14. The Emotional Solar Plexus

Kelsey: 00:00

I so often see in the undefined or open solar plexus, someone who had one or more parents or at least someone in the house, but often a parent who sent emotionally chaotic energy out into the house, out into the family. And so because of that, as a child, many undefined solar plexus people learned to take on those emotions that were being carelessly sent out chaotically into the world and have established this sense of fear of I don't want to deal with others' emotions. So it can be a real trigger for an undefined solar plexus in a not self state who hasn't deconditioned their tendency to take on others' emotions to be around any emotionality.

Welcome to the Living Your Design podcast. I'm your experimentor, Kelsey Rose Tortorice. This podcast is an audio only release of the full length, in depth human design foundations course I've been teaching over the last several years. It is a no bullshit comprehensive embodied introduction to the human design system that will challenge your ego mind and support you in your process of reuniting with the unique wisdom of your body. In episode one, I speak a bit about the process that led me to releasing this course for free in podcast form. And I offer a few notes that might be useful to contextualize and clarify what you'll hear in this episode and beyond. I recommend giving that short intro episode a listen if you haven't yet. The LYD podcast is part of a larger, living body of work, a growing archive of my teachings about consciousness through the languages of astrology and human design, hosted in an online community space where I stay in orbit with my students, mentees, alumni, peers, and collaborators. For more information about how to connect with me and tune into my archives and ongoing live teachings, including how to access the original LYD course complete with videos and slides, Stay tuned to the podcast or check out patreon.com/KelseyRoseTort. Thank you for tuning into my transmission of Living Your Design. It's a deeply personal and somewhat vulnerable share that I feel honored, humbled, and excited to release into the world. I hope that it helps you remember and come home to yourself.

Now we're moving on to the last motor center that we're going to deep dive into in this unit. Again, it's not the last motor center because the root center is also a motor center, but we visited it in the pressure center unit. So the last motor center that we have yet to learn about is the solar plexus center. And the solar plexus has two functions as well. So we're going to do the deep dive in this unit, but we will be revisiting aspects of the solar plexus. in relation to the spleen and the ajna when we talk about the awareness centers. The solar plexus is both a motor center and an awareness center. The solar plexus provides emotional awareness. So there's two other kinds of awareness, instinctual awareness in the spleen and mental awareness in the ajna.

The solar plexus provides the most complex and deep, kind of awareness, and it also provides motor. It's one of the conditional or minor motors, and the energy that the solar plexus provides is the energy for emotions. It provides the fuel to emote. It powers the emotional process that leads to emotional clarity or emotional awareness. Now, we're not getting into authority yet, but I have mentioned it in a few places, and I want to establish that the solar plexus is the loudest or the most dense. inner authority, it's the first in the sort of hierarchy, it's not really a hierarchy, but I don't have a better word for it, of authority centers, which means that anyone who has this center defined has solar plexus authority, also referred to as emotional authority. So this is such a strong center in the holistic experience of the body graph and of form that if you have it defined, it's takes up so much of your experience, it really carries you in its wave and its emotional process, so much so that it just overrides everything else and becomes the authority. So if you have this center defined, you are an emotional being. You are either an emotional generator, manifestor, or projector. This is because the energy and awareness in the solar plexus are very loud or heavy or dense or strongly felt. And that's going to be true whether defined or not, right? So think about how for the undefined solar plexus, you're amplifying these really loud emotional sensations, emotional fuel and emotional awareness from the emotional beings around you. So it's a very intense experience.

Emotions are a very intense experience, whether they're coming from our own definition or being amplified from outside. In terms of awareness, which is not, I mean, we're going to talk about the awareness of the solar plexus today because it is as much, if not more, an awareness center. as it is a motor center. And I say that because there's a transition, a mutation taking place in the human species right now where we are eventually, the solar plexus won't be a motor center anymore. So we're evolving right now towards the solar plexus being purely a awareness center. And we won't experience that in our lives. Our bodies will always have both fuel and awareness in the solar plexus, but the... uh where we're going as a species over the long term is that the solar plexus will no longer carry fuel. It will just be about awareness. But for the time being, it is also this motorized emotional energy.

