Thursday, May 20, 2021

Applying Feng Shui One Step at a Time


People often ask, “What is Feng Shui really?” and “How can I do it?” Being pragmatic and linear, my response is to offer recommendations in sequential steps to the students and clients I work with.  Following these simple steps, you too can begin your journey toward peace, harmony, and the achievement of your goals. 

Feng Shui is NOT a mystery. Feng Shui practitioner, James Jay, put it very concisely: “Feng Shui is a support system for our lives. It’s an ancient Chinese art and science that allows us to create harmony and balance within any environment. When we create that harmony and balance it lends support to our lives. When our lives have support through our environment it’s much easier to achieve the things we want in life such as wellbeing, abundance, love and happiness.”


Whether you realize it or not, your home environment is constantly either supporting or draining your life energy. Making a few simple changes within your home can have an immediate and powerful effect on your personal energy levels, as well as the physical and material aspects of your life. I call it empowerment through environment! Harmony is created through balancing, enhancing, and decluttering one’s space, so you can surround yourself with what you love. 

To correctly tap into this support system, you need one of Feng Shui’s most powerful tools – the Bagua, the treasure map helping you locate the nine important areas of your home related to your life. 

                                     

Over the years I have found that some of my clients are overwhelmed, and don’t know where to begin, therefore being a believer of doing a little at a time, I have developed an easy system for embracing the Feng Shui enhancements in manageable portions. Take it step by step and begin enjoying the benefits of Feng Shui and lead you to achieving your life goals.


I recommend the following steps to my clients:

1) Map out your home using the Bagua. 

2) Do a self-evaluation of your greatest needs (more love, health, prosperity, career etc.).

3) Locate that area of the Bagua in your home.

4) Clean and declutter that area.

5) Enhance the Bagua area using the recommendations in this chapter.

6) Anchor if the area is missing.

7) State or write your affirmations and begin reaping the rewards.

8) Balance the Feng Shui elements.


Take it one step, one area at a time and begin reaping the life changing benefits of Feng Shui!

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

New Beginnings with Feng Shui – Finding the Perfect Home

New beginnings can start with the joy of finding a new home.    

                                                             

Are you looking to buy or rent a new place?  After moving in, would you rather hear this, “This house has been so lucky for us! Since we moved in all good things have been happening,” or, “Since we moved here it’s been just one bad thing after another”? Obviously, you want to feel that moving into a new place has enhanced your life. Feng Shui can help!

Buying a house can be an exciting experience, even if at times filled with fear and doubts. Applying Feng Shui to the process of buying a house is a wise investment on many levels; it will give you peace of mind, as well as assure that your house is a good financial investment.  Good Feng Shui means good energy, and people are always attracted to it! This will sure help with the house sale in the future. 


Use the following recommendations when looking for homes or apartments, whether buying or renting:                   

What to Look for Outside of the House:

1. Location, and Lot Placement

Be sure your house receives good energy from its surroundings; a clean street, neighbors with well-kept up homes, and nice front and back yard.  You also want to try to have a pleasant view from the front of the house.  Even if the house does not have an actual view, are the others homes well-kept and are there trees or flowers to enhance the view?

What to  Avoid 

Preferably no downward sloping land behind the house. You want the house to have a good backing. In Feng Shui this classical armchair design with trees or a slope/hill to your back, and trees/shrubs on either side, keeping you grounded and protected. 

Houses close to a power generator, utility pole transformer, or high-tension wires:  An electro-magnetic field within twenty-five to fifty yards of your home can be highly detrimental to the health and nervous system.

Houses close to excessive noise: The presence of loud noises will disturb rest, distract from work, and effect intimacy. 

2. Doors

The front door is especially important in Feng Shui, as this is the entrance of Ch’i or positive energy. Good colors for front doors are any shade or red, which signifies protection and prosperity (and is easy to see), or black which signifies water and the flowing in of Ch’i, the life force energy. Other color choices will also work as long as the door is clean and beautiful.  Doors should be sized proportionally to the house. Ideally there would be a curved path leading to the front door. Even if the path is not curved, be sure that it can be lined with healthy flowers or plants, lights, or additional elements to create positive energy as you walk to your front door.



