S2E45 - The Abstract Circuit – Emotions, Memory, & Meaning

In this episode, I cover the Human Design Abstract/Experiential Circuit which is the energy of experiencing life as it happens, learning from those experiences and then sharing what you’ve learned to help others and the collective I talk about what it means to have this energy and how it influences careers, relationships, and your impact on the world. Whether you have this circuitry defined in your chart or not, this episode is for you. I’ll explore how the environment and others in your life with activations in this circuit influence you, and share insights on how to relate to those with a lot of this circuitry while honoring your own design.

Transcript

The human design abstract or experiential circuit is a sub-circuit of the collective circuit,

And it is responsible for experiencing life as it happens,

Learning from those experiences,

And then sharing what we've learned to help others and the collective as a whole.

In this episode,

I'm going over what the circuit is,

How people with strong activations in the circuit impact others,

The emotional themes tied to this energy,

And how it applies in business and relationships.

Whether or not you have significant abstract circuitry defined in your chart,

You're gonna be impacted by this energy,

Either through your own design or through your relationships with other people or the planetary transits.

So this episode is for everyone,

Regardless of how your design is configured.

Welcome to Heart-Centered Human Design,

Emotional Intelligence and Conscious Business.

The show that empowers heart-centered entrepreneurs to use human design and emotional intelligence to create meaningful success,

Work-life balance,

And transform their passion and purpose into impact and prosperity.

I'm your host,

Vanessa Narja,

Human design mentor and business coach,

And I love sharing this incredible system with you so that you can use it as a tool to help you be on purpose and fulfill your potential.

We have reached the last episode about circuitry,

The abstract or experiential circuit in human design.

This finishes up this series on circuitry,

And this is also going to be the last episode in this season of the podcast.

Stay tuned in bonus episodes about what you can expect coming in the future.

Now,

Just a quick reminder of what circuitry actually is in human design.

Circuitry is how your energy flows through your human design chart.

We all have different kinds of circuitry.

We've gone over all the different thematics in human design now.

So thematics,

Circuitry shows specific themes that are something that's very consistent for you in your human design,

Depending on how you're defined.

And if you have a lot of energy in a certain circuit,

Meaning you have a lot of defined energy,

It is colored in in your chart,

This is something that you have consistent access to that you express out into the world.

Others pick up from you.

Circuitry shows you where your unique and consistent strengths lie.

And the areas that are undefined in your chart or not colored in are themes or circuitry that you are taking in from other people,

Amplifying,

And you have potential to become incredibly wise about.

So we all have a combination of defined and undefined,

And it's completely unique to us.

Some of us may have more defined circuitry in one of the specific circuits,

Or if you're like me,

It's pretty evenly spread out.

And it shows us a lot about who we are,

What our strengths are,

And how we can use those to really be on purpose and fulfill our potential.

Now,

The abstract or experiential circuit is how you make sense of life through your lived experiences.

It is an emotional circuit.

The emotional solar plexus is involved.

It is very retrospective.

Unlike the logic circuit,

Which is more future-focused and using patterns that we've observed to predict future outcomes,

The abstract circuit reflects more on our past experiences to find meaning in what has already happened.

This is also known as the experiential circuit.

It is about going through our experiences,

Processing those experiences to discover what we've learned,

And then sharing those lessons with the collective.

So it is part of the collective circuit,

And the keynote for collective circuitry is about sharing.

In the high expression of this energy,

This is about being really present in the experiences that we're having for the sake of the experience itself,

Not for the outcome of the experience.

As we go through these experiences,

And over time,

Once we've completed the experience and we reflect back,

We mind the lessons that we've learned,

And we then share them with others.

When it comes to the circuitry,

It's really important to manage expectations because having expectations really limits us and is more the low expression of the circuitry.

So it's about being present in the experience for the sake of the experience,

Not the expectations of the outcome of what may or may not happen.

In the high expression,

We're able to see the bigger picture through our life experiences,

And we don't get so focused on the nitty gritty little details on the disappointments in life,

But we really allow ourselves to open up to the larger lessons that our experiences,

All experiences,

Whether we judge them as good or bad,

Have to offer us.

This energy is creative,

It is artistic,

It is deeply in touch with emotions and human nature in general,

And this is where we share our stories to really help move humanity and the collective into the future based on what we've learned from our experiences.

Now,

In the low expression of this energy,

This can really get stuck in nostalgia,

Regret,

Or allowing our past to define us because while we can really learn from our past,

It never defines us because there's always the possibility for change.

So it's about looking back on the past and learning from it and not getting stuck in regret and allowing ourselves to be limited by our past.

This is an emotional circuit,

It goes through the solar plexus,

So there are emotional waves,

And I'll go into those a little bit later in the episode,

But in the low expression,

This is becoming really overwhelmed by the emotional waves,

Difficulty processing them,

Trying to avoid emotional experiences,

Becoming too attached to any kind of emotional outcomes.

