Q&A Sunday: How to Get Started with Feng Shui

Guest User October 3, 2021

I‘m new to feng shui. How do I get started?

One of the first things I’d recommend starting with is the feng shui bagua map. In feng shui, we have this tool called the bagua, which is a conceptual map that you can overlay on a floor plan. It’s like a mandala, with eight different sections around a center. A lot of people are familiar with the bagua map, but not many people know how to lay it correctly.

According to the school of feng shui that I practice and teach, called BTB or Black Sect feng shui, we lay the bagua based on the flow of qi. We don’t use the magnetic compass directions. In BTB feng shui, the bottom of the bagua map is always aligned with the front door of your space.

It’s really great if you have a floor plan to work with. Your floor plan is a symbol for your home, and it’s one of the main tools we use as feng shui practitioners. If you’ve been following me and Mindful Design School for a while, you might know that we started doing feng shui floor plan bootcamps where we read floor plans that people have submitted. If you’d like to be notified about future sessions, make sure you’re on our mailing list!

Generally, it’s best to start with your bedroom. Your bedroom represents you. It’s usually where you spend the most time, and it’s the most private space in your home. I always spend a lot of time looking at the bedroom when I work with clients. To lay the bagua on your bedroom, stand in the doorway of your bedroom looking in. Basically, you would take the floor plan of your bedroom and divide it into a three-by-three grid with nine equal spaces, aligning the bottom of the bagua (shown below) with the entrance to your bedroom. The furthest left corner would be your wealth and abundance area, and the furthest right corner is your relationship area.

The nine areas of the bagua map relate to different areas of your life. There’s new beginnings and family, which is also related to growth and healing. Next is wealth and abundance, also connected to self-worth. The center of the bagua is the Tai qi, which represents overall wellbeing and health. Then there is the benefactors and travel area, which has to do with how people help and support you, and how you help and support the people in your life. Next is the completion area, which is related to children, offspring of any kind, and endings. Then, there’s the knowledge area, connected to your self-cultivation, skills, and spirituality. The next area is your fame, reputation, and inspiration. Then there’s career, also connected to your path in life and wisdom. The last area is relationships and partnerships, which is related to self care, the mother element, and the feminine principle.

The wealth and relationships areas tend to be the most popular areas of the feng shui bagua map, but I invite you to go a little bit deeper in how you think about them. The superficial way of looking at these areas is to think about them as money or finding a partner. That’s part of it, but they are also so much more. At Mindful Design School, we require our students to learn and use the Chinese names for each area of the bagua, because the words “wealth” and “abundance” are limited. That area of the bagua, called Xun in Chinese, can mean so many other things as well.

Laying the bagua on your bedroom is a great way to get started with feng shui. If you want to dive deeper, I recommend checking out Mindful Design’s feng shui courses or working one-on-one with a consultant!

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: Feng Shui Plants for Attracting a New Job

Guest User September 26, 2021

I would like to get a feng shui plant to help me attract a job. Where can I buy one?

People often think that some plants are feng shui plants and some are not, but in fact, any plant can be a feng shui plant. You don’t even have to buy one. You can get a cutting from a plant, or you could receive a gifted plant from a friend, and it could be a feng shui plant. What makes a plant a feng shui plant is your intention. Are you putting this plant in a particular place for a specific feng shui reason? If so, then the plant can help to shift and provide more growth and healing in that situation. Not every plant in your home needs to have a feng shui purpose.

Similarly, it’s not necessarily the type of plant that is important, but rather where you put the plant. Since you are hoping to attract a job, you might find the fame area of your desk, since your desk represents your job. I would suggest putting a plant there to activate that area and invite recognition in your work. The fame area of your desk is the center back section.

Make sure you get a plant that’s well-groomed and healthy, and place it in this area with intention. The fame area, called Li in Chinese, is connected to the fire element. Because the wood element, represented by plants, feeds fire, a plant can be very supportive here. Your intention for your plant in this area can be to provide more growth and to feed the fire of your visibility so that you can attract a job.

I hope that helps! If you want to learn more about feng shui and plants, be sure to check out Plants & Feng Shui and Bad Feng Shui Plants on the Holistic Spaces Podcast.

by Anjie Cho

If you’d like to learn more about feng shui, check out Mindful Design Feng Shui School at: www.mindfuldesignschool.com

Q&A Sunday: Laying the Feng Shui Bagua in the Southern Hemisphere

Guest User September 19, 2021

How do I lay the bagua in the Southern Hemisphere?

In feng shui, there is an energy map called the bagua. There are different ways of depicting the bagua map, but really it’s a mandala, with eight areas around a center. My Holistic Spaces bagua map shown below is stylized into a three-by-three grid. You might also see images of the bagua that are pie-shaped.

There are different associations with each bagua area, so most people who are interested in feng shui would know that there’s a wealth area, a relationship area, a career area, and so on. As you go deeper, you start to learn the nuances of each area. There is also an element associated with each area of the bagua, as well as a shape, season, color, and direction. Kan position, for example, is connected to the north direction.

If you’re using the BTB method of laying the bagua map, you always lay it based on the energy and how the energy enters the space. You lay the Kan line of the bagua on the formal front door. If you’re using a different school of feng shui that uses the magnetic compass directions, like the Compass, Classical, of Flying Star school, you lay the bagua according to the geographic north direction. This doesn’t change if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere - north is still north.

If you are interested in feng shui, find the school that you resonate with. If you follow me, that would be the BTB school. Based on BTB feng shui, you lay the bagua map based on the front door, where the energy is coming in. It has to do with how the qi is flowing, so it doesn’t really matter which hemisphere you’re in.

by Anjie Cho