Put simply, Feng Shui is about how you live, work and play. Each one of us and everything around us [even inanimate objects] are energy. And when all the energies around us are in harmony, life is full of healthy, happy moments.
This is the underlying principle of the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui. “This ancient art of placement helps you arrange your home, office, indoor, and outdoor environments so that your life is harmonious and your dreams are realised to their fullest,” write Jayme Barrett, Mary Steenburgen and Jonn Coolidge in Feng Shui Your Life. Colours, lighting, arrangement…all matter.
Colours count
Feng Shui believes that colours influence the energy of a living space, and hence your state of mind, in a powerful way. For instance, if you live in a grey room, your mood probably matches the colour.
Feng Shui believes that everything in this world has yin [female] and yang [male] polarities.
Colours too are divided into yin and yang groups. Yin colours soothe and yang colours excite. Pink, green, blue, grey and black are yin colours. Red, purple, yellow, white and gold/orange are yang colours.
Feng Shui recommends
- Colour your bedroom pink to keep the romance alive. However, since pink is a yin colour, place objects of yang colour in the room.
- Don’t colour your bedroom or kitchen red; it leads to soaring tempers and conflicts in the family.
- Colour your kitchen white, beige or in earth colours to lose weight; yellow to promote amiable feelings; green to improve digestion.
- Use red and orange colours to stimulate and excite you.
- Use blue, green and lavender to calm you. Green and blue in particular are health-enhancing.
- Use red, purple and gold to attract good luck and prosperity.
Lighting is important
Feng Shui believes that light dispels the darkness of confusion and despair from your life, helping you see things clearly. A home as per Feng Shui should have no dimly lit areas.
Feng Shui recommends
- Install a time-activated lamp at your door, which comes on the minute you open the door. A home should be bright and well-lit when you come home. Entering a dark place makes you uneasy.
- Install lights in all the dark areas of your home.
- Use strategically-placed mirrors to dispel more light.
- Use window dressings of light colour and fabric to allow light to pass.
Placement pattern
Feng Shui believes wrong placement of objects obstructs the flow of good energy resulting in problems in almost all areas of life.
Feng Shui recommends
- Use minimum furniture.
- Keep doorways free of furniture. Doorways are gateways for opportunities, blocking them means blocking opportunities in your life.
- Place main pieces of furniture [like beds, cupboards and desks] facing the door and to one side of the room. This is the command position and it improves your prospects.
- Avoid placing chairs with their backs to the door.
- Ensure that the head of your bed is away from a window to avoid your personal energy from escaping.
- Place the kitchen stove in such a way that when you face it, your back shouldn’t face the kitchen door.
- Create conversation islands in your living room to help good energy circulate.