My Favorite Things: 5 Back-To-School Must Haves

Welcome to My Favorite Things! Each month, we highlight products to help you create a holistic lifestyle that inspires and nurtures you, so that you can be happier and feel supported.

As summer is wrapping up, many of us are gearing up to head back to school or double down for the fall season. Of course, it's much easier to take on a busy few months if we're organized and ready for what's ahead. So this month we've curated our top recommendations for getting back into the school season swing with a clear head and a neat space. Be sure to also check out our next podcast, with Diane Lowy from New York at Home. Diane creates "apartment solutions", and she's offered our listeners tips on getting organized!


Focus Mist

Our most recent podcast features my good friend and colleague, Andrea Giordano, who is a feng shui and essential oil expert. She also helped curate the Holistic Spaces Apothecary collection, and the Focus spray is one of my favorites!

A blend of fair trade essential oils and carnelian crystal, our Focus Mist was created to provide grounding, clarity and mental focus, and it's ideal for back-to-school!

Available at: Holistic Spaces


Mini Round Boxes

In our next podcast, I chat with organizer and space designer, Diane Lowy, and ask her advice on getting organized. 

Diane was also kind enough to recommend some of her favorite organizational tools for this month's My Favorite Things, and these mini round boxes made the cut!

"These are great for pretty much anything small that's otherwise tough to find in a drawer or your bag: SIM cards, paper clips, earrings, safety pins, a pair of earplugs, Tic Tacs, Tylenol. 12 clear boxes for $2.29 makes them an easy yes."

Available at: The Container Store


Recycled Notebooks

Notebooks are great for keeping notes and lists, setting goals and even organizing your thoughts through journaling

I love MUJI notebooks! I use these to keep all my notes, from meditation class to client meetings. It makes it easier for me to keep things in one location, and I like to write it down rather than put it in my phone. I love that they're recycled too!

Available at: MUJI


Post-It Tape

Another of Diane's favorites is Post-It tape.

"Post-It Note Tape is a great way to make labels anywhere that just peel off without leaving a residue but stay in place for as long as you need it. It comes in white as well as highlighter colors, and you can write on it just like paper. 

Labels can be super helpful when brainstorming for layouts after a move or renovation. They are also great reminders for that first week or two after moving stuff around and are very helpful when living with roommates!"

Available at: Amazon


Saraswati Yantra Mandala for Knowledge and Creativity

I love the Saraswati mandala because it is useful in so many ways! This yantra is associated with the Knowledge area of the bagua, since Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of wisdom and the arts. 

For inspiration in these areas, place the Saraswati yantra mandala in the Knowledge area of your space. 

Saraswati can also be used to cultivate abundance! Deepak Chopra shared a story about this in his book, Creating Affluence. You can read more about it in my blog post on attracting abundance

Available at: Holistic Spaces



Sarasvati & The Art of Attracting Abundance

featured this month in Over the Moon

Deepak Chopra shares a fascinating story in the introduction to his book, Creating Affluence, about how to attract abundance. The story begins with a young person asking his teacher how he can create wealth in order to “help and heal the world.”

The teacher shares with the student a secret: there are two Goddesses within each of us—Sarasvati, Goddess of Knowledge, and Lakshmi, Goddess of Wealth. In the story, the secret is that if you seek out the Goddess of Knowledge, the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous and follow you, creating unlimited wealth.

Inspired, I began my pursuit of Sarasvati (and knowledge) by painting her images and symbols. They now reside in the Benefactors area of my home (according to the feng shui Bagua map, this is the front right corner of your floor plan). There is also an area related to self-knowledge and wisdom on the feng shui Bagua map. Besides painting the image of Sarasvati, you can activate this knowledge area of your home and/or workspace to attract wisdom.

It’s easiest to lay the bagua map on your bedroom, so let's start there. If you stand in the doorway of your bedroom facing inside the room, the corner just to your left is the knowledge area. Similarly if you want to activate this area of your desk, you can sit at your desk, divide your desk up into a 3x3 grid, and it’s the bottom, left corner, closest to you. If you activate the bedroom knowledge area, this will improve your personal self-knowledge and cultivation. If you do this on your desk, the activation is related more to your work or career.

Three great ways to activate the feng shui knowledge area are with plants, Sarasvati and the element of fire. Living green plants represent growth and life, and when added to the knowledge area, they can expand your self-knowledge and provide support and freshness to this part of your life or work. Locating an image or representation of Sarasvati in this area would also support more wisdom. Finally, the addition of something triangular or red is beneficial in this area because, according to the five element theory, they represent fire energy. The fire energy supports knowledge, because the knowledge gua is an earth area. Fire also provides brightness, clarity and passion. A new light bulb or light fixture would also do the trick!

One of the most popular requests I get with feng shui consultations is for more wealth, but many people don't realize you can welcome more abundance into your life in an indirect way as well. If you're seeking wealth or knowledge, take a look at your space and the recommendations above, and see if you can make an adjustment in your knowledge area(s) to attract wealth and knowledge. 

by Anjie Cho