But in terms of awareness, there's three awareness centers, and the solar plexus is the newest and most complex of the three awareness. It drives experiential knowing and has the potential for spirit consciousness. So the spleen is an awareness that's more about survival. The Ajna is an awareness that's very much associated with the mind, mental awareness, and in that way, sort of like the third dimension, this plane of reality where there's time and space. That's what the Ajna is. The Ajna awareness is designed to operate within time and space, this third dimensional plane. But the solar plexus awareness, this awareness that we're incorporating now and evolving towards, that's coming online, has this more multi-dimensional deeper complex experiential knowing and it brings us the potential for a spirit consciousness that I don't want to say isn't available pre-solar plexus but has much more depth and clarity to it with solar plexus awareness. So four people with a defined emotional center. This is one of the centers it's about 50-50 half-half. Defined emotional people aka people with emotional authority You are always somewhere on your emotional wave, which includes cycles of highs, neutrals, and lows that may have something to do with your external circumstances or may not. The emotional definition means that there's like a chemistry of emotions that's moving inside of your form that doesn't necessarily require circumstances in your life to trigger. It's a gray scale and you're always somewhere on it.

With a defined solar plexus, Melancholy and sadness are inevitable. No matter how aligned you are, no matter how good your life is, whether from an ego mind place or from a sense of correctness, mechanically in your design, you will still have lows. The lows will always come. They are inevitable. And so there's no need to rationalize them, to try to figure out why they're here. They're not here at any fault of yourself or anyone else. you are going to process lows as well as highs. And part of the personal experience for the defined solar plexus person is about getting to know the wide range of emotions and honoring them and allowing yourself to be in them without trying to make yourself responsible for them, without saying, oh, I must be doing great because I'm up here at the top of my wave and life feels great today. Or I'm down here again, I must have done something wrong. And with the emotional center, remember, where we're defined, we're also broadcasting that energy out. So there's an element here too of not only accepting your own emotions and the entire spectrum of your emotions for yourself, but also a comfort and a willingness with being able to be witnessed in all the different parts of your emotional wave and allowing others when it's correct for them, according to their strategy and authority, to get to take in your emotional self as well in all of its parts. There's a phrase that goes with the solar plexus and with emotional authority that is, no truth in the now. That means that at no point on the wave do we ever have like a singular truth that will stand. We are designed to witness our emotional wave over time and to arrive to clarity from observing the entirety of that wave, maybe once, maybe a hundred times. There's clarity that comes from experiencing all the parts of this wave. including the highs, neutrals, and lows. It's a gray scale. There's no certainty. It said that emotional authority never gives us certainty. We're never certain about something. We only know how we feel about things holistically throughout the wave when we take it all into consideration. But if we identify with any one moment, any one fragment of that wave, we'll be missing a part of the truth. So if we feel really certain, it's likely that we're actually just way at the height or the bottom of a wave. and we're identifying with that singular moment, the whole truth is never in that singular moment. Emotional authority or emotional definition is a lot about timing. With emotional authority, we need to gather all of the relevant information. And it's not about information, but it's about how our emotional authority attunes to and receives and takes in that information and the awareness that the emotional wave is able to. process and arrive to through looking at all the information from all these angles of high, neutral, low. And our bodies move with emotional authority according to our strategy in regards to any decision once that clarity arrives. But the clarity on the emotional center is not synonymous with any kind of mental strategy or certainty. just watch, right? Passenger consciousness from an ego mind place. We're just watching our body move based on its emotional clarity, and that's a very different thing than knowing anything for certain. So there does tend to be good amount of waiting when it comes to emotional authority because in any one moment, we don't really know what experience we want to have next. We don't really know how our body is going to or desires to tackle or meet any particular decision or potential. there's always going to be a need to sort of sit with it and linger in it. And then we watch our body come to clarity over time.

