Red Doors & Feng Shui

There is a common belief in the Feng Shui world that painting your front door red is always a good thing. I am here today to help clarify that misconception with some solid facts. Once again, placement and understanding the elements is crucial. First, let’s consider the color red. In Feng Shui, red is a very powerful and protective color, so I can see why someone who is dabbling in Feng Shui would be drawn to the conclusion that this makes it a good color candidate for the front door. The truth is red is first and foremost the color of the Fire Element. Certain places in our homes love the fire element, and certain places don’t. 

Whenever we introduce a color in Feng Shui, we first must see the bigger or macrocosm point of view. This begins with knowing the location of your front door. While this seems like a no-brainer, trust me that it can be complicated. In the BTB style of Feng Shui, the mouth of chi is “ever-changing” because the placement of doors changes from the path on the property to the path from the front door and the path into each and every room.

Let’s say that your front door’s location is pretty straightforward and is in the front, middle section of your home. That would make your “mouth of chi” in the Career or Life Journey area. That area is defined by the Water Element. If you were to arbitrarily paint your front door red, you would be inviting the Fire Element into an area that prefers the Water Element. What happens when you put two opposing elements together without a deeper understanding? At the very least, the Water puts out the Fire, but it can also create a bit of drama to this area of your life.

Before you start to justify the fact that it’s okay, because you don’t use your front door, I’m here to tell you that the elements don’t care that you use a different door. The elements are going to interact the way that they do regardless of which door you use, but I will also say that using a different door will also change how the Bagua is laid upon the structure of your home. In other words, everything matters, so be aware and mindful before jumping onto the bus of Feng Shui trends.

If you want to DIY your way through the Feng Shui of your home and life, be prepared to make a lot of mistakes and learn things the hard way. I say this tongue in cheek because that is exactly how I started, and it is also why I made a point of learning from those wiser than myself. I made a lot of mistakes, and I learned it all the hard way. Don’t be like me!

Feng Shui Your Haircut

As strange as it sounds, using Feng Shui to schedule your next haircut is almost as good as finding a fantastic stylist that you love and trust. A few months ago, I got my haircut using the information on Lillian Too’s website for choosing the best day to cut hair and it was truly the best haircut I’ve had in a year. Since I am growing out my hair, I don’t get it cut very often, so after four months, it was that time again. To my surprise, my stylist had an opening the same week that I called, and it fit my schedule perfectly. The thing that I neglected to do was to double-check that date on the Best Days website.

After my hair was cut and styled, something seemed off. Normally, I love the results because I really like my stylist. This time though, I looked at it and said, “I don’t like it”. I was almost as shocked that those words came out of my mouth as my stylists. She did her best to tame the bangs I hadn’t wanted, but they weren’t cooperating. She had cut it totally different than I had told her I wanted it. Basically, she questioned me halfway through, and so I just gave in and let her do what she wanted. It’s been two weeks and it’s finally grown out enough to style the way I like.

This all got me thinking and I realized that I had missed the important step of choosing an auspicious haircut day. Out of curiosity, I pulled up the website and scrolled to the section titled, “Good and Bad Days to Cut Hair.” When I looked at the date of my appointment on the calendar, I was not surprised to see the words BAD in bold type. In order to further test my theory, I messaged a friend who recently got a fresh cut from her longtime stylist and had also been disenchanted with the results. I looked up the date of her appointment and saw that she too had chosen a BAD date for that cut.

I don’t believe in coincidences, so I figured that there had to be some truth to this information; but to be certain, I took my little experiment one step further. I looked back to the last haircut that I loved and guess what? It was a GOOD day according to the Good Days calendar. Maybe she was just having a bad day or I was, but either way, I highly recommend you give it a look the next time you schedule a haircut. In the end, I decided to break up with my stylist and now that I found a new one that I trust, but I still schedule my appointments on “Good Days to Cut Hair.”

I would love to hear from your about your experience using this information. If you know someone who would be interested to know about haircuts and Feng Shui, feel free to share this post!

Litter Box Feng Shui – Updated!

