The Tao of Lifestyle: Living With What You Love
Ideally, your environment contains the things you currently love. Treasure the belongings that hold wonderful memories and uplifting feelings in place and let go of what doesn’t. Let safety, comfort, and beauty be your guides. And know in your heart that your responses to the things in your surroundings can change as you evolve. What you love today, you may not love or have space for tomorrow. Feel the freedom in this. When you tune into the voices of your possessions you know whether they are affirming you, or not. The things “who” lend a beautiful voice to your environmental choir are welcome to stay. As time passes, certain members of your chorus fall out of harmony, a sign they are ready to move on. Bless them, thank them, and let them go. Can you feel what a difference this makes in the quality of your life
Read MoreFeng Shui Q & A: Skylights
A Feng Shui friend asks:
Any suggestions regarding skylights and how to treat them? Are they considered “good” or “bad”?
Read More
Lost and Found
By Karen Abler-Carrasco, WSFS Instructor
“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making new discoveries.” — A. A. Milne, from Winnie the Pooh
Or as Calvin, of the Calvin and Hobbes comic series says, “There’s treasure EVERYWHERE!” And haven’t we all had those delightful moments when we reach into the pocket of last year’s winter coat and find a stash of money, or those long-lost earrings.
My own home is a comfy blend of tidy and disordered, so I get the best of both worlds–reassuringly Known and the strange Unknown, side by side. And residing in the mystery of the Unknown are all of the leprechauns and fairies that steal and relocate my things. Those imps, what a teasing dance they lead me in sometimes– “now, where are those car keys?….I set them RIGHT HERE last night.”
Read More
Q&A: Which Bedroom Color is Best?
Q: Good morning, I’ve been reading The Western Guide to Feng Shui Room by Room. Wonderful and very interesting. I’ve actually recommended it to about 10 friends.
The challenge I am having, choosing a paint color for my bedroom. I’m a single woman looking to attract a man and bring romance into the bedroom. I want to find a color that balances both masculine and feminine energy. I’ve read through the list of paint colors on p.181 of the book dozens of times and brought the list to the paint store. So far I’ve tried 30 samples and yet not have resonated.
Read More
Q&A – Spiral Staircases
Q: I have a spiral staircase and I don’t know what to do with it. I find that I’m avoiding going upstairs, afraid I’m going to fall through! Help!
A: The downward moving “waterfall effect” of stairs is greatly amplified when those stairs are also spiraling down just as water does in a drain. Spiral staircases affect our sense of stability and safety, especially when there are no risers installed and the banister is open as well. The ch’i rushes down these stairs too forcefully, and there is a sense of danger in using them—are we going to fall through those openings in step and banister on the way up, or are we going to lose our footing on the way down?
Essential Feng Shui applies our balancing tools of The Five Elements to remedy the situation.
(Download your full color FiveElementChart.)
Read More
Let it Shine
By Becky Iott, WSFS Instructor
When I don’t know what to do next for my home, I clean something. It’s fun and it’s free! Clean. Polish. Organize. Tidy up. A little mundane, huh? A little dull.
But then everything shines.
Except there are exceptions.
Sometimes when I am invited into someone’s home as a Feng Shui consultant, I walk into an almost unbelievable spotlessness, a clean so clean, a tidy so widy that I am speechless. And a Feng Shui consultant can’t stay speechless for long.
“What a beautiful home you have,” I say. “I wish my home were as clean.”
She is crestfallen. “It’s a mess. I wish it could be cleaner.”
“Does your family help with the work?”
“Oh, no,” she says. Translation: They would not do a good enough job.
“How much time do you spend cleaning every week?”
“Not much.” Clearly, every possible moment.
Later in the consultation I may ask the client if she knows her life purpose and she always does. The clarity of her cleanliness often reflects a clear mind.
“How much time did you devote to your life purpose this week?”
Now she is speechless. Because she hasn’t spent any time on it. Not that week, not in many weeks.
If your life purpose, your reason to be on this planet at this time, is to create a very high standard of cleanliness in your home—and I know people for whom this is true—do not let me or anyone else interfere with it.
But if you have something else important to do in this lovely lifetime, and you’re not devoting time and energy to it, reduce cleaning time by 25% NOW.
Enlist everyone you live with to do their fair share. Clean first whatever needs to be clean and organized for you to devote one hour a week to your life purpose, then two hours a week, then three, more if you can.
With good Feng Shui, everything shines, everyone shines, and so does your life purpose. Let it shine!
Read More
Stay Connected
