Feng Shui for non Believers

Feeling Above Everything

The most important thing is that a room or a house should feel good to you. If you apply Feng Shui practices to a room and don't feel comfortable with it afterward, then Feng Shui does not fulfill its purpose. Your feeling has precedence over any teachings or rules.

Minimise Clutter

In his book Cliff Tan defines Clutter as:

When stuff loses its focus and starts to take over the space, it becomes clutter. (...) Clutter is when things are strewn around in an uncontrolled fashion against your will.

I like this definition because it does not impose a right way of organizing things. Your stuff might be scattered because that's the way you want it. Even though everything looks chaotic, you know exactly where things are. Or it only looks like useless stuff to others and it's actually things you cherish. In these cases according to the definition above, it is not clutter.

In any other case, you should get rid of it. Clutter blocks movement, It makes it harder for you to find things, and makes cleaning more difficult. Removing clutter also gives your room a cleaner, less crammed appearance. Selecting the right furniture can help make a room feel less cluttered. Avoid open shelves and cupboards with transparent or no doors. Instead, go for furniture that can be closed. This helps to hide your stuff and prevents dust from getting in, thus making it easier to clean.

Let the Environment shape your Habits

Your rooms should be organized in such a way, that they assist you with the activities you want to do in them. Some of us do this at work (see 5S methodology), but not at home. The premise is rather simple: place objects where they are needed and easily found. Toiletry belongs in the bathroom, stationary in the office.

I wanted to always keep my bathroom sink clean. But walking to the cabinet in the other room to get the cleaner and a cloth was too much effort. The solution was buying a second bottle of cleaning product. It is stored under the sink together with the cloth. This made accessing it much less of a hassle. So now I clean the sink consistently.

In our apartment, we kept the recycling bins on our balcony. When we cooked, we always had packaging to throw away. But the extra work of putting on slippers, then going outside, meant we never used those bins. Instead, the packaging piled up on the dining table, waiting to be taken out. Moving the bins inside and near the kitchen solved the problem. They became practical enough that we started using them.

This is not only valid for objects, but also for distractions and movement. In your office, you probably want to focus on your work. Therefore you should remove distractions like TVs, smartphones and pets from this room. Verify that you have whatever you need to work nearby. You should not need to get up to fetch a notebook or a glass of water. Close any open doors to reduce movement and decrease the chance of get interrupted. Your goal should be to make the room as attractive for working as possible. Make it so you want to spend time in this room.

Don't work against the environment, make the environment work for you.

Movement

If you ignore the mystical concept of Qi or Chi ("energy"), most of the rules about flow or movement of "energy" still make sense. In Feng Shui movement produces "energy". Areas in your apartment that have a lot of movement have a lot of "energy". The main goal is to identify these areas and make them work in our favor.

You can identify these areas by sketching the floor plan of your apartment and drawing in the most walked paths. Try to optimize these paths. We talked about clutter before. Clutter hinders movement. The less clutter is around, the freer the movement becomes. So again, try to avoid clutter as much as possible. For example: Make sure you don't have to walk around things when you carry food from the kitchen to the dinner table. See that you don't have to climb over storage boxes when you want to access your balcony.

Now, there are places where you don't want too much movement. One such place is your office, where you want to concentrate and work. Ideally you would be able to close the door and stopping all movement. But if you can't do this, or your office is located in a hallway, you can still optimize. You can position your desk in the area where the least amount of movement occurs. Make sure you place your back to a solid wall, so you can see the movement happening and don't get startled by it. Apply the same logic to the bedroom and the placement of the bed.

Matching the Ambiance of a Room

Every object has a meaning attached to it. It can be a societal, a symbolic, a religious, or a personal meaning. Keep this in mind whenever you place objects in your room.

When placing an object, ask yourself these questions:

• What mood/ambiance does this room currently have?
• What mood/ambiance do I want to achieve in this room?
• What meaning has the object I'm about to place attached to it?
• How will it influence the mood/ambiance of the room?

With this, you can either enhance, dampen or change the ambiance of a room as you desire.

Cleaning up Some Myths

Bad Objects

Feng Shui has a lot of superstitions about bad objects. Some examples of this supposedly to avoid are:

• Openly presented knives or weapons because they are said to signify aggression.
• Withered or decaying plants supposedly signifying death.
• A whole array of mystical objects like crystals, mirrors, and religious symbols.

For most, I have not found any scientific sources. There seem to be some sources backing up the claim to not display weapons [1]. But I think people are much too varied for these broad recommendations. For me, this is a case where I return to the before-stated feeling above everything. If it makes you feel good, then go for it.

Color

In Feng Shui, colors correspond to elements in nature and therefore to certain rooms. In the Western world, the advice seems to be to use calm and neutral colors in rooms made for relaxing. Vivid and energizing colors should be used in rooms that should feel lively. However, Colors and their meaning are culture-dependent [2] The effect on our emotions seems less clear than the theory of Feng Shui wants us to believe [3]. Here too I suggest you revert to the above stated feeling above everything. You should choose whatever color makes you feel most comfortable.

References