For undefined emotional, sometimes referred to as non-emotionals, you're not non-emotional in nature, as in you don't experience emotions. You can actually be a deeply emotional person because you're amplifying others' emotions. So for the undefined emotional center, there's a real emotional empathy. which doesn't mean you're not emotional, obviously, but you will sometimes be, you'll hear non-emotionals, undefined solar plexus is referred to as non-emotionals because that emotional energy doesn't originate purely in your own form. It's aspects of your form and your uniqueness meeting the other or meeting the transit field that create emotionality in your system. So for the undefined solar plexus, When you're experiencing extreme highs or lows emotionally, you're likely amplifying the emotional energy of those around you or experiencing emotional definition by transit. Your default is probably more of a neutral emotional state, but when you come into contact with emotional conditioning, you're very emotionally empathic. One of the most important things for undefined solar plexus people to know is that your emotions are not your authority. but they will be very loud because they're the loudest, most densely felt center in all of the body graph, and you are amplifying them. They're even louder in your body. So they're not your authority, but they can very easily override your system if you're not aware that they're not yours to own or process. And so decisions made on emotions tend to lead the undefined solar plexus person astray. Emotional energy is meant to move through you if you have an undefined solar plexus. Be aware that you do not always need to process emotions as they show up. You can use your authority and your strategy to determine when to experience, engage with, and maybe even help guide emotions as you amplify them. But you really do kind of have, I witnessed with the undefined solar plexus that there's this potential to be able to just pretty quickly flip out. just like shifts energetically out of an emotional heaviness upon realizing like, oh, I don't need to tend to this. If I don't have the sacral response for this right now, if I'm a generator, or if I haven't received a clear invitation, a clear and correct feeling invitation, if I'm a projector, for instance, then these emotions aren't for me to really deal with, to process in this moment or to guide or to learn from. But when you come into contact with these amplified emotions and you came into it from a correct strategy for your type and your authority is moving you, continues to move you towards looking at and feeling into and being enriched by this emotional experience, then you get to watch that movie and you get to learn from it. But typically it's not your responsibility to hold complex emotions unless your strategy and authority guide you towards it. A healthy state defined solar plexus, someone with emotional authority is going to be comfortable waiting for clarity and riding their wave. They're not going to rush decisions. They will value and welcome the full range of their emotional experience. They won't try to clip or suppress certain parts of their wave. A healthy defined solar plexus takes responsibility for their own moods without over identifying with them. So there's, there's a real absence of blame. with a healthy defined solar plexus. We're not blaming others for our moods, whether high or low, and we're not blaming ourselves either. There's just this kind of neutral acceptance, even though we may not be neutral in our wave and the emotional chemistry circulating through us at any given moment, we may not be neutral in our wave at any given point, but we can have a sort of neutrality in our awareness to... Oh, I'm here in my way of my body is experiencing an intensity of emotion on either end. And my condition, not self-mind will have a desire to rationalize. Why am I here? Which puts us in a state of wanting to blame self and or other for the high mood or the low mood. But that's not healthy. It's healthy for the defined solar plexus to take responsibility in regards to knowing these are mine to process primarily and not forcing other people to engage with us. because especially remembering that the undefined solar plexus people in our lives feel our emotions even stronger in their body. So having some compassion and empathy for that, especially for the people in our lives who are still in the process of deconditioning their solar plexus, if it's undefined, but also not blaming ourselves for it and being comfortable being seen and witnessed in these different parts of our waves. The healthy defined solar plexus understands that depth, nuance and wisdom are available over time and thus does not rush clarity, decisions, or awareness, trust that it comes when it comes through my process, which from an ego-mind place, I have no control over the timing of.

