings and can possibly be emotionally volatile which is NOT when you want to make any big decisions.
If you don't have an understanding and awareness of this, it could lead to potentially stressful conditions and situations, and no one wants to deal with that.
So, what do emotional waves look like?
Well, there’s three kinds of emotional waves:
Tribal Waves: emotional tension can gradually build up to a point where it explodes. There’s an element of community and connection with tribal waves and the emotional tension can be released through physical touch like a hug or a tap on the shoulder. Tribal waves bring a depth of sensitivity to relationships
Individual Waves: emotional tension shows up in your moods, whether it be mellowness, passion, or even irrationality. These individual waves can be released with alone time, so the key here is to know when to be in community and when to be alone.
Abstract Waves: emotional tension shows up when your wants; i.e., your desires aren’t met. It’s a crash and burn situation. Abstract waves can be managed by having realistic expectations - managing your expectations so you’re not blindsided by the outcomes.
Remember, emotional waves are “energy-in-motion” – emotions” and its critical for you to understand this, whether you have a Defined Solar Plexus center and experience it yourself, or you know someone who does and interacts with their emotions; possibly influenced by them.
Can you imagine what might happen without an awareness of this? For the person experiencing it who can’t help themselves and for the people around them who may not know where it's coming from?
This is why, if you have an Emotional Authority, to take your time making big decisions. Ride out the wave and let clarity come to you so that your decisions aren’t driven by your emotions.
The best way to work with your Solar Plexus energy is to practice self-observation, always with non-judgement, so you’re able to discern what being on an emotional wave feels like versus being in-between waves.
Your goal is to have the ability to make this differentiation.
Some ways to practice self-observation are having daily practices of journaling and meditation, which creates space for mindfulness.
These are two practices that I committed myself to being more consistent with this year and it’s truly had a huge impact on my life and my self-awareness.
As byproducts of doing these things, it’s:
- Helped to regulate my nervous system and manage stress
- Understand how I handle my emotions can be harmful to myself and others
- Recognize where I need to decondition myself around how I’d assign judgment to emotions
What I mean by that is, if I’m feeling low, angry, or frustrated, not to associate the feeling as being “bad” and alternately, if I’m feeling elated, not to associate it as being “good.”
Again, emotions are just “energy-in-motion” and coming to understand this has helped me release a lot of guilt I didn’t realize I was placing on myself.
Understanding this for yourself and being able to communicate it to others has created an openness, a safe place, and established trust with others because now they understand your emotional process and allow you emotional space when you ask for it so your emotional waves can settle.
Now, if you’re like me and have an Undefined Solar Plexus Center, well, essentially, we’re emotional sponges, absorbing all the emotional energy around us.
But now that we’re aware of this, the same practices apply:
Grounding ourselves with mindful activities like journaling and meditation, as well as alone time, so we can establish an emotional baseline and develop the ability to differentiate and recognize when we’re being sponges and absorbing emotional energy versus our own feelings.
And with these grounding practices come boundaries. You’ve heard me talk about the importance of boundaries, especially around your Undefined energy centers over and over again.
In the last episode, Episode 294, I listed all the episodes on boundaries – refer to the show notes for this episode for that, which you’ll find at www.livefablife.com/295 for Episode 295.
Boundaries protect you and others from emotional volatility and any stress and harm that may cause.
Without emotional awareness, grounding practices and boundaries, the stress from emotional tension and volatility can be intense and chronic. And chronic stress leads to chronic health issues. Remember, stress is the root cause of all root causes, and this is why the emotions + body connection is essential.
It’s real and we see it in the stress responses of our nervous system.
You know how when you’re nervous about something and get butterflies in your belly? That’s the emotions + body connection, i.e., how your emotions have a direct impact on how your body functions.
This is why at the start of a half-marathon, marathon, triathlon, any race there’s always porta-potties present – because people are nervous about what they’re about to embark upon. They get butterflies in their tummies and have to go to the bathroom! It’s true – I’ve experienced this myself many, many times!
The emotions-body connection can affect your immune health. If you’re able to express your emotions and must suppress them, after a while that can have a direct impact on your immune system.
I often think about autoimmune conditions and how they came to be. What were the root causes of it? Yes, stress is the root cause of all root causes, but what were the circumstances that brought about the stress?
Did this person have to suppress their emotions? their voice? Were they able to express themselves? What circumstances and conditions led them to the situation they find themselves in now? It’s not only physical factors that contributed – you can bet that emotional tension, volatility and turmoil had a hand in it too.
So, in addition to healthy daily habits like eating nutrient-rich meals, intentional movement and sleep, caring for your emotional health is equally important and you do so by aligning with your emotional energy – how your Solar Plexus Center is designed.
This is how we support our well-being and find balance – healthy by Human Design.
To recap, if you have a Defined Solar Plexus Center, know what kind of emotional waves you experience, accept and even embrace them. Don't make rushed decisions. Wait and let emotional clarity come to you.
And if you have an Undefined Solar Plexus Center establish boundaries to protect yourself from emotional influence and volatility.
And whether you have the Solar Plexus defined or undefined, make space for alone time so you can learn how to differentiate when you’re riding your emotional waves versus when you’re not, and when you’re being emotionally influenced versus what your own emotions feel.
We often have ambitions of developing daily healthy habits – developing daily habits in support of our emotional well-being is important too.
Develop grounding practices so you can develop mindfulness of these things. What techniques can you use to release pent up emotional energy? How can you build emotional resilience? What role can nutrition, rest, and intentional movement play?
How can you practice emotional hygiene? How can you support your emotional health?
This is why emotional intelligence is critical and how you can develop emotional awareness.
I encourage you to observe, explore, experiment with and embrace your Solar Plexus energy as a pathway to living a more balanced life.
To learn more about the Solar Plexus Center, check out my Human Design Essentials and Energy Management and the Nine Centers programs.
If you’d like to take a more personalized approach, order a Human Design Playbook – it’s how I do Human Design Readings. After years of giving Human Design Readings, I found that my clients get the most out of it by having a reading they can refer back to – that’s why I’ll send you a personalized podcast episode dedicated to exploring your design, accompanied by a 60+ page playbook that documents it all so you have something to refer back to over and over again.
The Solar Plexus Center is first in the order of operations of the nine centers for a reason. That's how important it is and I hope you can have a better understanding of how you can work with it.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this topic or have others, you’d like to be covered – let me know! And I'll see you right back here again next time. Bye for now!
Naomi Nakamura is a Health x Human Design coach who’s creating a healthier society through aligned energy.
She blends a bespoke mix of Functional Nutrition and Human Design to help others shift into alignment to leverage and correctly manage their energy to support their body, mind, and spirit.
She believes that when we embrace our authenticity and lean into our bio-individuality, we naturally live a life of freedom, empowerment, and optimal health.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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