Like I said before,

Expectations and really getting attached to expectations can be a problem here,

And there can also be an issue of struggling with repeating the same mistakes over and over again because we haven't actually learned our lessons from those mistakes and entering into the wrong cycles,

Not following our strategy and our authority and entering into cycles that we then have to repeat again and again because we did not enter into the correct cycles.

There can also be an element here of chasing novelty,

Chasing emotional experiences that may not be correct for us,

Leaping into chaos because we wanna have emotional experiences,

And not following our strategy and authority because of this desire,

This hope for these experiences that may not be correct for us if we don't enter into them according to our unique strategy and authority.

One of the elements of the circuit is really about learning through experience,

Learning through doing,

Not just through planning,

Predicting,

Or studying.

So in that sense,

There are some similarities with the third line in human design.

It is really about learning through trial and error,

Reflecting on what we learned and then sharing with others what we have found works for us.

The abstract circuit flows through seven centers,

And whether we have these centers defined or not,

They are going to influence how we engage with the experiences in our life,

With the emotional depth,

The creativity,

And learning from the past.

Remember,

If you have a center defined,

You may experience it in a very consistent way,

And if it's undefined,

It's just gonna be more inconsistent for you,

And you'll have the potential to really create wisdom there through what you've learned through your past experiences.

So starting with the head center,

This is the center for mental pressure and inspiration.

This is a source of imaginative ideas.

This is where memories can come up in creative visions,

And there is a pressure in the center to make sense of our past experiences and of our personal and collective history.

Then it moves into the ajna center,

The center for conceptualization in making meaning.

This is where we organize and process the experiences we've had into wisdom that is then shared through the throat center.

We create stories here and personal philosophies from the emotional lessons that we've learned,

And unlike the logic part of the ajna center,

Which is more about opinions and facts,

This is really about expressing our own subjective truth in the throat center,

The center for communication and action,

And this is where the expression and the storytelling of the abstract circuit lives.

It's where our experiences are shared.

There's a lot of storytelling,

Artistic expression here,

And also emotional communication because of how the center connects into the abstract circuit.

This gives voice to personal experiences that really resonate with the collective.

Then moving on to the G center,

The center for identity and direction.

This is where we are connecting our personal experiences to our identity,

Our self-perception through those lived experiences,

And also the direction that we are moving towards.

There is an element here of really finding direction through the reflection and making sense of the past.

Then we have the sacral center here,

Life force and workforce energy,

And this is the energy to engage in new experiences,

In new cycles of learning,

And the commitment and the devotion to our own lived experiences.

We have the root center,

Adrenalized pressure for exploration and having new experiences and adventures,

And this is what fuels the need for excitement,

Change,

And emotional experiences.

And then lastly,

We have the emotional solar plexus,

Which is all about emotional and spiritual awareness.

This is where we fully feel and process the meaning of our past experiences.

This brings emotional highs and lows and it fuels deep wisdom through life cycles.

This is what fuels the emotional sharing of the experiences of our past that help others move into the future.

And again,

This is very different from logical sharing.

In the logic side of the collective circuit,

We are sharing facts and details and things we have really experimented with and concretized into theories,

But in the abstract side of the circuit,

We are sharing our emotional experiences,

What we've learned with meaning and depth.

Now,

The channels or the strengths in the abstract circuit.

It starts with the channel of maturation,

The 4253,

That runs from the root center to the sacral center,

And it's all about learning through beginnings,

Middles,

And endings.

It is about the cycles that we experience through life,

And it's really about growing through the experiences and the cycles that we've lived through.

This then moves into the channel of discovery,

The 2946,

Which moves from the sacral center to the G center,

And it's very much about saying yes to the correct experiences with commitment and devotion,

And where we discover what needs to be discovered.

Then we move from the G center to the throat center through channel 1333,

Which is all about witnessing.

This is the leadership channel of the abstract circuit where we get to be a witness and listen to these experiences,

Not only our own experiences,

But also those experiences that others share with us.

And then we take a moment to retreat and reflect to really mine the gold and the lessons of that experience.

Then moving back down to the root center,

We have the channel 3041,

The channel of recognition.

This moves to the solar plexus,

And this is the fuel for emotional passion,

Desires,

And the drive to have significant emotional experiences,

Like experiencing new dreams and really allowing ourselves to surrender to the fate of what may or may not happen.

Moving from the solar plexus back to the throat through channel 3536,

And this is the manifested channel of the abstract circuit.

This is a channel of transitoriness.

This is the energy for adventure,

Crisis,

And transformation where we're seeking new experiences to understand life in emotional ways,

And at times,

Knowing that the fate or our destiny might bring a crisis,

And the crisis is important.

