Are you aware of how and why you express your emotions the way that you do? How does one achieve emotional intelligence, or emotional evolution? The Human Design System points the way.

Last time, we explored Hexagram 47, which showed us how to recognize the limits of the mind as we open up the space for true realization. Now, the sun is moving into Gate 6, the last of the 8 hexagrams collectively known as “Uniformity.” In the traditional I-Ching, this gateway is called “Conflict/Friction.” However, I prefer to call it “Conflict Resolution.”

My concept of the 6 includes the possibility for emotional intelligence, and emotional evolution, because we find that this gateway has the potential to control and ameliorate the Emotional environment.

While the Emotional Center relates directly to many of the conflicts we encounter in life—war, fighting, domestic violence, addictions, autism, all kinds of breathing problems, digestive problems etc.—Gate 6 controls the environment in which the whole emotional scene plays out. It tends to control how these conflicting emotions get to be expressed. And this is where it opens up the possibility for emotional evolution and resolution.

The 6th Gateway is essentially the access point for the expansive sacral energy coming into the emotional realm, the realm of pleasure. It’s constantly monitoring the emotions. “Where are the feelings? Are they going up? Are they going down?” Emotions are always in some kind of flux. And our emotional responses can open us up to all sorts of pleasurable experiences, but they can also lead to pain, and destructive pathways and patterns. So, the 6th Gateway’s job is to evaluate, reevaluate, and determine whether to go with the emotions, or to take a step back. It’s all about finding that emotional balance.

Let’s see how this works as we go through Gate 6 in the Human Design System line by line:

First Line: Negotiating

The first line always lays down the foundation for the hexagram. And here, the first line is called, “Negotiating: The easiest time to resolve a disagreement is before it starts.” When there’s a bit of friction in the air, and you can tell that a bigger quarrel might be on the horizon, the easiest way to avoid it is to stop and say, “Do we really have to fight about this? Can this be worked out without a big to-do?” But, as we all know, emotions can be a bit tricky.

People who have a defined Emotional Center are always riding an emotional wave. And those who have undefined Emotional Centers are subject to those people that have it defined, which means they are bombarded and overwhelmed by everybody else’s emotional stuff. So even if yours is undefined, you may be the one person who is extraordinarily emotional all the time, just because you’re picking up everybody else’s emotional waves. It has nothing to do with you, but the emotions are still running through you.

You have the emotional power and growing maturity to be intimate in all phases of life. And this means that you have within you the ability to recognize a conflict before it begins and not get swept up in the emotions of it all. You can recognize that the energy is coming your way. And if there’s too much energy in the room, if a situation seems impossible to work out in the moment, it could be wise to wait. Biding your time is often the most intelligent way to negotiate a solution.

Second Line: Being Fortunate

The second line always has a natural, innocent approach to life. You can feel a bit out of your depth in emotionally charged situations. Here, the line is called, “Sensibility: Conflicts easily erupt from a personal imbalance.”

In your innocent way, you might not really know what’s going on, but you get all these feelings running through you, all this emotional energy. However, by trusting your natural sensitivity, you can achieve an inner harmony that facilitates resolutions. That’s really the bottom line here: inner harmony. The moment we put our energy on the outside and try to relate to what it is that the world is apparently doing to us, we lose our balance. So, the key is in trusting your natural sensitivity to see you through.

Your touchy nature often attempts to resolve conflict through emotional outbursts. There can be a tendency to just let it fly sometimes. It arises from an urge to intellectualize things, to ascribe a logical foundation to what is really an emotional, and thus illogical, situation. When you do this, rather than trusting your own sensitivity, it almost always leads to complications and progressively heated arguments.

Third Line: Having Reservations

The third line is called, “Having Reservations: Growth comes by sometimes playing a passive role.” The third is always a bit touch and go. Not sure if you can really trust your feelings, if you really want to get involved or not, you have reservations about how and when to engage.

With the third line, growth comes by sometimes playing a passive role in finding resolutions. Instead of jumping headfirst into the emotional mixer, let the answer come. Let the situation become relevant and clear before looking for a resolution.

