The seven centred life versus the nine centred life at its simplest means that the decision-making is moved from the mind to the body. Instead, of trying mentally to aim to be or do something the body has been given inner authority to deal with decision-making. The body knows best!

As an example, if you are feeling really shitty by for instance what your mind perceives to be your limitations, e.g. that you cannot initiate, the seven centred strategic approach to dealing with this is either that you wallow in self-pity or you mentally decide to accept feeling shitty because of your helplessness. The accepting that you feel shitty is nothing but a short-term solution fooling yourself even more. In fact, it is clearly counterproductive to awareness by that it lets you think that you are in control of how you deal with stuff that comes up in your life. What it does is that it falsely covers up the fact that you are helpless, and by that keeps you in a place where you still think that you are in some control of your life.

We live in a world where we have this idea that we somehow can decide what we feel. That we can decide to be happy, full of joy, etc. I have a defined ego and I know this so well. I have for most of my life willed myself into feeling joy, will, love, openness, or being centred. It never lasted for more than a couple of days to a week and then I would do it all over again the next time I felt that I had the energy and needed a boost of any of those, for me, key aspects of life.

The nine centred life is not about mentally aiming to be/do anything. It is just there, so there is no need for mind to get involved in what you are/do. But to get there as a conditioned adult you have to start off with experimenting with living a life in which the strategy of your type is respected.

Honestly, I would say that I was “happy” more often before I met Human Design than I am now. As to the quality of the happiness that is a whole other story. The difference in the quality of the feeling between willing something and it just being there authentically is mind-blowing. Every time it feels like being a child again and experiencing Christmas for the first time.