Ep. 22. Feng Shui

Feng Shui is a general idea that where your house locates and where you position your furniture and decoration could benefit your luck and energy flows. Though in Western country, Feng Shui is a newer concept for people, it has been a common knowledge for people in Asia. We learned it from our parents since we were kids, and our society has TV program after program discuss it in daily basis. There are Feng Shui experts who would come to your house with special measurements and teach you how to position your furniture in order to maximize your luck in every possible way. As an Asian, I too were liked everyone in the society. I tried out most of common Feng Shui rules just to see how it works. It was not until I was introduced the elements of Earth and how energy flows that I realized Feng Shui is not just how you position your furniture, but a lots are influenced by your power of thought.

Though your power of thought is the key, how energy flows in your house will definitely set a good foundation for you. I am no Feng Shui expert to teach you how to position your furniture in order to maximized your luck, but I do know how you can manage to have a smoother flow of your energy without knowing where to put what. (Seriously, in Taiwan, Feng Shui expert would tell you where to put what, even it sometimes looks so out of the place. :p)

Have you ever wondered why Feng Shui is called Feng Shui? Well, I do. In Chinese, Feng is ‘wind’ and Shui is ‘water’. I never really understood why ‘Feng Shui’ represent how we position our furniture would influence our flow of energy. Well, not until I actually see how energy flows in general.  Wind and Water both has its special way of flowing. Water flows down and through cracks while Winds constantly looking for outlet. Both of those energies require circulation or it would eventually become dead energy. To learn the basic Feng Shui, you simply imagine yourself as water or wind that flow through your house.  You’d like things to flow nicely around your house.  If you have a shelf or a couch that is always in your way, or something that you’d always bunk your head with, you’d probably liked to remove it out of your way.  You’d like energy to flow nicely around your house, and not create a dead corner that would stall the energy.  Since we talked about elements of Earth, you would probably like to corporate those elements into your house in order to create a balance. So if your room is too dark, you can use some light to stimulate the element of light. If it’s too plain, you may want to place some plants to stimulate the energy of wood and earth. You don’t need much of those. In most cases, you just need some to reach its balance. (Well, it kinds of depends on every individual’s needs as well. Some will prefer one elements than the others) But do remember, balance is the key. The purpose is to make sure that you position your furniture in a way that every area is clearly identified and it flows from room to room nicely as well. If you have a lot of clutter, you’d probably want to clean it up a little. I am not here to suggest that you make your house sparkly clean, but it should be comfortable and homey. After all, house is a place that you rejuvenate yourself, not a place to create more stress on top of your already busy life.

If your house is too big or messy, and you don’t know where to start. Here are three major rooms that you may take into consideration. In Asia, we believe certain room control certain area of your energy. I did not know why it tied in with those energy, but through years of observation and experiments, I could positively tell you that it does matter how you take care of those room. (My suspicion is that how energy flows around your house somehow synchronizes with how energy flows through body and those who lives in it. That is, while our consciousness host our body as its parameter, our soul tends to expand to our living space as its parameter.)

Living room manage your luck and how things works for you in general.  Nowaday, it’s common that a house has two living rooms, one proper living room and the other family room.  Your energy of luck is depending on which room your family spend the most time in.  So if your family spend most of time in the family room, that room will be the room that stimulate your flow of energy in general and luck.  You want this room to have good light, nice air flow and the feeling of aliveness.  Not too many clutters, but not too empty either. Just imagine how you would like your life to work out for you?  You want it functional and organized, yet comfortable and flow nicely.

Bedroom manage the energy of your health.  I guess it’s because that we spend around 8 hours in this room to recharge ourself.  You do want this room to be peaceful and comfortable.  I’d always told my kids that their room represents their internal status.  If it’s messy, that means that you have some built-up problems that you’d been negalecting to deal with.  We all know how hard it is to confront our own issue, right?  So intead of dealing with it, I usually suggest my clients to start picking up the room.  Because our internal and external self usually will find a way to balance one another.  By slowly picking up the room, one will usually find courage and clear mind to deal with his/her issue as well.  You want this room to be serene and warm, just how you would like your body and mind to feel.

Kitchen manages your energy of wealth.  You don’t want this room empty and ‘too clean’.  Instead, you want this room to have a feeling of fullness (but not cluttered).  That fullness you sense in the air when fall comes.  That harvest feeling that you feel on Thanksgiving dinner.  This is the room that actually tied very closely with your stomach.  You want to have a feeling of full, but not stuffed, nor empty.  You want it to have everything you need, but not so overwhelming that you cannot find anything.

So if you are interested in Feng Shui, imagine yourself as water and wind and flow through your house quickly and move those furnitures that were always in your way.  You want it flows nicely, not to get tripped all the time.  Second, consider add on light or plants accordingly to create a sence of balance and prevent stalling energy in any possible dead corner.  Decoration is nice, but avoid cluttery.  If the whole house is too much a project to take on, then consider any of the rooms that I mention above.  Choose one that matters to you at this moment, and start from there.  As soon as you start with something, you will soon see the impact it makes.  Just note that it may not change overnight.  Since our soul take time to replace its energy, my best bet is that you will be able to see the difference in a month if you are consistent.