A not-self state for a defined solar plexus would be making impulsive quick decisions, quitting something when in a low, committing to something when in a high, starting a fight with someone when in a high or a low. A not-self defined solar plexus will identify with parts of the wave rather than the entirety of the wave. So sort of write off the part of them that is experiencing the low, the depth of the low. And, or I suppose someone could write off the parts of them that feel kind of high. I do sometimes use the word manic to describe how I feel in a high at times. A not self-defined solar plexus will repress, reject, deny, or avoid the whole emotional experience or aspects of it. We'll blame self or other for their moods, as I've discussed. We'll put emotional pressure on others. There can really be an emotional manipulation here because as we'll talk about when we get to the undefined solar plexus, the undefined solar plexus in a not self state can tend to really try to avoid their own truth for fear of confrontation. And so it is not uncommon for relationships where there's a defined and undefined solar plexus for the defined person to, whether consciously or not, from whatever emotional state they're in, sort of attempt to manipulate the undefined solar plexus person who might have a lot of programmed people pleasing and fawning orientations and habits based on their conditioning and their avoidance of truth and confrontation, putting emotional pressure on others and or sending emotional chaos into the environment. So that comes from sort of not taking responsibility for one's own moods. There's the aspect of like, We don't wanna overly take responsibility to the extent that we're placing blame on ourselves or making it our success or our failure that we're high or low, but we do wanna understand that this chemistry, this wave, this intensity of emotion is here for us. It's here to teach us something. And others can need to be able to opt in or out of it according to their own autonomy, their own strategy and authority. When we just, when emotionals... don't understand that the emotional experience is a part of our process, an inevitable part of our process, and for us to tend with and tend to and welcome and accept, then we might just send emotional chaotic energy out into the world and kind of make it everyone's problem, which leads to a lot of this not self behavior in the unhealthy, undefined solar plexus. So let's actually start here and then we'll go up to healthy, undefined solar plexus. So the not self state for the undefined or open solar plexus is triggered or overly reactive in the presence of others emotions. I so often see in the undefined or open solar plexus, someone who had one or more parents or at least someone in the house, but often a parent who sent emotionally chaotic energy out into the house, out into the family. And so because of that, As a child, many undefined solar plexus people learned to take on those emotions that were being carelessly sent out chaotically into the world and have established this sense of fear of, don't want to deal with others' emotions. So it can be a real trigger for an undefined solar plexus in a not self state who hasn't deconditioned their tendency to take on others' emotions to be around any emotionality. I notice oftentimes that the presence of my emotions, even if I am not spewing them all over, when I do own them for myself and handle them in a mature way, I sometimes notice my own emotions will still be a trigger. Others might still overly react to my emotions because they haven't learned yet in their own being, in their own body, that emotions being around them is not the same as emotions being forced on them or being sort of like affronted. with emotions. So that's a really good sign that someone is either not done any deconditioning in their solar plexus or at the very early stages of deconditioning in the solar plexus is a very sort of jumpy overreactive, activating, automatic reaction to the presence of any emotions at all. There's a real discomfort with emotional intensity and the presence of emotions when the undefined solar plexus is in that kind of jumpy triggered state. The not-self main theme of the undefined solar plexus is to avoid truth and confrontation for fear of having to deal with the amplification of intense emotions in your body from someone else's emotional reaction or experience. The not-self undefined solar plexus takes on other people's emotions, thinks that you have to be sad with someone or you have to take responsibility for someone else's intensity of emotions. and the undefined not self solar plexus can sometimes develop a habit of keeping secrets, having a lot of secrets or making excuses in order to avoid truth and confrontation. And that's its own form of emotional manipulation, telling someone that everything's fine, there's no conflict that needs to be resolved here. And instead of like dealing with it head on with someone in your life. You just sort of lead a secret life where you're just pretending something in the context of this relationship or this work situation or whatever it is, because you don't want to deal with the potential emotional discomfort of it. That's a form of emotional manipulation as well. I want to add here, like something I've sort of observed is that people with defined solar plexus tend to have almost like high tolerance of other people's intense emotions. for two reasons the way I conceptualize of it. One is because we know, defined emotionals know, there's ups and downs and it doesn't really have to mean anything. Sometimes I'm way up here, sometimes I'm way down here. So we can see that in other people and not be very triggered by it because we're like, yeah, yeah, that's how it is, highs and lows. But also the second reason is we're not amplifying other people's emotional energy. Our own emotional wave sort of acts as like a shield when you're defined in the solar plexus. So we don't actually know what it's like as defined emotionals in our bodies to be that emotionally empathic, to amplify the emotional energy of someone else's body. The undefined solar plexus in a healthy state, again, that default emotional state is usually pretty neutral. They're emotionally quiet and cool often. That's the default. A healthy undefined solar plexus will move in and out of others' emotional waves. without identifying with or taking them on. And once there's a comfortability with, I'm in this, I'm experiencing this emotionally right now, but that doesn't mean anything. I don't have to do anything about that. I don't have to take this on or identify with it. Then this tendency to be triggered or reactive to others' emotions starts to soften. And then the healthy undefined solar plexus is able to be comfortable in the presence of others' emotions. and able to use the gift of their empathy to explore and potentially guide the emotional realm. Potentially guide, but definitely be touched by, be enriched by the emotional tapestry that's coming in from the outside for them.

