Feng Shui Your Way to a Better Life
We don’t usually make assumptions about people, but we’re gonna go out on a limb here: Your life isn’t 100% perfect.
Well… welcome to The Hot Mess Club, friend.
The truth is, we all have occasional (or even persistent) yuck to deal with. If it’s not family drama, it’s financial woes. If it’s not job stress, it’s an irritating neighbor. And if it’s 2020? Well, don’t even get us started on the stuff 2020 threw at us.
The point is, problems are part of life. And if you’re like most of us, you’re looking for a way to cope with that stuff. Or better yet, a way to prevent that stuff.
It turns out, feng shui is a fantastic way to do that.
Feng Shui 101
A disclaimer: We’re not feng shui experts. However, we did read Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life and found it… well… life-changing. So we’re here to share the basics. And if you want more than that, keep reading, because you’ll soon find out how to get a copy of the book for free.
OK, first (because we know you’re wondering), it’s pronounced “fung shway.” And here’s the basic idea:
All our things, our belongings, have energy. Also known as ch’i.
The placement of our things, the literal physical arrangement of objects in relation to other objects, affects us in positive and negative ways.
We humans also affect everything and everyone around us. (You know how you can sense your partner is cranky, even when they don’t tell you? That’s their ch’i rubbing off on you.)
Even if you’ve never heard the phrase feng shui until today, the objects around you are already feng shui-d. Yep! Since everything in your environment has proximity to other things, it’s already affecting each other—and you.
We know: So cool. And it gets even better.
Think about all the stuff you do just to get through a day: paying bills, taking out the trash, signing permission slips, cleaning the hamster cage, waiting on hold forever to deal with that annoying thing you’ve been avoiding, worrying what other people think, deciding what to make for dinner (again)... the list goes on. According to feng shui, your surroundings could be making all that harder.
But the flip side is also true! Once you understand how your physical environment affects your metaphysical world, you can intentionally arrange your things to make your life less… problem-y.
Keep in mind, when we talk about “life” and “problems,” we’re being really broad. That’s because feng shui has such a vast impact. Specifically, there are nine areas (or gua) it can influence:
Prosperity
Fame and Reputation
Relationships and Love
Creativity and Children
Helpful People and Travel
Career and Life Path
Skills and Knowledge
Family
Health and Other
In the practice of feng shui, each area of your home or environment is associated with one of these nine gua. The way you improve each one is to add “cures”—which is a fancy way to say “add energy to a space.” The nine cures are:
Light
Sound
Living Things
Weight
Color
Moving Objects
Electric Power
Symbolic Objects
Other
Did you notice “other” is included on both of these lists? That’s because feng shui is endlessly adaptable. You don’t have to decorate your space with wind chimes and samurai swords to make it work. (Although if you’re into either of those things, there’s a place for them!)
What The Heck Do I Want?
Before you go buying a betta fish and placing it in a circular bowl on a square table in the northeast corner of your living room, back up and remember the main point of feng shui: intentionality. You have to know what you want from life before you can create an environment that’ll help you achieve it.
So what do you want?
One way to figure out which areas of your life need improving is to keep a list of complaints. Sure, this sounds super negative. But it can be powerful!
Carry around a notebook with you (your phone works too). Every time a complaint pops into your head, write it down. Doesn’t matter how big or small. Doesn’t matter what it relates to. Doesn’t matter if you’ve already written that same one 87 times.
Soon, you’ll see patterns emerging. See if you can categorize each complaint into one of the nine guas listed above.
I’ve Got 99 Problems... and Not One Solution
“OK, cool, Lane and Heather. I made your dumb list. My complaints are now front and center in my consciousness. And I still have no idea which way I need to face my couch to fix them.”
We hear you. But like we said before, we’re not feng shui masters, so we can’t solve this all here. We just know that it really helped us, so we want to pass along some good ch’i.
But that’s why we want to send you Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life. For free. That’s how much we love this book. (And you.)
Just tell us who you are and where to send it!
Even if you’re not yet convinced your toaster’s placement affects your job satisfaction, what do you have to lose?
If there’s any part of your life that isn’t quite how you want it, trying feng shui can’t hurt.
If nothing else, you might find some loose change under your couch cushions. And you’ll definitely have an excuse to browse Home Goods. Sounds like a win-win to us.