We have to learn through the experience of the crisis,

Which moves us into progress,

Learning,

And discovery.

And then we share what we've learned through that connection to the throat center.

And then moving from the top down,

The channel is 6447,

The channel of abstraction,

Which moves from the head center to the asana center.

This is where we're processing past experiences and turning them into meaning.

And this may connect unrelated events into the bigger picture that then is going to be conceptualized in the asana center and moves down to the throat center through the channel of curiosity where our ideas and philosophies and stories are shared with the world,

With the collective,

Through communication in the throat in a very stimulating and engaging way.

This is really about storytelling and sharing history in an emotional way,

Because again,

This is in the abstract circuit.

So any channel in the abstract circuit,

Even if it's not one of the two emotional channels,

Is going to have emotion within it because this whole circuit runs through the emotional solar plexus.

The circuit is emotionally driven and emotions are really at the heart of how this energy flows.

Now,

The abstract experiential emotional wave,

So the two channels that run through the solar plexus here,

The 4130 and the 3536,

They operate on hope and desire to have a new experience.

And this energy kind of slowly moves up in the hope to meet a certain expectation.

And when the experience is over,

This energy tends to crash.

And that crash can be pretty significant.

And the crash will happen either because the expectations weren't met or even if the expectation was met,

Now the experience is over and there's this moment of recalibration.

And I always like to use the metaphor of the Olympic athlete.

The athlete has been training for this event.

They are hoping to go for the gold.

There is all of this buildup of pressure and energy of winning the gold.

And if they don't win,

There is this crash because they did not meet that expectation.

And if they do win,

There may still be that crash because even though they met the expectation,

Now this huge goal has been achieved and now they are starting over from scratch.

It's this like,

Now what energy?

So anybody that has this energy in their chart,

And we've actually all been collectively experiencing it for a while now,

The 3536 channel at the time of this recording in April of 2025 has been in transit for a very long time and it is actually just going to shift sometime in the next week.

So we've all gotten to learn from this energy because when transits happen like this,

We all get to experience what this is like.

So even if you don't have a channel defined and even if you don't have a defined solar plexus,

This is one of those opportunities to become really wise about this energy in parts of your chart that you do not have defined.

These crashes will happen.

It is really helpful to manage your expectations,

To be in the experience for the experience itself,

To know you're gonna learn something,

To allow yourself to feel all of your feelings,

Even the ones that you might judge as negative that might not feel good,

Allowing yourself to feel and process those feelings is such an important part of working with this energy and really mining the goal that this energy has to offer you.

Now,

Some things that we need to be careful for when it comes to the emotional aspects of this energy is revisiting the past and getting stuck in nostalgia and just really getting stuck in the past.

This can be very destructive.

It can be healing to revisit the past,

To make sense of the past,

To heal the stories that you've made up about your past so that you can move forward.

But if you get really stuck there,

This can be destructive.

And this is something that people with a lot of abstract energy actually can be prone to.

Now,

My conscious son is gate 56,

The gate of the storyteller.

This is abstract energy.

And I do also have channel 4253 and a few other gates in the circuit.

And I very much relate to this potential to really focus on the past and trying to make sense of it.

Now,

I do also have a lot of logic and I have pretty even balance circuitly through all the thematics.

So I don't necessarily get stuck there as much as somebody that may have very heavy weight in the abstract circuit versus other circuits.

It's something that everybody wants to be aware of.

It's important to reflect with wisdom and allowing that wisdom to move into evolution and always coming back into the present moment because ideally we are processing in the present and having our experiences for the sake of the experience,

Allowing ourselves to feel our feelings and not get stuck in making up stories about what happened in the past and allowing those stories to define us or other people in our lives.

The abstract circuit does run through two awareness centers.

The Ajna center and the solar plexus.

And anytime you have an awareness center,

You also have fears associated with the gates on that center.

Now in the abstract circuit,

We have gate 47 in the Ajna center.

And this is the fear of not being able to make sense of things that happened in the past and the pressure to make sense out of the confusion all of the time.

Now with this particular energy in any Ajna energy,

It is something that really we process over time.

And when we get so stuck in trying to make sense of things or trying to find the answers,

This creates more anxiety.

So in this energy,

This is one of those things where you actually wanna just let go,

Do the things that you love.

When you are present in the moment and experiencing joy and doing the things that you love,

The answers will actually come naturally to you.

When you're trying to figure it out,

That creates anxiety.

And when you let go,

The answers flow through.

Now,

This also happens with gate 11,

Which is where ideas live.

This is another Ajna gate.

So this is anxiety.

And there can be that anxiety about not having any ideas come through or not having any more creativity comes through.

It's the fear of having gone dark.

And there's also the potential to be afraid that when the ideas do come through that they won't be able to be explained in a way that makes sense to others.

