The three centres: gut, heart and head

Gut types tend to meet life through instinct. They often have a strong sense of where they end and others begin, and a quick, physical sense of whether something feels right. Many teachers link this centre to anger. That isn't because gut types are angrier than anyone else, but because their energy goes into how much they push, resist or hold back.

• Eights tend to push outward. They take charge and say what they think.
• Nines tend to resist quietly. They keep the peace and can lose touch with their own drive.
• Ones tend to hold it in. Their energy turns into high standards and a strict inner critic.

Heart types tend to meet life through feeling, especially feelings about themselves in relation to other people. Questions of image and worth run through this centre: am I valued, and am I seen for who I am? Many teachers link it to shame, or a worry about not being enough, which each heart type handles in its own way.

• Twos tend to look outward, finding worth in being close to people and needed by them.
• Threes tend to look to results, finding worth in what they achieve and how it comes across.
• Fours tend to look inward, finding worth in being true to themselves and understood.

Head types tend to meet life through thinking, and especially through thinking ahead. Their question is how to feel secure when the future is uncertain. Many teachers link this centre to fear, though it often looks more like curiosity, caution or a busy mind than anything you'd call fear.

• Fives tend to step back and understand, gathering knowledge before they act.
• Sixes tend to prepare and question, looking for people and plans they can count on.
• Sevens tend to keep their options open, moving on to the next good thing.

Your centre can explain something your type description doesn't quite capture. A Two and a Four look very different, yet both care a great deal about how they're seen. An Eight and a Nine can seem like opposites, yet both dig in when someone tries to control them. The centre shows the question the three types share; each type is a different answer to it.

It can also help when you're torn between two types. If both sit in the same centre, you share their core concern, and the question is how you tend to handle it. If they sit in different centres, ask yourself what comes first for you: a gut reaction, a feeling about how you're seen, or a thought about what might happen next.

On Find My Nine, your centre is your main type's centre. The results page also uses all three centres to work out your tritype: your strongest type in each centre, highest first. So although you have one main centre, your result shows how you lean in the other two as well.

You'll see the centres named in different ways. Some teachers call them the body, feeling and thinking centres, or the instinctive, emotional and mental triads, and some add other groupings on top. The idea underneath is much the same: three ways of taking in the world, and three places where habits tend to form.