Feng Shui in the Home
Is your life just as messy as your home? Then you’ll probably benefit from feng shui, the art of rebalancing your environment to improve your life. Based in ancient Chinese beliefs, this philosophy of life states that energy must flow freely for your life to be harmonious. If this energy gets trapped, begins to stagnate or if there is too much of it, your life will be negatively affected.
What is Feng Shui?
In order to get rid of this negative energy, it is necessary for you to make changes to your environment. By following the rules of fengshui to improve your space, it is believed that you can increase your positive energy and therefore your fortune. While there are numerous experts who have many years of feng shui study under their belt, you don’t necessarily need to rely on one of them to get your home in order.
Feng Shui Bagua
All areas of your home, as well as your office, correspond to a particular aspect of your life. A feng shui bagua is a kind of color chart that allows you to see all the feng shui colors for rooms in your home. Using this chart is the first step in figuring out how to organize and adjust your space to improve your life.
A bagua is comprised of eight areas (known as "guas") that encircle the center area, which represents health. The eight guas represent skills and knowledge, career, travel, creativity and children, family, prosperity, fame and reputation and relationships. Each area has a main and secondary color associated with it as well as an element.
Before you get started using the free tips for feng shui decorating below, you will need to know what each area of your home represents. To do this, stand at the main entrance to your home and align the bagua so that the guas representing skills and knowledge, career and travel are closest to you. The lower half of the bagua will always represent the front of your home. Prosperity should be in the far left corner of your home, fame will always be located in the center of the wall opposite you and the far right corner of your home will be your relationships area.
Feng Shui Tips
Once you have figured out what each area of your home represents, you can get to work on creating a harmonious environment. Use the ideal colors associated with each gua to decorate the appropriate room. Also, don’t let yourself get bogged down with too many possessions.
The point of fengshui is to have a neat, clean, minimalist appearance. It is thought that too much furniture and clutter can trap energy. By purging yourself of these items, your energy will be free to flow. However, don’t throw out all of your furniture just yet. Having a very sparse room can make you feel as though you have limited options and can cause an excess of energy, which is just as bad as blocked energy.
To make your home the best it can be, follow these other free feng shui tips:
1. No matter who you’re meeting or where you’re going, first impressions are always important. Help your house make the right impression by creating a warm and inviting front entrance. Not only will this help you feel happy to be home, but it will also help your guests to relax when they come to visit.
2. To help energy flow more freely through your entranceway, keep all shoes and slippers away from the main door.
3. To add the illusion of more space to your living quarters, hang a mirror on the wall. This will also help to invite endless opportunities into your home.
4. Keep things fresh in your home and help the energy to flow by changing the position of your furniture periodically.
5. It is not just rooms that have an element associated with them, but also objects. If you want to avoid disagreements within your family, then consider moving your stove so that it is not across from the refrigerator, a washing machine, a sink or a toilet.
Bedroom Fengshui
The furthest right area of your home, or of a particular room, is the area that deals with relationships and love. While it is generally thought to refer to intimate relations, you can also focus on this area if you would like to improve other, non-intimate relationships. The tips provided here, however, deal with intimate relationships.
1. Decorate your bedroom with pairs of objects.
2. Mirrors are not the ideal piece of furniture for a bedroom. If you have some in there already, then cover them up. Never position a mirror anywhere it can reflect your bed. This can create relationship problems caused by a third party.
3. Televisions can also lead to infidelities, so move that TV out of your bedroom.
4. Avoid positioning your bed inline with your door or under a window. You should also have one side of your bed supported by a solid wall in order to get a good nights sleep.
5. To promote a healthy relationship, or to attract a new partner, place your bed so that it is accessible on three sides.
6. Keep objects that don’t have to do with romance out of the bedroom. This includes exercise equipment and work-related items. Instead, decorate the room with lots of pictures of you and your partner.
7. While pink, white and red are the key colors associated with this gua, red is also the color of anger. If you choose to decorate your room in these colors, go light with the red. In particular, avoid red bed sheets.
Feng shui is not just about redecorating; it is also a way of life. If you would like to know more and understand feng shui better, then consider taking some feng shui courses. There are many out there, some of which are free and online.