There’s this thing that no one is talking about. I’m not sure if they just don’t obsess about such things as I do or if they just don’t have cats, but either way, I’m about to give up all my Feng Shui litter box, art of placement secrets right here and now. Unless you are lucky enough to have a fenced in backyard with a cat door, and cats that will happily poo in your garden, you have had to deal with the eternal question of where to put your cat’s litter box. Since I have grown up with cats my entire life, and I have been studying and teaching Feng Shui for over 20 years, I feel like a genuine expert on this topic.

When I was in college, I moved into an off-campus apartment with two girls. One of them got a cat and then left it every weekend to go to her boyfriend’s house in another city. This wouldn’t have been a big deal except that she refused to clean out the cat box. Clumping cat litter was just becoming popular back then and she seemed to believe that because it was so expensive, it would last indefinitely. After several weeks, her cat’s box was becoming intolerable and since she was out of town again, I cleaned it. All I remember about this event afterward is that she was pissed when she came home and insisted that I replace the litter. I have no idea if I did, but knowing me, I didn’t!

I was not aware of Feng Shui at the time, but I do remember the layout of the apartment and I have since Feng Schway’ed it from memory. It does not surprise me one bit to discover that her cat’s filthy litter box was in the Relationship or #2 gua of our apartment. Looking back, it makes perfect sense that we completely lost touch. I am not saying that our friendship ended because of the placement of her cat’s litter box. I am saying that the litter box, in this scenario, accurately reflected the status of our friendship.

In a lot of ways, Feng Shui has some psychology to it. In fact, it is this piece to the Feng Shui puzzle that keeps me so intrigued. Everything in our home or workplace is a reflection of something else in our life. Everything is placed either by accident or on purpose to create or reflect something seen or unseen. We can become aware of subconscious and unconscious patterns and habits when we use Feng Shui on purpose. In fact, that is what makes it so fun.

This brings us back to my original query of where to put the cat box. In order to decide this, we need only look at the primary element of a cat box, sans the pee & poo. Litter represents earth so once we determine which part of the room either creates or supports the earth element, we will have our answer. Conversely, we can approach it from the specific life area within the bagua that seems the most logical.

To keep things on the easy side, I am going with the logical explanation. Since the act of cleaning out a cat box on the daily is indeed an “act of service”, it fits nicely with the #6 gua of the bagua which is the Helpful People, Service and Travel section of the nine gua bagua. (See the bagua example below). When standing at the door to any room, aka the mouth of chi, the #6 gua of the bagua is in the far, front right corner.

Now, let’s face it. Even with the cat box in a Feng Shui appropriate place, it is still an unattractive piece of decor. With this in mind, I have a few suggestions for making it less obnoxious. If you are limited to where you can place the cat box, I recommend hiding it inside a piece of furniture and placing small, round beveled mirrors facing out on all sides of the cat box so that it effectively “disappears.” Even if you don’t have it hidden inside a piece of furniture, placing small mirrors on the outside will then reflect all the things that are around it and it will appear to disappear.

1.) You can put something over it to disguise it.

2.) You can place a small mirrors facing out, around the box so that the box itself appears to “disappear”.

3.) You can go to your local thrift store and find an end table that can be transformed into a perfect kitty box hideaway.

4.) You can order fancy cover from Chewy or some other online source.

Meditation & Feng Shui ~ The Ultimate Soulmates

It’s a funny thing that learning to mentally “do nothing” through meditation, can actively improve your home’s energy and thus your life in the process. In order to explain this apparent dichotomy, I need to first explain another life law that may be new to you. It’s one that I’d be willing to bet you’ve heard at some point or time in your life, but didn’t realize its power at the time. It begins with our thoughts and is usually shared, to our disbelief, with the simple phrase that ‘our thoughts create our reality.’ Or more simply as, ‘thoughts are creative.’ Or my personal favorite, ‘what we think about we CREATE.’

Any of this sound familiar? Knowing this changes everything and it is also somewhat unsettling to admit if you’ve been operating on the assumption that you are a victim of your upbringing, surroundings or some other unfortunate injustice. Those things do exist, I’m not discounting them in the least, but our thoughts are the gasoline that propel our physical vehicle so it’s important to use the good stuff.

