Feng Shui Your Way to Calm

While you are Home :  Change the Energy

By Jan Christian

So…you are in your home for quarantine for the next few weeks.  Have you noticed that you gravitate to some rooms while ignoring others?  Does your home truly feel like a sacred space?  This is the ideal time to improve the energy in your home by starting with a few simple tasks. 

First , the principles I use are based on Denise Linn’s Native American heritage and Feng Shui practices.  The over-arching belief is that your home and items within it have energy that affects yours and specific rooms affect areas of your life such as your career, finances, relationship and health.  Negative energies can build up over time if they are not cleared. There are ways to correct them.

Let’s take a moment to identify one room that feels off-balance or uncomfortable. How is the placement of the furniture? Can you walk around the room easily? Are windows blocked? How are the colors? Ventilation?  Lighting? Is there clutter in the room or in the closets of that room?  Clutter blocks the natural flow of energy and makes a space feel stagnant.  Marie Kondo is right! Keep items that bring you joy and release things that you no longer serve you today.   You will find as you release items, new ones will find their way as replacement.

 Here are some quick basic Feng Shui principles:

Use of color

Stimulating – red, orange, yellow    

Relaxing – Blue, green

Spiritual – purple, but a powerful color.

Too much white can be sterile.  Black is needed on small levels to ground a room.

• Mirrors are energizing and do not belong in restful rooms.  They reflect energy back toward you. This includes TV’s and other electronic equipment.
• Your office chair & desk, ideally faces towards the door. Same idea if you are in a meeting, don’t sit with your back to the door, make sure you face it.
• Yin/Yang = Lower ceilings have a calming energy ( Yin), where high ceilings are energizing ( Yang)
• Pets are energizing and their energy flows through the home as they run around, assuming you allow your pets to do so.
• Stagnant energy hangs in corners, which is why proper ventilation is important in every room. I love new home recirculating fans that flush out the air and introduce outside air. Use this if your home is set up to do so.
• Plants do add positive energy assuming they are properly cared for. Always remove dead or dying plants and replant over- grown ones. 

Since sleep & relaxing is so important to the restrictions we are experiencing, let’s look at your bedroom and how that energy is flowing. Walk into the room slowly and observe furniture placement and how it feels to walk around.  Then note colors used, ventilation, clutter and overall feel.  The bed should face the doorway for the most restful placement.  Remove any mirrors, especially mirrored closet doors if you have them.  You can always replace a dresser mirror with a nice picture or other artwork.

I highly suggest you remove TV’s from the bedroom. Since most are placed directly across from the bed that are a constant source of stimulating energy that is not relaxing. Computers are also not desired. 

Is the lighting adjustable?  Softer lights are better and of course, more restful colors.

Needless to say, removing clutter is a must. I have seen bedrooms with exercise equipment, desks and things that do not support a peaceful place. Do your best to rearrange those items to another space.

My suggestion is try a few of these changes and see if you notice a difference.  I have removed mirrors and TV from my bedroom and it made a marked difference. If your room has white walls, try painting some hue of green or blue. Teal tones are great as well as sage greens.

Ceiling fans and fans in general will keep the energy circulating. Open the windows the let fresh air in!

NEXT EDITION:  I will discuss corrective actions that you can take to improve the energy of “problem rooms” and a bit about the Bagua, which is an outline of your house and areas of your life!