by Mary Mihaly
Feeling a little sluggish lately? Always seem to have a sore back or a runny
nose? Perhaps your feng shui needs adjusting.
Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine believe that to feel good, you
must be surrounded by good chi, or energy. The art of designing your environment
to enhance your chi is called feng shui (pronounced "fung shway"), and it can be
practiced in every room, building, office, neighborhood, even your desktop.
Although the ideas that follow may sound mystical to those who are unaccustomed
to the notions of chi, and yin and yang, feng shui—which literally means wind
and water—predates Confucianism and Taoism, and has been practiced for over 3000
years in China.
Alive, connected and changing
There are three basic tenets of feng shui: Everything is alive, everything is
connected, and everything is changing. And it begins with the basic structure of
your home. The placement of doors and windows can mean the difference between
chi that is fresh and alive with energy, or stale and damaging. A room can have
too much yin, or negative energy, if it has been unoccupied and dirty for a long
time; cleaning, bright lights and uplifting music can, literally, clear the air.
Happy sounds are always an effective antidote to bad energy.
According to feng shui, every object, space, and living thing has chi. "The
better the quality of chi coursing through a thing, the healthier, more vibrant,
or more beautiful that thing is," according to Patricia J. Santhuff, who often
writes about the relationship of chi to health. "When our bodies are
experiencing low or blocked chi, we experience fatigue or, if over an extended
period of time, are more prone to develop health problems." The goal is to
protect against negative energies and welcome those that bring health and
longevity.
Start with the bedroom
One of the most important places for practicing good feng shui is the
bedroom, where its easy to allow the energy to be "too yin," with lack of
sunshine and fresh air—a combination that creates stagnant chi and can manifest
itself in illness. Heres how the set-up of your bedroom can help your chi:
- Sleeping in a room located at the end of a long hallway can cause the flow
of energy in that spot to be too strong and can cause poor health.
- If possible, a bedroom door should not open directly onto a bathroom, and
a bed should never be placed against a wall that is shared by a toilet.
- Bedroom doors should also not open onto a staircase, which could allow bad
chi to enter the room, or face the corner edge of another room, which can
block chi and cause circulatory problems.
- Any bedroom that has been occupied by someone who was ill, should get a
good airing, bright light and a fresh coat of paint to create a burst of
positive, yang energy.
Placement of the bed is equally important. Some taboos, offered by Lillian
Too in her book, Feng Shui Fundamentals: Health (Element Books Limited, 1997):
Never sleep with a mirror facing the bed. "A mirror in the bedroom is one of the
most harmful of feng shui features—[as it] creates health problems connected
with the heart. Mirrors above the bed are equally harmful." A television counts
as a mirror because it also reflects; if you must have a TV or mirror in the
bedroom, cover it when its not being used.
Never sleep with a water feature behind your bed. A painting of a lake or
waterfall—or, worse yet, an aquarium—has the same effect on the heart as a
mirror.
Never sleep with the sharp edge of a corner pointed at you. The sharp edge of a
corner is a deadly form of poison arrow that brings the "killing breath." Use
furniture to disguise the sharp edge.
Never sleep under an exposed overhead beam. If the beam is directly over your
head, you may suffer from migraines and headaches. If it crosses at chest level,
you can usher in problems with the heart, lungs and other respiratory problems.
Beams are not a good feng shui feature in any room.
The kitchen
Kitchens, too, are important places to practice feng shui for health. If your
kitchen directly faces a bedroom, for instance, your homes yin (bedroom) and
yang (kitchen) energies could clash and bring continuous illness to family
members. Nor should the kitchen door be in a straight line from either the front
or back door; good energy shoots through the home without dispersing, resulting
first in "annoying illness," Lillian Too writes, then progressing to more
serious misfortune. Solve this layout by hanging a mirror on one of the outside
doors so positive energy will not leave so quickly.
Directions for good chi
Many feng shui books (including Toos) contain tables that help readers
calculate the "best health direction" for their homes. The stove should always
point in that direction (as should the head of the bed). The stove, which
symbolizes the fire element in feng shui, should never be located next to the
sink—which would bring a clash of the fire and water elements—and should never
sit in the northwest area of the room, which would be tantamount to "setting
fire to heavens gate." "This is because the trigram chien, which stands for
heaven, the source of all good luck, rules the northwest," Too warns. "Placing a
cooker there will [set] fire to the source of good-luck energy."
Feng shui every day
Cleaning up clutter can help you relax, and oiling doors so they dont squeak
can reduce irritation. Patricia Santhuff has some tips for when you "need an
extra boost of energy for a particular project, or are having trouble
de-cluttering:"
- Add a windchime in the room or over the work area and ring it now and
then. Some feng shui practitioners say windchimes foster clarity and
creativity.
- Vacuum and dust. This not only removes dirt; it actually freshens the chi.
- Play some uplifting music.
- Bring a desktop fountain into the area.
- Energetically treat the room by using rattles or clapping, especially in
corners and closets.
We should remember, too, that people—as well as spaces—need fresh chi in
order to feel good and perform well. A few suggestions for raising personal chi:
- Create something.
- Clean your house, or just a drawer.
- Call a friend (but dont complain!).
- Buy fresh flowers for yourself.
- Cancel a commitment youre sorry you made.
- Explore some part of your city or area youre not familiar with.
And dont forget the old standbys for feeling better, because they still
work:
- Take a walk.
- Do deep breathing.
- Meditate.
- Take a hot bath.
- Eat well