Manifesting with the Law of Attraction

What is Feng Shui?

Feng Shui (pronounced Foong Shway or Fung Shoy) is the ancient Chinese art of luck management, which works by maximising the flow of energy (known as ‘Chi’) in your environment. Every object, inanimate or living, possesses its own energy field and also has an affect on the flow of Chi in your environment.

The orientation and layout of your home, garden or business and its contents can impact your career, personal relationships, health and wealth. Whilst observing the basic rules of Feng Shui can greatly enhance your lifestyle, ignoring its principles can similarly bring misfortune and sorrow.

Feng Shui is a complex art which, when studied in-depth, uses birth dates, colour and numerology when assessing how best to organise your home or office. However, there are simple rules that everyone can observe to help bring harmony into their lives by increasing the flow of positive energy in their environment.

Intuition
I am a firm believer in intuition, which also plays a part in Feng Shui. How often, for example, have you instinctively chosen a house or positioned a piece of furniture just because it ‘felt right’. How often have you sensed an atmosphere of happiness or discontent, simply by walking into a room or judged a person on your initial meeting? In general, first impressions are always right. Even if you go against those feelings, they will eventually prove to be correct. So, the first rule of Feng Shui is:

Always trust your intuitive feelings. Your inner voice is probably the most important tool you possess.

Remove Clutter
Perhaps one of the most important rules of Feng Shui is to remove clutter from your life and that also means negative people who only serve to surround you and your family with negative emotions. Clutter and dirt create stagnant Chi and impede the flow of positive energy. Therefore, the first step is to be ruthless and go through cupboards and drawers and clear out everything that is no longer of use, as well as cleaning everything as you go. Too much furniture in confined spaces can also block the path of beneficial Chi, so minimalism is the key. The actual process of cleaning and clearing can also be very beneficial as you are symbolically removing unwanted elements in your life and creating order out of chaos.

Assessing your Home or Business
There are several different schools of Feng Shui, but here we will concentrate on the compass method.

The Ba Gua
The Ba Gua, an octagonal, nine-sectioned diagram is at the core of Feng Shui. Each section corresponds to a different aspect of life such as Marriage/Relationships, Career and Wealth, the central point containing the Yin and Yang symbol being the centre of your life force, your personal energy. The idea is to draw up a floor plan of your house and place the Ba Gua diagram over the plan, which will indicate which room falls into which sector. Enhancing the flow of positive energy in any sector can improve that particular area of your life.

The Ba Gua is always aligned with the wall containing the front door or main entrance to the premises, with the compass points corresponding to those of the house directions. For example, if your front door faces South West, then you should place the Ba Gua diagram on a plan of your property with the South West sector (the Marriage sector) aligned with the front door.

Obviously, not all properties are a regular shape and some sectors could be missing, which will become evident once you have placed the Ba Gua diagram over the plan of your house. This means that depending on the area to which the missing sector corresponds e.g. marriage, the owner could experience problems in that area of their life. Steps would have to be taken, therefore, to employ one of the Feng Shui cures to help overcome any ill fortune caused by the missing sector.

The Five Elements
Feng Shui is based upon the relationship between the Five Elements; Water, Wood, Fire, Earth and Metal. There is a productive and destructive sequence of these elements and it is important to place objects together that are in harmony with each other and in harmony with the sector in which they are placed. For example, it would not be a good idea to have a water element e.g. a sink or fish tank in the Southern sector of your home, which relates to Fire, since water extinguishes fire.

Poison Arrows
Sharp angles in any form are very damaging and are known in Feng Shui circles as ‘Poison Arrows.’ They can appear in all guises such as corners of pillars, furniture, sharp leaved plants, roofs of buildings, church spires and so on. Again, the negative effects of a poison arrow can be neutralised by, for example, strategically placing a soft-leafed plant to conceal the corners of a sharp-angled pillar.

Colours
Again, each sector corresponds to a particular colour and ideally that colour should be followed as closely as possible. However, everyone obviously has their own personal choice and it can be just as damaging to your personal energy to go against your natural choice, just because a Feng Shui practitioner told you to employ a different colour scheme! The alternative would be to place a small ornament in the ‘correct’ colour, which is far less intrusive than painting the entire room in a colour that you dislike.