“You are responsible for your happiness. In fact, you create it. You attract it. You manifest it. You are the architect of your reality. You choose your thoughts, your perceptions and your reaction to external forces. You possess all of the tools needed to expand your awareness to orchestrate the evolution of your consciousness, to choose happiness, to choose love. You are that powerful. Create the life you deserve. Vibrate love.” ~ Creig Crippen

Using the inner stillness of meditation really gets powerful when it is added to the practice of Feng Shui. When you start to understand your life by seeing your home as a reflection of your inner self, or as your shadow self, Feng Shui becomes a whole lot more fun and more interesting. I’ve floated this idea before but it doesn’t often get a lot of traction. We know that people often show up in our lives and reflect back to us the things we like, love and hate about our selves. So doesn’t it stand to reason that the same would be true of our home? The inconvenient truth is that our homes are actually like a wise guide, patiently waiting for us to notice the obvious invisible that is all around us.

Now that we have that out of the way, let me get to the heart of this discussion. One of the key components of Feng Shui is the use of something called the Three Secrets Reinforcements. Essentially, this involves a mind, body and speech secret. Using the word ‘secret’ is not exactly accurate since I’m telling your about it, but here goes. The mind secret is your thought about a desired outcome and being able to visualize it in your mind. The body secret is a mudra called the “ousting mudra”. Mudras are basically yoga poses that you do with your hands. The ousting mudra looks like the hand gesture used by avid Texas Longhorns fans and the speech secret is a mantra called the Six True Words aka Om Ma Ni Pad Me Hum. When they are used all together, we call it the Three Secrets. It is a lot easier to use this tool when you know how to visualize and visualizing desired outcomes is easier when you know how to meditate. See what I did there?

When we learn to quite our mind, and truly this is no small feat because that little bugger is always on, we are able to imprint our thoughts with our desires. It’s like whatever is already playing on the hard drive in our brain has a chance to be wiped and rewritten. Even if you aren’t interested in using meditation as a tool to take control of your thoughts, leaning this skill is will make you more aware of the thoughts that you have and maybe even give you the chance to pause and decide if they are worth thinking.

A few months ago, I decided to reestablish a regular practice of carving out some time in my day to meditate. When I began, I was like, ok, 4 minutes sounds doable. That was literally all I could commit to doing. At this writing, I’ve done this for 112 days in a row. Some days, it’s only 4 minutes of pranayama and some days it turns into 30 minutes of breathing, chanting mantras and clearing the spaces around me with guided meditations. When I think about skipping a day, I know I will regret it, so I don’t.

The point is, now that I have found a way to make this a part of each day, I can’t bear the thought of missing it. Why? It wipes my slate clean. It primes me for a day of God knows what. I’m less reactive and I don’t let my buttons get pushed. The best discovery of all is that I can truly “see” in my mind, the life that I want for myself. I’m the director. I’m the creator, and so are you. It is the hardest easiest thing to learn, and it is the most beneficial tool in my toolkit. Meditation will help you with your Feng Shui cures, and it will help with every single thing in your life. It’s been said that praying is when you talk to God, but meditation is when you listen. Are you ready to listen?

I’m offering a FREE zoom class covering the basics of mediation on Monday night, Jan. 18. If you want to join me, click here to get your free ticket with Eventbrite.

Register on Eventbrite

Traveling with Feng Shui

For Christmas, my son and I took a little trip to visit the sites in Moab, UT at Arches National Park and Dead Horse Point State Park. We had a hotel room for two nights and brought all our gear to campout for a third night which didn’t end up happening thanks to the snow and bad weather that rolled into town. Since I’ve already written about proper camping Feng Shui, I’d like to talk this time about hotel Feng Shui. The layout and design of the spaces we stay while on vacation are just as important as the spaces we inhabit day to day, so I am going to share some of the things that this hotel did right and the things that they did wrong.