 What to Avoid 

Front doors that are blocked by trees, shrubs, walls, etc.:  The energy needs to enter freely. If the entry does have blockages, consider how much work it would take to these have removed. 

A front door that is directly aligned with a back door or large picture window: When you open the front door, can you see straight out the back of the house through a large window or sliding glass door? This may sound like a good thing, but in Feng Shui it is considered negative as it allows the energy to rush straight though the house resulting in a loss of “good energy.” There are corrections for this, ways to slow down the energy, but the ideal house would have some walls in-between.  

 What to Look for Inside of the House:

1. Main Entrance and Foyer

The entrance foyer is one of the most important areas of your home. How well the house can maintain and nourish good energy is much determined by what is happening in the main entryway. What do you see as soon as you come into the house? Ideally you would want to see a pleasantly designed living room or hallway. If the first thing you see is a wall place a beautiful piece of art (waterscape or natures cape) and an arrangement that would lead the eye in the direction of the energy flow into the home. Avoid placing a mirror facing the entrance, as that would send the energy back out. 

What to Avoid

Stairs directly pointing to your entrance:   Stairs leading immediately up or down directly from your front door create a “river of Ch’i,” flowing the energy away too fast. This is a particularly negative design in Feng Shui, and although there are corrections. It is best to avoid it all together. 

                                                

A bathroom or a closet door as the first thing you see: Bathrooms are known to be drains on your Chi.  They are not conducive to good energy if they are the first thing you see as you enter. Closet doors indicate blockages. Remember that you want the Ch’i to enter slowly and meander through every aspect of your home, thereby nourishing you. 

2. Room Positioning and Shape of the House

 The floor plan is especially important when buying a new home.  In Feng  Shui the ideal shape for a home is rectangular with no missing areas.  This way the energy remains in the house and each area of your life is nurtured. These areas, when missing from your home create an impact on your life and therefore it is important to use the Feng Shui Bagua map to analyze the shape or location of rooms of the home you are considering. 

Using the Feng Shui Bagua

In the Feng Shui  Bagua (Ba-gua) Map, represented  as a grid of nine sectors. The Bagua comes from the Chinese philosophy, “The I Ching,” and literally means “eight trigrams,” with the center area being for grounding.  Missing any of these areas in the layout of the floor plan will create a void of energy in that area. 

                                      

Room positioning is also especially important to consider when relocating. For instance, the ideal location for a master bedroom is in the back right corner (the Love and Marriage area), kitchens work well in the center (the Grounding area of the home), children’s rooms or craft rooms are auspiciously placed in the middle right area (Children and Creativity), home offices activate the Ch’i in the Fame (Back middle) or Career areas (Front middle). These are not hard and fast, because in Feng Shui all areas can be enhanced, but if you can begin with a house that already has a good structure you are that far ahead of the game.

What to Avoid

Extremely odd-shaped homes:  The overall problem with odd-shaped houses is that they have no easily defined center and are therefore fragmented. They will also tend to have many missing areas. 

A garage under the bedroom, or in the Love and Marriage Area:  Garages are very active spaces therefore a bedroom situated over a garage also experiences the same level of activity and tends to disturb to one's sleep. Garages tend to also be harder to keep clean, uncluttered and organized. If you are single, looking for love, or are struggling with a current relationship, the garage’s chaotic energy will add to the problem.     

A bathroom in the Wealth, or Relationship Area of the home:  Bathroom in your Wealth or Partnership corners tend to act as drains, and you may see both prosperity and relationships "go down" the toilet or down the drain. As with any Feng Shui corrections, the appropriate use of colors, shapes and symbols can be used to strengthen these corners to overcome the bathroom's draining influence; but given the importance of prosperity and the fragility of relationships, why not avoid these if you have a choice.                                                                                                                                                    

Your new beginnings are right around the corner! Choose the perfect house with good Feng Shui.         If you have the choice, why not begin with the best?