Feng Shui is all about balance and harmony, equal measures of yin and yang, and each colour has yin (calming) or yang (stimulating) properties. Red, for example, is a yang colour whilst blue is a yin colour, so again, it is a question of finding that balance whilst keeping in line with your personal taste.

Feng Shui ‘Cures’
For every Feng Shui ‘problem’ there is generally a Feng Shui ‘cure’. These include:

Wind Chimes, Crystals and Bells: These attract and invigorate ‘Chi’ and help to dispel negative energy

Plants and Flowers: Preferably round-leaved, since spiky leaves and plants e.g. cacti, Yucca Palms, can create a ‘spiky’ atmosphere. Remove dead flowers or plants and avoid dried flowers as these emanate negative energy. However silk or plastic flowers are fine

Mirrors: Mirrors have the effect of ‘doubling’ up whatever it is they are reflecting. Therefore, care has to be taken when placing them. You should never, for example, place a mirror so that it reflects a toilet. On the other hand, placing a mirror opposite a cash till symbolically doubles up the money! Mirrors should also not reflect your bed, particularly if you might see your reflection upon waking. This can lead to sleeping difficulties and also symbolically doubles up the number of people, which can signify infidelity

Water Features: A fish tank or fountain in the Water (North) or Wood (East & South East) sectors of a property are superb good fortune enhancers

Tips
Two of Everything: Keep objects such as ornaments of animals in pairs, particularly if you wish to enhance relationship success. Single items, especially photos of yourself on your own, could signify loneliness

Position of Bed: When you are lying in bed, your feet should not directly face the door, since this is known as the ‘coffin’ position and is very inauspicious

Regular Shapes: Regular shapes such as squares, circles and rectangles are preferable to irregular shapes such as triangles. This rule applies also when designing a company logo

T-Junctions and Straight Roads: Try and avoid purchasing a house or business premises that lie opposite a T-junction or at the end of a long straight road. If this is not possible, try blocking the negative energy by planting a row of trees, building a wall or some placing some other barrier between the end of the road and your property

Fireplaces: The best position for a fireplace is along the south wall of your home. The East, Northeast, Southeast and Southwest are also good locations. The worst position for a fireplace is in the northwest and in this case, it would be best to close it up or re-position it.
Family Pictures: Place happy family portraits on the Southwest wall. Alternatively, they can be placed in South, Southeast or Northwest

Cramped Areas: Any area of your home that is cramped or narrow, such as long, tight corridors or rarely used corners, should be well lit and preferably painted white to prevent ‘Chi’ from becoming stagnant and potentially causing harm

Sitting: In the office, always sit with the wall behind you if you seek co-operation and support of colleagues. Sitting with your back to people or a door can signify ‘back stabbing’, betrayal and lack of support.

Lucky & Unlucky Numbers: The most auspicious numbers are 8 (becoming rich) and 9 (longevity). Other lucky numbers are 2 (easy), 5 (in harmony, 6 (wealth) and 10 (certainty). These numbers can be used in combination with one another to create a positive meaning. For example, the number 26 would mean ‘easy wealth’. The numbers 1 and 3 are neutral and the only number that is considered to be unlucky is 4 (death).

Seeking Advice
If you are not sure that the changes you are making are correct, then you would be well advised to seek the guidance of a professional Feng Shui practitioner. In theory, anyone can call himself a Feng Shui expert, so it is important to contact a reputable organisation such as the Feng Shui Society (in the UK) who can direct you to a genuine, fully qualified practitioner.

Excellent Reading
Lillian Too’s Complete Guide to Feng Shui
Sacred Space by Denise Linn (Enhancing the energy of your home and office with Feng Shui)

Tags: Chi, Feng Shui, happiness, intuition, Life, luck, money, negative emotions, positive energy, wealth, wish, Yang, Yin

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” ~Winston Churchill.

Gee, we have all heard enough about the power of positive thinking, right? You only get about 4 million hits when you type in the key words of ‘positive thinking’ in an I-net Google search. Positive thinking—easier said than done? Of course it is and that is also why any real worthwhile ‘how-to” advice costs a second mortgage on a 6K sq-foot, ocean-front house in Malibu.

It is Christmas time and ‘tis the season for giving. So I am going to offer a few very good inside tips about this highly touted positive thinking thing, free for the reading. How’s that for a great holiday deal? At least write back and tell me they are useful!