As soon as we walked into our hotel room, I started to see the room with my Feng Shui eyes. The first task is always to just do a mental inventory of what is seen. Since most hotel rooms are going to have the basics of a bed, tv and bathroom, this process takes mere seconds. Right away, I noticed that there was a very inviting armchair with its own lamp overhead in the right hand corner of the room. I couldn’t wait to get cozy in the chair and catch up on some reading with one of the books I packed.

Such a nice place to sit and read at the end of the day. Too bad that lamp is just there for looks!

In case you are new to Feng Shui, the right hand corner of any room falls into the Relationship gua of the bagua as it relates to the entry door. This was a fine for a trip with my son, but if I had been with a romantic partner, a small couch or a space for two people to enjoy would have been better. A single chair in this area of a room does not promote togetherness. If there is only one chair, there is only room for one person.

It looks like an ordinary outlet, but it is winking at me!

Once we got unpacked and settled in though, I found an intriguing problem with this area of the hotel room. Upon further inspection, I discovered that the overhead light was unplugged and that the only outlet within reach had the most bizarre outlet plug that I had ever seen. It was literally impossible to plug anything into it! At first I thought it was just that I wasn’t plugging it in correctly, but then I got down on my hands and knees and saw that the outlet could only accept one appliance, and the much-needed heater was already using it.

From a design perspective, this is literally the dumbest thing a hotel could do. Why add anything at all if adding it is just for looks and isn’t functional? Suddenly, the chair lost all its appeal and I ended up using it to pile hiking gear instead. Strike 1.

In the left hand corner of the room was a desk. This area relates to our money, abundance and prosperity. The placement of the desk was not in command position because it was not facing the entry. It invited the user to sit and stare at the wall, it was very cramped and crowded and also not very functional. Strike 2.

The nice thing about this room was that it came with a microwave, a hidden mini-fridge and a very large flat-screen tv with cable. Free wifi was also part of the package here. When you are like me and you don’t have a typical tv setup at home, it can be fun to chill out in bed and watch tv. Once again though, if a couple had been on a romantic getaway to this location, having an exposed television in the “bedroom” is not ideal. This goes for at home as well. I am a firm believer that tv, laptops and computers should all be banned from our bedrooms.

The two queen beds were placed in a command position with a solid wall behind and a view of the front door. This is very good bed placement because it is a perfect example of the command position rule which creates a feeling of safety and security.

“Our living spaces display an external reflection of our internal lives. Using Feng Shui as a tool to discover that which is hidden within us is the great gift that this ancient wisdom provides.”

~ Logynn B. ASCHER

The bathroom was perfectly placed in the front right-hand section of the room which aligns with the travel and helpful people area of the bagua. The element for this area is metal and since bathrooms are known for all the water and draining they produce, having a metal element room is one of the best because it “holds” the water element. When a bathroom is improperly placed, say in the money area, the water can represent a potential for flushing away of income.

As I completed my brief analysis of the space we would inhabit for the next two days, I could see that it was going to provide us with the precise energy that we needed. In other words, it was an energetic match from a conscious and a subconscious perspective. Since our plan was to be out and exploring and hiking, a simple room was all we needed.

One of the more curious aspects of Feng Shui is that we are always attracting the design of any space we inhabit to provide us with the exact experience that we need. If there is deep emotional healing needed, we will fall in love with the house that can provide that healing. However, that same house can be a nightmare if we do not know how use our spaces to create the life that we are seeking. When we know how to work with the ancient concepts of Feng Shui, we can intentionally create better and better experiences for ourselves.

It is fun to practice all that you know and are continuing to learn about Feng Shui when you travel and stay in hotels. If you end up at a hotel that has bad furniture placement, go ahead and move the bed. I won’t tell!

Do you have too much stuff?

“That’s all you need in life, a little place for your stuff. That’s all your house is, a place to keep your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house at all. You would just walk around all day.” ~ Comedian George Carlin

When it comes to our “stuff”, it seems as if there is no end in sight.  As a society, Americans are excellent at the art of accumulation.  There is always a desire for bigger, newer, better things whether it involves our cars, our homes, or our shoe and purse collections (ahem, I of course wouldn’t know anything about that!)  Advertising agencies excel at encouraging us to constantly upgrade and none of us is immune to their efforts.

