Tend your roots
This summer has taught me a lot about the importance of tending our roots. I would love to share some of my learnings with you today.
Expansion
First of all, my overall word for 2025 is “Expansion”. When the word came into my mind, I did not quite understand what, when, and how I was going to expand, but I kept an open mind to it. Throughout the year, I have been given several expansion opportunities, and even though I have wanted to say “no, thank you” to a lot of the invitations, I have said “yes, please”, even though I have said the words in fear of what to expect.
Anyway, summer arrived, and I was proud to admit that I had indeed expanded significantly so far this year. How great, since that was my goal for the year!
But here is a little something to know about expansion that I had not thought of: If you are a tree, and your branches expand and you continue to grow high and tall, you will fall over if your roots haven’t been expanding too!
Let me share how I came into this knowledge.
The Apple Tree
When I returned from Australia, I was a mess. I was sick with the Australian flu, and I was also overwhelmed, not just from the trip, but from all that had happened so far this year. My nervous system was all over the place.
I turned to my village for support.
I am part of a Mastermind group this year, and during one of our weekly calls, a fellow Mastermind member, Susanne Taylor from Intuitive Core, shared a metaphor about the importance of tending to yourself. The metaphor was about an apple tree, and I immediately thought of my maternal grandmother, who grew up on an apple tree farm in a Norwegian fjord. And while I was thinking of both her and the metaphor, I looked out my window and saw my neighbour’s apple tree swaying away in the wind, with heavy branches filled with apples.
A week later, I had a session with another fellow Mastermind member, Julia Kyambi from Body & Soul Wisdom, where I continued to explore the word “expansion” and why the apple tree metaphor struck a chord in me. What became clear in the session was that I had indeed expanded a lot so far in 2025, but I had not tended my roots at all in the process. No wonder I felt I had fallen over, like a tree in a storm that simply caves in to the outer forces and all of a sudden lies on the ground, with roots up in the air.
How you can tend to your roots and still expand from a Human Design perspective
As we grow and change, it is crucial to stay connected to our roots.
In Human Design, this expansion is guided by our charts. Our roots can be tended to by honoring the wisdom of our centers, particularly the Root, G, and Sacral centers.
These three centers are undefined in my chart, which makes a lot of sense to me in how I have dealt with expansion so far this year.
Read on to learn more about how they can show up for you.
The Root Center: Honoring Our Pace
The Root Center is one of the pressure centers in Human Design, governing adrenaline, stress, and the pressure to move forward and evolve.
When you expand, it is easy to get caught up in external pressures and the feeling that you need to rush. Honoring your Root Center means recognizing your natural pace.
If you have a defined Root Center, you have a consistent source of pressure and drive. You are built to handle stress and can be a powerful force for momentum. Your root is tended to by using this energy wisely, knowing when to take a break, and not pushing others (especially those with an undefined Root) to match your pace. Your expansion comes from starting things that are aligned with your strategy and authority, not just because you feel a constant pressure to be busy.
If your Root Center is undefined, you're a sponge for external pressure. (Yes, totally relatable!) You will feel the need to rush and get things done quickly to find relief. Your expansion requires you to tend to your roots by letting go of this external pressure. Take time to decompress, move your body to release the amplified energy, and remind yourself that you don't need to do things at the same speed as everyone else. Your wisdom is in discerning which pressures are worth responding to and which are not.
I have an undefined root, and as my husband says: When I have made up my mind on something, I need to take care of it right away. If I put it on a to-do list, it will mentally bother me until I can say “check”! Do you relate to this as well?
What works best for me is to remind myself of why I always tend to let myself be stressed by my to-do list. When I am aware that the stress and pressure I am feeling is related to whatever is on my agenda, I can take a few breaths and mentally give myself a break.
The list of things to do, a.k.a external pressure, will never be empty, so embodying that I can still have a list that things keep on adding on to, without losing my sanity, is a constant work-in-progress.
You can also read more about the root centre in a previous blog post I wrote here.
The G Center: Trusting Our Direction
The G Center, located in the middle of the chart, is the center of identity, love, and direction. It is your internal compass, often called “the magnetic monopole”, that pulls you toward your correct path and the right people and places for you.
As you expand, your life's direction and identity may seem to shift. The key is to trust your inner guidance and know that your G Center is constantly working to keep you on your authentic path.
Oh, the trusting part can be a bit difficult, but check in with your inner authority to stay on track.
If your G Center is defined, you have a fixed sense of identity and direction. Your root is tended to by trusting your own stable compass. Even when expanding into new territories or relationships, you will have a consistent core to return to. The challenge is not to be too rigid or to try and force others to follow your direction. Your expansion is rooted in the unshakable truth of who you are, which allows you to be a steady guide for others.
With an undefined G Center, your sense of identity and direction is fluid and adaptable. You are a chameleon, taking on the identity of the people and places you are with. Tending to your roots means recognizing that your identity isn't meant to be fixed. Your expansion comes from moving to new environments and with different people, and understanding that each experience reveals a different facet of who you can be. Your superpower is adaptability, not consistency, and you find your true self by allowing it to shift and change with the experiences that come to you.
The Sacral Center: Listening to Our Response
The Sacral Center is a powerful motor center and the source of life-force energy, productivity, and vitality for Generators and Manifesting Generators. This center communicates through a "sacral response" – a guttural sound or feeling of "yes" or "no" to things in your environment.
True expansion for a Sacral being isn't about working harder, but about working on the right things. Your root is tended to by consistently listening to your Sacral response.
The Generator types are the only energy types that can have a defined Sacral center. As you expand and take on new projects, the energy of your defined Sacral is what propels you. But this energy is only sustainable if you are responding to life with a "yes." Burnout happens when you initiate or say "yes" to things you feel you "should" do, rather than things that give you a true sacral "uh-huh." Tending to your roots means waiting to respond and only committing to projects that feel generative and energizing to you. This keeps your well of life-force energy full. In other words: Slide all the “shoulds” into the bin, sooner rather than later.
If your Sacral Center is undefined, you do not have a consistent source of this life-force energy. You take in and amplify the energy of those with a defined Sacral, which can lead to burnout if you don't know how to release it. Yep, I am guilty of this. Your expansion is rooted in knowing when to stop and rest. You tend to your roots by disengaging from the "hustle" mentality, taking frequent breaks, and surrounding yourself with people and environments that do not drain your amplified energy. Your wisdom is in knowing when enough is enough and walking away before you are completely exhausted.
If you, like me, have one or more of these centers undefined, it is of great importance to connect to your inner authority to recognize how you can navigate in tending your roots.
We cannot continue to expand unless we tend to our roots. Nature knows this, and we must remind ourselves that we are nature, too.