I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t believe in the power of positive thinking (even masochists view pain as positive!) but then again I don’t know many experts who can tell you how to do it (or are at least willing to do that for free). That is because it is all a common sense thing and common sense is always difficult to explain or teach. You see it when you see it and use it when you have it.

Here are some very valuable insights for those who would like to get a better handle on their own ability to think more positively.

1. Most thinking is unconscious. Opps, we start out with a formidable obstacle. Brain research tells us that most of the physiological/mental thinking we do is unconscious, so how do we analyze the content of our own thinking to determine where it is positive or negative? Slowing down long enough to think about your own thinking is not easy in this nanosecond instantaneous world we live in, but you will get nowhere by continuing with the speed game. So like it or not, you must discipline yourself to slow down at times to think about what you are telling yourself about another person or event, and then slowly notice the results you are getting with your own feelings and outcomes. Once or twice and you are on the right path.

2. Things aren’t always as they first appear. You might be thinking your thoughts are positive when they are actually subtly negative, or at least negative enough to attract negative, undesirable consequences. Wanting to get over an illness, lose weight, beat out another person for a promotion, or rid a marriage of conflicts are not positive thoughts that will get positive results. Thinking about good health, getting to the right weight for you, becoming an excellent employee who deserves a promotion and doing something to create a happy marriage are positive thoughts. Of course it takes a lot of discernment of your own thoughts to finally notice the sometimes subtle difference between these separate thinking styles. Again, once or twice starts you on the right path.

3. You must have ‘negative’ to appreciate ‘positive.’ The Yang and Yin of life involve both positive and negative things, or at least this and that dualistic categories, against which we compare and contrast our experiences. We probably carry things a little too far with over-ascribing good and bad-like qualities to these opposite things like wealth and poverty, beauty and homeliness, and truth and fiction. Lessening the tendency to over-flavor things as positive or negative is a very good way to release the iron-like grip that negative thinking may have on you. After all, if you don’t experience dark dreary rain you probably can’t appreciate the brilliance and warmth of sunlight. As it turns out, they are both just different sides to the same coin, just like positive and negative thinking.

4. You usually fail before you succeed. Nobody that has mastered the art of positive thinking was born that way. They had to overcome lots of negative thinking before they could succeed at being able to influence there own thinking to be more positive and get more positive results…(in becoming an over night success during a ten-year trail period). It is hard work and a gradual process, so be patient so you can be more sensitive to recognizing the moment of transition between failure and success. If you are presently failing with too much negative thinking (or getting too many negative results from your thinking), it is mainly so you can learn to succeed with more positive thinking, maybe sooner than you think.

5. Questioning basic assumptions is good. Personally I believe common sense starts when you finally wake up to the unavoidable realization that what you think you know may not necessarily be so. Then you start questioning your own basic assumptions and other things you are certain to be so, only to find out the real truth, like some of these other useful insights. One good assumption to question in your pursuit of positive thinking is the real value of the consequences you are getting from whatever thinking you are doing. When you don’t like the results you are getting, just trace them back to the thinking that created them.

6. You don’t get what you want until you want what you have. This is so true that it is boring, but never-the-less there is a lesson that must be learned. One of the best caveats of accessing the power of The Secret (Law of Attraction), is that it is a very good practice to show appreciation of what you do have. Even when I was homeless, jobless. loveless and penniless, I did have good health humor and friends. I certainly don’t have it all now, but I do have much to be thankful for that I am not bashful or frugal in acknowledging and appreciating (or as our back door sign says. “We may not be all together, but together we have it all.”)

7. Don’t be too hard on yourself (unless you really deserve it!). Most of the time we are doing better than we imagine and are in fact making good progress at growing up and improving into our best self. This includes doing what we need to do in taking advantage of the power of positive thinking. Probably the only time you should beat yourself up is when you fall asleep at the wheel or forget to return from your break. Onward and upward.

Now try any two of these solutions to positive thinking and double your mind pleasure. Try them all and show others your enjoyment radiance. And if you have the time and generosity, tell them how you did it. Merry Christmas.

Tags: common sense, feelings, Positive Thinking, positive thoughts, power of positive thinking, winston churchill, Yang, Yin