Stagnant Versus Flowing Energy
You influence the flow of the life-affirming chi throughout your surroundings by the way you incorporate physical objects and plants in interior spaces as well as by your color choices, furniture and art placement, interior lighting, art objects, and symbolic items representing nature.
Take stock of your home to ascertain whether clutter blocks easy navigation through the entry and all areas of the house. Is the home painted and furnished in a way that creates a warm welcome? Has your collection taken over one or more areas of the house? Has your love of furniture overfilled rooms so that they feel crowded and cramped?
In houses staged for sale, furniture is positioned in such a way as to allow potential buyers to see 70 percent of walls and floors because people who are in the market for a house want to see walls, ceilings, floors, and windows — not the items in the home. Likewise, in feng shui, floors and walls should be somewhat open to allow the free flowing of life-affirming chi.
When rooms are stuffed, the flow of energy is blocked and can become stagnant. Your goal is to ensure that there are open pathways through your home to allow the energy passage. When the energy can freely swirl around your environment (and by feng shui association, every area of your life), your good fortune or luck changes along with your power to intentionally attract what you desire.
Choose Furniture and Lighting
Furniture needs to not only support you but also give you enough of a feeling of safety and the security to express yourself. It shouldn't be too large or too small but rather be of a proper scale for the space. In group seating in living rooms, for example, furniture should offer options for differently sized people. The space should appear welcoming to all — an invitation to come, sit, and enjoy one another's company.
Living spaces need adequate illumination through the use of ambient lighting, spot lights, overhead lights, torchière lights, sconces, and candles. The most important source of illumination, however, is natural light. Even on dark, wintry days, throw open the curtains to let natural light into the rooms of your home. The light's positive energy brings with it the healing chi of nature.
Strengthening Walls and Using Mirrors
Walls are the support system for the building. They introduce earth energy into a living space. Walls can make you feel more secure if they appear strong. Painting and texturing walls can suggest further strength and safety. The addition of columns can contribute to a stronger support for the structure of your house and, metaphorically, the support structure for your life.
Use a mirror positioned toward a window to reflect nature into a room and also make a room seem larger. For example, a room in the sixth-floor condo of a beachfront complex might not provide a direct ocean view until a floor-to-ceiling wall-length mirror is positioned on the wall adjacent to the sliding glass doors. Suddenly, the ocean and sky are reflected in the mirror. You had to look at an angle through the glass doors to see magnificent sunsets and starry nights, but now you can enjoy them comfortably.
When you add candles, books, art pieces, and chairs in groups of three, you keep the energy expansive. Stagnant or blocked energy is created when you leave a solitary dead plant in the room, random boxes or piles of stuff that you haven't gotten around to organizing, or dark corners you have failed to illuminate.
Establish Better Energy Flow
There are several ways to improve energy flow and establish a balance of masculine and feminine elements (yin/yang). For example, you could add some healthy plants, a judicious splash of contrast color, objects to represent nature, and some good illumination to let the chi flow easily. You will know that the chi is moving through that space because you will feel happy, harmonious, healthy, calm, peaceful, and relaxed. Those positive feelings associated with flowing chi are exactly the positive feelings that aid the work of the Law of Attraction in bestowing abundance in your life.
The point of feng shui is to create an energetically balanced space that supports you and your life choices, that invites you and your friends, and family members into a sense of community. The interior space in which feng shui is properly utilized fosters the flow of energy that is correct for the function of that space. In a bedroom, the energy will be grounded and safe, harmonious, and peaceful. A living room, on the other hand, might have more lively energy flowing through it. The energy in that space encourages acceptance, love, safety, and grounding, but with a smidgen of risk as represented by the use of a splash of vibrant color, a precariously placed object, or a piece of visual art depicting something wildly imaginative in bold line and color.
The Nine Quadrants of the Basic Bagua
A simplified version of the bagua or map used to determine the relationship of a house or room to the directions of north, east, south, and west is laid out like a tic-tac-toe grid with nine squares. To correctly position the bagua over your house layout, hold the bagua with both your thumbs on the square denoting “career,” with the grid row containing “wealth,” “fame,” and “love” farthest out from your body and the row with “knowledge” closest to you.
Bottom row left — wealth
Bottom row center — fame
Bottom row right — love
Middle row left — family
Middle row center — health
Middle row right — children and creativity
Top row left — knowledge
Top row center — career
Top row right — helpful people
When preparing your home to receive the things you desire to attract into your life, pay special attention to the center of the bagua or center of the house. This is a gathering place where the energies collect and then proceed to flow in various directions. Although the area should be aesthetically appealing, warm, and welcoming, avoid clutter, pay attention to proper lighting (glass and crystal, for example), and add a round floor rug instead of a square or rectangular floor covering.