The Undefined Healthy Solar Plexus uses strategy and authority to navigate if, when, and how they engage with others' emotions and is able to deal with confrontation in relationships. The theme, the not self-voiced theme for the undefined or open solar plexus is the avoidance of truth and confrontation. And that might sound like if I prioritize my own needs, they will get upset. And I want to avoid them getting upset because that's uncomfortable for me to have to take in their emotional intensity. Again, remember the solar plexus is the loudest authority center in the body. So when you're undefined and you're amplifying it, it really is. a strong sensation to take in another person's emotional reaction, but the awareness that you don't need to identify with that can make it not only tolerable, but also potentially beautiful. The not-self voice can sound like, don't want to go there because I don't want to deal with the intensity, depth or heaviness of emotions. It can sound like I can't tell the truth or I can't tell the whole truth or I will have to deal with an emotional reaction. And so that's where they twist things and start to keep secrets or lies instead. It can also sound or feel like thinking you should be more passionate or you should feel more strongly or you should have more desire. Remember the emotionally calm and cool and quiet is the default state for the undefined solar plexus. And so there will be times where the undefined solar plexus is really overcome with passion, but that passion's not gonna stay. There's some overlap in frequency with the ego and the solar plexus, right? Because willpower lives in the ego, but the passion kind of lives in the solar plexus. And so undefined solar plexus people understanding that you can still be a creative force in the world. You can still be an artist. You can still make the exact kind of impact and have the exact influence you're meant to have, but it's going to come through this fluctuating orientation towards an experience with passion. that is not a part of your default state in your own form, but rather comes through periodically through interpersonal definition and transits. And all of that is just there to enrich and inform your experience not to be the guiding principle, not to be something that stays with you or is a part of your nature. And then of course, the people pleasing tendencies of the undefined solar plexus, I need to be nice so that they like me. Question to ask yourself to... uh discern whether you might be operating from a place of solar plexus not self is, am I avoiding truth or confrontation? Am I disregarding my sacral response or my lack of sacral response if I'm a generator in order to avoid confrontation or avoid taking in someone else's emotions? Am I accepting invitations that don't actually feel right for me from people who I'm not sure actually recognize me in order to avoid truth and confrontation if I'm a non-emotional projector, for instance? If I'm a manifestor or a reflector, am I trying to keep up and respond even though I don't actually have the energy to, if I'm a manifestor to initiate here, to be involved or available here? Or even though it doesn't feel healthy, it doesn't feel good and aligned for me, this environment or this person or circumstance doesn't feel good or correct for me if I'm a reflector, am I doing these things because I'm trying to avoid confrontation?

About half the population, 50%, have this center defined. The biological correspondence is the kidneys and the pancreas. Zodiacally, this one's quite interesting to me. There are seven gates in the solar plexus and four of those gates are in Pisces. So more than half of the solar plexus gates are in Pisces. And again, this is the center about spirit consciousness. So that holds for people who are astrologically literate. And of the other three, two are in Aquarius and one is in Virgo. Virgo is the opposite of Pisces, so it's like Pisces from the other side. It's like the spiritual oneness conception of Pisces, but through the mundane element of Earth in Virgo. And the two Aquarius gates, just, to me, I see, if you've studied astrology with me at all, you know that I see the end of the zodiac as like the most expanded orientation to consciousness, resumed in and very locally focused. Aries at the start of the zodiac and then as we move through the zodiac, we spiral through it. Every time we come to those last signs, we're in a more expanded perspective. And so having six of the seven solar plexus gates in Aquarius and Pisces, the last two signs, you know, this is experiential depth of awareness. And when we get to those parts of the zodiac, Aquarius and Pisces, we have experienced more. There is a more expanded experiential awareness. The solar plexus has three tribal gates, two individual gates and two collective gates. So there's experiential awareness in regards to all three of those themes, but slightly more heavily weighted on the tribal orientation. I guess we can think about like emotional connection and emotional support is a part of how we find support in our material reality, which is what the tribal circuitry is associated with. And in terms of channel definition, the solar plexus can be defined in connection to the root. through these three gates, one's tribal, one's individual, one's collective, and these are about the pressure for the emotional process. Pressure then fuels and has continued to be fueled through this process of coming to emotional awareness. The sacral can be defined connected to the emotional center through the 59-6. So this is about life force for emoting and the emotional orientation towards. sexual creative life force energy. It's a tribal channel, so it is about bonding sexually and intimately. The ego and the solar plexus can be connected through the 37-40. This is about emotional bonds being infused with our will. And then the throat center can be defined through the solar plexus in connection to the solar plexus as well through the 22-12 and the 36-35. And these are manifested channels. a motor to the throat and this is this would make an emotional manifesto, someone who is able to initiate from their emotional wave and their emotional energy.

Thanks for listening to the Living Your Design podcast. Stay tuned for the rest of the curriculum. New batches of episodes are released every Tuesday for immediate complete access to the full course and to explore other perks like learning and community, extracurricular astrology and human design workshops and meeting with me face to face. go to patreon.com/KelseyRosetort. You can also listen to me on my other podcasts, The Maia Games and Conversations with the Zodiac, and find me on Instagram @KelseyRosetort.