One of the ways that our stuff begins to morph into a living blob, gobbling up free space faster than your iTunes collection is through clutter.  When we accumulate new stuff faster than we purge it, clutter becomes inevitable.  Ask anyone with a garage or an attic!  This is exactly how storage facilities stay in business!

When our things begin to inhibit our ability to navigate easily within our home, our clutter is probably more than meets the eye.  In fact, there is likely a psychological reason for it.  Let me explain.  One of my former clients invited me to her home for a consultation. Of all the rooms in her home, the bedroom in the relationship area of her home was so crammed and jammed with stuff, that she could no longer use it. The room had become an internal storage area.  After our consultation, she decided that it was time to sort and conquer and within a few weeks, she had managed to clear the room!

However, over the next few months, the room started to fill with stuff, and my client confessed that most of the things in the room had come from other people. A family member moved out of state and gave my client a bunch of old furniture and clothes. A friend had lots of left overs from a garage sale and she gave all her unsold rejects to my client.  Her once cleaned room started to resemble the local Goodwill store.

If you can relate to the above example, you are not alone and it might surprise you to know that clutterers don’t clutter because they are incapable of being organized. They clutter because cluttering is a physical expression of their emotional condition. (source unknown) When you use Feng Shui to understand your own psychology, you begin to set the stage for true transformation. Just remember, it is best to take your time, and don’t try to get rid of all your clutter at once. It is a good idea to let go of clutter slowly and with some introspection. Otherwise, the pattern will just return and the opportunity for deep healing will be lost.

Top Five Ways To Clear Your Clutter

1. Toss the things that are broken. Who are you kidding, you aren’t going to fix it!
2. Give away the things that no longer fit or are out of fashion. The rule of thumb is that if you haven’t worn something in six months, you never will. (I added that last bit because it’s mostly true).
3. Donate your kid’s baby clothes – if you are done having children, just let their vomit stained clothes go!
4. Learn to “just say no” to freebies from relatives and friends unless you really want the items they are giving up.
5. Make a profit!  Learn how to use eBay, Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace and sell the stuff that you are ready to discard. Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure!!

Radio Interview with Business Talk Radio

A few weeks ago, I received a call from a man working at a New York radio station called Business Talk Radio, offering to interview me live on the air about my favorite topic. I was cautiously optimistic and booked my time slot for the morning of Friday, September 18.

As the day approached, I was getting nervous, double checking that my phone ringer was on; making sure it was completely quiet in my apartment so there wouldn’t be any background noise. True to their word, my phone rang at 10am and a few seconds later, I was live on the air with a friendly host named Joey. The next 8 minutes and 49 seconds are a blur. Since I couldn’t listen to the show and be on the show, I didn’t get to hear it until a week later when the station sent me the link below. If you would like to hear it yourself, click the link below!

https://businesstalkradio1.com/logynn-northrhip-09-18-20-feng-shui-joey/

Big thanks to Business Talk Radio and the host with the most, Joey! Sorry Joey, I forgot to get your last name, but thank you so much for being curious about Feng Shui and a friendly voice on the other end of the line. I feel like we barely touched the surface of all that there is to know and share about Feng Shui, so I am about to start offering a variety of classes about using Feng Shui to create more abundance, better relationships and improved health for starters. I’ll be posting the classes, dates and ways to participate via my blog, website and several other social media platforms in the next few weeks.

If you would prefer to learn about Feng Shui with a personalized on-site consultation that offers specific solutions and cures for your home or business, message me at fengshuidesignconcepts@gmail.com or call me at 512-496-9232.

From that time when I got to talk live and in person on a 950 am radio show back in 2008 with two builders interested in Feng Shui. I was wearing my now defunct “I’ve Been Fung Schwayed” t-shirt which of course, no one could see, but I loved nonetheless.

