← Encyclopedia of Embodied Energy · lesson 32/164
The Self centre
The Self centre is the diamond at the heart of the Embodied Energy Chart, below the Throat. The tradition calls it the "G centre". It is the centre of identity and direction: the felt sense of who a person is, which way their life is heading, and the kind of love — for themselves, for others, for life — that moves them along it.
As with every centre name here, "Self" is a symbol for a kind of experience, not a claim about the body.
What it is for
The Self is the chart's one identity centre. It is neither a motor nor an awareness centre. The tradition pictures it as a kind of inner steering: it does not generate energy and does not judge, but it orients — towards places, people and paths. Its gates divide, loosely, into those about direction (where one is going) and those about love (what one is going for).
Its gates
Eight gates sit on the Self:
- Gate 1 — creative self-expression
- Gate 2 — receptive direction
- Gate 7 — guiding from within the group
- Gate 10 — how you carry yourself
- Gate 13 — the listener who keeps stories
- Gate 15 — love of extremes, pull to balance
- Gate 25 — innocence of spirit
- Gate 46 — the body's good fortune
Its channels
Ten channels leave the Self:
- to the Throat: 7-31 ("the influential guide"), 1-8 ("creative contribution"), 13-33 ("the keeper of stories"), 10-20 ("awake in one's own way")
- to the Will: 25-51 ("the initiated spirit")
- to the Vitality centre: 2-14 ("direction with resources"), 5-15 ("rhythm within the flow of life"), 29-46 ("saying yes to discovery"), 10-34 ("conviction lived out")
- to the Instinct: 10-57 ("the survivor's finesse")
Gate 10 alone belongs to three channels.
Defined and open
A defined Self is read as a fixed sense of direction and of who one is, largely independent of company. The person tends to stay recognisably themselves in any room, and their path has a through-line even when its details change.
An open Self is just as valid and often much more fluid. Its sense of direction shifts with the people and places around it, which can feel like having no fixed identity — and is also what lets it feel out, quite precisely, whether a place or a group is right. The tradition puts unusual weight on surroundings for an open Self: the right place tends to bring the right people. Its conditioning is borrowing someone else's direction and calling it one's own. The chart sets one question beside an open Self: whose life am I currently heading toward?
What it does to type and inner compass
The Self is not a motor, so on its own it cannot make anyone a Manifestor or a Generator. But it carries motor energy onward: a Self joined to the Will or the Vitality centre and also to the Throat makes a route from a motor to the Throat, and that changes the type.
It also gives an inner compass of its own, the Self compass — hearing one's direction while saying it out loud. In this chart the rule is strict: the Self must be defined and connected through to the Throat, and no centre higher on the ladder may be defined (the Feeling centre, the Vitality centre, the Instinct, or a Will that reaches the Throat). A Self defined in isolation gives no voice-led compass. Charts with the Self compass are always Projectors.
In your chart
A filled diamond is a defined Self; an unfilled one is open. The eight numbers around it are its gates, each lit gate in the colour of the moment that lit it — the aware side, the built-in side, or both. A * beside a number marks a hanging gate, a direction or a kind of love that is live in the person while its partner gate is missing.