For years, I quietly wondered why Persian people call someone they deeply love jigaram—“my liver.”
In English, we have so many beautiful terms of endearment. We say “my love,” “my heart” and “my soul.”
Persian poetry is also filled with beautiful verses involving the soul, the stars, the moon and the sky—images that seem to circle and circumambulate around the mystery of love without ever fully reaching its centre. At least, that has always been my impression.
So why the liver?
Why would you look at your lover, your child or another deeply beloved person and say:
Jigaram. My liver.
Jigare mani. You are my liver.
Jigareto bokhoram. Let me eat your liver.
That last expression may sound slightly alarming in English, but it is a term of overwhelming affection—the Persian equivalent of saying:
“I love you so much that I could eat you up.”
For the longest time, I thought the liver expression might simply be a Persian joke. Perhaps we need our livers to process all the kebab we eat, so calling someone “my liver” was somehow another expression of our devotion to kebab.
But no.
The Midnight Discovery
Late one night, I was preparing material for a course I teach on the Seven Valleys and the yogic chakra system. I was comparing the seven traditional chakras with the nine centres in Human Design and looking specifically at the Ego Center, the G Center and the organs associated with each.
The heart chakra speaks to universal love, universal compassion and divine consciousness. Within the spiritual framework I teach, it can also be understood as the seat—or throne—of God, Divine Source or Supreme Consciousness within the human being. Its correlated organ is, naturally, the heart.
Positionally, the G Center in Human Design occupies a similar central place in the bodygraph. Yet its themes are somewhat different:
Purpose
Direction
Identity
Love
Then I discovered something remarkable.
The biological organ associated with the G Center in Human Design is not the heart.
It is the liver.
Everything suddenly clicked.
Oh my God. Is this why Persians call someone they love “my liver”?
The G Center is located at the centre of the Human Design bodygraph. It represents our sense of identity, the direction of our lives, our purpose and the particular way love moves through us.
Could calling someone “my liver” symbolically mean:
You are at the centre of my being.
You are my purpose.
You are my direction.
You are part of my identity.
You are where my love lives.
It felt as though a question I had quietly carried for years had suddenly found a possible answer.
I immediately made a reel sharing the discovery.
I had no idea what was about to happen.
The First Three Comments
An Arabic speaker commented that they also call someone they love “my liver.”
Then someone who spoke Punjabi said they do the same thing.
And then came the comment that completely blew my mind.
I grew up speaking Mandarin in China, yet I had somehow never stopped to examine one of the most familiar Chinese terms of endearment:
心肝宝贝 — xīngān bǎobèi
心 means heart.
肝 means liver.
宝贝 means treasure or precious one.
My heart-and-liver treasure.
Something I had heard throughout my life suddenly carried an entirely different meaning.
I made another reel sharing what these three people had taught me—and the video went viral.
It became my first reel to surpass 70,000 views, receiving approximately 5,000 likes and 200 comments. A follow-up reel received another 24,000 views, and the conversation continued growing.
Before posting the original reel, I had approximately 1,034 followers. I now have more than 2,472 (as of 2026.07.22)—and counting. This one discovery has brought more than 1,400 new people into my community. WELCOME!
Of all the subjects I could have gone viral for, I could not believe this was the one.
But the most meaningful part was not the views or the followers.
It was what happened in the comments.
People began arriving from around the world and spontaneously saying:
“We call someone we love ‘my liver,’ too.”
I had not asked people to list their languages. I had not set out to conduct a cultural investigation. I simply shared something that had astonished me—and people began recognizing pieces of their own cultures within it.
So far, commenters representing at least 22 languages and linguistic traditions have shared liver-based expressions for someone deeply loved.
In Part Two of this blog, I go deeper into those 22 languages and share the exact terms of endearment people contributed for “my liver.”
[TBD Read Part Two: The 22 Languages of the Liver]
Continue Exploring with Nahal
If you would like to learn more about the chakras, their associated organs and their spiritual symbolism, join the Alignment membership. In this community, Nahal connects the seven spiritual stages described in the Bahá’í writings with the yogic chakra system, organ symbolism and embodied contemplative practices.
The first live Alignment gathering will take place on:
Saturday, August 1, 2026
12:00 p.m. Pacific Time
For ongoing teachings and conversations specifically about Human Design, join Nahal’s separate Human Design Patreon community.
Nahal also offers private and group work, including:
Integrative Yoga Therapy
Human Design readings
Sessions integrating Human Design with embodied yoga-therapy practices
Breathwork classes
Human Design group classes
Educational courses and group programs
Sessions are available online and in person from her offices on Commercial Drive and in Coquitlam. Nahal works in English, Farsi and Mandarin Chinese.
To learn more about Nahal’s private sessions, group offerings and upcoming programs, visit:
About Nahal Haghbin
Nahal Haghbin is an international teacher, Certified Integrative Yoga Therapist, Human Design reader and breathwork facilitator based in Vancouver, Canada.
She created a 12-week therapeutic breathwork program and was accepted into a PhD program to research the work. Although funding was not available to conduct the doctoral research, she now offers the program commercially through her teaching and therapeutic practice.