10-Minute Feng Shui: Hundreds of Easy Tips and Techniques for Prosperity, Health, and Happiness
208
10-Minute Feng Shui: Hundreds of Easy Tips and Techniques for Prosperity, Health, and Happiness
208Hardcover
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Overview
- Put a vase of yellow flowers in your kitchen to increase your wealth.
- Place a live plant in your bedroom to improve your love life.
- Tie nine small bells on a red cord and hang it from your front door to bring happiness into your home.
- Hang a mobile in a sick room to clear congestion and respiration problems.
- And more.
In just ten minutes, revive stagnant energy and bring "ch'i" into you home. Feng shui has been used successfully for centuries, and the tips in this book are the best of what the art has to offer. They're simple, they're fun, and they work!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781592339129 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Fair Winds Press |
| Publication date: | 09/17/2019 |
| Series: | 10 Minute Series |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Sales rank: | 635,722 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.80(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.70(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
FENG SHUI BASICS
Feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of placement, is thousands of years old, yet few people in the West knew anything about it until twenty or thirty years ago. And although millions of Westerners have now heard of fang shui, most are still confused about how to use it. Books, articles, and websites have raised as many questions as they've answered. Which school of feng shui is best? How can I evaluate my home in feng shui terms? What can I do if I live in an apartment and my options are limited? Does all this stuff really work?
To answer the last question first, yes, feng shui really works. And it works even if you don't understand or believe it, although in my experience results may take longer or be less successful if you approach feng shui with a closed mind. Regardless of your living circumstances, you can use feng shui. Few homes or apartments are ideal; most can benefit from some feng shui adjustments. Because there are so many ways to implement feng shui, it offers something for everyone and virtually any problem area can be rectified.
Feng shui lets you make your own "luck." H ere in the West, we tend to view luck as pure chance, an inexplicable and quixotic force that's outside our control. Feng shui practitioners, however, believe luck can be cultivated and directed to enhance health, wealth, and happiness.
Much of feng shui focuses on using "cures." They're called cures because they remedy problems in your home and in your life. Part Two of this book offers hundreds of quick and easy cures you can implement to increase prosperity, enhance relationships, improve health, and attract good luck. But before we get to that, let's look briefly at some of the principles and concepts that underlie this simple system.
The objective of feng shui is to create harmony and balance in your environment. This involves applying practical solutions to everyday problems, such as establishing convenient traffic patterns through your home, positioning furniture in comfortable arrangements, and eliminating clutter in your living and work spaces. There's nothing magical about these cures — they are sensible ways to make life easier and more efficient.
Feng shui has an esoteric side as well, and this is the part that can often feel unfamiliar or even uncomfortable to newcomers. But once you understand a few basic tenets, it's really quite simple. Much of feng shui is based on symbolic associations. Some of these symbols also appear in other schools of thought such as numerology, dream analysis, and aromatherapy. For example, green is a color we connect with plants and healthy, growing things. It is also the color of paper money in some countries. In feng shui, green can be used symbolically to promote financial growth. (In chapter 3, I explain the most common feng shui cures, how to use them, and why they work.)
The most important part of feng shui, however, is your intention. W hen you put a cure in place, you demonstrate a willingness to take charge of your life and to change something that you don't like about it. M any cures work by helping you to focus on your goal — to make more money, attract a romantic partner, or improve your health. They succeed through the power of suggestion. E ach time you look at the cure, you are reminded of your objective and your resolve is strengthened. In this sense, the cure has no real power in itself, it is merely a mental aid — your willpower is what makes feng shui work.
THE INSIDE STORY
As Karen Kingston writes in Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, "Feng shui is the art of balancing and harmonizing the flow of natural energies in our surroundings to create beneficial effects in our lives." It works on both a physical and a psychological level. According to feng shui philosophy, our inner and outer worlds are closely linked and they influence each other — they are two sides of the same coin, so to speak.
Our homes outwardly mirror our internal, emotional states. To the trained eye, your home reveals a great deal about you. If an area in your home is cluttered, for instance, you are probably experiencing confusion or blockages in the part of your life that corresponds to the cluttered section. Conversely, areas that you just naturally tend to keep neat and organized show the parts of your life that are functioning smoothly. According to feng shui, by cleaning away the physical clutter you can actually clear up the confusion and disorder in your life.
Here's a good example. A carpenter I know had a habit of putting his toolbox down just inside the door when he came home from work. H e had to step over it to get into the house. Symbolically, he had placed an obstacle in his path. In his professional life, this man continually encountered blocks that impeded his success. Once he retrained himself to put his toolbox elsewhere, leaving the passageway into his home free and clear, many of his work-related problems disappeared.