Camping and the Art of Tent Placement

This weekend, I went on my very first solo-camping trip up to Red Feather Lakes, CO.  I found a dispersed camp site in the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forest, parked my car and proceeded to scout out the best location for my tent and hammock.  This site was fairly large, so I had my choice of areas.  One of the many definitions for Feng Shui is the art of placement, so I feel that the art of tent placement fits in here nicely.

As I walked all over the site, I found the area with the best view of the mountains, but it was also very exposed and didn’t have any trees large enough for my hammock.  I walked to the back of the site and found an area that felt magical with baby Aspen trees waving their silver dollar leaves, and curious chipmunks zipping everywhere.  It also had a lot of human trash including used toilet paper, plastic grocery bags and a half full plastic bottle of what I can only hope was apple juice, so I eliminated that spot from my options. The number one rule of camping is to leave no trace, and to leave a place better than you receive it.  If you wouldn’t leave a pile of used toilet paper in the corner of your living room, then don’t do it in Mother Nature’s living room.  (steps off soapbox, and kicks it under the table.)

Once I found two trees for my hammock, I set about the task of tent placement.  Placing a tent using Feng Shui is not any different than placing your bed or desk in the proper place.  In fact, your tent is essentially your bed anyway so it makes perfect sense. Luckily, I had internet access, though I’m still not sure how I managed that one, and I was able to look up my best directions.

When dealing with placement in Feng Shui, it is ideal to know your most favorable directions.  This can easily be determined by using one of my favorite Feng Shui websites: http://www.wofs.com.  Select the option for “Feng Shui Tools” and scroll down to the “Kua Number Calculator”.   Plug in your month, day and year of birth, and you will receive your kua number, your four best and your four worst compass directions, so be sure to avoid those!

Since I am still new to this whole outdoorsy life, I cheat and use the compass option on my iPhone.  Don’t judge.  The area that provided me with some support at my back and a view of the driveway entrance to the site was South/Southeast.  My kua numbers for that area relate to success and health.  Score!  How not to die in your tent? Choose the health and success direction.

As I watched the sun set on one side and the almost full moon rise on the other, I could feel a little fear rising up my spine.   I wasn’t afraid of the potential visits from wild animals as much as I was simply very aware of the fact that I was a single woman, camping alone in the woods.  Also, I had spent the entire day listing to someone playing with their guns by shooting untold amounts of ammunition at nothing in particular, so I was a little on edge.  I could also hear my Mom’s always worried voice in my head, reciting all the worst case scenarios of my situation.

In spite of all this,  I am happy to report that I did more than survive, I had a major breakthrough.  I stood my ground and I did it with a certain amount of defiance.   These are the type of experiences that change us and define us, and when we do them with the intention of creating a safe space, we win.

While I now know that I am totally capable of camping alone, I can say with confidence that it is not something I plan to do regularly.  Being that alone with no distractions, was a type of shadow work that gets to the heart of our deepest fears.  Once we shine the light on these shadows, they lose their power over us.  I use Feng Shui to create safe spaces everywhere I go, and I welcome you to learn how to do the same.

I was inspired to create a little video of my tent placement experiences, so follow me on Instagram @logynnbnorthrhip or @fengshuidesignconcepts to watch them in my stories.  I might even share some of my outtakes!

Feng Shui Design Concepts

Logynn B. Northrhip teaches people how to enhance the energy of their surroundings in a way that makes it fun to embrace and invite change. She uses the BTB style of Feng Shui which was deve…

Source: Feng Shui Design Concepts

Loving your home during & after Covid-19

If you are new to Feng Shui, let me tell you, there has never been a more perfect time to get started than now!  With the majority of cities, states and countries “sheltering in place”, people are working from home, homeschooling their children and basically spending every moment inside their homes.  Therefore, it is vitally important that our spaces nourish us in every way possible.  This is actually a wonderful way to define Feng Shui. When used correctly, it brings balance to disorder and chaos.  It creates stability and wholeness.   It invites and nourishes all aspects of life.  It is our not-so secret weapon to thriving and mentally surviving this pandemic.

