Return to Your True Self with Feng Shui
Using Feng Shui is the perfect way to harmonize the energies in your living space.
Feng Shui: Return to Your True Self
By Ken Lauher
Feng Shui these three areas of your home to raise your confidence, achieve your goals and find fulfillment.
One of my main objectives, and the thing I enjoy doing more than nearly anything else, is helping people discover their true purpose in order to live a more fulfilling life.
Many people ask me: “How will I know when I’m living my true purpose?” You’ll know it. Just as you’ll feel it when the flow of chi through your space is in perfect alignment with your goals and your purpose, you’ll know when you’ve returned to your true self and are on the path to achieving fulfillment.
When we’re living our true life purpose, things fall into place. That doesn’t mean you won’t ever have problems or setbacks or even the occasional “bad day,” but the way you view these incidents will change. You will see problems as challenges, and have the creativity to confront them in a productive way.
You’ll find that everything you need and want begins flowing to you, as long as you keep your mind and eyes open to it. It will be easier to live in the moment, appreciate your blessings, and view obstacles as exciting challenges to overcome. Sounds like the kind of life you’d love, doesn’t it? It all begins with one step.
Understanding your Number One Goal
If you’re just beginning this path to discovering your true self, consider this question: What are the top three things — or even one thing — you’d like to accomplish? What’s your desired outcome?
When I arrive at a home or apartment for a Feng Shui consultation, I evaluate the space to see what stories it tells about the home’s inhabitants. You can do the same with your living environment. This is an important first step toward getting unstuck. A lot of times, our fears and blocks manifest in our space.
On the other hand, we can make changes to our space that will help us get unstuck. When you first employ simple Feng Shui changes in the area outside your home or apartment, and then in your entryway, you’ll start seeing immediate results. This will inspire you to do even more.
Feng Shui Your Front Entryway
Stand quietly at your doorway or on your front lawn and listen to your inner voice. What does your intuition tell you about the space? Is there healthy living chi, represented in plants and animals that are full of life? Do any architectural features create a sense of impending doom, or do they all work together in a way that creates positive life energy and a feeling of flow in the space.
Evaluate the path to your front door. Is anything — large trees, pillars, or broken pavement — blocking it? IA good Feng Shui rule of thumb is that any trees or other obstacles should not be in direct line with the front door, and, if they are, they should be a distance away — at least twice the distance as the tallest resident, but, there’s no need to take out the tape measure! Use your intuition. Does your front entry feel “blocked” or is the tree offering a sense of protection? Is the tree in good health?
The home’s front entry, both inside and out, is one of the most important areas in a home or apartment. This is the “mouth of chi,” the primary means by which energy, opportunities (and, consequently, good health, income, respect and recognition, deeper spiritual understanding and other areas of life that help lead to happiness) flow in and out of our homes.
The mouth of chi is always your front door. In an apartment or other multi-family home, it is the front door to your specific unit. If you live in a home where you and visitors frequently enter through another door, (such as the garage door or back door) make an effort to begin using your front door, instead. You want to keep the chi flowing into this space.
A good Feng Shui front entrance welcomes opportunities into your life. Once you step inside your home, the front entry or foyer should be well-lit, spacious, and open. The door should open a full 90 degrees.
When I consulted with one client in a New York City studio apartment, we discovered her front entryway was very dark and cramped. She was feeling stuck in her life, career, and romantic prospects. I recommended putting a small lamp on a timer in the foyer, and also putting the outside light on a timer, so that she would come home to a lighted apartment every evening. The transformation was dramatic. She said that she immediately felt more comfortable coming home; she no longer had a sense of unease entering a dark, empty apartment.
In another client’s home, we placed recessed lighting in the foyer and up the staircase leading to her space within the two-family house. She reported that it changed the entire feeling of the house, making it finally feel like “home.”
Even if you have a small entryway or foyer, you can brighten the space and welcome opportunities into your home and life. Placing a few plants in the entry brings life chi into the area. Painting the foyer a light, bright color (such as beige, light blue or light green) helps, too.
If you enter your home and immediately find yourself facing a wall, place a mirror on that wall to symbolically open the space. All of these actions — finding whatever works for you to make your space more comfortable and make your dwelling feel more like a home — can help bring you closer to your true self.
Feng Shui Your Bedroom to Create a Space of Rest and Retreat
Your entry is the last thing you see when you leave your home for the day and the first space you see when you enter, as well as the portal where guests, opportunities, and good fortune can enter your home. It is one of the most important spaces in Feng Shui.
The bedroom, too, plays a significant role in your self-confidence, health, and happiness, three requirements if you are to return to your true self. The bedroom should help you feel nurtured and comfortable so you can get a good night’s sleep and gather the energy to pursue your goals. There are several easy steps you can take to turn your bedroom into a quiet peaceful retreat.