CH'I
Literally, feng shui means "wind" and "water." Like wind and water, the practice involves movement and circulation. The goal is to direct ch'i — a vital energy that animates all life — through your environment so that its movement resembles a gently flowing stream or a pleasant breeze.
According to traditional Chinese belief, ch'i (pronounced chee) flows through everything: the earth, the atmosphere, our homes, our bodies. Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine maintain that health problems arise when the body's ch'i becomes blocked. Acupuncturists, for example, clear away blockages in the body's energetic system so ch'i can flow smoothly and restore health. It's a bit like unclogging a pipe so water can run freely through it again.
That's what we do in feng shui, too — we remove obstructions in the home that are interfering with the proper circulation of ch'i. W hen ch'i gets stuck in our living and working spaces, we experience the adverse effects in a variety of ways. Finances may languish, relationships with other people may be limited or unfulfilling, health may become impaired.
Ch'i that moves too rapidly can also cause problems. Money may go out as quickly as it comes in, relationships may be unsettled, tension may damage health. By using feng shui cures, we can direct the movement of ch'i through our homes and workplaces so that it nurtures our lives and brings us health, wealth, and happiness.
Ch'i moves through your home in much the same way as you do. If you can walk comfortably through the different rooms of your home, it will be easy for ch'i to circulate smoothly and harmoniously. If, on the other hand, you must continually walk around awkwardly placed furniture, architectural obstructions, and clutter, ch'i will have a hard time getting through, too.
YIN AND YANG
Many cosmologies perceive the world as embodying two complementary forces: masculine and feminine. In Chinese philosophy, these fundamental energies are called yin (feminine) and yang (masculine). According to feng shui, these primordial forces are omnipresent, existing everywhere, in everything. They are entwined and interdependent — neither can exist without the other. Our goal, in working with these energies, is to create balance so that neither force dominates.
Yin is considered to be yielding, receptive, inward-directed; yang is assertive, active, outward-oriented. The yin force is present in darkness, water, silence, curved shapes, cool colors. Yang abides in light, fire, noise, sharp lines, bright colors. Yin energy is restful; yang is stimulating. W hen you combine these two polar energies in your home in an even-handed manner, you create a comfortable, harmonious environment. If, as you look around your home, you notice a preponderance of either yin or yang in a room, you can counteract its influence by adding its opposite.
In some cases you may want to emphasize either yin or yang, in order to produce conditions that support your intention. For example, you might choose to let the yin force dominate in a bedroom to create a peaceful, quiet space. To accomplish this, you could paint the bedroom blue or green, install low-level lighting, and decorate with soft, curved furniture. Conversely, in an exercise room, you'd probably want to accentuate the yang force to stimulate vitality and activity. To do this, you might include orange or red in your color scheme, play upbeat music, and illuminate the room with bright lighting.
THE FIVE ELEMENTS
A fundamental concept in Chinese philosophy holds that the world is composed of five elements — fire, earth, water, wood, and metal — and that everything consists of one or more of these elements. Thee five elements are one of the basic building blocks of Chinese medicine as well as feng shui. According to traditional Chinese belief, each of these elements depicts a different aspect of ch'i. By incorporating the five elements in your environment in a harmonious way, you can bring balance into your life.
Each of these elements is present in many forms, all around us. Not merely physical substances, the elements are energetic forces that permeate our universe. Colors, materials, shapes, scents, and activities all can be linked with one element or another. Interior designers often blend these elements in a beneficial way without realizing it, simply because doing so creates a pleasing result.
Each element operates in its own, unique way and produces a specific effect. Fire stimulates, earth stabilizes, water softens and blends, wood expands, metal strengthens and concentrates. Too much fire in a room can cause tension and instability; too much metal can result in rigidity. If, as you look around your home, you notice a preponderance of one element in a room, you can counteract its influence by adding items that correspond to the other elements.
In much the same way as you might prepare a recipe, you can combine and adjust the elements in your home or workplace any way you choose in order to bring about the conditions you desire. For example, add metal objects to children's bedrooms to help them focus on their studies; add wooden items in a home office to encourage business and financial growth.
You don't have to be a feng shui master to incorporate the five elements auspiciously in your home. The table below shows which things fall into which elemental category. Your goal is to combine the elements in your living environment so that all are represented and no single element overwhelms the others.