Achieving emotional clarity comes by making and breaking commitments with alertness. Emotions can be like a whirlpool. You can get drawn in and caught up in highly emotional situations. So, when we’re talking about the emotional realm, it’s important to be very clear about which circumstances are the ones that really need your involvement. As always with the Human Design System, the third line is telling you to be aware of your Type and Authority. Just check in and ask yourself, “Do I need to be here for this? Do I really need to get drawn into this?”

Fourth Line: Promoting Peace

The fourth line is called “Promoting Peace: A naturally strong emotional presence promotes enduring resolutions.” Fourth lines are all about bringing people together. They want everybody to be on the same page. So, in the context of conflict resolution, the fourth line promotes peace. It says, “we can all be brothers and sisters here.”

In all emotional interactions, you can easily promote outcomes on your terms, wisely or not. If you have Gate 6 with the fourth line, it’s very easy for you to ride through emotional outbursts and upsets. There may be emotional upsets at the time, but sooner or later you’ll see your way toward finding a resolution. However, even though you find it, that resolution does not always work for everybody involved. You either try again or move on.

The fourth line brings peace. But peace for whom? That’s a potential hang-up for the fourth line. You have a tendency to throw a spanner in the works when it comes to emotional relationships and conflicts. You can bring peace, but sometimes that peace is just for you, rather than peace for all parties involved. And in these cases, the only recourse is personal reform; looking within and figuring out why it is that you are uncomfortable with certain feelings and emotions.

Fifth Line: Being Diplomatic

The fifth line is the leadership line, the teacher line. They have a broader view of things and can help guide the way for other people. And here, the fifth line is called, “Being Diplomatic: Combining emotional clarity with objectivity.”

Your sensitivity to all facets of emotional upset leads you to promote harmony around you. It’s easy for you to resolve everybody’s emotional upset. Of course, you do this on your terms. You trust your Type and check in with your Authority before you get in the middle of a conflict. But, after doing so, you are able to combine emotional clarity with objectivity, and clearly see the benefit for everybody in finding peace, tranquility and concrete resolution.

The issue that fifth lines run into with this is that you’re brilliant at sorting out everybody else’s issues, but it might not always be right for you. People may project this role onto you, expecting you to always be there to clean up everybody’s emotional mess. But if you’re not getting the call to get involved from your Type and Authority, then it’s best to leave it alone.

Unless you are seen as being ‘right,’ you can be insensitive to the emotional needs of others. This is another potential hang-up for the fifth line here. Somehow or other, there’s this expectation that you need to be right all the time, and you can lose that sense of what people actually need emotionally. You need to be right, and you cling to that rightness. It’s a need to be the diplomat that’s head and shoulders of everybody else. But is this actually serving people? Is this helping you to transmit the emotional clarity that you can bring into people’s lives?

Sixth Line: Being Contentious

The sixth line is called, “Being Contentious: A capacity to win disputes and attract fresh ones.” There’s an aspect of “It’s my way or the highway” to this sixth line.  You can win in any argument in any situation. And in certain circumstances that works very well. But in other situations, not so much.

You have a knack for resolving emotional upsets, whether that directly serves others or not. You have a way of shutting down the dispute. You’re just going to fix the situation one way or the other, whether it works for other people or not. Either way, the argument is over.

You terminate emotional strife, but often considering only your own needs for harmony. You can see everyone’s side in any dispute. You can reason out a solution. However, even if you’ve technically “solved” the issue on both sides, you have a tendency to do so with an eye to your own harmony, rather than that of all parties involved.

So, we see that the 6th gateway is really about controlling the emotional environment around us. But as the sun goes through this gateway, let’s be watchful of how we play with this energy that comes into our life. Can we actually start seeing our emotional intelligence rising? Do we have to be in conflict? Can we find resolution that works for everyone in some way? Let’s see what happens.

That’s Gate 6. We’ll check in again soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to learn more about how the Human Design System informs and shapes your life, get your Free Human Design Report today.