Keep workout equipment, computers, books and other items that remind you of high-energy or intellectual activities out of the bedroom. Avoid having a television, computer or other electronics in your bedroom, and place lights on a dimmer switch so you can set different moods in the space depending on your needs. A set of matching nightstands on either side of the bed may contain a small lamp suitable for reading or meditating before bed. I like using Himalayan salt rock lamps to create soothing ambient light in the bedroom.
If you live in a small space or have a studio apartment, separate the sleeping space from other areas of the bedroom with a decorative screen. If you must keep a computer or television in the bedroom area, enclose it within an armoire with doors at night to block it from view.
Similarly, do not place family photos (other than pictures of you and your significant other) in the bedroom. All those people in your private space create too much rapidly-moving energy and can disrupt your sleep.
To get a good night’s sleep, your bed should be placed in the command position of the room. My Feng Shui clients who have moved their bed to the command position say they immediately begin getting a better night’s sleep. Waking well-rested leaves you with the energy to recognize and pursue opportunities that lead to greater success and happiness.
The Feng Shui command position means that you can see your bedroom door from your bed, but the bed is not directly in line with the door. If your feet are directly facing the door when you lie in bed, this is considered the “coffin position” and is bad Feng Shui. You may wake feeling tired and may even experience health problems.
To promote a good night’s sleep, don’t store objects under your bed, such as old mementos from past romances, books, anything related to work, weapons, or hard or metal objects. If you are short on storage space or have a trundle drawer or captain’s bed with drawers, it’s okay to store linens and sheets in this area.
The best colors for a bedroom are the colors that will make you feel happy, nurtured, and able to sleep well. I sometimes recommend painting a bedroom pink or mauve, but you don’t want the room to feel too feminine. Accent with darker colors, such as chocolate brown or even red to add passion to the space. Light blue and light green are excellent colors for a bedroom, too, and again, you can incorporate pink or red accents to attract romance into your life or add passion to your relationship.
Once you’ve made these changes in your space, look around and quietly assess the environment. How does the chi in the room feel now? Do you feel nurtured and peaceful? Does your bedroom appeal to all your senses?
The addition of live plants, live cut flowers, or even silk flowers can also help create the ambiance you want to achieve.
Feng Shui Your Bathroom: A Nurturing Spa
Once you’ve created a nurturing, calming environment in your bedroom, you want to take that feeling and incorporate it into your bathroom, too… with one important difference. The bathroom should be both energizing and restful. It should give you the lift you need in the morning, and help you relax at night as the last step before bed. It should be the sanctuary where you nurture yourself.
Our bathroom is tied to our self-confidence, our energy levels, and our health.
One important step you can take in your bathroom is to reduce clutter. Fill the limited space in a bathroom with things that make you feel nurtured, pampered and good about yourself.
You may want to display fragrant soaps, beautiful, luxurious towels in colors that coordinate with your bathroom, or even just place live plants in the space. I often recommend placing wheatgrass in the bathroom because it is easy to grow and care for, and it creates a spa-like atmosphere with very little effort.
Fragrant incense or live plants like mint, lavender, rosemary or sage, which all give off wonderful, refreshing scents, will relax and rejuvenate, as can citrus scents. Stay away from artificial air fresheners.
Many Feng Shui considerations for the bathroom are also very practical. For instance, fix leaky drains, which not only waste water, they create a sense of neglect. When water escapes down the drain, chi, good fortune and opportunities go with it.
Any Feng Shui mirrors in the bathroom — or anywhere in your home — should permit you to see your entire face comfortably. Mirrors that “cut” your reflection into pieces, or are hung too high or too low, damage your self-esteem and can block you from living up to your potential.
The best colors for a bathroom are pastel shades of green and blue, silver sage, lavender or yellow. These are relaxing colors that make a space feel open and airy since most bathrooms are small. Avoid black as it will make the space feel too small, and avoid overly energizing colors like red and orange.
The overall energy in your bathroom should provide the lift in confidence that you need to go after your goals without fear or hesitation. More so than any other room in your house, it should make you feel like your best self before you step out to meet the world. Self-confidence, after all, is a key component to living your true purpose and returning to your true self.
Once you begin using Feng Shui to bring your space into alignment with your goals, rather than fighting against you, you’ll be in a much better state of mind to pursue your goals and begin living in the moment. If you follow your intuition, you’ll find it leads you straight to your life purpose and allows you to return to your true self.
You will also enjoy When Someone Else’s Clutter Becomes YOUR Problem
About the Author
Ken Lauher is one of the foremost Feng Shui consultants today. He consults for many famous people and many more not so famous people and is the author of Feng Shui Secrets: What Everyone Should Know About How To Be Successful With Feng Shui.
He advises individuals, businesses, and organizations on how to implement practical Feng Shui solutions to help you achieve your goals and live a more fulfilling life. His inspiring work with well-known actors, actresses, TV hosts, singers, songwriters, CEO’s, businesses, and corporations has made him a sought-after speaker on Feng Shui and life enhancement. Based in New York City, Ken works with local, national and international clients.