By now, the reality that we are not getting out of here any time soon, has set in and like it or not, we are all in this together; making the best of a situation that none of us could have predicted.  Our homes can either feel like paradise or like prison.  We have a choice.  This is the time to take stock, and make the changes that need making to create a space that you love.  Feng Shui is a tool of empowerment.  In a time when so many of us feel powerless and out of control to the things happening in our world, it is one small thing that we can all do.  We start within, and expand out.

Having all this “free time” inside our homes, without the typical distractions of life, is eliminating the excuses we often tell ourselves about being too “busy” to do this or that.  As this word loses its power over us, the opportunity to stop procrastinating and take stock of the things that matter takes precedence.  Turns out that this is a great time to organize that closet, drawer(s), garage, guest bedroom, etc. that you’ve been putting off for ages.  It is also a time to take a mental and physical inventory of the things that you see every day, but stopped noticing or appreciating when life became too full of obligations.

Life can be overwhelming, and there just isn’t enough bandwidth to always give it all the attention that it needs and deserves.  When I feel overwhelmed, I find something small that I can do that will have the biggest impact. Since I don’t have a dishwasher, and I don’t wash things immediately after using them, focusing my attention on my ‘sink full of dirty dishes’ is often my favorite place to begin.  My point is, start small.

To help you get started, I am going to share a few Feng Shui pointers that are universally true, will help you feel better in your space and don’t require any previous knowledge or understanding about Feng Shui.

The first thing that you see when you enter your home, has the biggest impact on how you feel while you are there.  From the front door, the ideal room to see is the living room.  We want to invite the chi, which is just an Eastern word for energy, to chill out and get cozy. . . . to relax.   If the room you see does not make you want to relax and unwind,  it may be creating a form of anxiety and restlessness.

Homework #1 – Walk into your home through your front door.  What do you see?  How does it make you feel? Do you feel overwhelmed?  Do you feel calm and relaxed? What can you change?  Are you willing to make changes to feel more productive and focused?  If yes, keep reading.

Homework #2 – I want you to walk around your house and look for doors that hit each other.  Now, in case you aren’t sure, let me explain.   Are there any doors in your home that either hit or have the potential to bang into each other?  It’s more common than you might think. This happens most frequently between a closet door and a bedroom door.  These are called “fighting doors” and they create an on-going, but low-level type of tension.  There are two ways to combat this, but that is something better addressed in a private consultation.

And speaking of doors, it’s best that they be allowed to open fully.  By this, I mean there should not be any furniture, shoes, or toys preventing them from opening, nor should there be any items permanently stored behind them.  This door problem is similar to doors that bang, but it is easier to fix. Homework #3 – if you have something blocking a door from opening fully, find a new place for it, or get rid of it.

There is a rule in Feng Shui called the “command position”.  This means that when you are working at your desk, lying in bed, cooking or even lounging on the couch, you can see the main door to that room.  This is a huge thing in Feng Shui.  I like to compare this rule to the Vito Corleone character in The Godfather.  He would NEVER be caught sitting with his back to any door.  Being in command position demands respect.  It creates a feeling of safety, security and support.  It is so important on so many levels, that I can’t emphasize it enough.  Homework #4 – are you in command position when you are working, sleeping, cooking and lounging? How does it make you feel? Is it possible to move your furniture or yourself in order to be in command?  Are you willing to try it?  If you absolutely hate the way it feels to be in a commanding position, you can always move your furniture back.  Why not give it a try? It’s not like you have anything better to do now that you get to stay home all day and all night.

And lastly, let’s take a look at your stove.  Do all the burners work?  Do you use all the burners?  Is it clean?  The stove, in Feng Shui, is symbolic of abundance and prosperity.  If it is dirty, or if some part of it isn’t working correctly, that will have an impact on the flow of finances. 

I do realize that these tips and homework may bring more questions than answers, but the first step is awareness.  The next step is action.  Since I cannot do in-home consultations right now, I am offering remote consultations at a discounted rate.  If you are interested in learning more or feel like you are stuck, give me a call, text or respond to this post.  I’d love to help.