Feng Shui Ideas To Declutter Your Mind
Feng Shui is a prevalent topic. You hear it in movies, articles, books, and television shows. It is usually about someone of higher standing or with frivolous desires. Maybe, Feng Shui is for people who can afford an interior decorator to do all the heavy lifting and purchasing and declutter your mind.
Or better yet! Maybe Feng Shui is an excuse used by interior decorators to purchase whatever “Chi” they would like! The media loves to tease and make a joke about Feng Shui, but what is it? And how can we use it to better our minds?
Let’s not sell this Chinese principle short, and there may be more to this Feng Shui than what you pick up from the media.
Feng Shui is a Chinese principle created more than 3,000 years ago that governs the layout and space around items. It is Chinese for wind, and Shui is water. Feng Shui is wind and water.
Wind and water are two elements that flow and curve and move around other obstacles, yet, they can also be compelling and destructive, laying waste to whatever is in their path when given force.
The Feng Shui layout affects “chi,” an energy source. So, a bad layout = negative chi, and a good layout = positive chi. Good energy versus bad energy. This makes sense! Who hasn’t walked into their home and thought this is a messy disaster, and now I’m bummed, pissed, unmotivated? Don’t we all feel good when we have an organized, clean space to live in?
So, how does this Feng Shui work? How can I better my chi to better my mind? Well, whole books are written on this complex subject. It can take years to master the study of Feng Shui. So, let’s delve in and give it a try!
1. Yin and Yang – Declutter Your Mind
Yin and Yang; dark and light, moon and sun, female and male. These opposing adjectives are descriptive, but what do they mean for Feng Shui? Well, Yin and Yang are used throughout multiple Chinese principles.
Think of the Tai Chi symbol; the black, dark teardrop aligned opposite with the white, light teardrop inside a circle with a black spot in the white and a spot of white in the black.
The thought is that Yin is female, feminine, soft, dark, and relaxed. Yang is male, masculine, bright, solid, and aggressive. Yin is passive energy while Yang is active energy.
What does this mean for your space? Let’s think it through. Do you want your entire home Yin; dark, relaxed, mysterious, soothing? Well, maybe, if you never needed to leave or find the motivation to cook, maybe if you were depressed and just wanted to hide under your bed covers.
. Now, would you like your whole home Yang, bright, hard, active, and energetic? Probably not, there would be no sleep, no relaxation, and it would be like living in a 24 gym.
This makes sense. To have balance, you need Yin and Yang in your home… but where and how?
2. The Basics – Declutter Your Mind
Let’s imagine a brand new open space. It is a new home with no decorations, no furniture, just the layout found on a relator pamphlet, and we will start small; bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room. The basics, right? What color do you paint your walls? Darker soothing tones in rooms where you want to relax; bedroom, possibly the bathroom, or living room.
Not that you want your bedroom to have black dark walls, necessarily, but what about blues and lavenders? Greens and browns? Brighter, lively colors in the rooms where you need energy; kitchen, and possibly the living room and bathroom.
Yellows, reds, and oranges would be nice and warm. It all depends on what you want in your living area.
3. The Dirty Details/Bagua Compass – Declutter Your Mind
Bagua compass or map (meaning 8 areas and pronounced ba-gua) is a way to connect the living areas to different life areas. There are eight directional areas North, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast, Southwest, East, and West.
They correspond to different areas of living (listed below). There are two schools of thought on utilizing Bagua to create Feng Shui; the classical and the western. We will discuss the classical style and be aware that there is a whole other style to research.
The idea is to take a compass reading outside your door and face away from your house. Very scientific! Three to seven compass readings are necessary; one outside the rest inside in different areas of your home, always facing the same direction.
Next, find the average number (add all the numbers together and divide by the total number of readings taken) and use this degree to find which way your front door is facing.
(You can look up the directions/degrees on a Feng Shui website to know the direction your front door is facing.)For example, 35 degrees is in the Northeast area, so having an average of 35 means your front door faces Northeast! Simple.
Now that you have your home’s compass readings find the center of your home… best you can. This is also known as the “Heart of your Home.” Using a protractor, a map of your home, and the degree directions for Feng Shui, map out which areas of your home or space are in which directions.
For example, the Southeast is 112.5 degrees to 157.5 degrees. This gives you the area that is considered Southeast and therefore also wealth; money, honey!
We now know what areas are what in our home…. So what?
We can decorate these areas based on the elements and representations of those areas, colors, etc., and this will develop our chi to the most positive aspects possible.
4. Direction: Area of Life, Color and Element
(Note: There are small differences between these bagua maps, find which suits you the most)
Northwest- Helpful people or Travel, Grey, Big Metal
North- Career, Black, Water
Northeast- Knowledge, Blue, Small Earth
East- Family, Green, Big Wood
Southeast- Wealth, Purple, Small Wood
South- Fame, Red, Fire
Southwest- Marriage, Pink, Big Earth
West- Creativity, White, Small Metal
5. Putting it Together – Declutter Your Mind
Now that we have cluttered your brain (the opposite of what the title suggests), let’s go through the steps to start a Feng Shui-friendly living area.
Always start with getting rid of the junk in your pre-Feng Shui space. If you want to Feng Shui in your bedroom, figure out what is unnecessary or loved in your room; trash, garage sale, or give away whatever is keeping your chin down.
What area do you want to improve on in life? Add the element or symbol that corresponds to the direction. For example, I want to be famous! So I will put a red candle in my South bagua area (which I helpfully discovered with my compass previously).
This is all complex and takes years to discover how exactly it works, yet you can play around with Feng Shui and find the best flow for your wind and water to improve your chi’s positivity. Find your bagua (8 areas), decorate to their elements and your needs, but do not forget the basics, color, and, of course, Yin and Yang. Best of luck to you and your chi!