In the Human Design system a defined Solar Plexus is powered by waves of energy that rise towards joy and happiness and fall towards sadness and despair. There are three types of waves and they each behave a bit differently. The truth is that whether we have an emotional wave or not we are all impacted by emotions as we interact with others. Here is a newer take on an old classic song Emotion.
To understand how emotions flow, here is an overview of the three waves and a chart highlighting the connections called channels that they make to the other centers.
Tribal Wave
The Tribal Wave is the mildest of the three waves. The emotional feeling that is part of this wave flows up and down in a gentle way and most people may not even notice its flow. It can often work like a ratchet within family or community relationships. For example, someone in your group/family may do something that irritates you. The first several times you brush it off and ignore it. However over time it builds up an emotional charge until the wave cannot sustain it any longer and it snaps, coming into expression in the form of an outburst like “Stop doing that!’. It also might take the form of disconnection or distancing from the iritant person like a timeout. In a more severe cases it could result in a complete disassociation from the person or the group. This is a tribal energy and the connection demands that to be part of the tribe we live by tribal rules or we get out of that tribe.
Individual Wave
The Individual wave is the most dramatic wave of the three. This wave travels in big swings up toward joy and euphoria and big swings down to pain, saddness and despair. These swings are rhythmic and vary in length depending on the individual. An up and down cycle can range from daily to yearly with most falling somewhere in between. One of the struggles of this wave is at the bottom it can feel like it is never going to come back up. Too much mental focus on this can actually prolong or create a stuck pattern in the down cycle. It is important for someone with this wave to understand it will go up and down and if you are down the up side is on its way.
Collective Wave
The Collective wave is like an escalator. It rises and rises toward joy and happiness in a slow and steady way. But this energy is not sustainable and like a bubble it pops, falling abruptly down to sadness and sorrow. The bottom of this wave does not last long as the wave begins building again back toward joy. When the wave drops it can lead one to question what happened. In relationship it might be the question of “Did I say something wrong?”. But in the case of this wave it is just energy that has run its course and needs to drop back to rebuild again.
Here is a Chart of the Emotional Wave Channels
(click on chart for larger image)