Again,

This does operate over time.

So if you do have this gate defined,

You might be a fire hose of ideas.

So many ideas might be coming through for you all the time.

And there might be a feeling of pressure to turn ideas into reality.

And not all ideas are for you.

Not all ideas need to be acted upon.

The ones that are for you will show up for you in a way that is actionable.

And again,

It does take time to really develop these ideas.

So being mindful of the pressure to jump on ideas right away as they come through,

And also knowing that some of the ideas that come through you if you have this gate are actually for other people.

And you'll know who those people are because those people will come to you asking you for those ideas.

Moving on to the fears of the solar plexus,

We have the fear of inadequacy in gate 36.

Now with that solar plexus,

This can often show up as emotional nervousness.

And if you remember from the logic circuit,

We also have the fear of inadequacy there.

But in the logic circuit,

This is different.

The inadequacy here is more about emotional inadequacy and can also show up as a fear of sexual inadequacy because that is this side of the circuit.

And that you don't have the necessary emotional or sexual skills.

And then we also have gate 30,

Which is the fear of destiny.

This is emotional nervousness of what might or might not happen in the future.

And it's a fear of the things that you cannot control.

There's also anxiety here potentially over unfulfilled desires and the fear that you won't experience everything that you're meant to experience.

Now,

Again,

This is about fate and this is about surrender and really allowing yourself to process your emotions over time.

Remember,

Both of these gates are on the solar plexus.

The solar plexus operates in waves over time and allowing ourselves to move through those waves,

Not attaching any stories or any meaning to them,

But really just allowing ourselves to feel our emotions,

Our emotional highs,

Our emotional lows,

And flow through them is what will actually help resolve those fears.

And of course,

We always want to go back to following our strategy and our own unique inner authority in the experiences that we enter into.

So this is very much about embracing the process,

Trusting your emotional journey,

And knowing that clarity will come over time in this particular circuit.

Now,

When it comes to business,

The abstract circuit is really the foundation of creativity,

Emotional intelligence,

And storytelling.

This is very powerful in creative and expressive careers.

So this is really great for roles where we are telling stories.

This can be in film,

Writing,

Music,

Public speaking,

Personal development,

Myth-making,

All of these types of things.

This drives innovation through emotional experience.

Unlike logic,

Which is really based on facts and details and about refining systems,

The abstract circuit is more about creating through feeling and expression.

And remember,

The abstract circuit looks back.

So history lives here too.

A lot of historians tend to have a lot of abstract circuitry.

This is excellent energy in industries that value personal transformation,

Think coaching,

Therapy,

Spirituality,

And anything creative and forward-thinking that is based on what we've learned from the past,

From our own experiences,

And the experiences of the collective.

There can be an element of struggling with structure a little bit in this circuitry.

People that have a lot of this in their chart,

Like really rigid schedules are not necessarily gonna work very well,

And creative freedom is absolutely essential for people with a lot of abstract circuitry to thrive in their careers.

Now,

When it comes to relationships,

Looking at the circuitry of the different people in the relationship can be really beneficial because there can be a lot of misunderstanding.

So somebody that has a lot of abstract circuitry in their chart really appreciates partners with depth,

Emotional intelligence,

People that they can really share their experiences with.

And to say,

If you have one partner with a lot of abstract circuitry and another partner with a lot of logic circuitry,

They're going to be operating in very different ways.

They will be impacting each other,

And they actually can learn from each other's circuitry.

So having the awareness of how you operate differently and allowing yourself to open up to those differences can be really beneficial for personal development and deeper emotional depth for both partners.

Emotional processing is key for people with a lot of abstract circuitry.

Having that time to reflect,

Taking regular retreats,

And allowing yourself to really understand what you've learned from experiences,

Which takes time before you share those experiences is essential.

Remembering that any relationship is an adventure,

Whether that is a love relationship,

Whether that is a relationship with your siblings,

Your close friends,

Your colleagues.

In the abstract circuitry,

We are looking for the adventures that create evolution and growth.

This is so much about that evolution.

And learning from those difficult experiences and the difficult interactions that we may have with our loved ones is a huge part of really stepping into the high expression in relationships in this circuit.

Remembering that trust is built through our shared experiences and sharing the experiences that we've had on our own with our loved ones.

Now that concludes the abstract circuit.

And this is the last episode of this podcast season.

Keep an eye out for some upcoming bonus episodes where I'm gonna share with you what is coming up next in this podcast,

In life in general,

And also on how I'm focusing on creating content going forward.

And I'm also gonna share some of the things that I've learned from two seasons of podcasting.

Now,

Before we wrap it up,

I would love to hear what you have learned from this episode.

I'd love to hear about your own experience with abstract circuitry,

As well as abstract circuitry in your loved ones.

Please comment and let me know what comes up for you.

Thank you so much for listening.