Understanding the Emotional Wave in Human Design: Why Your Emotions Aren't the Problem
If you have Emotional Authority in Human Design, you've probably wondered why your emotions seem to move in waves while other people appear able to make decisions much more quickly.
You may have heard phrases like "there is no truth in the now" or "wait for emotional clarity," but what do they actually mean in everyday life?
Understanding your emotional wave is about far more than learning how to make decisions. Your emotional wave influences your creativity, your relationships, your business, and the way you process life itself.
In this guide, you'll learn what the Emotional Wave is, why Emotional Authorities experience emotional highs and lows, and how understanding your unique emotional rhythm can help you make more aligned decisions with greater confidence.
Emotional Authority is one of the 7 Human Design Inner Authorities.
Inner Authority is your body wisdom. It's the place in your design you can lean into to make decisions that are aligned for you so that you don't experience decision regret.
53% of the population has Emotional Authority in their Human Design which means that they need to take time with their decisions, riding out the waves of their emotions.
Chances are, if you're not an Emotional Authority, someone else in your life is!
How to know if you're an Emotional Authority in Human Design
If your Emotional Solar Plexus is coloured in on your chart - like the one that’s circled here, you’re an Emotional Authority in Human Design.
If you are an Emotional Authority in Human Design, your chart will look like the chart above. Not the entire chart, just the part that I've circled.
This is your Emotional Solar Plexus. If this centre is coloured in, this automatically makes you an Emotional Authority.
What does it mean to be an Emotional Authority in Human Design?
Being an Emotional Authority means that you are here to feel your emotions and that they will come in waves. Depending on what gates you have defined that join this energy to another of your centres, through a channel, you'll have 1 of 4 types of waves.
The 4 types of Emotional Waves in Human Design
Source Emotional Wave - Channel 59-6
Individual Emotional Waves - Channels 12-22 and 39-55
Tribal Emotional Waves - Channels 19-49 and 40-37
Collective Emotional Waves - Channels 35-36 and 41-30
Source Emotional Wave in Human Design
Source wave 59/6 is just what you think it would be. This is the energy that gets the emotional waves started. It's the source of all waves. This is all about bonding and intimacy and it's a pretty even keeled emotional wave, as far as waves go. This wave is triggered by someone else. You may be living your life for years, decades even, without an ‘episode’ and then suddenly it hits fiercely. Once it’s over, you may not have another like that for several years. Your daily emotions just kind of hop and bop along. They’re there, but they’re not like the intensity of the other emotional channels.
Human Design Individual Waves
Individual Waves include channels 12/22 and 39/55.
People with these channels defined often experience deep melancholy as part of their design.
They'll regularly experience highs and lows in their moods as a natural part of life.
Music is often important to people with one of these channels defined and their creativity will very closely relate to their emotional wave. They’ll be at their most creative when coming out of a deep wave.
Human Design Tribal Wave
Tribal Waves include channels 19/49, and 40/37.
This wave responds to physical touch and is based on having your needs met - or not. These waves ratchet up over time and then explode. There's a slow climb where something that's annoying you, or a need that's unmet continues to bother you with tension building until you explode - and then it's over. These waves feel like RAGE.
Human Design Collective Wave
Collective Waves include channels 41/30 and 35/36.
These waves will feel more like a restlessness or pressure for something to happen. Something needs to change, they scream! They feature a sudden drop, based on a failure to meet an (often unrealistic) expectation. This wave has high highs and low lows. Key here is entering into things just for the experience, without expectation. This is my wave and all I can say is; Good luck with that! 😝
There are 4 different kinds of waves in Human Design. Your wave will depend on the type of channel you have. You may have a Tribal, Individual or Collective Channel defining your Emotional Solar Plexus or you may have the Source Wave Channel.
You may also have more than one Emotional Channel in your Human Design which is super fun! NOT.
How to make decisions using your Inner Emotional Authority
VERY SLOWLY….
In this episode of Unjaded, I bust a myth about how to use your Emotional Authority to make aligned decisions in your life. Some people in the Human Design space will tell you that if you're an Emotional Authority and at any point you feel like it should be a 'no' then you must not commit to it.
This has not been my lived experience.
In fact, if I were to never commit to anything that I sometimes felt like I shouldn't do, I'd never do anything!
In my body (with my collective 41-30 Emotional Wave) I tend to feel my way through bigger decisions over a few weeks. I'll naturally feel very excited and drawn to the thing and then the excitement will wane and back and forth we go over and over and over again.
What I'm waiting for, in order to make the decision that's right for me, is the neutral point in all of this. It always comes. There's always a moment, or moments, where I feel completely unattached from the outcome and can zoom out and decide rationally, based on this neutral feeling.
To be clear, with this wave in my design, I don't have a lot of neutral moments in my life. I'm highly excitable, especially when working on things in my business, so I have to check in with myself to see what's driving me.
Your mission, should you accept, is to lean fully into your emotions. Allow them to be FELT in your body. Over time, you'll begin to notice that you do actually have these neutral spells. This is where you'll find clarity. Ra Uru Hu, the founder of Human Design, always said that 'for Emotional Authorities, there's no truth in the now.' Embracing this lack of clarity for what it is is key to your contentment in life.
Your Decision Making Process as an Emotional Authority
Quick decision making is highly valued in our culture. It can feel unsafe to ask for more time to process decisions to be sure that they are right for you, yet this is what's correct if you are an Emotional Authority. Simply (although believe me, I know it's not simple) letting someone know that you appreciate an opportunity and you'd like to roll it around for a few days will allow you to tap into your innate body wisdom to know what's truly aligned for you and what is not.
Listen to the full episode of the Unjaded Podcast here if you’d love to understand Emotional Authority better.
Learning to Work With Your Emotional Wave
Your emotional wave isn't something to control or eliminate.
It's part of how you're designed to experience life.
The more you understand your own emotional rhythm, the easier it becomes to stop judging your emotions and start using them as valuable information.
Like every part of Human Design, Emotional Authority isn't about becoming perfect.
It's about experimenting.
The next time you're faced with an important decision, notice where you are in your emotional wave instead of rushing toward certainty.
Over time, you'll begin to recognize your own patterns and develop trust in the clarity that naturally arrives when you stop forcing decisions from your mind.
If you'd like to hear real-life examples of Emotional Authority in action, continue with these episodes:
Related episodes and resources
Emotional Authority and Business Decisions
Trusting your Sacral as a Manifesting Generator with Emotional Authority
Does having Emotional Authority Make You More Creative?
How Does Emotional Authority Work in Human Design?
7 Decision Making Authorities in Human Design Explained
FAQ
Why do Emotional Authorities experience emotional highs and lows?
People with Emotional Authority naturally experience emotional waves as part of their decision-making process.
These emotional shifts are not problems to fix but part of how clarity develops over time.
Does everyone have an emotional wave in Human Design?
No. Emotional waves are associated with people who have a defined Solar Plexus and Emotional Authority.
About 50% of the population is emotionally defined.
Other Authorities make decisions differently.
Can I make decisions while I'm emotional?
Human Design teaches that Emotional Authorities benefit from allowing emotional intensity to settle before making significant decisions.
The goal isn't to avoid emotions but to wait for greater clarity. Your only job (our only job) is to feel our way through life!