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Is It Perimenopause or Your Emotional Wave?

Updated: 4 days ago

It's been a rough week.

I snapped at my boys more than once.

It felt like there wasn't much joy to this life.

I heard words coming out of my mouth in a tone that didn't match the way I thought I was feeling.

And my partner asked me more than once, "Are you okay?"


Welcome to midlife, where hormones are shifting, priorities are colliding, and emotions feel… extra.

If you're a woman navigating perimenopause and also interested in Human Design, there’s good news: you’re not crazy.

You’re just energetically and biologically in transition.

And your emotional solar plexus may have a lot to do with what you're feeling.


I talked in my last blog post about the Emotional Solar Plexus (ESP) as an awareness and motor center. Check that out for an overview of the themes of the ESP center as a whole.


If your Emotional Solar Plexus is defined, that means you have at least one emotional wave, and we're going to talk about what that means for you in midlife. (Not sure if your ESP is defined? Run your chart here.


The emotional waves are energy in motion, and in midlife, when the estrogen rug is getting pulled out from under you, these waves can feel like tsunamis.


This blog is your go-to guide for understanding how these waves work, what they feel like in real life, and how to support yourself—especially if you’re wondering what the hell is going on with your emotions right now.


Emotional Waves: Your Midlife Emotional Landscape


Think of emotional waves like energetic tides. They ebb and flow through your body, impacting how you feel, what you need, and when you can make decisions with clarity.


When you don’t understand your wave, you might:

  • Make rash decisions in emotional highs

  • Dismiss your needs until you explode

  • Think you’re “too much” or “not enough”

  • Assume you’re depressed when you’re just low on your wave


But when you do understand your wave? You gain a powerful compass to navigate midlife without burning out or checking out.


Emotional Wave Types


Pull up your Human Design chart. Look at the inward-facing triangle on the lower right (that’s your emotional solar plexus). Any colored-in channels connecting it to the ego/heart, sacral, root, or the throat will show which emotional wave(s) you carry.


Any of the channels coming off of the Emotional Solar Plexus center have an emotional wave.
Any of the channels coming off of the Emotional Solar Plexus center have an emotional wave.

The Tribal Waves: When Needs Go Unmet and Then You Explode


Channels: 59-6, 37-40, 19-49

Themes: Intimacy, belonging, family dynamics, physical touch

Pattern: Slow build → simmer → BAM


This wave climbs slowly as your needs go unmet—again and again—until something small tips the scale and you lose it. If this sounds familiar, you might be operating with tribal circuitry.


How to know it’s active:

  • You feel under appreciated or invisible in your relationships

  • Resentment is building over repeated “small” things

  • You have the urge to yell over a dirty dish but really, it’s about years of unmet emotional needs


Emotional support tips:

  • Practice body scans to locate emotional tension before it explodes

  • Communicate your needs all the time to help avoid build-up before the wave peaks

  • Build in nourishing, physical connection (touch is medicine for this wave)

  • Know that advocating for your needs is not selfish. It’s essential


The Individual Waves: The Melancholy That Makes Magic


Channels: 39-55, 12-22

Themes: Mood, melancholy, creative depth, emotional intensity

Pattern: Flat → blip up → flat → dip down → flat

This wave is deeply personal. You feel things because you’re here to.

Sadness, inspiration, angst, joy—it’s all part of your creative cycle.


How to know it’s active:

  • You suddenly want to cancel everything and be alone

  • You feel inexplicably sad, heavy, or emotionally “off”

  • You’re full of ideas or downloads one moment, and foggy the next


Emotional support tips:

  • Reframe melancholy as creative gestation, not depression

  • Don’t force action when you’re not in the mood. If you're not in the mood, just say no.

  • Try music, movement, or making something for no reason/with no end goal

  • Build solitude into your routine—this wave requires alone time to integrate


The Collective Waves: The Crash After the High


Channels: 41-30, 36-35

Themes: Desire, experience, big dreams, emotional intensity

Pattern: High → crash → high → crash (like mountain peaks)

This wave runs on expectations. When you’re high, you’re unstoppable and everything feels aligned. But when your expectations aren’t met, the crash is real.


How to know it’s active:

  • You feel FOMO, restlessness, or an urge to leap into something now

  • You're chasing a big dream or saying “yes” without clarity

  • Disappointment hits harder than it should


Emotional support tips:

  • Use a wave tracker to understand your peak and valley rhythms (Get yours in the Perimenopause Energy Guide)

  • Delay major decisions until you’ve ridden the wave out

  • Journal through your expectations before acting

  • Let yourself feel the crash—it’s not failure, it’s a reset


The Undefined Solar Plexus: Emotional Sponge Mode Activated


Definition: Your solar plexus is white on your chart. You have no channels activated.

Themes: Empathy, overwhelm, boundary issues

Pattern: You feel others' emotions louder than they do and often think they’re yours.


If this is you, you’re likely the emotional barometer for everyone around you. You're not just “sensitive.” You’re a living amplifier for the emotional environment you’re in.


How to know it’s active:

  • You feel everything, even when there's no clear cause

  • You feel emotionally drained after being around people

  • Mood swings seem random or chaotic


Emotional support tips:

  • Learn and use return-to-sender rituals

  • Take regular time alone to clear emotional residue

  • Ground in nature. Go barefoot outside, take a salt bath, breathe.

  • Remember: your natural state is peaceful and clear—it’s okay to come back to that


Emotional Wave or Hormonal Shift?


This is the million-dollar midlife question.


Perimenopause brings mood changes, irritability, sadness, anxiety—and so can your design.


The magic is learning to notice the patterns. Emotional waves have rhythms. They cycle. They’re part of your energetic operating system.


Hormonal crashes often feel more prolonged, numbing, or relentless.


If your emotional lows don’t lift at all, or they’re accompanied by other symptoms (like sleep disruption, hot flashes, low libido), it’s always worth talking to a trusted medical provider or menopause specialist.


And if you’re in doubt? Both can be true. Use the tools below to help you sort it out.


Emotional Hygiene for Every Wave Type


Here’s your midlife magic emotional hygiene toolkit—great whether you're riding your own wave or just soaking in everyone else’s:


  • Wave Tracking: Chart your emotional highs/lows and energy levels daily. Just keep track without judging and then notice whether you can identify a pattern.

  • Body Scans: Where is emotion living in your body? Tune in and move it through.

  • Movement: Dance, walk, shake, stretch—energy in motion needs motion. Move your body how you like to.

  • EFT Tapping: Great for releasing stuck emotion and calming the nervous system.

  • Grounding Practices: Barefoot on the earth, warm baths, visualization, breathwork


Ready to Ride the Waves With Support?


This midlife phase isn't for the feint of heart, and learning to understand how your energy works is a trial and error kind of process.

Doing it in community helps you realize that you're truly not alone, that your struggles are real, and that there are things you can do to make it easier.

We validate when you're speaking in a tone you didn't realize you were feeling.

We share stories where we snapped at our loved ones, too, and we share strategies for helping process that emotion.

And we slowly return home to ourselves.


🌀 The Midlife Magic Membership is where we do this work together: tracking our waves, learning our design, understanding what’s hormonal and what’s energetic, and supporting each other with grace, grit, and a little woo.


Join us as we navigate this sacred and chaotic midlife portal, one emotional wave at a time.


And listen to Midlife by Design episode 62 for more on each of the emotional waves


If you prefer to watch, catch the pod here on You Tube.
If you prefer to watch, catch the pod here on You Tube.

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©2021 by Lori Lisai

Zen & Grit

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