THE TAO
Feng shui is based on the concept that all of life is interconnected. This connectedness is expressed in the spiritual philosophy known as Taoism.
The Tao (pronounced "dow"), or "the Way," teaches that in order to be happy, we must learn to live in harmony with nature and our environment, with the universal energies that are present all around us in the heavens and the earth. Although it is said that the true Tao cannot be known, in essence, the Tao is the centering principle that holds together the whole of existence, both that which we can see and that which is unseen.
That's a bit esoteric and vague for most people — and you certainly don't have to subscribe to the tenets of Taoism to use feng shui effectively. Feng shui does incorporate many aspects of the Tao into its cures, however. One of the most obvious ways is by bringing plants, stones, water, fish, and other representations of the natural world into the home. Aquariums and fountains, for instance, are popular feng shui cures — undoubtedly, you've seen aquariums in many Chinese restaurants, which some proprietors believe will bring good luck. Plants, which offer visual appeal and help to cleanse the air of carbon dioxide, are one of the most frequently used remedies in feng shui.
Other cures imitate nature in order to subtly remind us of our link with the environment. For example, you could adjust the lighting in your home so that it emanates from various sources at different intensity levels, pooling and dappling on your floor, walls, and furnishings in much the same way as sunlight filters through the trees in a forest. O r, you could install a ceiling fan to circulate air currents about your home to suggest a gentle breeze.
When we get to Part Two, you'll notice that many of the cures draw on nature in an attempt to create a sense of connectedness and an awareness of human life as part of the greater whole that is the Tao.
FENG SHUI AND INTUITION
Many of the cures and techniques used in feng shui are logical, physical ones — rearranging furniture into comfortable seating groups, for instance, or fixing a window that doesn't open properly. But feng shui also operates on the subconscious or intuitive level. Even things we aren't consciously aware of still have an impact on the subconscious. If certain factors in your environment cause discomfort at a subconscious dimension, your outer, conscious life will be adversely affected, too.
Once you start paying attention to your feelings and responses whenever you enter a space, you will begin to understand the ambient energies that are present. Have you ever entered a room and felt "bad vibes" even though you couldn't pinpoint the cause? That's how ch'i responds, too. It is drawn to pleasing, harmonious environments and repelled by discordant ones.
Try to attune yourself to the subtle energies and vibrations that exist in various environments. Trust your impressions and let them guide you as you apply feng shui in your home or workplace. After a while, you'll be able to sense that you've done the right thing, because it feels right.
CHAPTER 2WHAT DOES YOUR HOME SAY ABOUT YOU?
When a palm reader looks at your hand, she sees your life reflected in the lines and mounds on your palm and fingers. Each mark says something about you — your personality, your experiences, your attitudes, your health. A feng shui master sees you mirrored in your home; they can tell what's going on in your life simply by examining the condition of your living space.
Clutter, as I mentioned before, is synonymous with confusion and blockages. Broken furniture can signify broken dreams, physical injuries, or breaks in communication between family members. Doors or windows that stick may represent areas of your life that are stuck.
In feng shui, each sector of your home corresponds to a particular part of your life. The condition of the different areas will show which aspects of your life are in good shape and which ones need a little T LC . For instance, your living room may be quite clean, orderly, and inviting, but your study is piled high with clutter. A feng shui master might interpret this to mean that you are content with your social life, but are having problems with your career and/or finances. You can correct any areas that aren't functioning smoothly by applying the appropriate feng shui cures.
Here's a personal example to illustrate. I once moved to a new town and felt lonely and isolated. I wanted to meet new friends and expand my social circle. At that time, the sector of my home that relates to friendship contained an artfully arranged cluster of dried tree branches — an apt symbol of my rather barren social life. To remedy the situation, I replaced the dead, leafless branches with a large, live plant. Before long, I began meeting new people. I now enjoy rewarding friendships with a diverse and interesting group of men and women, and entertain in my home often.
Feng shui considers our homes and workplaces to be living entities. E ach feature in a building corresponds to a part of the human body. The front door, for instance, is the "mouth" of the building. Windows are its "eyes." Ch'i enters through these openings. H alls and passageways in a building can be likened to the body's veins and arteries — they are the conduits through which ch'i travels as it circulates from room to room. A building's electrical system is similar to the human nervous system. Plumbing is the functional equivalent of our elimination system. Wall studs, beams, and other structural supports relate to our bones. When one of these features in your home is damaged or malfunctioning, it can signal problems in the corresponding part of your body.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Feng Shui"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Skye Alexander.
Excerpted by permission of The Quarto Group.
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