a Chinese system for positioning a building and the objects within that space in a way that is thought to agree with spiritual forces and to bring health and happiness.
Tony Robbins defines happiness simply as progress. My hope is that as you move through this blog onto each growth category, you take with you a habit, practice, belief or sentiment from the previous one.
With the conclusion of February’s Spirit Month and the arrival of March’s Home & Organization month, I wanted to find a topic that would marry the two. Feng Shui was just too perfect. So when I stumbled upon a “Feng Shui” article on Houzz.com last week, I had a bit of a forehead slap moment.
As if I needed more proof that Feng Shui should be my closing spiritual experiment, I found out that the Chinese New Year is actually in February, so this is a perfect time to realign your space to welcome spiritual happiness into your 2016!
I am still new to Feng Shui, so I will be drawing from the expertise of my Spiritual Happiness Guru, Rodika Tchi.
Here are 5 Tips for Getting Started with Feng Shui:
1. Explore the Energy Map of Your Home (Define your Bagua Map). There are two different ways to maps to feng shui: The Classical Bagua and The Western Bagua (shown above). Bagua is simply the Feng Shui energy map of your space. It will help you determine where you should focus and place different elements, based on the year, visiting stars and the direction of your home. If you have no idea what I’m talking about – you’re probably in the majority. Feng Shui is more complicated than I thought! But Rodika does a great job explaining the basics of Bagua in these short videos.
2. Clear Clutter and Apply the 5 Elements. In order to lay a foundation for feng shui, you must first clear
clutter. If you need tips on assigning a place for everything in your home, I recommend the book, The Life-changing Magic of Tidying. Once you have organized, you can begin decorating and arranging your home or office with the five elements. They are water, wood, fire, metal and earth. All spaces should have each of these elements but their placement and abundance is determined based on the bagua of your space as well as the calendar year updates (explained in Tip #4).
3. Use the Right Colors. Apart from objects, another way to Feng Shui your home is by applying the colors of the elements for each area. Blues for water, silvers for metal, reds for fire, etc.
4. Use Feng Shui to Improve in a Specific Area of your Life. Feng Shui is entirely based on the premise that our successes and problems are affected by the balanced or imbalanced energies in our space (home or work). It is not to say that this is the only determining factor, but to acknowledge that it does contribute to it. I love the concept because it gives attention to several What’s Happyning growth categories and gives you actionable steps you can take to attract more success in a particular area! In this video, Rodika gives an example of how you might attract more career success by favoring the career area of your home.
5. Use “Cures” based on the annual Calendar. Since energy is in a constant state of motion and the universe is constantly expanding, it makes sense that the visiting stars of each calendar year and month will play a role in offsetting your feng shui energy map. Here is a video to introduce the updates, specifically for 2016!
Do you ever just walk into a room and before anything happens you sense a certain energy? Positive or negative? Lively or calming?
You might not be in tune with the energies of your personal spaces because you’re so used to them, but try taking note the next time you walk into a building for the first time.
I have one particular family-friend whose home makes me feel immediately calm. I used to think it was just the energy of the people who lived in it until I house-sat for a month while they were gone. The energy of the place was unmistakable. I felt alive and creative and hyper-aware of my thoughts as soon as I stepped inside.
With the help of this week’s Feng Shui Experiment, I hope to invite that same energy into my brand new apartment (see right!)
What kind of energy do you crave in your home? Do you have experience with Feng Shui? Share in the comments below!
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